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| Sunday, 22 May 2005 |
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The Buddha and His message by Bhikkhu Bodhi Excerpts of Bhikkhu Bodhi's address on the occasion of the United Nations celebration of Vesak Year 2000.
I want to consider the birth of the Buddha, not in bare historical terms, but through the lens of Buddhist tradition - an approach that will reveal more clearly what this event means for Buddhists themselves. To view the Buddha's birth through the lens of Buddhist tradition, we must first consider the question, "What is a Buddha?" As is widely known, the word 'Buddha' is not a proper name but an honorific title meaning 'The Enlightened One' or 'the Awakened One'. The title is bestowed on the Indian sage Siddhartha Gautama, who lived and taught in northeast India in the fifth century BC. From the historical point of view, Gautama is the Buddha, the founder of the spiritual tradition known as Buddhism. However, from the standpoint of classical Buddhist doctrine, the word 'Buddha' has a wider significance than the title of one historical figure. The word denotes, not just a single religious teacher who lived in a particular epoch, but a type of person - an exemplar - of which there have been many instances in the course of cosmic time. Just as the title 'American President' refers not just to Bill Clinton, but to everyone who has ever held the office of the American Presidency, so the title 'Buddha' is in a sense a 'spiritual office', applying to all who have attained the state of Buddhahood. The Buddha Gautama, then, is simply the latest member in the spiritual lineage of Buddhas, which stretches back into the dim recesses of the past and forward into the distant horizons of the future. The Quest for Enlightenment At the outset, I must stress that the Buddha was not born as an Enlightened One. Though He had qualified Himself for Buddhahood through His past lives, He first had to undergo a long and painful struggle to find the truth for Himself. The future Buddha was born as Siddhartha Gautama in the small Sakyan republic close to the Himalayan foothills, a region that at present lies in southern Nepal. While we do not know the exact dates of His life, many scholars believe He lived from approximately 563 to 483 BC a smaller number place the dates about a century later. Legend holds He was the son of a powerful monarch, but the Sakyan state was actually a tribal republic, and thus His father was probably the chief of the ruling council of elders. As a royal youth, Prince Siddhartha was raised in luxury. At the age of sixteen, he married a beautiful princess named Yasodhara and lived a contented life in the capital, Kapilavastu. Over time, however, the prince became increasingly pensive. What troubled him were the great burning issues we ordinarily take for granted, the questions concerning the purpose and meaning of our lives.
Do we live merely for the enjoyment of sense pleasures, the achievement of wealth and status, the exercise of power? Or is there something beyond these, more real and fulfilling? At the age of 29, stirred by deep reflection on the hard realities of life, he decided that the quest for illumination had a higher priority than the promise of power or the call of worldly duty. Thus, while still in the prime of life, he cut off his hair and beard, put on the saffron robe, and entered upon the homeless life of renunciation, seeking a way of release from the round of repeated birth, old age and death. The princely ascetic first sought out the most eminent spiritual teachers of his day. He mastered their doctrines and systems of meditation, but soon enough realised that these teachings did not lead to the goal he was seeking. He next adopted the path of extreme asceticism, of self-mortification, which he pursued almost to the door of death. Just then, when his prospects looked bleak, he thought of another path to enlightenment, one that balanced proper care of the body with sustained contemplation and deep investigation. He would later call this path 'the middle way' because it avoids the extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification. Having regained his strength by taking nutritious food, one day he approached a lovely spot by the bank of the Neranjara River, near the town of Gaya. He sat down cross-legged beneath a tree (later called the Bodhi Tree), making a firm resolution that he would never rise up from his seat until he had won his goal. As night descended, he entered into deeper and deeper stages of meditation. Then, the records tell us, when his mind was perfectly composed, in the first watch of the night he recollected his past births, even during many cosmic aeons, in the middle watch, he developed the 'divine eye' by which he could see beings passing away and taking rebirth in accordance with their karma, and in the last watch, he penetrated the deepest truths of existence, the most basic laws of reality. When dawn broke, the figure sitting beneath the tree was no longer a bodhisattva, a seeker of enlightenment, but a Buddha, a perfectly Enlightened One, who had stripped away the subtlest veils of ignorance and attained the Deathless in this very life. According to Buddhist tradition, this event occurred in May of his thirty-fifth year, on the Vesak full moon. This is the second great occasion in the Buddha's life that Vesak celebrates, his attainment of enlightenment. The Buddha's Teaching: Its Aim As to the aim, the Buddha formulated His teaching in a way that directly addresses the critical problem at the heart of human existence - the problem of suffering - and does so without reliance upon the myths and mysteries so typical of religion. He further promises that those who follow His teaching to its end will realise here and now the highest happiness and peace. all other concerns apart from this such as theological dogmas, metaphysical subtleties, rituals, and rules of worship, the Buddha waves aside as irrelevant to the task at hand, the mind's liberation from its bonds and fetters. This pragmatic thrust of the Dharma is clearly illustrated by the main formula into which the Buddha compressed His program of deliverance, namely the Four Noble Truths: (1) the noble truth that life involves suffering (2) the noble truth that suffering arise from craving (3) the noble truth that suffering ends with the removal of craving (4) the noble truth that there is a way to the end of suffering The Buddha not only makes suffering and release from suffering the focus of his teaching, but He deals with the problem of suffering in a way that reveals extraordinary psychological insight. He traces suffering to its roots within our minds, first to our craving and clinging, and then a step further back to ignorance, a primordial unawareness of the true nature of things. Since suffering arises from our own minds, the cure must be achieved within our minds, by dispelling our defilements and delusions with insight into reality. The beginning point of the Buddha's teaching is the unenlightened mind, in the grip of its afflictions, cares and sorrows, the end point is the enlightened mind, blissful, radiant, and free. To bridge the gap between the beginning and end points of His teaching, the Buddha offers a clear, precise, practicable path made up of eight factors. This of course is the Noble Eightfold Path. The path begins with (1) right view of the basic truths of existence, and (2) right intention to undertake the training. It then proceeds through the three ethical factors of (3) right speech (4) right action, and (5) right livelihood, to the three factors pertaining to meditation and mental development, (6) right effort, (7) right mindfulness, and (8) right concentration. When all eight factors of the path are brought to maturity, the disciple penetrates with insight the true nature of existence and reaps the fruits of the path: perfect wisdom and unshakable liberation of mind. Methodology of the Teaching The methodological characteristics of the Buddha's teaching follow closely its aim. One of its most attractive features, closely related to its psychological orientation, is its emphasis on self-reliance. For the Buddha, the key to liberation is mental purity and correct understanding, and thus he rejects the idea that we can gain salvation by leaning on anyone else. The Buddha does not claim any divine status for Himself, nor does He profess to be a personal saviour. He calls Himself, rather, a guide and teacher, who points out the path the disciple must follow. The Parinirvana and Afterwards The third great event in the Master's life commemorated at Vesak is his parinirvana or passing away. The story of the Buddha's last days is told in vivid and moving detail in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta. After an active ministry of forty-five years, at the age of eighty, the Buddha realised his end was at hand. Lying on his deathbed, he refused to appoint a personal successor, but told the monks that after his death, the Dharma itself should be their guide. To those overcome by grief, he repeated the hard truth that impermanence holds sway over all conditioned things, including the physical body of an Enlightened One. He invited his disciples to question him about the doctrine and the path, and urged them to strive with diligence for the goal. Then, perfectly poised, he calmly passed away into the Nirvana element with no remainder of conditioned existence." Three months after the Buddha's death, five hundred of his enlightened disciples held a conference at Rajagaha to collect his teachings and preserve them for posterity. This compilation of texts gave future generations a codified version of the doctrine to rely on for guidance. What is remarkable about the dissemination of Buddhism throughout its long history is its ability to win the allegiance of entire populations solely by peaceful means. Buddhism has always spread by precept and example, never by force. The purpose in propagating the Dharma has not been to make converts, but to show others the way to true happiness and peace. Whenever the peoples of any nation or region adopted Buddhism, it became for them, far more than just a religion, the fountainhead of a complete way of life. It has inspired great works of philosophy, literature, painting, and sculpture comparable to those of any other culture. It has moulded social, political, and educational institutions; given guidance to rulers and citizens; shaped the morals, customs, and etiquette that order the lives of its followers. While the particular modalities of Buddhist civilisation differ widely, from Sri Lanka to Mongolia, to Japan, they are all pervaded by a subtle but unmistakable flavour that makes them distinctly Buddhist. The Buddha's Message for Today Despite the tremendous advances humankind has made in science and technology, advances that have dramatically improved living conditions in so many ways, we still find ourselves confronted with global problems that mock our most determined attempts to solve them within established frameworks. The Buddha's teaching offers us two valuable tools to help us extricate ourselves from this tangle. One is its hardheaded analysis of the psychological springs of human suffering. The other is the precisely articulated path of moral and mental training it holds out as a solution. The Buddha explains that the hidden springs of human suffering, in both the personal and social arenas of our lives, are three mental factors called the unwholesome roots, namely, greed, hatred and delusion. Traditional Buddhist teaching depicts these unwholesome roots as the causes of personal suffering, but by taking a wider view, we can see them as equally the source of social, economic, and political suffering. Through the prevalence of greed, the world is being transformed into a global market place where people are reduced to the status of consumers, even commodities, and our planet's vital resources are being pillaged without concern for future generations. Through the prevalence of hatred, national and ethnic differences become the breeding ground of suspicion and enmity, exploding in violence and endless cycles of revenge. Delusion bolsters the other two unwholesome roots with false beliefs and political ideologies put forward to justify policies motivated by greed and hatred. While changes in social structures and policies are surely necessary to counteract the many forms of violence and injustice so widespread in today's world, such changes alone will not be enough to usher in an era of true peace and social stability. Speaking from a Buddhist perspective, I would say that what is needed above all else is a new mode of perception, a universal consciousness that can enable us to regard others as not essentially different from oneself. As difficult as it may be, we must learn to detach ourselves from the insistent voice of self-interest and rise up to a universal perspective from which the welfare of all appears as important as one's own good. That is, we must outgrow the egocentric and ethnocentric attitudes to which we are presently committed and instead embrace a "world-centric ethic" which gives priority to the well-being of all. The Buddha states that of all things in the world, the one with the most powerful influence for both good and bad is the mind. Genuine peace between peoples and nations grows out of peace and goodwill in the hearts of human beings. Such peace cannot be won merely by material progress, by economic development and technological innovation, but demands moral and mental development. It is only by transforming ourselves that we can transform our world in the direction of peace and amity. This means that for the human race to live together peacefully on this shrinking planet, the inescapable challenge facing us is to understand and master ourselves. It is here that Buddha's teaching becomes especially timely, even for those not prepared to embrace the full range of Buddhist religious faith and doctrine. In its diagnosis of the mental defilements as the underlying cause of human suffering, the teaching shows us the hidden roots of our personal and collective problems. By proposing a practical path of moral and mental training, the teaching offers us an effective remedy for tackling the problems of the world in the one place where they are directly accessible to us: in our own minds. As we enter the new millennium, the Buddha's teaching provides us all, regardless of our religious convictions, with the guidelines we need to make our world a more peaceful and congenial place to live. |
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Bhikkhu
Bodhi was born in New York City in 1944. He received a B.A in Philosophy
from Brooklyn College (1966) and a PhD in philosophy from Claremont
Graduate School (1972). In late 1972 he came to Sri Lanka, where he was
ordained as a Buddhist monk under the late Ven. Balangoda Ananda
Maitreya Mahanayaka Thera. Since 1984 he has been the editor of the
Buddhist Publication Society in Kandy, and since 1988 its president. He
is the author, translator and editor of many books on Theravada
Buddhism.
