Part One
The Fundamentals of Buddhism
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Chapter One
Buddhism: A Modern Perspective
In Part One of
this book, it is my intention to cover what I would like to call the
fundamentals of Buddhism, that is, the basic teaching of Buddhism. This
survey will include the Life of the Buddha, the Four Noble Truths, the
Noble Eightfold Path, karma, rebirth, interdependent origination, the
three universal characteristics, and the teaching of the five
aggregates. Before the actual treatment of these basic topics, I would
like to deal first with the notion of Buddhism in perspective, and that
a modern perspective. There are many ways in which people of different
times and different cultures have approached
Buddhism, but
I believe it may be especially useful to contrast the modern attitude
toward Buddhism with the traditional attitude toward it. This kind of
comparative consideration may prove useful because understanding how
people of different times and cultures view a particular phenomenon can
begin to show us the limitations of our own particular perspective.
Buddhism has
awakened considerable interest in the West, and there are many persons
who enjoy positions of some note in western society who are either
Buddhist or sympathetic to Buddhism. This is perhaps most clearly
exemplified by the remark said to have been made by the great
twentieth-century scientist Albert Einstein, that although he was not a
religious man, if he had been one, he would have been a Buddhist. At
first glance it may seem surprising that such a remark should be made by
one regarded as the father of modern western science. However, if we
look more closely at contemporary western society, we find a Buddhist
astrophysicist in France, a psychologist who is a Buddhist in Italy, and
a leading English judge who is one, too. Indeed, it would not be too
much to say that Buddhism is fast becoming the favorite choice of
westerners who belong to the elite in the areas of science and art. I
will look at the reasons for this in a moment, but before doing so, I
would like to compare this situation with that found in traditionally
Buddhist communities and countries. Take, for example, the situation
among the traditionally Buddhist communities of Southeast and East Asia.
In Europe and
America, Buddhism is generally believed to be more than usually advanced
in its thought, rigorously rational, and sophisticated. I will not
attempt to conceal the fact that it came as quite a shock to me when I
first went to Southeast Asia and found that many people there view
Buddhism as old-fashioned, irrational, and bound up with outdated
superstitions. This is one of two prevalent attitudes that obstruct the
appreciation of Buddhism in such traditionally Buddhist communities. The
other popular misconception that afflicts Buddhism in such communities
is the notion that it is so deep and so abstract that no one can ever
possibly understand it. Perhaps it is the intellectual arrogance of the
West that has saved Europeans and Americans from this aberration. In
short, when I look at the common attitudes prevailing in the West and in
the East toward Buddhism, I find a radical contrast. This is why I want
to begin our examination of Buddhism with a consideration of alternative
perspectives.
In the West,
Buddhism has a certain image in the popular mind, while in traditionally
Buddhist communities, Buddhism has an altogether different image. The
dismissive attitude that prevails in such communities has to be overcome
before people there can really begin to appreciate the teaching of the
Buddha. In this way people everywhere can acquire the balanced
perspective needed to approach Buddhism without prejudice and
preconceived ideas. Consequently, this introduction to Buddhism is
intended not only for people in the West but also for people in
traditionally Buddhist communities who may have become estranged from
the religion for a variety of social and cultural reasons. It should
also be said, of course, that the image of Buddhism common in the West
may be limited in its own way, but I hope that, in the chapters that
follow, a clear and objective presentation of the traditions of Buddhism
will, finally, emerge.
For the
moment, to turn again to the western attitude toward Buddhism, one of
the first features we can appreciate about it is the fact that it is not
culture-bound, that is to say, it is not restricted to any particular
society, race, or ethnic group. There are some religions that are
culture-bound: Judaism is one example; Hinduism is another. However,
Buddhism is not similarly constrained. That is why, historically, we
have had the development of Indian Buddhism, Sri Lankan Buddhism, Thai
Buddhism, Burmese Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism, Japanese Buddhism, Tibetan
Buddhism, and so on. In the near future, I have no doubt that we will
see the emergence of English Buddhism, French Buddhism,
Italian Buddhism, American Buddhism, and the like. All this is possible
because Buddhism is not culture-bound. It moves very easily from one
cultural context to another because its emphasis is on internal practice
rather than external forms of religious behavior. Its emphasis is on the
way each practitioner develops his or her own mind, not on how he
dresses, the kind of food he eats, the way he wears his hair, and so
forth.
The second
point to which I would like to draw your attention is the pragmatism of
Buddhism, that is to say, its practical orientation. Buddhism addresses
a practical problem. It is not interested in academic questions and
metaphysical theories. The Buddhist approach is to identify a real
problem and deal with it in a practical way. Again, this attitude is
very much in keeping with western conceptions of utilitarianism and
scientific problem-solving. Very briefly, we might say the Buddhist
approach is encapsulated in the maxim, "If it works, use it."
This attitude is an integral part of modern western political, economic,
and scientific practice.
The pragmatic
approach of Buddhism is expressed very clearly in the Chulamalunkya
Sutta, a discourse in which the Buddha himself made use of the parable
of a wounded man. In the story, a man wounded by an arrow wishes to know
who shot the arrow, the direction from which it came, whether the
arrowhead is bone or iron, and whether the shaft is one kind of wood or
another before he will let the arrow be removed. His attitude is likened
to that of people who want to know about the origin of the
universe--whether it is eternal or not, finite in space or not, and so
on--before they will undertake to practice a religion. Such people will
die before they ever have the answers to all their irrelevant questions,
just as the man in the parable will die before he has all the answers he
seeks about the origin and nature of the arrow.
This story
illustrates the practical orientation of the Buddha and Buddhism. It has
a great deal to tell us about the whole question of priorities and
scientific problem-solving. We will not make much progress in the
development of wisdom if we ask the wrong questions. It is essentially a
matter of priorities. The first priority for all of us is the reduction
and eventual elimination of suffering. The Buddha recognized this and
consequently pointed out the futility of speculating about the origin
and nature of the universe--precisely because, like the man in the
parable, we have all been struck down by an arrow, the arrow of
suffering.
Thus we must
ask questions that are directly related to the removal of the arrow of
suffering and not waste our precious time on irrelevant inquiries. This
idea can be expressed in a very simple way. We can all see that, in our
daily lives, we constantly make choices based on priorities. For
instance, suppose you are cooking and decide that, while
the pot of beans is boiling, you will dust the furniture or sweep the
floor. But as you are occupied with this task, you suddenly smell
something burning: you then have to choose whether to carry on with your
dusting or sweeping or go immediately to the stove to turn down the
flame and thereby save your dinner. In the same way, if we want to make
progress toward wisdom, we must clearly recognize our priorities. This
point is made very nicely in the parable of the wounded man.
The third
point I would like to discuss is the teaching on the importance of
verifying the truth by means of recourse to personal experience. This
point is made very clearly by the Buddha in his advice to the Kalamas
contained in the Kesaputtiya Sutta.. The Kalamas were a community of
town-dwellers in some ways very much like people in the contemporary
world, who are exposed to so many different and often conflicting
versions of the truth. They went to the Buddha and asked him how they
were to judge the truth of the conflicting claims made by various
religious teachers. The Buddha told them not to accept anything merely
on the basis of purported authority, nor to accept anything simply
because it is contained in sacred text, nor to accept anything on the
basis of common opinion, nor because it seems reasonable, nor yet again
because of reverence for a teacher. He even went so far as to advise
them not to accept his own teaching without verification of its truth
through personal experience.
The Buddha
asked the Kalamas to test whatever they might hear in the light of their
own experience. Only when they came to know for themselves that such and
such things were harmful should they seek to abandon them.
Alternatively, when they came to know for themselves that certain things
were beneficial--that they were conducive to peace and
tranquillity--then they should seek to cultivate them. We, too, must
judge the truth of whatever we are taught in the light of our own
personal experience.
In his advice
to the Kalamas, I think we can see clearly the Buddha's doctrine of
self- reliance in the acquisition of knowledge. We ought to use our own
minds as a kind of private test tube. We can all see for ourselves that
when greed and anger are present in our minds, they lead to disquiet and
suffering. By the same token, we can all see for ourselves that when
greed and anger are absent from our minds, it results in tranquillity
and happiness. This is a very simple personal experiment that we can all
do. The verification of the validity of teachings in the light of one's
own personal experience is very important, because what the Buddha
taught will only be effective, will only really succeed in changing our
lives, if we can carry out this kind of personal experiment and make the
teaching our very own. Only when we can verify the truth of the Buddha's
teachings by recourse to our own experience can we be sure that we are
making progress on the path to the elimination of suffering.
Again we can
see a striking similarity between the approach of the Buddha and the
scientific approach to the quest for knowledge. The Buddha stressed the
importance of objective observation, which is in a sense the key to the
Buddhist method for acquiring knowledge. It is objective observation
that yields the first of the Four Noble Truths, the truth of suffering;
it is observation that verifies one's progress along the steps of the
path; and it is observation that confirms the realization of the
complete cessation of suffering. Therefore, at the beginning, in the
middle, and at the end of the Buddhist path to liberation, the role of
observation is essential.
This is not
very different from the role played by objective observation in the
scientific tradition of the West. The scientific tradition teaches that
when we observe a problem, we must first formulate a general theory and
then a specific hypothesis. The same procedure obtains in the case of
the Four Noble Truths. Here the general theory is that all things must
have a cause, while the specific hypothesis is that the cause of
suffering is craving and ignorance (the second noble truth). This
hypothesis can be verified by the experimental method embodied in the
steps of the Eightfold Path. By means of the steps of this path, the
soundness of the second noble truth can be established. In addition, the
reality of the third noble truth, the cessation of suffering, can be
verified, because through cultivating the path craving and ignorance are
eliminated and the supreme happiness of nirvana is attained. This
experimental process is repeatable, in keeping with sound scientific
practice: not only did the Buddha attain the end of suffering but so,
too, we can see historically, did all those who followed his path to the
end. Therefore, when we look closely at the teaching of the Buddha, we
find that his approach has a great deal in common with the approach of
science. This has naturally aroused a tremendous amount of interest in
Buddhism among modern-minded people. We can begin to see why Einstein
was able to make a remark like the one credited to him. The general
agreement between the Buddhist approach and that of modern science will
become even clearer when we examine the Buddhist attitude toward the
facts of experience, which, like that of science, is analytical.
According to
the teaching of the Buddha, the data of experience are divided into two
components, the objective component and the subjective component; in
other words, the things we perceive around us, and we ourselves, the
subjective perceivers. Buddhism has long been noted for its analytical
approach in the fields of philosophy and psychology.
What is meant
by this is that the Buddha analyzed the facts of experience into various
components or factors. The most basic of these components are the five
aggregates: form, feeling, perception, volition, and consciousness.
These five aggregates can be viewed in terms of the eighteen elements,
and there is also an even more elaborate analysis in terms of the
seventy-two factors.
The procedure
adopted here is analytical inasmuch as it breaks up the data of
experience into their various components. The Buddha was not satisfied
with a vague conception of experience in general; rather, he analyzed
experience, probed its essence, and broke it down into its components,
just as we might break down the phenomenon of a chariot into the wheels,
the axle, the body, and so forth. The object of this exercise is to gain
a better idea of how these phenomena function. When, for instance, we
see a flower, hear a piece of music, or meet with a friend, all these
experiences arise as the direct result of a combination of component
elements.
This has been
called the analytical approach of Buddhism, and again, it is not at all
strange to modern science and philosophy. We find the analytical
approach very widely applied in science, while in
philosophy the analytical approach has characterized the thought of many
European philosophers, perhaps most clearly and recently that of
Bertrand Russell. Studies have been done comparing his analytical
philosophy quite successfully with that of early Buddhism. Consequently,
in western science and philosophy, we find a very close parallel to the
analytical method as it is taught within the Buddhist tradition. This is
one of the familiar and recognizable features that has attracted modern
western intellectuals and academics to Buddhist philosophy. Modern
psychologists, too, are now deeply interested in the Buddhist analysis
of the various factors of consciousness: feeling, perception, and
volition. They are turning in increasing numbers to the ancient teaching
of the Buddha to gain greater insight into their own discipline.
This growing
interest in the teaching of the Buddha--provoked by these many areas of
affinity between Buddhist thought and the major currents of modern
science, philosophy, and psychology--has reached its apex in the
twentieth century with the startling suggestions advanced by relativity
theory and quantum physics, which represent the very latest developments
in experimental and theoretical science. Here, again, it is evident not
only that the Buddha anticipated the primary methods of science (namely,
observation, experimentation, and analysis), but also that, in some of
their most specific conclusions about the nature of man and the
universe, Buddhism and science actually coincide.
For example,
the importance of consciousness in the formation of experience, so long
ignored in the West, has now been recognized. Not long
ago, a noted physicist remarked that the universe may really be just
something like a great thought. This very clearly follows in the
footsteps of the teaching of the Buddha expressed in the Dhammapada,
where it is said that the mind is the maker of all things. Likewise, the
relativity of matter and energy--the recognition that there is no
radical division between mind and matter-- has now been confirmed by the
most recent developments in modern experimental science.
The
consequence of all this is that, in the context of contemporary western
culture, scientists, psychologists, and philosophers have found in
Buddhism a tradition in harmony with some of the most basic principles
of western thought. In addition, they find Buddhism particularly
interesting because, although the principal methods and conclusions of
the western scientific tradition often closely resemble those of
Buddhism, western science has thus far suggested no practical way of
achieving an inner transformation, whereas in Buddhism such a way is
clearly indicated. While science has taught us to build better cities,
expressways, factories, and farms, it has not taught us to build better
people. Therefore people in the contemporary world are turning to
Buddhism, an ancient philosophy that has many features in common with
the western scientific tradition but that goes beyond the materialism of
the West, beyond the limits of practical science as we have known it
thus far.
