Buddha - The Great Humanist
among the world religious teachers
By
W.J.M. Lokubandara, TW News Feature, May 5, 2006
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New Delhi, India
-- The year 2006 marks the 2550 anniversary of the Buddha-Jayanti or
Birth of Gotama the Buddha. In the history of the religions of the
world, Gotama the Buddha, a religious teacher, did not make any claim to
the fact that he is an incarnate, or a messenger or a descendant of any
Divine Being. Lord Buddha maintained that he is a human being, who has
realized the nature of life through his own knowledge and virtue, and
made an end to suffering, which is a universal phenomenon.
It
is in this sense that He is considered to be an ‘uttara manussa’ or a
super human being. It is indeed a pleasure and a privilege for me to
have got this valuable opportunity to write about Gotama the Buddha.
Today, we live in a world where a human being has to
face challenges to discover his own path for the survival of not only
his own species but also for the survival of all the other species, and
the very world he has to share with many others.
Remembering a great religious teacher, like Lord
Buddha, in this context, becomes meaningful only insofar as we can draw
insights, lessons and inspiration for this crucial task. Therefore, let
me elaborate a little on how the life of the Lord and His teachings are
going to be helpful in discovering our own potentiality in finding
lasting solutions for the problems we are faced with.
We know that Gotama the Buddha was born in the 6
century B.C. in Madhaya-pradesha of Bharata where the religious
atmosphere was complex and the social atmosphere was tense. Gotama the
Buddha, as Prince Siddhartha, saw that human life was sorrowful and
wished to find a lasting solution. With His own experience as a Prince,
with all the luxuries, He knew that gratification of senses was not the
answer. With rigorous self-torturing practices He knew that the opposite
end too was not the answer. Finally, He discovered the solution, the
termination of suffering by following what is today known as the
Majjhima Patipada or the Middle Path. With this realization He came to
be known as the Buddha or the Enlightened One, who realized the Four
Noble Truths, namely, suffering, its origin, its cessation and the path
leading to its cessation.
After this great realization, the Buddha wanted to
give this message to as many people as possible. He wished to make the
people realize that, His message could be understood by anyone who has
intelligence to follow the Path. It was very difficult for Lord Buddha
to convince His listeners that they could practise this message by
themselves. On the one hand, a strong religious belief advocated that it
is through the grace of a Divine Being that liberation from Samsara is
possible.
On the other hand, there were those who denied the
moral efficacy of good and bad actions, those others that denied human
capacity to achieve any spiritual status but believed in a determinism
of some form or other, still others who were skeptical of believed in a
determinism of some form or other, still others who were skeptical of
any moral knowledge, and holders of many other views, detrimental to
human liberation. It is on this mental and ideological environment that
Lord Buddha had to spread His message.
It was of fundamental importance for Gotama the
Buddha to show that He was only a guide who could lead His followers to
the Goal. He had to struggle to liberate people from their ideological
bonds and slaveries. In the well known Kilima Sutta (of the
Anguttara-nikaya of the basket of Discourses) Lord Buddha, addressing a
group called Kalamas said that they should not accept assertions made by
any one for any one of the following ten reasons: one must not accept
any statement for it is presented as the revealed truth, for it is the
traditional belief, for it is hearsay, for it is the scripture; for it
is logical, for it is methodical, by reflecting on its structure, for it
agrees with one’s view, for it seems agreeable or for that the speaker
is one’s teacher.
Having given this advice He further said, to reject
any assertion on good and bad and what is desirable and what is not
desirable only when they see for themselves that a particular assertion
leads to what is not skilful-akusala, namely, craving, hatred and
delusion; and accept only if it leads to the absence of those three
roots of un-skillfulness.
In this statement, Lord Buddha allows freedom for
knowledgeable human beings to make their own decisions on sound grounds.
We must remember that the Buddha rejected all what He referred to above.
What He said is that they could be either true or false. Since they are
not guaranteed for what is morally right always, the Lord Buddha said
that one must know t for oneself in order to decide one way or another.
In the teaching of Gotama the Buddha, the human being
has been given a very high place due to his or her potentiality. We
must, of course, understand this Buddhist position correctly. Bestowing
a very high position to a human being does not mean that he is supreme
and the highest and that he has the liberty to make use of all other
forms of life to satisfy his wants, guided by his insatiable greed.
Buddhism rightly admits that human beings are endowed with vast
intellectual potentiality. But that does not mean that he can use his
powers to cause destruction to his own species or other beings. Human
beings can be superior; but they are not supreme.
Any human being without spiritual development is not
superior. Only true human beings are superior. Going through samsara
existence all beings are equal. However, due to their potentiality human
beings are in a more favourable situation than most of other beings.
In the teaching of the Buddha, this high position
given to human beings has two meanings. One is to underscore the
potentiality of human beings to achieve the ultimate freedom from
samsaric suffering.
If one has intelligence and will, any one will be
able to achieve what the Buddha achieved on His own. In this
potentiality, Buddhism does not see any distinction between men and
women or among various divisions among human beings.
In the Buddhist Sangha there are four groups, namely,
bhiksu, bhiksuni, upasaka and upasika (both male and female monastic
members and both male and female lay followers). As the followers of the
Path, monastic members are considered to be in a more favourable
condition insofar as the final goal is concerned, than the lay
followers. Still there is no real difference among these groups if
anyone of them wish to attain the final goal.
Lord Buddha’s role in the Sasana, His religious
organization, was not that of a saviour but that of a guide. The Buddha
is described, in a formula the Buddhists use everyday to honour him, as
‘the guide to gods and human beings’ (satth devamanussariam). This
clearly shows how the Buddhist tradition perceived the role of the
Buddha. In the Dhammapada, the Buddha makes the following statement;
‘tumhehi kiccam ätappam - akkhataro tathagata’ - ‘You must strive for
yourself; the Buddhas are there only to show the path.’ In other words,
the Buddha shows the Path; but to follow it is the responsibility of the
follower. The Buddha or anyone else, for that matter, cannot do it on
behalf of another.Now, what does this message say to us, who live in the
beginning of the 21 century? The message of the Buddha is ultimately to
create a society where people behave towards others with wholesome
motives guided by a sense of generosity, friendliness, and right
understanding.
In Buddhist terms, it is to live without Iobha, dosa
or moha. The ethical path taught by the Buddha is open for anyone and
everyone, irrespective of any gender distinction or any other social or
ethnic distinction. In this sense, the teaching of the Buddha is a form
of universalism and the Buddha is a universalist.
The teaching taught by the Buddha is for human beings
to follow with his own intelligence and the final goal advocated is
achieved by any human being who has will and intelligence. In this
sense, what the Buddha taught is a form of humanism and the Buddha is a
humanist, humanist par excellence, for He achieved the total purity by
eradicating all the defiling factors in the mind.
The Path taught by the Buddha is an ethical path
which ultimately leads human beings to cleanse their own inner being and
achieve thereby inner peace and harmony, which ultimately should serve
as the basis for the peace in the world at large.
The Buddha once said that suffering, the origin of
suffering, cessation of suffering and the path leading to the cessation
of suffering, lies in this fathom-long human being himself. This is
nothing other than a reminder to us about our great potentiality. This
is perhaps the greatest inspiration we can draw from this sublime
teaching.
May the Blessings of the Noble Triple Gem Guide all
of us.
[Source: Daily Mirror]
http://www.buddhistchannel.tv
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Update : 01-05-2006