A noble heart and a cultivated mind

“Small minds cannot grasp great ideas; to their narrow comprehension, their purblind vision, nothing seems really great and important but themselves.”
~ James Frazer, The Golden Bough

Sri Lanka claims to be a country peopled by Buddhists - at least the majority of the population, sixty to sixty-five percent perhaps, claim to be so. Compassion and wisdom are twin virtues in Buddhism and are, cultured by ethical behaviour and meditation, respectively. It is a process of self-discipline and self-development, which emphasises the heart and mind equally, and insists that both working together are necessary for enlightenment.

The Buddha’s teachings on ethics and living a good life also extended to the realm of the social and political. He was ahead of his time in many ways; considering all people as equal, he rejected the caste system and openly encouraged women to become students and teachers.

He taught that governments had a responsibility to lead by example, to teach people ethics and to eliminate poverty by providing opportunities for the people to become prosperous. He was clearly opposed to all forms of violence, and taught that brutality and cruelty can never create security.

In keeping with these teachings, Buddhism is rare among world religions in that its followers never attempted to spread their beliefs through, the use of force. Unique among victorious leaders, the Buddhist emperor Asoka in the third century BCE renounced violence and war, and put Buddhist ethical virtues at the centre of his government.

Trait

Thus, the essential trait of a Buddhist is a noble heart and a cultivated mind. A noble heart, we may find many; but with a cultivated mind? The cultivation of the mind is a kind of food supplied for the health of man; and sublimity is the echo of a cultivated mind.

As an orchard that is, well supplied with manure produces pleasant trees and luscious fruit; so does a cultivated mind produce pure thoughts and noble actions. In that respect, the mind is like the stomach.

It is not how much you put into it that counts, but how much it digests. The Buddhist term bodhicitta means an awakened mind.

Citta is translated as mind; bodhi means awake.

The cultivation of the noble heart and mind of bodhicitta is a personal journey that each one of us has to undertake on our own. “A man's mind may be likened to a garden that may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth.

If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weeds and seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind,” said James Allen, the British philosophical writer known for his inspirational books and poetry, in As a Man Thinketh.

That is why the strength of a man's virtue is: not the measure of his efforts under pressure, but the extent of his ordinary conduct. If we regard the Buddhist path as a philosophy, one must consider its epistemology.

Certain claims to, and of, knowledge, have been made by the Buddha; but how can they be known to be true? The Buddha never asked anyone to accept unproven claims on faith, and in fact discouraged them from doing so.

He maintained that his teachings could be verified by direct insight and reasoning, by anyone willing to consider them and to follow the path of self-discipline.

Starting from a few assumptions such as impermanence and dependent origination, which are facts rather than beliefs, he derived a complex and consistent system of philosophy, which has stood the test of time for centuries.

Later teachers have validated his claim that others could reach the same insights, and they have expanded upon his basic teachings with impressive intuitive depth and intellectual rigour. Thus, the Buddha’s teaching has itself become a kind of interactive and self-evolving process.

However, the end goal is still Nirvana, which is an experience ultimately beyond all concepts and language, even beyond the Buddhist teachings. In the end, even the attachment to the Dhamma must be dropped like, all other attachments.

Raft

The tradition compares the teaching to a raft upon which one crosses a swift river to get to the other side. Once one is on the far shore, there is no longer any need to carry the raft. The far shore is Nirvana.

It is said that, when one arrives, one can see quite clearly that there was never any river at all.

If I have delved at length on the subject of Buddhism and Buddhist philosophy, it is only because I wanted to explore the reason why many have lost sight of the essence of Buddha’s teachings. Perhaps the reason is not far to seek.

The march of the human mind is slow; and in the process, we have let our minds be corrupted. “Babylon in all its desolation is a sight not so awful as that of the human mind in ruins” is how someone puts it when referring to an uncultivated mind.

In fact, the diseases of the mind are more and more destructive than, those of the body; so much so, in a disturbed mind, as in a body in the same state, health cannot exist. Perhaps that may be one reason why so many Sri Lankans find themselves at the mercy of medications.

There never can be a man so lost as one who is lost in the vast and intricate corridors of his own lonely mind, where none may reach and none may save: Isaac Asimov, in Pebble in the Sky. It is said that: a mind quite vacant is a mind distressed, because minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

Nothing comes to a mind, that is not thinking; and unthinking minds lack nobility.

Whereas, a noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea that is higher than himself; a mean man, lacking nobility of character and a cultivated mind, will, in comparison, by one lower than himself.

The former produces aspiration; the latter ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.

A cultivated mind is the guardian genius of democracy; and while guided and controlled by virtue, the noblest attribute of man, it is the only dictator that freemen acknowledge, and the only security which freemen desire.

See you this day next week. Until then, keep thinking; keep laughing. Life is mostly about these two activities.

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