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. . . . . . . . . . . "A Slightly Biased and Simplistic
. . . . . . . . . . Introduction to Early Buddhism"
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . by Mogel
. . w w w . a n a d a . n e t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Hi there. This text file is pretty long and if you don't care about
anything religious or academic, you'll be bored to tears. This is basically
a compilation of emails that I sent to a friend of mine about two years ago
(which explains the sporadic use of capital letters or not), which is a very
rough summary of the first 900 or so years of Buddhism, up to the early
stages when it reached China. It contains a somewhat objective overview
(something fairly hard to pull of, believe it or not) of things, with a bit
of my own personal insight thrown in.
You can question me about any specific point I bring up by mailing
me at mogel@hoe.nu. Also, remember that many ideas in here are somewhat
over-simplified because it was directed towards someone who knew very little
about early Buddhism, or Buddhism at all for that matter.
So, basically this is a dorky philosophy file. Be warned.
. . . . .
before i get into philosophy, i'm going to treat this like a
mini-course. why? i suppose it can server several functions... firstly,
it will serve as a way for me to clarify my own thoughts on the subject,
trying to explain it to someone unfamiliar. i know you know some random
_stuff_ about buddhism, but i'm going to introduce it as if you didn't,
since it's my perspective -- and because there's many misconceptions.
hopefully through this you can learn a lot about it. We're going to start
with Hinduism.
buddhism of course takes its roots in hindu, from india. the
ancient hindu texts pre-date anywhere from 1500 B.C. or earlier -- they
were the old teachings, called "vedas". a lot of this vedic scripture
was based on the culture, and there's many hindu stereotypes. i'm
obviously not very concerned with hindu, although it's important to
bring up since not only does buddhism take its roots there, but it is
still a present religion in the world and has some interest
philosophical ideas of its own.
hindu was a _practice_ before it was a religion and well before
there was philosophy behind it. that is to say, there was a 'worship'
of some form of declared Gods before there was much logical or
intellectualization behind it. there are several key figures in hindu's
"evolution" just as you'll find in any religion (for example, Martin
Luther started the Protestant Reformation in England -- and who I
recently discovered was extremely anti-semetic). I'm not concerned so
much with the evolution, though, as much as I am about some general
ideas. Although there are different interpretations and followers and
sects of hindu, there are still 3 basic concepts that could define "what
makes a hindu".
(1) the "atman" -- this is the concept of the eternal self, or
soul. it was said, similar to christianity, that we have an "entity" that
transcends our physical body, a spiritual-type of body. this goes along
with another term, the "brahman", which translates as "the root of all
things". it's sort of equatable to a "god", i suppose... it points to the
entirety of the universe, cosmos, and nature more specifically, though.
eventually hindu theories point toward "atman" and "brahman" being almost
the same thing, but that's something to talk about another time.
(2) karma & rebirth -- you might know about this already, but i'll
re-introduce you to the topic, as seen by its origins. karma to a hindu,
essentially, is a conceptional idea for "energy" of any sort. physical,
emotional, subtle, direct -- whatever. simply put, karma is defined as
the result of actions that one makes in either their life or their past
life. past lives refers to "rebirth". this is a cycled that hindu's
theorize is the nature of our lives. they believed that our eternal
soul, the atman, was constantly trapped in a cycle and constantly being
reborn as different people -- stuck with the karma, both positive and
negative, that we've had in past lives.
(3) bondage & freedom -- this goes along with the idea of rebirth.
that is to say, if the hindu teachers are correct, and we are trapped in
this cycle (called "samsara"), it's a form of "curse" or "bondage" ("i'm
cursed to live and suffer in this world again and again!"). being forced
to relive life over & over again until we get it right, in a sense. they
theorized that if one practices the faith correctly, after many rebirths
you will end up being a monk, and you will have an opportunity to escape
the samsara cycle and enter what they call "moksha" -- which is where you
enter a "heaven" sort of world.
unfortunately, it seems to me that hindu is very "fire and
brimstone"-like, much like christianity, in a lot of ways. that is to say
that there's a "mysterious logic" that goes into the universe and you have
to devote yourself to GOD to be "saved". The notion of "sin" isn't
involved in this teaching, though. One is good because it is morally
declared in the teachings. As we'll see if I ever get around to talking
about Duty Ethics and the Bhagavad Gita, that there is a sort of "law"
decreed by God, even if it's a more intellectualized one.
These 3 concepts I've made pretty abstract. If you read some of
these teachings, they're loaded with much more than philosophical ideas,
they've got tons of Gods and stories and ritualistic practices which make
up quite the emphasis.
Another important aspect of Hindu teaching is the caste system.
This is a sort of "social arrangement" endorsed by the society and the
religion, in which different classes of people were basically stuck as
such. i.e. when you were born within one class/caste, you ain't gettin'
out. no american dream here! it was your supposed "karma." in another
words, the people in power manipulated the philosophy to keep people in
check & under their control. yucky.
to some degree, the caste system still exists in india today,
although it's less strict.
. . . . .
So last time I gave you a healthy dose of Hindu background. This
predates Buddhism. Around 550 B.C., three (coincidental?) huge
philosophical movements almost happen at the same time. 6th century B.C.
was a huge decade in human history for some reason.
firstly, out pops ancient Greece, more specifically the city of
Athens, which spawns three huge figures that change "western" civilization
majorly: Socrates -> Plato -> Aristotle. Although this really concerns
Western Society, to say that any one religion is created in a vacuum is a
very ignorant view. It is a fact that everything that exists is
influenced by something else in whatever form. As time goes on, it's
possible that Buddhism will play a role in this "western" thought and vice
versa. That's an important, complex thing to talk about later.
Another thing that happened was the evolution of Confucius in
ancient China, which will play a role as Buddhism moves to China later on.
The third huge event that began at this time was the formation of
Buddhism.
Sidhartha (who had about 3-4 other names, like Buddha, Gautum,
Guatama, Shakamuni -- different sects will refer to him differently) was
the son of a relatively rich family in a tribe in India. he broke away
from that lifestyle around age 18, in search of some sort of spiritual
truth. Many people of his time were some form of hindu... as he travelled
around the country for years, he ran into many different people, and
various arguments were beginning to manifest that attacked the hindu
philosophy which I outlined in my last mail.
after a great number of years, when he became 32, it is said that
one day he sat under a tree and meditated for a long time. At some point,
he had his first realization, and he was "enlightened". This term in
Buddhism refers to someone who has gained great wisdom. He was able to
come up with a much more coherent and clear philosophical system than any
of the other anti-hinduism men of his time.
he spends the next 40 or so years developing these ideas and
travelling with many disciples, trying to spread Buddhism to as many
people as he could, all the while making things more clear.
. . . . .
"Buddha" comes from an ancient language of writing called
"sanskrit". Reference is made to this, of course, because it's a language
that doesn't exist anymore, but many buddhist texts are originally
written in. Buddha, which originally comes from the word "Budji" (meaning
"Perfected mind"), was a term to come after Sidhartha died, however, in
a sense. Anyway, I'll be referring to Sidhartha as "Buddha" every now and
then, but it's important to note that the word is also qualitative, as
something can be "Buddhist" -- and it was furthermore made clear that the
"Buddha nature" existed within everyone.
But first, let me ask you this: Why do you think people are
unhappy? I know that might sound like a silly question, but I'd like
you to stop for a minute and consider it before you read on. Why are
people unhappy?
--- waiting for you to think about it... ---
I think it would be safe to say that this is a question that still
jabs at something fundamental in being human, even in today's lil' jaded
society. At any rate, in a historical perspective, the time that Buddha
lived was extremely brutal and unfair, as far as people treated each
other.
Sidhartha's mother died when he was at a young age, and it
affected him greatly. In addition, he looked out behind the walls of
his family's polished life, and he saw the people of his community were
suffering terribly from poverty and violence. He felt such extreme
sadness about this, it forced him to leave home and begin a "journey" to
understand the world -- to understand *why* this sort of thing might
happen. He didn't believe that the Hindu faith had the answers to these
questions, from his experiences growing up as a follower. As I said in
my last mail, he travelled around India and learned for many years.. and
eventually stumbled upon an attempt to answer these questions: What is the
nature of reality, and why are people unhappy?
Here's how it went down: Sidhartha made several realizations
about life... and he developed these ideas in various ways. The first
thing he created and taught to people was the Four Noble Truths. "Noble"
in modern times carries a connotation of "rich", but this wasn't the
intention of Buddha, he meant noble in the sense of "humble, useful,
wise". Here they are:
(1) To exist is to suffer.
(2) Suffering is caused by desire.
(3) To get rid of one's desire is to rid themselves of suffering.
(4) There is a path to rid one's self of desire.
Oh, before I explain these ideas, I think it'd be a good time to
point out that I don't necessarily believe some of this stuff, just
because I'm Buddhist. I do, in fact, agree with many premises that the
4 Nobel truths establish, but there are specifics that are more fuzzy.
It'd be wise to not assume everything I discuss here is what I personally
believe. I can get to my specific sect in the future.
This is simply an attempt at a historical account.
Those "4 noble truths" up there must make you feel funny, or
react, in some way, I assume. Let's take a minute to examine these.
"To exist is to suffer? Isn't that a bit PESSIMISTIC?" Well, yes
and no. A good lesson that I'll go into depth later is this: there are
limits in language. By saying "to exist is to suffer" implies a negative
outlook. However, this isn't the intention at all, really. Look at it
this way: Instead of viewing things as GOOD and EVIL, which is a typical
Christian-simplification, how about we view things as shades of gray.
Sidhartha saw it like this: If a person is having a "pleasureful"
experience, in a sense, this is also a form of suffering. How could he
possibly say that?! Well, it becomes more clear as soon as you balance in
two important factors:
(A) it is human nature to examine what we have and envision
something greater than what we have -- some would call it greed, or desire
-- but more specifically, it's the realization that we can do more. once
we've realized that, what we have will often not be *exactly what we
want*. because having *exactly what we want* is never quite good enough.
that's not to say this can't be avoided, but you'll probably agree that's
how people are.
(B) a natural thing: Time. I know you hate time, and I'll give
you another good reason why you should, just in case you didn't have this
one already: time makes things physically impermanent. from one second
to the next, nothing is exactly the same. "Nothing good lasts" is an old
expression, right? The basic gist here is that when you depend on a
specific "pleasure" as the source of your happiness, it's a bad idea,
because it's usually temporary, in some form. That does sound negative,
doesn't it? :)
Anyway, in a sense, it was viewed like this: Pain and Pleasure
were actually the same thing(!) -- markings of human experience... they
are just *different markings* for the same experience: being human.
Thankfully, This CAN be OPTIMISTICALLY turned around, and you could say
that pain was a lesser degree of pleasure, just the same. That's good.
Another important point: "Suffering is caused by desire". Well,
in a sense. Suffering is a human condition, be it physical, or more
importantly, emotional. If we were robots, and had experienced
terrible-ness our *entire lives* and never had a moment of good, we
probably would have concluded that that was "normal" and wouldn't think it
was so terrible. But everyone moves towards what they consider "good" or,
more accurately, "pleasure". Why? Because we desire that which helps us.
Some say that the *only* natural value that all human beings truly have
from birth is the instinct for self-preservation. Regardless, as we
come in contact with the world around us, we place personal judgements
on things that seem "pleasureful" or "not-so-pleasureful" to us, and it
is our tendency to pursue those things. Do keep in mind, "pleasure" can
be intellectual, spiritual, emotional, physical, and so on.
Anyway, it is our "desire for something", in logical terms, that
causes unhappiness. this could be from many different levels, of course.
I'm not just referring to Johnnyboy not getting his G.I. Joe figure.
that's a form of "suffering", of course, and his desire for that is
actually what makes him unhappy... *but* anything that is desired can be
looked at in a similar way: when someone we love dies, we often miss the
times we had with them, or what they did -- that, too, is a form of
desire -- and this can sometimes be very deeply painful, as was in the
case of Sidhartha.
The 3rd & 4th N.T. deal with the path towards enlightenment.
Sidhartha formulates something called "the 8-fold path" in which he names
8 practices which would lead towards a more wise person. These specific 8
things aren't really important towards *my* practice, so I'm probably
only going to touch on them here. But basically, they're all suggestions
of how to practice "life" based on logical conclusions. This is
spiritually, ethically, and so on.
He also talks about The Middle Path, which I will get into later.
. . . . .
Alright, those were the first concepts that that Buddha taught
They generally have one fundamental idea, that later Buddhism's well
particularly pick up on:
Impermanence.
Essentially, this is a crucial philosophical theme that will be
found in most later Buddhisms in some form. They will decide that this is
a central focus of what Sidhartha taught. "nothing is eternal" sounds like
a really easy concept at first to grasp, but it's really not.
Anyway, Buddha's *major* break with Hindu was that he refused to
accept the "atman" (the idea of an enteral "soul" or "self") that I talked
about in my last mail. He believed that nothing was exactly the same from
moment to moment. That's really all there is to it. But: such a concept
implies and brings about many new things, and also many philosophical
questions.
Firstly, Buddhism took hold of the Hindu idea of Karma, but
redirected it towards this idea of impermanence. EERRR, Okay, I'm getting
ahead of myself here and I realize this might be very hard to follow.
I'd hate to be a jackass and lose you in my own babble. Here, wait, I'll
start over.
--- AHEM: STARTING OVER!!! ---
Sidhartha/Buddha's most famous piece of writing (ACTUALLY, it
wasn't exactly WRITING, it was a compilation of oral teachings that later
were written) was called "The Lotus Sutra". Sutra means "Writing" and
"Lotus" is a particular type of very beautiful flower that only blooms in
SWAMPS. The symbolism will become more clear in a bit.
This writing basically placed emphasis on one simple fundamental
idea: cause and effect. That is to say, to everything there is a cause,
and every cause leads to an effect. simple dimple, eh?!@? To really
understand the implications of this idea is understand the Buddhist
perception of reality, basically. Cause and effect work on many levels,
and it seems almost funny at times because it seems so simple... *but*
don't take for granted how hard it is, sometimes, in the world to make
philosophical premises about the world that can really make sense. It's
tough.
Cause and effect works physically, spiritually, and otherwise.
You'll find many key Buddhist concepts walk hand-in-hand are very related.
Cause and effect is very connected with Karma. The Buddhist spin on karma
is this: when you do something, ANYTHING (and doing Nothing is still
Something, if you catch my drift), you are having an effect on the world
in some form. It sounds nuts, but it's not really. There are incredible
and subtle ways that we are constantly affecting our environment that we
may or may not be aware of.
Ever hear of something called the Butterfly Effect? Basically,
it's a silly theory that says that for all we know, Wind is created
because of the butterfly flapping its wings. Obviously one butterfly
flapping its wings means relatively very little, but combined, they can
theoretically make a massive force (globally). Of course, wind is causes
by jillions of reasons, but that's not really important since it's just a
silly metaphor.
[Here I tell a long, silly, very pointless story with a series of
absurd actions affecting one another.]
Boy, I sure made that story pointless. Anyway, my point is THAT'S
LIFE. Life is a string of cause and effects. All the time. One thing
leading to another to another to another. Very much like ocean waves.
This is a buddhist view: these things that happen are various types of
"energies" (for lack of a better word) that can be physical, emotional,
psychological -- whatever. It's very simple: whenever you do something,
it has some affect on another person.
It also more properly explains karma and reincarnation
(samsara/rebirth). What happens when you make a cause to affect your
environment? Simple: you've made an effect! Duh! That effect, however,
can range to the subtle to the dramatic, depending on what you've done.
Sometimes these effects manifest themselves immediately, sometimes they
appear much later in time. The results of the choices you make carry with
you, to some degree, for the rest of your life. This can be considered
bad, but it doesn't *have* to be (but that's another topic entirely :).
ANYWAY, with such a rationale, one might ask: "How about people who are
born in terrible situations in their lives (for example, the extremely
poor) -- they would have had no chance to make 'bad' causes and have no
reason to be born into such suffering." Here's where you have to make
the assertion that the person who was born into a "suffering life" might
have been already carrying some sort of "baggage" from the past. What
past?
This is logic that leads to reincarnation. This "baggage" I refer
to can be viewed as a sort of storehouse of past causes. This is what
the Buddhist would call Karma, and this is what travels with a person.
Reincarnation is tough for a very cynical person to grasp right
away, but it follows on many levels and many interpretations: but most
importantly, it corresponds very well with karma. It takes some time to
understand, so we should talk about it in greater detail sometime.
So, that's an introduction to "cause and effect", an important
Buddhist idea.
. . . . .
I'll first concentrate on answering any questions or comments you
had about some of my past mails before I zoom into talking about
Buddhist variants. La la la.
> > they theorized that if one practices the faith correctly, after many
> > rebirths you will end up being a monk, and you will have an opportunity
> > to escape the samsara cycle and enter what they call "moksha" -- which
> > is where you enter a "heaven" sort of world.
>
> Ok, so explain karma a little bit more then. I mean, you hear the
> saying 'you have bad karma' or whatever. Is it our goal to have good karma
> to escape the samsara cycle? Or is it just more than karma effecting us in
> the cycle?
Yes.
Oh, you want more? Okay.
Well, "karma" is viewed differently by different people, just like
how to get "good karma" is, so I'll speak in the always-scary General
Terms (*play scary music!!*).
Karma, as I said before, refers to an "energy" (conceptually) that
is given off by the actions you take. *Everything* we do in life is an
action that affects our environment in some form. Even doing "NOTHING"
(like sitting around and staring at the ceiling) is an action. With this
in mind, it becomes important (or, heck, at least USEFUL) to become
*aware* of the qualities and levels that we affect the world around us, ya
know? That's what Buddhism is about, in a nutshell.
At any rate, yeah, you got it. By trying to understand the nature
of our environment (this is basically the "practice" of buddhism, which is
even more debated than the theory, i.e. what one actually does in their
daily routine which is "buddhist".), we're seeing how to make our lives
better, make more intelligence choices, help people, or whatever -- "good"
(which is a relative term) things. By doing what's "good" in your heart,
you're contributing to your environment in a positive way. The goal, in
some sense, is to get enough "good karma" so that you're no longer bound
to the cycle of Samsara, and to be _spiritually_ free. In actuality, it
could be said that the REAL goal of Buddhism, however, is to be happy.
In HINDU terms, by escaping the samsara cycle of karma, this means
you enter a heaven-like plane when you die -- you've "become one with
Brahman", and la de da happy happy whatever. That's their "moksha". In
Buddhism, which is a bit less... mythological(?)... by becoming
spiritually free, you are "enlightened" (gotten great wisdom). What
happens next depends on who you ask, though. teehee.
That's it.
Oh wait, you asked if it was more than just karma affecting this
cycle. The answer to that is yes and no. I'll explain.
There's a simple equation that Buddha draws up, which is called
the "The Chain of causation and dependent origination". That's a
mouthful. Basically, it's the steps that go on in a human being which has
them feel the illusion of a "true self". As I said before, Buddha was
very much against the idea of the Hindu's "ETERNAL SOUL". He believed
that the human being, as everything, is constantly changing and there is
no part of us that really remains intact. He believed that the human mind
has a tendency because of the way we are "put together" to become
ego-centric, and believe the illusion that we are really a static,
existing thing onto ourselves. But this, he would say, was sheer
ignorance of the truth.
Basically, his chain goes like this:
- Our ignorance of a "self" causes us to act.
- Action causes consciousness.
- Consciousness causes us to label things with a name and form.
- The existence of these "things" make us use our senses to
describe them, using our six sense organs. (yeah, SIX...
most asian cultures believe the brain is our sixth sense,
and that our "thinking" process is similar to eyes/ears/nose
because it responds to stimuli in a relatively similar way.
- to use our senses, we much analyse what we have labelled --
making "contact".
- this contact gives us a sensation. a reaction to what we've
analysed.
- this sensation/reaction will cause us to desire. if we've
reacted positively to what we've contacted, it will want us to
look for more of it. if we reacted negatively, we will then
wish to look for (desire) something else, rather than continue
the negative thing we've experienced.
- the act of creating a desire is to "attach" yourself to
something. that is, it has become part of "what you want".
- having a concept of "what you want" leads us to start the idea
of an ego... it creates the definition of "what you are".
essentially, attachment causes us to believe we "exist" as a
single thing..
- when we believe we exist, we have a concept of a self. when we
have a concept of a self, that self needs to be born. birth.
- for every birth, there is a death.
As you can see with this whole thing, Buddha was very, analytical.
I may layin my summary of his ideas here in this email, but most of what
he says is well formulated logic.
Incidentally, if you didn't completely understand what the hell I
was talking about up there, it works like this: "causation" is the key.
Every link ("-") in the chain causes the next link down. The ignorance we
are born with (part of our Karma that continues the Samsara cycle) leads
us through a chain of events which eventually lead us to another death.
From the point of death, we are still ignorant -- so we continue the
cycle, and it spins and spins forever. Yowza! The only way out,
according to Sidhartha, was to eliminate our ignorance of the notion of
a true self.
*How* to actually eliminate this ignorance is a toughy, though.
BUT! In a nutshell, it *is* just our karma that keeps us in the
samsara cycle. But if we want to be more accurate, it's our ignorance,
because that's what leads us to rebirth and keeps that "karma package"
that we're born with. In a manner of speaking, it could be said that we
indirectly CHOOSE the life we're born into based on whatever our past
lives have done. of course, the "types" of reincarnation are also debated
in buddhism. I'll mop these debate at some point, though, so don't worry.
> So you can't change your karma through out one of your lives,
> ever? Explain!
YOW! You asked a very key question! One that I don't think that
I would've caught myself on a first read. The answer here is: depends on
who you ask (DON'T YOU HATE THOSE!?@). However, this question is
something extremely important in a _historical_ perspective, because it's
the type of question that lead to many splits and variants of Buddhism,
most notably the MAJOR split that I'll get to in a bit. So, I'll be
answering this soon. This question, also, is a crucial one in the terms
of my specific sect of Buddhism.
> [ Some awkward question about Buddha's life. ]
Well, teehee. The life of Buddha is 2500 years ago, so its
shrouded in lots of ambiguities and uncertainties. It's even theorized
(something that my dad believes) that "Buddha" was actually several people
of a period of time that compiled their philosophy (similar to Homer who
told the stories of the ancient Greeks) and history dictated, in a
whisper-down-the-lane style that "Buddha" was one man, and "legends"
spring from that. You know how sensational people are, so it's possible.
Ultimately, it's not all that important either way, because the teachings
and ideas themselves are what is most important. I tend to subscribe to
the idea that Buddha was one person, if only because it makes telling the
history so much more tidy. :)
* * *
It's a bit later on in the night... I want to successfully explain
other variants of Buddhism, but I've got a small paper to write, so I'll try
to get through as much as I can. If something is unclear (which it probably
will be) then ask away.
So Buddha was a great teacher for his time period. He travelled
around, taught the Lotus Sutra, and influenced society around him. As all
human beings do, he dies at an appropriate old age. On his deathbed, one
of his scared disciples asks him, "You gave so much to us. What will we
do when you are gone?" -- his answer?
"Be a lamp unto yourself." And with that he croaks!
What's it mean? I think it very much captures the spirit of
Buddha's efforts. He wants people to "light" themselves and be happy.
I'm sure you're at least somewhat aware of the constantly used analogy of
"light" meaning "wisdom". "enLIGHTenment" means to gain great wisdom.
Essentially he was saying that you should not rely on a leader or any
other person to guide you. "Be a lamp unto yourself" means to give
yourself the light, using Buddhism.
The next phase of Buddhism is very sketchy. Both historically and
in my own knowledge. I'm basically going to make simplifications rather
than lament in my ignorance. I've been readings lots more lately, so
maybe I'll become more knowledgeable [I have since].
Buddhism was regarded as a "rebellious" religion, in a similar way
to how "christianity" was regarded. However, Buddhism was much more so,
really. Many Hindu societies rejected the philosophy, but not all. The
most common reason for rejection (common to most societies that reject
a philosophical teaching, perhaps) is simply because it was a "foreign
philosophy" (we all know that anything DIFFERENT!! is often scary and
people will not take in easily, right?) -- but another big reason was
the DIY (do-it-yourself!) ethics. I'll touch on this briefly.
Buddhism's 8-fold path names and suggests various ways to
logically live your life so that you can become closer to eliminating your
ignorance and to be happy. 3 of those paths are related to ethics. I
won't bother going into specifics, because that's not important: what is
important, is the premise of DIY ethics. It's exciting, really. Imagine
this: a religion that doesn't PREACH! OHMIGOD!!!!!! can you believe it?
There's no set of rules to follow as to what will take you out of samsara,
what is a "moral" act, etc. It's all up to the individual to figure
out!!@ w0w#@!# The only requirement is that you are honest with yourself
and you use logic. Say, for example, vegetarianism. There is no rule in
buddhism regarding this, because, hey, that's not what the religion cares
about. Same with most anything moral. Even murder, really.
But again, you're supposed to use the logic of cause and effect.
Murder is, 99.9% of the time, a really fucking shitty thing to do, and if
you think things out, you're bound to realize that it's not something
that's going to give you good karma or be a "positive" (unless, of course,
you kill someone completely nuts like HITLER!). Buddhism, however, is
very classically very anti-violence of any sort. This is because of the
logical conclusions that violence brings (do keep in mind this doesn't
refer to a true act of "self-defense").
What do you think of that? It's very different from Christianity
("Thou Shalt not...") and very, VERY different from uber-anal Catholicism
(in FACT, the 8-fold path's suggestions take the form of "I shalt not..."
because it is a statement of self-decision.
Anyway, as you can imagine, this kind of thing certainly isn't
going to go over well with a rigid, dictatorial society such as taught in
the Hindu caste system (which Buddha firmly rejected).
As a result, lots of Buddhist people and ideas moved elsewhere.
The biggest movement was to China, where Buddhism was held for a long
time.
In China, there were two developing traditions of thought: Daoism
and Confuciusism. They both existed before Buddhism came to China.
You've probably heard these names before, and they're not essential to
understanding Buddhism as a whole, but they're interesting.
I'll be discussing those at some point, whenever I get to talking about
China.
. . . . .
> So the only way to know if you're out of samsara is if you're not
> born again? You'll never now in your present life if you're getting
> close to getting the heck outta here?
According to Hindu, yes. Buddhism does not believe that life ends
at enlightenment -- you do not "leave the cycle" in that sense. The
cycle you leave, instead, is the cycle of suffering. In my *next* e-mail
I'm going to talk about the "Emptiness school" and its take on this idea
and how it helped Buddhist-thought on this point.
At any rate, you supposedly "know you're getting the heck out" by
instinct, or something. Or, rather, when you reach the supposed
enlightenment, you know where you stand. It's a very vague point that
I'll be sure to bring up later, anyway. I find a Heaven-like view of
this enlightenment (which is called NIRVANA) to be pretty narrow-minded
and silly.
Before I continue along my introduction to Buddhism, I want to
summarize and cover a few things that I think are unclear. I re-read my
mails to you and noticed a few things that seem vague (in addition to tons
of typos... sorry!). Here goes.
First off, the different views on "a final goal". As you might
have guessed, most religions have a point to which the individual is
heading towards... if you're Christian or Jewish, you're looking to follow
God's Rules so you can get into the la-la-land of heaven. Hindu isn't all
that different, really, in this respect.
Anyway, Buddhism and Hindu both believe in the samsara cycle in
some form. The escape for Hindu's, however, is much more simple and
classically religious -- they believe that making good karma, you can
eventually become born, over and over, through many lifetimes, into a
"greater" being... THEN you can become a wiseman/monk and then you have
your chance at attaining "Moksha", the state in which you've finally
escaped samsara. You are in Moksha when you die, however. It's much like
the Western version of heaven, I suppose.
"Do good and be rewarded when you die." Uhm, yes.
Buddhism isn't fire and brimstone-ish. They believe that it is
possible to attain spiritual freedom while you are alive. And, the
ultimate goal isn't to escape from SAMSARA, but to escape from the cause
of samsara: suffering. The focus is there.
I hope that clarifies another one of the major differences.
(Just as a reminder, other differences are: rejection of the
caste system, and more importantly, rejection of the "atman" or "self",
based on the notion that nothing is permanent.)
I realize that this idea of "no self" is pretty hard to get at
first. I mean, fuck, language and most of society is built around these
things. When we say the very word "I" -- guess what? We've identified
something. When we give things names, that's another label.
Why was Buddha against this? Depending on which group of Buddhism
you ask, you'll get a different answer.
A more oldschool Buddhist will respond this way: By giving things
"names", we are giving them an "essence", which, incidentally, will imply
that these things are independently existing. Or, more correctly stated:
it gives the idea that this "thing" is really a "thing" by itself, and it
isn't dependant on the environment, and it isn't constantly in a state of
change. The thing isn't ever really a thing, they would say, because it
is never exactly the same from moment to moment. Do you see what I mean?
Basically, Buddha's argument was that our world and society was
built around this notion of permanent things, but these permanent things
were *always* changing, so society was only using these words as
convention.
An important Buddhist simile on this point is that "human beings
are to life as fish are to water". The point is this: the "self" and
the "environment" are so dependent they are essentially interconnected and
part of the same thing.
Now, a later Buddhist would say this: Buddha was not really
*against* the fact that we give things names. What Buddha was against was
the *ignorance* that these things were impermanent. If you're *aware* of
this fact, it's more important.
This also answers the old riddle: "Does the wiseman speak?"
Because, in old, old Buddhist forms, they'd answer this question with
"no". Well, they wouldn't really answer, because they wouldn't talk!@@!@#
That's a little joke. Anyway, it's like this: once you start talking,
and start using language. Once you start using language, you begin
objectifying things. There's no way to escape objectifying things -- I
mean, take a look here, when we analyse a sentence, we see words:
The little fox jumps up.
| | | | |
Article | Subject | Adverb
| |
Adjective Verb
[SUBJECT] [PREDICATE]
Although the arrangement of these parts varies from language to
language, there is one general common pattern about language: there's
always a central THING to which properties are attributed. That's how we
construct almost any sentence. The point here is that it's very hard to
avoid speaking in objectifications... and some people complain that
some Buddhist texts read like "riddles" because they try to use language
that avoids some of the more obvious "objectification traps".
A later Buddhist, again, would point out that basic daily life
*depends* on this kind of communication... this illusion. Without names
and forms, we'd have no conventional way of interacting. This is true.
If you want to be "human", you're going to end up using this. It's our
nature. Follow this logic: by having an "I", a self, we build up the
notion of an ego. And with an "ego" comes the will to live. Without self
identity, who cares if you live or die? See what I mean?
I realize I'm beating this topic to death, but I really think it's
important. If you think you get it, cool, I'll throw out some examples.
First off, remember that the focus is on conventional speech.
To say that you are "Fred" implies that you are a permanent
person, right? "But I am!!" you say, right? Here's where it gets tricky:
as a matter of convention, we have named the qualities that we have seen
in your existence to be "Fred" (how you look, how you act). However, the
instant we get specific (or, as later Western philosophers would call it,
"deconstructing") about qualities about you, it's lost.
Do you keep the same body? clearly not. From birth to death, the
cells that make up the body die and are reformed dozens (if not millions)
of times. Not to mention as we get older, our form changes. You are
certainly not the same physical body you were when you were 2 years old.
Do you keep the same thoughts? of course not. All people are
constantly developing their brains. Obviously some are slower than
others, and there any many "different types" of learning, but it's
impossible to not change. From decade to decade, or year to year, or day
to day (and for some people minute to minute, heehee!) -- we are not the
same person we were. Our thoughts, opinions, ideas, concepts -- they
change. I'm sure you believe a whole realm of things you couldn't even
conceive of when you were 2.
"But... I'm still ESSENTIALLY the same person!" -- there's that
word again, "essence", which is a word that comes from the ancient Greeks.
Again, it's important to remember that CONVENTIONALLY we indicate a
"pattern" which is "Fred-like", however, that pattern is an abstract
concept -- a simplification -- and not exactly true. "Fred" is an
ever-changing product of his environment, just like all of us are. It's
important to be aware of this.
"BOY THAT SURE IS EXTREME AND ANAL!!!!!!"
Yes, yes it is. This is yet another one of the reasons for the
big split in Buddhism which I'm about to talk about. But first, I want to
talk about the objectification of Nirvana.
"What's it like?" is a common question, which is highly debated.
If you look it up in the dictionary, the definitions usually given imply
negative ideas. "Nirvana is the state of nothingness." "Nirvana is the
state of eliminating all we know", etc. There is this problem with
language -- when you try to describe the very nature of "no language",
it's impossible. Why? Because you have to USE language to describe it.
In the act of using language, you're going to follow the sentence model I
described above: you're going to objectify. There's no way around it.
So, trying to describe Nirvana is difficult. In fact, it's a lot easier
to describe what nirvana is *not* than what it *is*.
If you're SHARP! you might've keyed in on the way I phrased that
last sentence. Does it remind you of my description of the hindu
expression "Neti, neti"? Ah-ha! It does! This will become important
about 600 years later when the Sunyata (!!) Buddhist School is formed.
Hee!
. . . . .
Well, time to continue along with the history stuff. For the next
500 or so years after Buddha's death, Buddhism moved to the lands of Sri
Lanka, Indonesia, Indochina, and eventually into Tibet and China.
Rather than delve into the ultra-specific historical stuff, which
isn't important philosophically, I'll spare you ("thank you!"), so let's
get right to the BIG SPLIT! !! YEAH!! ANARCHY!!!!!!
Um. In China, Buddhism became even greater of a philosophical
discipline than ever before. There were communities developing there, and
although there were other (Dao and Confucius) religions there, Buddhism
was able to grow in itself. For that 500-600 years of moment, Buddhism
was also believed to be a very... HOLY ROLLER activity, in a sense.
What I mean to say is this: people looked onto the words of the
Buddha, as I described above, and INTERPRETED it to read as this: "you
must exterminate the ordinary". Why did they believe this? Well, as I
pointed out the problems with normal society and language objectifying
everything, they read the Buddha's words as saying this: "If objectifying
things is the IGNORANCE of no-self, then we will never be enlightened if
we exist in normal society." That makes sense, logically, right? Even if
it is dumb, anyway, it's not dumb in the logical sense. :)
So, Buddhism for a while was taught and regarded as a very
isolated, "self-destructive" teaching where you were to take "the yellow
robe" (to become a monk) and live a "holy life" in some form of monestary
or temple, a place where you would not have to deal with all those
annoying little objectifications (OH NO!). As you might detect, I, just
like many Chinese philosophers of this time, realized that these Buddhists
were *misinterpreting* the point. Silly them!! However, 500 years of
Buddhism makes something called "tradition" happen, and those darn
traditions sure are hard to break, huh? Yep!
So, here are the reasons for the split. "What split?!@?" Oh
yeah, there was a split. You see, some people weren't happy with the way
Buddhism was going -- they thought it wasn't what the Buddha was *really*
trying to say, and they weren't following the TRUE path to enlightenment.
So, Buddhism made one radical split and we get "Mahayana" and "Hinayana"
Buddhism. "yana" means vehicle, "maha" means higher, "hina" means lower.
I sometimes joke about it being like "OLDSCHOOL" and "NEWSCHOOL", even if
both are thousands of years old :). So, what *were* the reasons for
splitting? It started, basically, from this very simple question:
Who gets enlightened?
It was theorized this way:
*** To eliminate ignorance (become enlightened), you need not
become a monk and live an isolated life. Everyone has the
potential to become enlightened.
Remember Buddha's final words? "Be a lamp onto yourself." It's
difficult to be a lamp, if you're relying on priests or monks to do the
lighting for you, or instead of you. woop! In addition, it was in the
spirit of Buddha himself, who traveled everywhere teaching his beliefs,
that everyone was deserving and capable of being truly happy.
Anyway, so there you have it. The split.
Hinayana, for all practical purposes, is *still* the same religion
now as it was back then. With modern society, the monk-emphasis becomes
increasingly more difficult, and some societies in those areas have opted
to have a sort of "provisional priest" system, where all members of
society set aside a number of years in their life where they temporarily
serve as priests, before they return to their life-plans (or, as I
obnoxiously like to call it, "Rent-a-monk".) Oh, another difference:
Hinayana Buddhism's create the stereotype of "BIG, FAT, BUDDHA-MAN!". In
actuality, if the stories regarding Buddha are true, he was actually UNDER
weight. This is just one of those mythological stories that doesn't
really make sense, I suppose -- ANYWAY, you'll *always* find in older
Buddhism (and sometimes in Mahayana, but less frequently) those fuckin'
statues. You know what I'm talking about. BIG BALD FAT STATUE = BUDDHA,
to these people, I guess. To some sects, they practically *worship*
the statue as a representation of Buddha. Buddhism is *not* about
worshiping something, as I see it. The statue is supposed to be a
reminder, or some shit. Bleh.
[ Incidentally, the reason for the fat statue stems from Indian
society, where being overweight was a more attractive feature
for its time than being skinny. skinny meant that you were too
poor to eat. So to make Buddha look "mighty" they depicted
him as being fat. ]
ANYWAY...
So, we've reached the idea of a universal quality of Buddhism, in
that *anyone* can be happy (play Martin Luther King music? not quite
yet, sadly). What happens now? Well, two big schools of Mahayana
Buddhism develop in China... the "Sunyata" (or Emptiness) school... and
the "Mind Only" school. Wacky names, eh? What are the differences? What
do they believe? We will see, in my NEXT, ACTION-PACKED e-mail!
HAHAHAHA!!!@@!
. . . . .
Today I want to talk about Causation and The Middle Path.
Causation is, essentially, the *philosophical* reason for the split
between Mahayana and Hinayana. Superficially, the split was between "who
gets englightenment?" -- but it also comes to this point. Follow this
mode:
Buddha says that everything is constantly changing from moment to
moment and nothing remains the same. If we take these words as a simple
philosophical rule, we arrive at a logical problem. The same problem,
say, a physicist has when referring to atoms and molecules. If things are
constantly changing, what is the "we"? I know that earlier I said the
identity was simply a collection of many different things put together
that we conventionally call "us"... but using this logic alone, we must
ask the following two attacking questions:
(1) if we are a 'person' who is a constantly changing thing, what
comes of us when we are enlightened? This logic would imply that
enlightenment was "just another change", de-valuing it.
(2) If we're constantly changing from moment to moment, why do we
have such things as "memory" or recognition? Obviously something must
remain as an "US" otherwise we wouldn't have such things. Our memories,
in many ways, this is all that makes our identity -- or at least that's
what some people say.
We have a big problem here if that's the only premise (that
everything changes and nothing remains). This causes a split, because,
the older buddhists stick to their guns and interpret this "everything
changes" idea to the teeth. Then we have our first wave of progressive
buddhists, the same groups who wanted to spread the belief to the common
person. They realized that saying "everything changes" is an EXTREME
opinion, the complete opposite of the Hindu's "atman" (which says
everything is eternal) is an EXTREME opinion. But, the Buddha always
taught that the middle way was best.
This refers, in part, to the 4th Nobel Truth -- there is a path to
happiness. According to Buddha (this was also formulated by Aristotle,
later on, in ancient Greece) the balance between two extremes makes
something a "virtue" or an enlightened path.
There's the simple virtue of, say, "courage". Courage is a
balance between fool-hearty, reckless stupidity... and cowardness.
or, take "temperance" (knowing how to moderate your actions)...
which is a balance between indulgence and completely abstaining.
Anyway, the middle path, as these Chinese Buddhists suggested,
still keeps the "everything changes" premise while directing it towards a
true middle. All we have to do is change the simple phrase of "everything
changes" to a modified "everything exists for some time". That keeps the
changing, temporary, impermanent nature intact, while still keeping the
notion of the individual. Seems kinda common-senseical, right? I think
so, anyway.
Basically, the common thread that keeps things together, so that
we have things like "memory" and "time" is causation. Causation, as I
might've said before, is the Buddhist version of "God". Of course, by
Western definitions, Buddhism is very atheist. After Descartes the
philosopher died, another philosopher named "Spinoza" would come about and
bring up the idea of the "philosopher's god", and that being "the spirit
of nature" as opposed to some high and mighty external intelligence
controlling the earth like a puppeteer. This is, in principle, related to
causation. Buddhism holds that this is the universal principle that
guides all life: there will be a cause and effect. These causes bring
about a series of events, which are all interconnected and dependent on
each other for existence. They last for a period of time based on this.
Does this make sense?
. . . . .
sorry about the fight last night. i suppose i'm insensitive at
times in regards to religion. i'll work on it.
regardless, if anything became clear last night, i hope it was one
thing: blind faith is no faith, in my opinion.
i am certainly not accusing you of having blind faith, since
you're not even quite sure what you believe, but it's an important thing
to know. we can be subjective all day long and say "there is absolutely
no right or wrong and everything is opinion," but the instant you make
that an absolute, you're in for some trouble. society is built around
having some form of agreement. that's the game. that agreement, however,
should ideally be one that is logical, or at the very least, humanistic.
see, i did a very bad thing there! i applied a "value". i think that
being humanistic, that is being compassionate and respectful, is a good
thing. sue me.
blind faith, coincidentally, is exactly what mahayana was very
against. although the older buddhists of the day, the hinayana, would
often spend quite a lot of their time (since that's ALL THEY EVER DID!)
studying and praying the teachings of Sidhartha, they lacked some basic
ideas.
Firstly, they clutched so tightly to the orthodox interpretation
of Buddha, they failed to realize one very key element of the spirit of
buddhism: that is that one becomes happy by understanding the nature of
their world -- causation. For one to learn the nature of how they affect
their environment, and to a happier person, they must spread these ideas
and have them develop in an actual society. by casting yourself away in
some temple you're, in effect, being rather selfish. That's a negative
cause in itself.
At any rate, I'm going to briefly (hopefully) touch on two
movements that appear in Buddhism just in the beginnings of it reaching
China. The first is called the Madhyamika School, or "Emptiness" school.
An incredible Buddhist follower of this period, (3rd Century A.D.) named
Nagarjuna, appears and brings an even greater depth to the interpretation
of Buddhist philosophy. His influence will be great, ultimately. He
focuses in on a term that Sidhartha uses a few times in the sutras called
"sunyata". Sunyata means "emptiness".
So then, what is emptiness? Why, everything, of course!
Well over a thousand years before the western philosopher
Descartes comes into the scene, Nagarjuna creates his own form of
"methodical doubt", which in fact, is a lot more logical and clear than
Descartes.
The first step of his thinking stems from already formulated
Buddhist logic: because nothing exists as an entity within itself, as i
said before, all things are simply a product of their causes, and in
reality, are not "things" independent of themselves. in this view, all
things are interdependent on each other for what we call "existence".
therefor, if all things are interconnected, they in themselves are
not really a "thing". this "thing", therefor, is an empty concept because
nothing is in itself absolute.
what's the point? well, using the basic notion that all things
are empty, Nagarjuna designs something called "empty logic", which is
built around refuting all speculative theories that the human mind can
come up with. you'll notice quite quickly, this whole practice is about
negation.
Buddhism, according to Nagarjuna, is about TRUE denial of the
concept of a "thing". You must, as he says, empty *any* concept in your
mind that you think is independent of itself, because it is not so. This
complete denial, this stance that there is only "nothing" has another
important feature. Here it is: even our idea of "nothing" or "empty" and
is STILL a construct of the human mind and does not exist. The nature of
the universe and the inter-connectedness/dependence of the world is BEYOND
the scope of normal human understanding.... and the instant we try to
articulate such a thing in words, we will always create our own limited
concept of the thing. Therefor, according to Nagarjuna, you have to
empty even your concept of emptiness. In another words: "empty your
empty", or, sunyata-sunyata.
There's quite a bit more philosophical and methodical information
that i'm gonna skip in regards to Madhyamika, but this is the most
important element. Nagarjuna was not just a monk, but he was truly a
philosopher, and he should be regarded as very influential. "Emptiness"
eventually will be the first teachings that will later lead to Zen in
China.
Some of that up there is pretty hard to "get" on a quick
read-through, in my opinion. Be sure to ask questions, if you've got 'em.
The next school to evolve in Buddhism, about 100 years later, is
the Yogacharta school, or the "Mind-Only" school. I don't feel like
getting into great depth on this, because it's relatively unimportant for
explaining Buddhism, but they are worthy of note. They believed that our
entire reality was based on what the individual sees with their conscious
mind, and that is all that exists. (In philosophy, this is called
generally "idealism". There's a Western philosopher that appears over a
thousand years later named Berkeley who has a similar premise.) I can
explain this more, if you care, but what's particularly interesting to
note is how this school does extensive contemplation on aspects of the
human mind, consciousness, psyche, the subconscious, and so on. It is
said that this stuff is light-years ahead of modern psychology.
This is the early developments of Mahayana Buddhism, primarily
philosophical. But, it was a time, in my opinion, that needed philosophy.
Let me ask you this, since it seems to be on the plate after our
little tiff last night --
What is the purpose of religion? What *is* a religion?
You made the statement that religion attempts to answer the
questions that the human being can't answer.
It's important, if that's your premise, to think about how that
religion in question goes about answering such a question.
I, on the other hand, tend to think of "religion" as a much more
loose concept, because what some group calls a "religion", others may not.
In some warped ways, SCIENCE is a religion for some people. In even more
warped ways, TELEVISION is a religion, for some people.
I see a "religion" as the daily activities and belief systems that
a person clings to as their manifestation of "how the world really is".
To say that one religion is "RIGHT" is a tricky statement, of
course. Instead, it's a lot easier to compare religions by the content of
what they say, rather than trying to justify its existence as "good" or
not.
Perhaps, much to your pain, I will in a future email along the
road compare and contrast some religions and what they say. I think I'm
relatively schooled in the ethics and theology of Judeo-Christian
(bible-based) thinking, and at least aware of others.
--- But let's take a step away from this and step into my
complete bias for a minute: I'm going to be entirely subjective and
make the following bold, entirely opinion-based statement.
BEWARE!
As I see it, following Buddhism, the purpose of a religion is to
make people "happy".
By answering philosophical questions, a person is seeking ("Where
did we come from?", an example that you gave me) something. The thirst of
a person is quenched, giving them satisfaction. Therefor, if you use THAT
as a supposedly-objective criteria for what makes a good religion good, it
would be interesting to approach this topic like this: What religions
make people MORE, truly happy?
This is where I'm coming from.
And it's something worth exploring, because when you choose a path
to happiness, it's going to affect your life and world around you quite a
bit.
. . w w w . a n a d a . n e t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. anada 144 by Mogel (c)2000 anada e'zine .
. . w w w . a n a d a . n e t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
