Read this essay to learn about Buddhism. After reading this essay you will learn about:- 1. Concept of Buddhism 2. Four Noble Truths of Buddha 3. Impermanence (Anityavada) 4. Schools 5. Causality: Dependent Origination (Pratltyasamutpada) 6. Wheel of Existence (Bhavacakra) 7. Doctrine of No-Self (Anatmavada, Nairatmyavada) 8. Karma 9. Transmigration 10. Atheism 11. Non-Materialism and Other Details.
List of Essays on Buddhism
- Essay on the Concept of Buddhism
- Essay on the Four Noble Truths of Buddha
- Essay on the Impermanence (Anityavada) on Buddhism
- Essay on the Schools of Buddhism
- Essay on the Causality: Dependent Origination (Pratltyasamutpada) of Buddhism
- Essay on the Wheel of Existence (Bhavacakra) on Buddhism
- Essay on the Doctrine of No-Self (Anatmavada, Nairatmyavada) on Buddhism
- Essay on the Karma of Buddhism
- Essay on the Transmigration of Buddhism
- Essay on the Atheism of Buddhism
- Essay on Non-Materialism
- Essay on Anti-Metaphysical Attitude
- Essay on the Rationalism of Buddhism
- Essay on the Ethics of Buddhism
- Essay on Nirvana
- Essay on the Religion of Buddhism
Essay # 1. Concept of Buddhism:
The Upanishads teach that the eternal Atman or Brahman alone is real. It is the transcendental reality, consciousness and bliss. The Buddha teaches the opposite truth. Everything is impermanent; there is no permanent self. The self is an impermanent mind-body-complex. There is no God as creator of the world. It is self-existent and without beginning or end. It is unsubstantial and soulless.
There are no permanent substances, but only impermanent qualities or phenomena. They are subject to the inexorable law of becoming or dependent origination. They are produced by their causes and conditions. The law of causation is subservient to the Moral Law or the Law of Karma.
Life is full of suffering. Suffering is due to craving or will-to-live. Will-to-live is due to ignorance. Ignorance is false knowledge of the impermanent as the permanent. It is delusion of individuality which is the root of the cycle of birth and death.
It cannot be killed by philosophical knowledge. The Buddha adopts anti-metaphysical attitude. There are ten indeterminable questions which are insoluble. Philosophical wrangling is unavailing, for it generates self-conceit and scepticism.
The Buddha’s teachings aim at the total extinction of suffering and attainment of nirvana here on earth. Nirvana is the cooling of passions, perfect peace and perfect enlightenment. The way to nirvana is the eightfold path of right conduct, concentration, and insight.
The delusion of individuality or egoism should be extirpated. When egoism is eradicated, will-to-live or craving is destroyed. When craving is destroyed the round of birth and death is ended, and nirvana is attained. Non-injury (ahimsa) in thought, word, and deed, is the comer-stone of moral life.
Religion of animal sacrifice, ritualism, and ceremonialism condemned. The Buddha teaches neither Being nor Non-Being, but Becoming. He teaches neither self-indulgence nor self-mortification, but the middle path of moderation—right view, right speech, and right conduct. He teaches the religion of ahimsa and self-help.
Essay # 2. Four Noble Truths of Buddha:
The whole of the teachings of the Buddha is summed in the four noble truths:
(i) There is suffering;
(ii) It has a cause;
(iii) It can be stopped;
(iv) There is way to stop it.
Siddhartha or Gautama ( 567 B.C.—487 B.C. ) was overwhelmed with grief at the sight of disease, old age, and death. He was overpowered by abundant misery in the world. He renounced the world to find out the remedy for suffering. He discovered its cause and the way to stop it. He found the way to peace on earth, and preached it to the world. He became enlightened or Buddha.
The first noble truth is suffering. ‘Birth is attended with pain; decay is painful; disease is painful; death is painful. Union with the unpleasant is painful, painful is separation from the pleasant; any craving that is unsatisfied, that too is painful.
In brief, the five aggregates which spring from attachment are painful. The cause and conditions of individuality are painful. The whole world is on fire; where is the scope for merry-making.’ Sensual pleasure is transitory and followed by pain. ‘Sorrow comes from merriment.
Fear comes from merriment.’ The loss of objects of sensual pleasure leads to sorrow. The world is completely unsubstantial, void of being and perpetual becoming. It is afflicted with death and decay, and full of suffering.
Therefore the wise do not grieve, knowing the nature of the world. Mere grieving is unavailing. When a house is on fire it must be extinguished by water. A man, who is pierced by the arrow of grief, must draw it out.
The second noble truth is concerning the origin of suffering. Graving which generates the cycle of birth and death is the cause of suffering. It is threefold:
(i) Craving for sensual pleasures,
(ii) Craving for being, and
(iii) Craving for wealth and power.
‘Verily, it is craving, causing the renewal of existence, accompanied by sensual delight, seeking satisfaction now here, now; there—that is to say, the craving for the gratification of passions, or the craving for a future life, or the craving for success in this present life.
This is the noble truth concerning the origin of suffering. Craving or will-to-live is the cause of suffering. All pain arises from individuality which is due to ignorance (avidya). Ignorance is due to will-to-live which is the root cause of suffering.
The third noble truth is the extinction of suffering. It is complete destruction of craving or will-to-live. Delusion of individuality, desire for mind-body-complex, and egoism are the causes of suffering.
Destruction of egoism and will-to- live leads to extinction of attachment, aversion, delusion, and suffering. Nibbana is the extinction of desire, doubt, and sensual pleasures based on the reflection on nothingness. It is total extinction of suffering, decay, and death. It is grasping at nothing, and possessing nothing.
It is perfect calm and tranquillity undisturbed by desires and passions. it is complete desirelessness. All desires for this life and the next life are extinguished in it. Non-grasping is attained by the knowledge of impermanence and voidness. Nibbana is insuperable, unchangeable, matchless.
The fourth noble truth is the way to the extinction of suffering.
It is the eightfold path:
(i) Right Belief,
(ii) Right Resolve,
(iii) Right Speech,
(iv) Right Conduct,
(v) Right Livelihood,
(vi) Right effort,
(vii) Right mindfulness, and
(viii) Right Concentration.
When the four noble truths are grasped, and craving or will-to-live is extirpated, there is no more birth. The four noble truths are suffering, the origin of suffering, the destruction of suffering, and the eightfold way of destruction of suffering. The eightfold path consists of moral conduct, concentration, and insight. It leads every aspirant to the complete extinction of suffering.
Essay # 3. Impermanence (Anityavada) on Buddhism:
Existence is impermanent. All things, mental and physical, are transitory. Impermanence is the inexorable law of all existence. There are five things which are inevitable. What is subject to old age must grow old.
What is subject to sickness must be sick. What is subject to death must die. What is subject to decay must decay. What is liable to pass away must pass away. These cannot be over-ruled by supra-mundane God or by any mundane agency.
There is neither being nor non-being but becoming. Everything is becoming, change, flux. It is a phenomenon enduring for a moment and then passing away. It is produced by preceding phenomena, and produces succeeding phenomena. The world is a succession of transient phenomena.
All substances are mere aggregates of impermanent qualities. They are devoid of permanence and substantiality. The world of Becoming is governed by the Law of Causality (pratityasamutpada). It is without beginning or end.
All individuals are series of momentary states of consciousness. There is no permanent soul behind the series of momentary psychoses. There is only succession of momentary mental processes. A past mental process has lived, but it neither lives, nor will it live. A future mental process will live, but it neither lives nor has it lived. A present mental process lives, but it has neither lived, nor will it live.
The life of an individual lasts only while a mental process lasts. An individual is a child, a boy, a youth, a man, an old man. He is a succession of changes with no identity in his body and mind. His body continually changes from one state to another.
His mind also continually changes from one mental process to another. There is continuity but no identity. The changes are causally connected with one another. Each component state is determined by its antecedent conditions.
All existences are essence less and impermanent. This is the universal law. The physical world and the psychical world are devoid of self or essence. They are unsubstantial, transient, and void. All component things are impermanent, unstable, and disintegrating. They are without substance and temporary. Form is impermanent.
The eye is impermanent. Cognition is impermanent. Qualities are impermanent. All conscious and unconscious components are impermanent. They come together, take individual forms, and break up. All components and composite things are impermanent. Animals, gods, men, plants, and inorganic things are all impermanent.
Essay # 4. Schools of Buddhism:
The Hinayana Buddhism gave rise to two main schools, the Vaibhasikas and the Sautrantikas. The Mahayana Buddhism gave rise to two main schools, the Yogacars and the Madhyamikas. The Vaibhasikas and the Sautrantikas sprang out of the Sarvastivadins. The Sarvastivadins hold that everything exists. The elements, mental and physical, are real.
The Vaibhasikas hold that external objects are real and perceptible. The Sautrantikas hold that external objects are real and inferable. The Yogacaras hold that external objects are nonexistent, and are mere cognitions. The Madhyamikas deny the absolute reality of external objects and subjective cognitions, and regard them as essenceless, but they affirm the reality of the Sunya.
The Sunya is not void or nothing, but predicate-less Absolute. The Vaibhasikas and the Sautrantikas are realists. The Yogacaras are idealists (vijnavadins). The Madhyamikas are Sunyavadins. They are not Nihilists but phenomena-lists and Absolutists.
The Vaibhasikas recognize the reality of mind and matter. Mind is composed of elements. Matter is composed of elements. There is no permanent soul. Existence is either transient or eternal. Space and Nirvana are eternal. The elements of matter, mind, and forces are transient and phenomenal. The elements of phenomenal reality are past, present, and future. The past and the future elements are as real as the present ones.
There are only four elements—earth, water, fire, and air. Earth is hard; water is cool; fire is warm; and air is mobile. Ether is not recognized as an element. External objects are aggregates of atoms. An atom has six sides. It is invisible, inaudible, intangible, untestable, and indivisible. Atoms cannot penetrate one another. The perceptible atom is an aggregate of imperceptible atoms.
The Vaibhasikas criticize the Sautrantika doctrine of infer-ability of external objects from their cognitions as contra a External objects are interred from their cognitions, then there are no objects of perception.
There is therefore no observation of invariable concomitance (vyapti) of the middle term with the major term, which is the ground of inference. Hence inference is not possible. This contradicts all actual experience.
The Sautrantika position is not tenable. There are two kinds of objects. Some are apprehended by indeterminate perception, and others are apprehended by determinate perception. Indeterminate perception is free from conceptual construction.
Determinate perception is perception wrought up by conceptual construction, which is therefore not valid. The validity of inference can be tested by fruitful action. The Vaibhasikas recognize the reality of external objects, and regard them as objects of perception. They advocate direct realism.
The sautrantikas are representationists. They advocate indirect realism. They recognize the reality of external objects.
But they regard them as objects of inference on the following grounds:
(i) External objects produce their cognitions, and imprint their forms on them. The forms of cognitions are similar to those of external objects. When cognitions come into being, their objects have ceased to be. Present cognitions cannot perceive past objects.
Therefore external objects are inferred from their cognitions. The forms of objects are inferred from those of their cognitions. Cognitions are copies or representations of their objects, which are their archetypes.
(ii) Cognitions are formless and homogeneous. They are diversified by their objects. Different external objects produce different cognitions, and impress their forms on them, which are perceived. The internal forms of cognitions are representations of the external forms of objects. We infer external objects from their cognitions. If there were no objects, there would be no diversity of cognitions.
(iii) The object-cognitions appear at certain times only, while the subject-cognitions are uniformly present. The Alayavijnana is of the nature of subject-cognitions. But the object-cognitions are of the nature of ‘this’. The stream of subject-cognitions is uniformly present. But the object-cognitions appear and disappear at certain times. Therefore they must be produced by external objects.
(iv) External objects exist and produce perceptions of colours, sounds, tastes, odours, temperatures, pressures, pleasure and pain. Perceptions are produced by external objects, which are their basic condition.
The Sautrantika criticizes the Yogacara Vijnanavada in the following manner. The Yogacara denies the reality of external objects, and reduces them to cognitions. This position is not tenable.
(i) The Yogacara argues that an external object (e.g., blue) and its cognition (e.g., cognition of blue) are invariably perceived at the same time. The external object can never be perceived apart from its dognition. So the object is identical with its cognition.
But this argument is wrong. A cognition and its object are necessarily experienced together. The cognition is the experience of its object. But this does not prove that cognition is identical with its object.
(ii) An object is different from its cognition. The cognition is internal or subjective, while the object is external or objective. The object is independent of its cognition. They cannot always be referred to the same time and the same space. Therefore they are different from each other.
(iii) If an object were a mere cognition, it would be apprehended as T, and not as ‘this’, But a blue object is never perceived as ‘I am blue’, but as ‘this is blue’. It is ‘given’ or not-self. It is not a mode of the self.
(iv) The Yogacara argues that an internal cognition appears to be an external object owing to illusion, though it does not exist. The distinction of cognition and object is illusory. Cognition alone is real. The Sautrantika urges that if external objects are absolutely non-existent, an internal cognition cannot appear to be an external object. It would be as absurd as to say ‘Vasubandhu looks like the son of a barren mother.’ The illusion of external it presupposes valid knowledge of externality somewhere. The sense of externality can never be produced by mere subjective cognitions.
(v) The Yogacara argues that an object is identical with its cognition because the appearance of distinction between them is illusory. Again, the distinction between cognition and its object is illusory because they are, in reality, identical with each other. The argument involves vicious circle.
(vi) External objects are actually perceived by us. We undoubtedly perceive them, and react to them. We pass over the cognitions of external objects. So it is wrong to argue that internal cognitions appear to be external objects.
(vii) The Yogacara argues that a variety of object-cognitions is due to the variety subconscious impressions (vasana) within the stream of cognitions. The instinctive roots of ignorance imbedded in the subject-cognitions from beginning less time generate a variety of perceptions of sense-data.
The beginning-less uninterrupted stream of impressions of difference is the cause of the variety of perceptions of difference. But subconscious impressions can produce recollections only.
They cannot produce perceptions of external objects. The series of subject- cognitions in an individual is always present with impressions deposited in it. The subject-cognitions with the impressions being always present, the perceptions of objects would be always present. But in fact, object-cognitions appear at certain times and disappear at other times. Therefore they cannot be generated by impressions.
Doctrine of Momentariness:
The Sautrantika developed the doctrine of impermanence into the ontological doctrine of momentariness. All schools of later Buddhism believed in the doctrine of momentariness.
The Vaibhasikas believed in the reality of the eternal elements and their momentary manifestations. The Sautrantikas rejected the eternal elements and advanced the following arguments to prove the momentariness of all existence. Whatever is existent is momentary like a mass of clouds.
Existence consists in causal efficiency or production of effects. Causes produce their effects either simultaneously or successively. Only momentary causes can produce their effects either simultaneously or successively.
Permanent entities are not capable of simultaneous or successive production of effects, since the alternatives cannot be proved. When a permanent entity produces its effects at the present time, it has capacity of producing its effects in the past and the future. If it has the capacity, it must produce past and future effects in the present moment, since what is capable of producing an effect at a particular time must produce it at that time.
If it has not the capacity, it can never produce past and future effects, for what does not produce an effect at a particular time is not capable of producing it at that time. A piece of stone can never produce a sprout.
A permanent entity does not produce past and future effects at the present moment. So it is not capable of producing them at present. Capacity of production and production of effects must go together. Causal efficiency cannot exist without production.
If a permanent entity is said to produce its effects in succession with the help of concomitant conditions, the latter render an aid to the permanent entity or not. If they do not, they are unnecessary, and can be dispensed with. If they do, the aid is different or non-different from the permanent’ entity.
If the aid is different from it, then the adventitious aid should be regarded as the cause, and not the permanent entity, because wherever the adventitious aid is present the effect is present and wherever it is absent the effect is absent.
If it is urged that a permanent entity by its very nature produces its effect only when the concomitant conditions co-operate with it, then it can never be separated from the concomitant conditions in order to produce its effect because it can never be divested of its nature.
Further, the aid (atisaya) produced by the concomitant conditions produces another aid or not. If it produces another aid, it will require other concomitant conditions, and so on, and aid, then the permanent entity in co-operation with the concomitant conditions acquires an aid and produces an effect.
If the permanent entity does not require the help of concomitant conditions, then the aid will always be present, and will always produce the effect. But it is contradicted by experience.
Then the aid, though it depends on the permanent entity for the production of the effect, produces the effect independently of the permanent cause (e.g., a seed) or as dependent on it. On the first alternative, the seed would not be the cause of a sprout. On the second alternative, there will be infinite regress.
The aid will produce another aid in the permanent cause, and so on to infinity. If the aid is non-different from the permanent cause, then the so-called permanent cause ceases to be permanent, since it was devoid of aid before and it now acquires aid. A permanent cause is incapable of causal efficiency.
A permanent entity cannot produce its effect simultaneously. If it produces its effect simultaneously, it persists after production of its effect or does not. If it persists in future, then it will continue to produce the effect which it has already produced. But the effect which has already been produced need not be produced again.
If the permanent cause does not persist after production of its effect, then it cannot be said to be permanent. Those entities are different from each other, which are endued with contradictory attributes like heat and cold.
It cannot be argued that a permanent entity has capacity to produce its effect at one time, and has no capacity to produce it at another time, since what produces an effect at a particular time possesses the capacity to produce it at that time, and what is incapable of producing an effect at a particular time does not produce it at that time.
A stone can never produce a sprout at any time. Thus a permanent entity cannot produce its effect simultaneously or in succession. Only momentary entities are capable of causal efficiency. All existence is momentary, and consists in causal efficiency, which exists in momentary entities only. Permanent entities are incapable of causal efficiency.
We attribute identity to a continuous series of similar momentary things. Identity is an illusion produced by similarity and continuity of a series of momentary entities. There is no identity or permanence of an external thing.
The flame of a lamp appears to be the same, though it changes from moment to moment. The stream of water appears to be the same, though it changes every moment. All objects of the world are undergoing destruction every moment. But they appear to persist owing to illusion.
‘The Sautrantikas laid stress on the conception of the self as a series of momentary cognitions. There is no permanent self behind the continuous series of momentary cognitions. The preceding cognition leaves an impression which modifies the succeeding cognition.
There is transference of impression from one cognition to another, which accounts for memory. Memory does not require a permanent self which is the substratum of impressions, and which recollects an object perceived in the past.
A future member of the same series of cognitions remembers a past momentary object perceived by a past member of the same series. Recognition is a collection of perception and recollection.
It does not presuppose a permanent self; nor does it apprehend a permanent object such as ‘this is that Devadatta’. The stream of momentary cognitions can account for memory and recognition both. Thus neither the self nor an external object is permanent and identical. Both are series of momentary entities.
Yogacara Vijnana Vada:
The Yogacaras do not recognize the reality of external objects. They reduce them to cognitions. Therefore they are called Vijnanavadins. The Lankavatarasutra regards external objects as unreal and false like dreams, day-dreams, illusions, and hallucinations. It regards them as transformations of the Alayavijnana, the cosmic mind, which is stirred up into the waves of mental modes.
Object-cognitions are the modes of the cosmic mind. There are no objects apart from cognitions. When they are examined by the intellect, they are found to be indefinable and essenceless. Object-cognilions arise from the Alayavijnana or receptacle consciousness.
Vasubandhu (500 A.D.) recognizes the reality of consciousness (vijnapti) only, which manifests non-existent objects like the illusory hair and double moon. Objects are self-creations of thought. The cosmic mind transforms itself, on the one hand, into different subjects, and into different objects, on the other.
All dharma’s, subjective and objective, are fruitions of the seeds or dispositions conserved in the Alayavijnana. One pure consciousness (vijnapti matra) is the ground of the all-conserving mind. There are no external objects. They are transformations of the Alayavijnana into the form of knowable objects.
Dharmakirti reduces the so-called external objects to sense- data which are nothing but sensations. When we perceive an object, we perceive only its colour, length, breadth, thickness, weight, smoothness and the like sensible qualities. We can never perceive or infer the object apart from the sense-data.
We never perceive it as an external object. We perceive only colours, sounds, tastes, smells, temperatures and pressures through the sense-organs. These sense-cognitions are elaborated by the mind (manas) which reflects upon them.
Neither the mind nor the sense-organs perceive the external objects. They are nothing but cognitions. When we examine them thoroughly, they disappear into nothingness; only their cognitions are left behind.
Feelings of pleasure and pain are felt by the mind as subjective mental modes. Even the so-called external objects are forms of cognitions. The apprehending cognition and the apprehended object, subject and object, are the forms of cognition which is one and self-identical.
The distinction of subject and object falls within cognition. The object is not outside cognition. Subject does not exist without object. Object does not exist without subject. They are inseparable from each other. They are forms or aspects of the same cognition. Cognition is the only reality. It is in its essential nature formless. But it assumes the forms of subject and object, cognitional forms and object-forms.
Object-cognitions are due to the revival of the subconscious impressions deposited in the mind. They are not excited by external objects. Vijnana is the only reality. The inner and the outer are its forms. The distinction of subject and object is illusory. We stick to it for the practical purposes of our life. The distinction is not real.
Santaraksita gives the following arguments for the nonexistence of external objects:
(i) A cognition is self-aware. Its essential nature consists in self-awareness. It reveals itself and does not apprehend an external object. It is not apprehended by the permanent self, since it is non-existent. There is neither a permanent self nor an external object. There is only a series of self-aware cognitions. Cognitions manifest themselves as cognitions of blue, yellow, and the like, though there are no external objects.
(ii) An object is said to be unconscious, and material, while a cognition is conscious and mental. There is no relation of identity or causation between them. A cognition is not identical with an object. It cannot generate an object; nor can an object generate a cognition. Hence a cognition can never apprehend an external object.
(iii) Illusory cognitions arise .owing to ignorance (avidya), which reveal unreal forms, though there are no external objects corresponding to them.
(iv) The Sautrantika holds that an external object imprints its form on the cognition produced by it so that there is similarity between the form of the cognition and the form of the object. If there is complete similarity between them, the cognition is unconscious like its object. If there is partial similarity between them, the part of the cognition which is not similar to its object apprehends it.
Therefore every cognition can apprehend every object. Further, a uniform cognition apprehends a multiform object. An unexpended cognition apprehends an extended object. Therefore there is no correspondence between a cognition and its object Even a cognition with a form cannot apprehend an external object.
(v) A cognition with a different form cannot apprehend an external object. If a cognition with one form apprehended an object with another form, then every cognition would apprehend every object, and a particular cognition would not be necessary to apprehend a particular object. Therefore a cognition can never apprehend an external object either with or without its form or with another form. So the cognition alone is the only reality.
(vi) The cognized object (‘blue’) and the cognition (of ‘blue’) are invariably apprehended together. Therefore they are identical with each other.
(vii) There is no evidence for the existence of an external object. It cannot be perceived by a formless cognition or by a cognition with a form. A formless cognition cannot come into relation with an object. A cognition invested with the form of an object perceives its own form. It does not perceive the form of its object. So an external object cannot be perceived.
Nor can it be inferred from the harmony between it and the cognition. Harmony means either the capacity for leading to the attainment of the object or the capacity for fruitful actions. The external object can never be attained because it is non-existent. Cognitions can lead to fruitful actions. Therefore an external object cannot be inferred.
(vii) Even if an external object exists, it must be perceived either as an aggregate of atoms or as a complex whole made of atoms or as a gross object not composed of atoms. The first alternative is not tenable. Atoms are imperceptible. Only gross objects are perceived.’ Atoms cannot produce the cognition of a gross object.
The second alternative cannot be maintained. The external object cannot be a complex whole made of atoms. The relation between the whole and the parts cannot be explained. The third alternative also is untenable. The external object cannot be a gross object not composed of atoms. Its nature cannot be defined. So it does not exist. It is an unreal appearance. Hence cognition is the only reality.
All the arguments mentioned above tend to show that the Yogacara Vijnanavada was subjective idealism. But some Vijnanavadins believed in Tathata, Sunyata, or the Absolute, and the Alayavijnana. The Alayavijnana is the cosmic mind, which is expressed in individual minds also. Cognitions and objects are transformations of the cosmic mind, Alayavijnana.
Vasuvandhu recognized the reality of one eternal pure consciousness (vijnaptimatrata). The Alayavijnana is superimposed on it. Subjective cognitions and objective phenomena are its transformations. Vasubandhu’s Vijnanavada is absolute idealism.
Asanga ( 500 A.D. ) believed in Suchness ( Tathata ). It is the eternal reality, and exists in the past, the present, and the future. It is neither born nor modified. It is unchangeable, immutable, and eternal. It is the supreme reality, the essence of all beings. It is uncaused, unconditioned, necessary, and absolute. It is the essence of the whole universe, its noumenon.
It is inseparable from the empirical world of phenomena which are its manifestations. Phenomena cannot exist apart from their noumenon or Suchness. It is grasped by absolute knowledge which is supernormal. The Yogacara Vijnana-vadin believed in the existence of the absolute reality, Tathata, and advocated absolutistic monism.
The Madhyamikas regard external objects and subjective cognitions to be equally essenceless with the Sunya as their eternal basis. The Yogacaras recognize the existence of Tathata, and identify it with Sunyata. They stress the subjectivity of the external world.
Therefore they are called Vijnanavadins. The Madhyamikas regard subjects and objects as relative and conditional, and therefore essenceless. They posit the reality of the Sunya which is the eternal and absolute reality. It is predicate-less and not void or nothingness.
Nagarjuna ( 200 A.D. ) was one of the greatest philosophers in ancient India. He was a great dialectician, and showed by his dialectics that all categories of thought were self-discrepant and therefore relative, essenceless, or ultimately unreal.
Subject and object, substance and quality, whole and part, cause and effect, time, space, relation, compounded and uncompounded dharma’s, change, motion, rest, self-nature, other-nature, knowledge, self, God, samsara, and nirvana are self-discrepant and therefore relative or ultimately unreal. The nature of substance, relation and self is considered here.
Substance does not exist apart from qualities. Qualities do not exist apart from substance. Substance is a mere aggregate of qualities. Substance and qualities are correlative to each other. Colour, sound, taste, smell, heat and cold are mere sensations which depend upon the eyes, the ears, the tongue, the nose, and the skin. They are meaningless apart from the sense-organs.
They are mere sense experiences. We do not know the real nature of a substance. Substance is a mere relation that harmonizes its qualities with one another. All relations are transient and unreal. Substance and quality are relative to each other, and therefore unreal. Substance is regarded as a mere collection of qualities from the conventional point of view. It is not an ontological reality.
The world is said to be a net-work of relations. But relations are unintelligible. Relation can exist between two distinct things. But they are not distinct from each other. A thing which is produced by another thing, cannot exist apart from it. A sprout cannot exist apart from a seed. The sprout is not therefore distinct from the seed. They are not distinct from each other.
So they cannot be related to each other. No two things are ultimately distinct from each other. Therefore they cannot be related to each other. If, again, two things are distinct from each other, they cannot be related to each other.
Two self-existent and unrelated things cannot be related to each other. If the distinctness of A is independent of B, then the distinctness of B also is independent of A. A and B are independent of each other.
If two things are identical with each other, they cannot be related to each other. Identity and relation cannot exist together. Therefore there are no relations and relative. Relations are unintelligible and phenomenal. They are not ultimately real.
Is the self identical with, or different from, the five aggregates? If the self is identical with the five aggregates, then it is subject to origin and destruction. If it is different from them, then it cannot be characterized by the five aggregates.
The self and the aggregates are related to each other as subject and object, and therefore cannot be identical with each other. Subject and object must be distinct from each other. If the self does not exist, the mental aggregates cannot be said to belong to it.
The aggregates are due to egoism which is not absolutely real. Egoism is destroyed when the aggregates are known to be unreal. When egoism is destroyed, the aggregates are no longer generated. The consciousness is not the self; the self is not endued with consciousness; there is no self in consciousness; there is no consciousness in the self.
Body, perception, feeling, disposition, and consciousness cannot exist in the self; nor can the self-exist in them. The aggregates are soulless. The self is soulless. They have no core of reality in them. The Buddha has taught neither the existence nor the non-existence of the self or ego.
The Madhyamika rejects the plurality of external objects and internal cognitions because of their relativity, and posits the existence of the unique, indefinable Essence of Being, the One-without-a-second. All the elements have relative and contingent reality.
The Sunya only has absolute reality. Nagarjuna’s doctrine is the middle path between existence and non-existence, between essencelessness and essence of being. Sunyata is not produced by other causes; it is absolute calm; it is one and apprehended by supra-intellectual intuition.
All dharma’s are essenceless, relative and contingent. They are in their essence inexpressible. They are manifested as calm and pure in the state of enlightenment. The reality has been called Sunya in order to refute all other views.
But those who cling to the view of Sunyata are incurable. Nagarjuna uses the word Sunyata in two senses the relative and the Absolute. All dharma’s are relative (sunya) but they are grounded in the Absolute (sunya).
Relativism is not the absolute truth. The relative is the way to the Absolute, which cannot be attained without the help of the relative. Nirvana cannot be attained without knowing the Absolute. Though the relative has been branded as unreal like an illusion, yet it has some reality.
It has contingent and empirical reality which can serve the practical purposes of our life. It is unreal in relation to the Absolute. The Absolute is inexpressible. It can be described by imputed characters only.
All relative and contingent phenomena become extinct in the Absolute. It cannot be called sunya or asunya, or both, or neither; but it is called sunya in order to indicate its nature. The Absolute is neither existent, nor non-existent, nor both, nor neither. It is beyond these four empirical categories .
It is the transcendent, unconditioned, absolute ground of the empirical world of phenomena. Nagarjuna is not a mere relativist, phenomenalism or sceptic. He is an Absolutist, monist, mystic and intuitionist. Intellect gives an empirical world of relativity and plurality.
Intuition gives the noumenon or the Absolute One which is the ultimate truth of all phenomena. Nagarjuna is not a negativist or a nihilist. Only he does not in any way characterize the Absolute.
Essay # 5. Causality: Dependent Origination (Pratltyasamutpada) of Buddhism:
‘Whatever exists arises from causes and conditions, and is in every respect impermanent’. All existence is impermanent becoming. All becoming is subject to the Law of Causation. Causation is dependent origination. “I will teach you the Dhamma,” says the Buddha, “that being present, this becomes; from the arising of that, this arises. That being absent, this does not become; from the cessation of that, this ceases.”
Pratltyasamutpada means arising (samutpada) after getting (pratitya). It means the production of an effect out of a complement of cause and conditions. When the cause and conditions disappear, the effect appears. The effect emerges from effect emerges.
The cause cannot continue in the effect. They cannot be synchronous. The cause must be prior to the effect. The effect arises from an aggregate of cause and conditions. A seed is the cause of a plant. But soil, water, light, and manure are its conditions.
A distinction is made between a cause (hetu) and a condition (pratyaya). The former is the principal cause, and the latter is a concomitant condition. One cause cannot produce an effect. It must be aided by other concomitant conditions to produce it. An effect arises from a cause and a complement of co-operating conditions.
The law of causality or dependent origination applies to the past, the present, and the future. It is without beginning or end. It is applicable to all composite entities, mental and physical. It is not applicable to non-composite entities like space, since they are eternal. The cause transmits its causal energy to its effect.
Causation is development or transformation. There is no immanent causality, in which a substance appears to be manifested as its qualities. Causation is dynamic, not static. Static view of causation is erroneous. The world-process is an active self- development.
The doctrine of dependent origination is opposed to accidentalism which denies the law of causality, and regards an event as an accidental happening. It is opposed to naturalism which ascribes an effect to its own inherent nature. It is opposed to fatalism which regards all things, good and bad, as pre-determined by Fate. It is opposed to supernaturalism. An event is not generated by the supernatural intervention of God.
It is produced by an antecedent natural event. Accidentalism and naturalism were advocated by materialists. Supernaturalism was advocated by Brahmanism. All existences, physical and psychical, according to Buddhism, are subject to the law of universal causation.
All that exist, are produced. Existence is becoming or production. Nothing is uncaused and eternal. All are in the grip of causality/There is no transcendental cause or first cause of the world.
Essay # 6. Wheel of Existence (Bhavacakra) on Buddhism:
The Buddha says, “He who knows dependent origination, knows dharma. He who knows dharma, knows dependent origination. The five aggregates of material form or body, feeling, perception, disposition, and self-consciousness originate from their causes and conditions”.
An empirical individual is an aggregate of five groups of body, feeling, perception, disposition, and self-consciousness. The mind-body-complex is produced by ailments. ‘Ailment is caused by craving. Craving is caused by feeling. Feeling is caused by contact. Contact is caused by five sense-organs and mind. They are caused by mind and body.
They are caused by consciousness. Consciousness is caused by dispositions. Dispositions are caused by ignorance. The twelve members in the chain of causation are stated thus: ‘By reason of ignorance dispositions by reason of dispositions consciousness; by reason of consciousness mind-body-complex; by reason of mind-body-complex contact; by reason of contact feeling; by reason of feeling craving ; by reason of craving grasping ; by reason of grasping becoming ; by reason of becoming birth ; by reason of birth old age and death and grief.’
By the destruction of ignorance, the dispositions are destroyed; by the destruction of the dispositions, consciousness is destroyed; by the destruction of consciousness, mind- body-complex is destroyed; by the destruction of mind- body-complex, the six sense-organs are destroyed; by the destruction of the six sense-organs, contact is destroyed; by the destruction of contact, feeling is destroyed; by the destruction of feeling, craving is destroyed; by the destruction of craving grasping is destroyed; by the destruction of grasping, becoming or will-to-be-born is destroyed; by the destruction of becoming, birth is destroyed; by the destruction of birth, old age and death and; grief are destroyed.
(iv) Mind body-complex,
(v) Six sense-organs,
(xi) Birth, and
(xii) Old age and death are the twelve links in the chain of causation.
Ignorance (avidya) is the root cause of suffering. It gives rise to birth and death. It is the false sense of individuality. It is knowledge of the impermanent series of mental and bodily processes as the permanent self. It generates dispositions. The dispositions of ignorance in the past life produce an initial consciousness in the embryo. This consciousness generates the new mind-body-complex.
If consciousness did not enter into the womb, mind-body-complex would not arise in the womb. The mind-body-complex produces the five external sense-organs and the internal organ or mind. They produce sense-contact with sensible objects or qualities.
The sense-contact produces feeling due to sense-experience. The feeling produces craving. Craving produces grasping or clinging to objects. Grasping produces becoming or will-to-be-born. The will-to-be-born in the present life produces rebirth in the future life. Rebirth produces old age and death.
The “cycle of birth and death moves in this manner. The twelve links in the chain of causation are:
(i) Ignorance, and
(ii) Dispositions belonging to the past life,
(iii) Initial consciousness,
(iv) Mind-body- complex,
(v) Six sense-organs,
(ix) Grasping, and
(x) Will-to-be-born belonging to the present life,
(xii) Old age and death belonging to the future life. Thus the twelve links extend to three lives, the past, the present, and the future.”
Essay # 7. Doctrine of No-Self (Anatmavada, Nairatmyavada) on Buddhism:
“Look upon the world,” says the Buddha, “as void, having destroyed the view of oneself as really existing, so one may overcome death; the king of death will not see him who thus regards the world.”
The doctrine of No-self means two things:
(i) The self is an aggregate of impermanent mental and bodily processes;
(ii) The world is unsubstantial and void; it is an aggregate of impermanent qualities devoid of substances.
The self is impermanent. It is an aggregate. It is a series of successive mental and bodily processes which are impermanent. There is no permanent self. The self is a stream of cognitions (vijanasantana). There is a continuity of constantly changing mental processes in it. Sometimes they are intermittent.
So the self is sometimes compared to sleep and dream. The course of organic life is compared to dreamless sleep, in which consciousness is evoked by external stimuli, which is compared to dream. Conscious processes break in upon the stream of the subconscious processes.
The self is an aggregate of body and four kinds of mental processes, feeling, perception, disposition, and self-consciousness. The body is not permanent. It is an aggregate of vital organs and their functions. It is an aggregate of changing qualities.
The Buddha is emphatic on the denial of the permanent self in the following texts.
‘The world is empty of a self, or of anything of the nature of a self. The five seats of the five senses, and the mind, and the feeling that is related to mind: all these are void of a self or of anything that is self-like.’ “When one says ‘I’, he refers either to all the aggregates combined or any one of them and deludes himself that that was T. One could not say that the body was T or that the feeling was T- or any other aggregate was ‘I’.
There is nowhere to be found in the aggregates ‘I am’. ‘Since neither self nor aught belonging to self can really and truly exist, the view that holds that this I who am world, who am self, shall hereafter live permanent, persisting, eternal, unchanging, abide eternally; is not this utterly and entirely a foolish doctrine ?’ ‘This self of mine is the knower, the enjoyer of the fruits of my good and bad actions: it is eternal and immutable, it will continue for infinite time: this thought is very childish’, ‘The body is not-self j feeling is self; perception is not-self; disposition is not-self ; self-consciousness is not-self. All dharmas are not-self’.
The five aggregates are impermanent. They are not the so-called permanent self. Belief in permanent self is a wrong view of the self (satkayadrsti). The last text does not mean that the self is eternal and transcendental. It clearly means that the five aggregates constitute the not-self. There is no permanent self. The self is an empirical aggregate. There is no self beyond them. This is the unique and original teaching of the Buddha.
Once the Buddha kept silent on the existence or nonexistence of the self. The wandering monk Vacchagotta said, “Is there the ego?” Buddha was silent. Again he said “Is there not the ego?” Still Buddha kept silent.
When the monk departed, the Buddha said to Ananda that the affirmative answer would lead to externalism (sasvatavada), and that the negative answer would lead to annihilationist (ucchedavada) But both are wrong views.
The ego or self is not eternal nor is the self-non-existent. If the self is non-existent, there can be no transmigration and reaping of the fruits of actions. The truth lies in the middle of the two extreme views. The phenomenal or empirical self exists.
The doctrine of No-self means also that the world is unsubstantial and soulless. All external things are aggregates of changing qualities. There is no permanent substance apart from impermanent qualities. The permanent identical substance is a fiction of the imagination. All forms of existence, material and psychical, are impermanent and soulless. They are subject to the inexorable law of becoming.
Essay # 8. Karma of Buddhism:
Brahmanism makes too much of the permanent self. Buddhism puts impermanent dharma in its place. It stresses energy, effort, endeavour. Will is the man. Will is the man in action. The Buddha says, “Very pure will we become in deed, word, thought.
We will neither exalt the self nor despise the other man.” ‘Rouse thyself by thyself, examine thyself by thyself; thus self-protected and attentive wilt thou live happily, O Bhiksu!’
‘For self is the lord of self, self is the refuge of self; therefore curb thyself as the merchant curbs a good horse. Self is the lord of self, who else could be the lord ? With self well subdued, a man finds a lord such as few can find’.” Thus Buddhism emphasizes the freedom of the will. Is it consistent with the empirical conception of the self as the collection of the five aggregates?
In the empirical self some part may be regarded as dominant and others as dominated by it. The will is the dominant element in the individual. Sometimes the intellect is compared to the guardian of a city, who, standing at the cross roads, controls the traffic. Intellect is will. Intellect is the theoretical aspect of will. Will is the practical aspect of intellect.
Buddhism lays great stress on the freedom of the will, moral effort, energy, and activity. We are the masters of our own destiny. We make ourselves pure by our own free good volitions and actions. We make ourselves impure by our own free bad volitions and actions. Man is the architect of his own destiny. He can work out his own salvation by free moral actions. ‘Work out your salvation with diligence.
Beings are owners of their actions, heirs of their actions; their actions are their matrix their actions are their lineage, and by their actions are they established. Man is what he has made himself. His past actions are the determinant of what he is, as his present actions of what he will be.
Man is the builder of his own character and destiny. The past self is wrought up into the present self. The future self is a projection of the present self. The self never is, but is always becoming, evolving, to experience the fruits of its free actions- in future lives. The self is not static, but fluid.
Our happiness is the result of our past good deeds. Our misery is the result of our past evil deeds. Our past good and evil actions in this life or the past life have brought about our present weal or woe. They are not caused by capricious Deity, the decree of an inexorable Fate, or blind chance.
They are the inevitable results of our past free actions. Whatever a man does through his body, speech, or thought, are to be called his own for they follow him when he departs from his life like a shadow that leaves him not. Action (karma) is the connecting link between one life of an individual and another.
Law of Karma (Dhamma):
All phenomena, mental and material, are subject to the law of dependent origination, which is subservient to the Law of Karma. The Buddha says, “By Karma the world exists, by Karma mankind exists; beings are bound by Karma as the linchpin of a chariot keeps the wheel on.”
The variety in the world is due to Karma. The whole world with all its variety is the combined effect of the acts of all beings. The Law of Karma governs all physical and mental phenomena. It is the supreme, impersonal law of moral causation to which physical Causation is subservient.
Sometimes the Law of Karma is called ‘Dhamma’ which applies to the chain of causation, the wheel of existence, progress of an individual to enlightenment, and whatever is righteous or good. Sometimes ‘Dhamma’ means cause or ground, truth or reality, Good immanent in the world, and Moral Law immanent in it.
Essay # 9. Transmigration of Buddhism:
Action (karma) leads to rebirth. There is no transmigration of a permanent soul from one body to another. There is mere continuity of the same series of mental processes. The last mental act ceases, and transmits its causal energy to the first mental act in a new embryonic germ-cell.
The last conscious act dies away, another conscious act arises in a new organism. This is called rebirth. There is neither absolute identity nor absolute difference the fruit arises in the same psychical series in which the act was done.
The child is trained; the youth reaps its fruits. The child and the youth are neither absolutely identical with, nor absolutely different from, each other. In rebirth there is ‘transmigration of character’ in the words of Rhys Davids, from the last conscious act in one life to the first conscious act in the next life.
Moral responsibility attaches to the same series.The Buddha says, “To say ‘one acts, another reaps the fruits of those acts’, is not true. And to say ‘one and the same both acts and is affected by the result’ is not true. I teach a Midway between both extremes, to wit, the doctrine of Becoming by way of Cause.”
The Buddha explains transmigration by the example of the flame of a lamp. A lamp burns throughout the night. But the flame of light does not remain the same throughout. There is a continuous change in the flame; there is no identity -in the flame but continuity in the different flames of light of the lamp.
Similarly, the last flash of consciousness of a person in one life goes out, and it kindles the first flash of consciousness in the embryo in the next life. The psychical series continues uninterrupted, but its members continually change, appearing for a moment and then disappearing.
The Buddha explains transmigration by the example of the different modifications of milk. Milk is modified into curds; curds are transformed into butter; butter is converted into melted butter. The same series continues, but its members continue changing. There is unbroken continuity in the series but no permanent identity.
Similarly, the psychic series continues in transmigration, but there is no identity of the permanent soul. The first conscious act in the new birth is produced by the last conscious act in the preceding birth, which is modified by the accumulated dispositions’ of all the psychoses of this birth. Thus there is transmigration of the impermanent psychical series, though there is no identity of the permanent soul.
Essay # 10. Atheism of Buddhism:
The whole universe of phenomena is subject to the law of dependent origination. Material and mental phenomena, plants, animals, men, and gods are subject to origin and destruction. They are determined by their causes and conditions. The Buddha ridicules the conception of God, who is said to be the eternal and immutable creator of the universe which is temporary, perishing and mutable.
Brahma, the first created being, may think owing to delusion that he is the omniscient and omnipotent Creator of the universe, past, present, and future. But, in fact, he is as subject to origin and destruction as any other effect.
None among the Brahmanans versed in the three Vedas has actually seen Brahma, the Creator, but everybody has heard it from others, who, in their turn, have heard it from others, and so on. Tradition is no argument for the existence of God, The blind are misled by the blind.
The variety in the world is due to karma. All things are transformations. There is neither creation nor destruction. The world has neither beginning nor end. All phenomena in the world are caused by other phenomena, which, in their turn are caused by other phenomena. Nothing is self-caused and uncaused. Every phenomenon in the universe, physical, organic, or mental, is determined by a number of conditions.
The whole universe is a chain of causally connected phenomena, which is not determined by anything beyond the series of phenomena. The contingent world is not determined by a necessary Being which transcends the phenomena.
There is no intervention of a supernatural Being or God in the phenomenal series of causes and effects. Phenomena are not determined by their nature nor are they predetermined by Fate; nor are they produced by accident. All phenomena are determined by the totality of antecedent conditions on which they are dependent.
Physical causation, organic causation, mental causation, and moral causation are parts of the Dhamma or the Law. There is no room for God. Without beginning and end is this world-process. There is no First Cause.
We experience no absolute beginning and absolute end. Dependent origination is without beginning or end. It has no Lord presiding over it. It has no Soul to inspire it. The cosmological argument for the existence of God is invalid.
It may be urged that every law has a law-giver. The law of dependent origination must be supervised by God. But this is wrong. The causal order is there. It is not intended or designed by God. It is the observed causal sequence of phenomena in the world.
It is not caused or designed by God. There is no purpose in nature. There is no conscious agent who adapts the phenomena -of the world with a purpose. The teleological argument for the existence of God is invalid.
Essay # 11. Non-Materialism:
Though the Buddha denies the existence of the permanent self and God or the Creator of the world, he is not a materialist. He does not reduce the mental processes to the material elements. He does not identify the soul with the body. Nor does he regard it as quite distinct from the body.
Is the soul identical with, or distinct from, the body?
It is an indeterminable question. If it is quite distinct from the body and eternal and immutable, it cannot be purified by moral conduct, concentration, and insight. This conception is subversive of morality. If, on the other hand, it is identical with the body, it is dissolved with the body, and cannot reap the fruits of its actions. The Buddha believes in the Law of Karma, future life, and transmigration.
He believes in the complete extinction of suffering and achievement of perfect peace here on earth. Thus he rejects materialism and accepts payasi who holds that there is neither future life, nor reaping of fruits of good and bad actions, nor rebirth of souls.
Early Buddhism admits the reality of four permanent elements—earth, water, fire, and air which undergo changes. It sometimes includes ether in the elements, and sometimes treats it as a derivative. The external stimuli interact upon the sense-organs and produce consciousness. Early Buddhism believes in naive realism and causal theory of knowledge.
Essay # 12. Anti-Metaphysical Attitude:
The Buddha solves only one practical problem: how to exterminate suffering. Philosophical wrangling does not solve this problem. Idle theoretical speculation does not soothe the agony of suffering. It generates self-conceit, arrogance, and scepticism.
It does not draw out the arrow of agony. So the Buddha discourages philosophizing and emphasizes self- control, thoughtfulness, energy, activity, moral conduct, purity of mind, good-will, love, compassion, and peace.
He says, “The Tathagata is free from all theories.” He rules out ten questions relating to the world, the relation of the soul and the body, and the condition after the attainment of nirvana. These are indeterminable.
They are as follows:
(i) Is the world eternal?
(ii) Is it non-eternal?
(iii) Is it finite?
(iv) Is it infinite?
(v) Is the soul identical with the body?
(vi) Is it distinct from the body?
(vii) Does the Tathagata exist after death?
(viii) Does he not exist after death?
(ix) Does he both exist and not exist after death?
(x) Does he neither exist nor not-exist after death?
These questions are fruitless for moral life. They are not conducive to detachment, peace, enlightenment, and nirvana. So these metaphysical puzzles are ruled out. Wrangling over philosophical views is useless. Self-command is the way to perfection.
The whole world is on fire. Extinguish the fire. Do not waste a moment in useless disputes. Overcome the torrent of passions and attain perfect peace and calm. Philosophical views lead to disputes; they do not lead to purity, but in the realization of nirvana there is no dispute.
Essay # 13. Rationalism of Buddhism:
The Buddha teaches rationalism to his disciples and condemns faith in tradition and authority. He advises them to trust in their own reason and believe in what commends itself to their reason. Authority is no source of truth. Its validity must be interested by reason and personal experience. Tradition is like a number of blind men leading one another. The first man does not see; neither does the middle one see; nor does the last one see.
Tradition is an exceedingly weak argument. The Buddha makes a distinction between the mere reception of truth and the knowledge of truth which involves rational conviction. ‘One must not accept my Dharma from reverence, but first test it as gold is tested by fire.’
‘You must trust to yourselves. You can take nothing from me. You must be righteous through your own efforts. You must depend on yourselves for the extinction of all suffering.’
‘Three things shine before the world and cannot be hidden. They are the moon, the sun, and the truth proclaimed by the Tathagata. There is no secrecy about them.’ ‘He who questions the validity of reason by arguments contradicts himself.’ Instruction should be understood by reason and confirmed by personal experience.
The intelligible parts of the Buddha’s doctrine should be understood by reason. But its unintelligible depths which are understood by the Buddha only should be accepted on faith. The nature of the action of Karma is not comprehensible. It has to be accepted on faith; there is no discredit in it. Faith is an indispensable preliminary to entrance upon the path. It is a prelude to right knowledge.
Faith in the complete enlightenment of the Buddha and his word leads to correct knowledge and conviction. The teaching of the Buddha saves- the faithful, but destroys the faithless. Thus faith in the authority of the Buddha, independent reflection or individual reason, and individual insight and intuition have their place in the life of an aspirant. Intuition is the consummation of moral discipline.
Essay # 14. Ethics of Buddhism:
The Buddha rejects both Being and Non-Being and believes in Becoming. He adopts the metaphysical mean. He rejects both self-indulgence and self-mortification, and enjoins the ethics of moderation. He preaches the doctrine of the ethical mean.
He lays down the eightfold path:
(i) Right view or belief consists in right knowledge of the four noble truths, which leads to nirvana. It is not theoretical speculation which does not lead to dispassion, self-control, and peace.
(ii) Right resolve consists in the determination to uproot attachment to sensual pleasure, ill-will towards others, and desire to do harm to them. Mere right knowledge of right and wrong does not help the aspirant reach his goal. It must be expressed in right resolve to do what is right and desist from doing what is wrong. Right resolve is aspiration towards renunciation, benevolence, and compassion.
(iii) Right speech is an outward expression of right resolve. It consists in abstention from lying, slander, abuse, harsh words and frivolous talk. One should speak what is right, not what is unrighteous. One should speak what is pleasing, not what is unpleasing.
One should speak what is true, not what is false. One should speak well. One should speak what does not pain oneself nor hurt others. Truth should be in harmony with right and good. The just stand firm in what is true, in what is good, and in what is right.
(iv) Right conduct consists in abstention from the destruction of life, theft, sex-indulgence, lying, drinking intoxicating liquor, eating between meals, attending social entertainments, the use of unguents and ornaments, the use of luxurious beds, and the handling of gold and silver, which are binding upon the monks. The first five duties are binding on lay men. They should observe chastity in their married life.
These sins should neither be committed, nor caused to be committed, nor approved. Lay men have specific duties. The duties of parents, children, teachers, pupils, husbands, wives, masters and servants are laid down. Liberality, courtesy, kindness, and unselfishness should be cultivated by all.
(v) Right livelihood consists in earning living by honest means. Trades in arms, animals, flesh, liquor, and poison are forbidden. Earning livelihood by under-weights, fraudulence, bribery, ingratitude, crookedness, mutilation, persecution, confinement, robbery, and plunder is forbidden.
(vi) Right effort consists in constant vigilance, effort, and activity which are necessary for self-control, sense- restraint, arrest of evil thoughts, stimulation of good thoughts, and concentration of the mind on universal goodwill. Restless mind is not conducive to good thoughts, good emotions, and good conduct. Right effort consists in suppressing evil states and stimulating good states.
(vii) Right mindfulness consists in recollection of the impurity of the body, the nature of feeling, pleasure, pain, and neutral feeling, the nature of mind endowed with greed, hatred, and delusion, the nature of dharma’s, five aggregates, sense- organs, sensible objects, means to enlightenment, and four noble truths. Right mindfulness is an indispensable prerequisite of right concentration.
(vii) Right concentration consists of four meditations. It is the crown of the eightfold path. The first Jhana is a state of lion, in which sensuality is destroyed. The second Jhana is a state of joy born of deep tranquillity, without reflection or investigation, which are suppressed; in it thought is trariquikzed, and intuition predominates.
The third Jhana is a state of neutral consciousness in which all passions are destroyed. The fourth Jhana is a state of complete tranquillity and self- possession in which joy and sorrow are destroyed.1 Buddhism stresses right conduct, right concentration and right insight. Right insight purges the mind of lust, becoming, and ignorance.
Buddhism emphasizes purity of the inner life. Mere pure external conduct does not suffice. The mind must be purged of all impurities. Greed, hatred, delusion, anger, envy, and jealousy must be rooted out. All passions that ruffle the calm of the mind must be extirpated. The mind must be sanctified.
The Buddhist morality is altruistic. Though nirvana is the highest good of an individual, it is realized through universal good-will and love. We should pervade the whole world with love, pity, sympathy, and equanimity.
Universal love, compassion for the distressed, joy for the virtuous, and indifference to the vicious are enjoined. Love generates compassion, joy, end indifference, and is consequently higher than these. So the Buddhist ethics is altruistic.
The ethics of non-injury (ahimsa) is the keynote of Buddhism. Hatred should be conquered by love ; harm should be conquered by good. Evil recoils upon one who offends a harmless, pure, and innocent person. Hatred generates hatred. A harsh word excites a harsh word. A blow incites a blow. Patience is the highest virtue.
We should be tolerant with the intolerant, mild with fault-finders, free from passion among the passionate. We should not offend anyone by body, word, or thoughts A man is not just, if he carries a matter by violence ; he is just, if he leads others, not by violence, but by law and equity.’ Non-injury, in thought, word, and deed, love, good-will, patience, endurance, and self-purification constitute the Buddhist morality.
Buddhist morality is the mean between self-indulgence and self-mortification. Gautama underwent severe penances and self-torture which proved fruitless. Self-torture emaciates the body and fills the mind with evil thoughts. If the fires of lust, hatred, and delusion are, not quenched, Self-mortification can lead us nowhere. Craving for pleasure springs from egoism. When egoism is rooted out, craving for worldly and heavenly pleasures is quenched.
On the other hand, self-indulgence is enervating and degrading. But to satisfy hunger and thirst, to keep the body in good health, to protect it from heat and cold, to save it from fatigue, to cover it comfortably and decently are necessary to keep the mind strong and pure.
This is the Middle Path that avoids both extremes. The Dharma spurns both pursuit of pleasures and self-mortification. It aims at purity of heart, purity of conduct, equanimity, peace, and enlightenment.
Essay # 15. Nirvana:
The third noble, truth is the extinction of suffering. It is nirvana which has been described as extinction, as a state of happiness, as an inconceivable state, or as a changeless state. It is the highest good.
(i) Nirvana literally means ‘cooled’ or ‘extinguished’. Passions are compared to ‘fires’. Passionlessness is the ‘cooling’ of the fires. Nirvana is the extinction of greed, hate, anger, and delusion which are called ‘fires’ and of the impurities, sensuality, will-to-be-born, and ignorance.
It is the extinction of becoming or rebirth. It is the complete extinction of passions and consequent suffering. It is not extinction of existence or annihilation. It is deliverance from the .sense of existence of annihilation.
It is deliverance from the sense of individuality. It is not inaction. It is compatible with active intellectual and social life. It is not renunciation of actions, but the purging of all actions of attachment, aversion, and delusion. It is renunciation of all the bases of rebirth,, destruction of craving, will-to-live, and becoming. In it the physical form remains, but the will-to-live is completely destroyed.
Nirvana is a state of enlightenment which removes all ignorance. It is a state of perfect equanimity which removes attachment, aversion, and delusion. It is a state of stainless purity and good-will. It is a state of perfect self-possession and unconditioned freedom. It is a state of perfect peace.
The liberated person has complete insight, complete passionlessness, unruffled calm, perfect self-control, tranquil mind, tranquil words, and tranquil deeds. He is devoid of egoism or the sense of individuality, since his mental grasping, ignorance, and craving, which produce a new individual of five aggregates, are completely destroyed. There is extinction of individual existence.
(ii) In the Pali texts nirvana has sometimes been described as a state of bliss. The liberated person is free from evil desire; he has a steadfast mind ; he has perfect knowledge of the noble truths; he has obtained the fruit of the fourth path, and is immersed in ambrosia, and enjoys nirvana. The Dhammapada describes nirvana as a state of bliss, crown of happiness, perfect peace, free from greed, hate, and delusion.
The Arhats, meditative, persevering,’ ever energetic, attain to nirvana, the highest bliss. Nirvana is happiness or holiness which is distinct from pleasure. Pleasure is an empirical feeling which is transitory and therefore painful. Nirvana is the blissful end.
(iii) Nirvana is deep, immeasurable, unfathomable as the ocean. It is inconceivable. It is an existence that is beyond reason and conception. It is a non-empirical, ineffable state.
(iv) The Buddha says, “There is something that is not born, not produced, not created, not compounded. Were there not something not born, there would be no possible exit for what is born” Nirvana is neither annihilation nor eternal existence. It is an ineffable state of perfect wisdom, perfect peace, and perfect self-command.
Two kinds of nirvana are described:
(1) Sa-upadi-sesa- nirvana and
The former means nirvana with residual vital conditions or with the remainder of mental grasping, the cause of rebirth. The latter means nirvana without residual vital conditions or without remainder of mental grasping. Parinirvana literally means ‘completely gone out.’ One who is perfectly disciplined and calmed is said to be pariribbuta or perfected.
Essay # 16. Religion of Buddhism:
Buddhism is a religion without God. It believes in transmigration and future life, though it does not believe in the permanent self. It emphasizes the Law of Karma or moral causation. It aims at the extinction of suffering by extinguishing craving or will-to-live. It aims at the purity of the heart, and the purity of external conduct.
It rejects rites, ceremonies, sacrifices, and penances. It stresses the ethics of ahimta, non-injury in thought, word, and deed. It enjoins extinction of egoism and ignorance. It aims at nirvana on earth. Nirvana is insight, peace, and selfless will. Buddhism is a religion of self-help. Libertion does not depend on the grace of God. It has to be wrought by one’s own moral efforts.
Buddhism admits the reality of Brahma, Indra, and other gods. But it regards them as subject to ignorance and passions birth and death. The Buddha is greater than gods. Buddhism believes in heaven and hell. Righteous actions lead to heaven.
Vicious actions lead to hell . But nirvana can be attained by complete extinction of desires for earthly or heavenly happiness. It is above heaven. The Buddha emphasizes the Law (Dhamma). He turns the wheel of the Law (Dhammacakka) which is irresistible. He lays the foundation of the kingdom of righteousness.
Buddhism is catholic. It is open to all nations, races, castes, and creeds. The Buddha says, “Know, Vasettha, that (from time to time) a Tathagata is born in the world, a fully Enlightened One, blessed and worthy, abounding in wisdom and goodness, happy, with knowledge of the world, unsurpassed as a guide to erring mortals, a teacher of gods and men, a Blessed Buddha.
The truth does he proclaim both in its letter and spirit, lovely in its origin, lovely in its progress, lovely in its consummation : the higher life doth he make known, in all its purity and in all its perfectness.” “Subdue thy doubt about me, have faith in me, O Brahmana, difficult to obtain is the sight of the Buddha repeatedly.”
Faith and reason both lead to salvation. Rational conviction, self-control and moral purity are essential to it. The Buddha does not grant liberation to men, but he teaches them the way to achieve liberation. Buddhism is a rational religion.
There is no secret in it. The Buddha does not make any distinction between esoteric and exoteric doctrines. He denounces all secret doctrines. Secrecy belongs to false doctrines and occult priestcraft.
The religion of the Buddha shines by its light. Buddhism is a religion of individual freedom and endeavour. The Buddha says, “O Ananda, be ye lamps unto yourselves. Be ye refuges to yourselves. Hold fast to the Dhamma as a lamp. Hold fast as a refuge to the Dhamma. Look not for refuge to any one beside yourselves.”
Buddhism is a missionary religion. The-gift of the Dhamma is the greatest of all gifts. “Go ye, O Bhiksus, for the benefit of the many, for the welfare of mankind, out of compassion for the world. Preach the doctrine which is glorious in the beginning, glorious in the middle, and glorious in the end, in the spirit as well as in the letter. Proclaim to them a life of holiness. They will understand the doctrine and accept it.”
These words of the Master inspired his followers to spread the religion far and wide. In course of time a schism took place between the Hinayana and the Mahayana which differ in many respects. First, the Hinayana is conservative, whereas the Mahayana is catholic and progressive.
Secondly, the former regards the Buddha as a historical person, while the latter regards the Buddha as the transcendental, eternal, Absolute, who saves all beings through his triple body. Dharma kaya, Law-body, or the Absolute, is immanent in all beings; Sambhogakaya or Bliss-body, is God; Nirmanakaya or Transformation-body is a Divine Incarnation, the historical Buddha.
Thirdly, the former believes in one Buddha, while the latter believes in an infinite number or Bodhisattvas who take a vow to attain perfection and liberate all sentient creatures.
Fourthly, the former aims at the attainment of Arhathood or individual liberation, while the latter aims at the attainment of Bodhisattva hood to liberate all The former aims at individual liberation, while the latter aims at universal liberation. Fifthly, the former believes that one person attained Buddhahood, while the latter believes that all may attain it because they have the Buddha-nature as their essence.
Sixthly, the former opposes nirvana to samsara, while the latter believes that nirvana is achieved through samsara. The former emphasizes the monk’s life of renunciation while latter emphasizes the life of a house-holder. Seventhly, the former regards nirvana as cessation of transmigration, while the latter regards it as transcendental experience of Sunyata Eighthly, the former is realistic, whereas the latter is idealistic.
The former believes in the reality of the external world and individual minds or streams of consciousness, while the latter believes in One mind Alyavijnana, which constructs the individual minds and the imaginary world.
Lastly, the former believes in the impermanence of all phenomena, physical and mental, while the latter believes in the Sunyata or Emptiness, which is the noumenon behind the impermanent phenomena. Phenomena are the manifestations of the noumenon.
Hinayana Buddhism is called Southern Buddhism, because it flourished in Ceylon and Burma. Mahayana Buddhism is called Northern Buddhism, because it prevailed in Tibet, China and Japan. The Hinayana and the Mahayana resemble each other in the following respects.
First, enlightenment is the goal which is achieved by the removal of ignorance. Secondly, the world is without beginning or end, and all phenomena are subject to the law of causation. Thirdly, all is impermanent becoming devoid of being. Fourthly, there is no permanent self, but only an impermanent stream of consciousness.
Fifthly, the Law of Karma governs moral phenomena. Sixthly, transmigration is due to karma; actions in empirical life produce karma. Seventhly, ignorance is the root cause of suffering and transmigration. Lastly, the Eightfold Noble Path destroys ignorance.
The Hinayana is called Theravada or Sthaviravada, or the doctrine of the Elders. It is the small vehicle which can carry a few to salvation. The Mahayana is the great vehicle which is large enough to carry all to salvation. Universal, salvation is the kernel of the Mahayana religion, idealistic monism is its philosophical foundation.