Bhikkhu Cintita

Author: bhikkhu cintita

  • Fundamentals of Buddhist Religiosity: Transcendence

    Uposatha Day, February 18, 2013

    Index to this series

    Chapter 4. Transcendence

    TranscendenceFlower“I’m Saved!”

    Buddhism is about salvation, it’s even about, uh, being born again. The soteriological aim of Buddhism is Nibbana, the Buddhist form of salvation. Nibbana is achieved by Awakening, but it given a particularly lofty scope in Original Buddhism, the escape from samsara, from the beginningless and heading-toward endless round of birth and death.

    I am aware that rebirth, not to mention escape from rebirth, raises skeptical eyebrows in much of the expectedly astute readership of this treatise because of the metaphysical issues it also raises. In order to determine what is Core in this mechanism, it will be far more useful to begin with its function, which is, briefly, to inspire the urgency without which Awakening is not possible, rather than with its specific formulation in Original Buddhism, then to parameterize a range of authentic options for fulfilling that function.

    Higher Meaning

    The Great Cathedral in Cologne, Germany began construction in 1248 A.D. and was to be magnificent. It was completed in 1880, over six centuries later! This makes me think of the original founders of the Cathedral, and marvel at what their motives might have been and what would have inspired them to start a project of this size that would not live to see past its earliest stages. This undertaking certainly required a great trust that others will be there to continue the work through the generations and centuries to come. It certainly required patience when progress must have seemed so gradual in their lifetime. Along with patience it must have fostered a sense of urgency as the significance of this project dwarfed all other considerations in the lives of these founders; after all every decision they made was for an eager posterity, for untold generations to come, after the ephemeral gains, losses and fatigue of their small lives would have been long been forgotten. The small lives of the founders would have acquired huge meaning as instruments of this project. I imagine that sicknesses, deaths, births, droughts would have barely deterred the founders in their determination to see the work continue without interruption.

    This particular sample of selfless urgency and determination, of meaningfulness and zeal, comes out of a religious context, but similar examples are actually found in secular realms as well, for instance, in science or in art or among explorers, in which agents characteristically give themselves over completely to a project perceived as somehow dwarfing themselves in magnificence. That greater context is often ill-defined: the glory of God, the march of human knowledge, lasting beauty, going down in history. Even secular contexts this kind of zeal is often considered “religious.” I speculate that it is only this level of higher meaning that can produce genius. The aim of our practice is no less than the perfection of the human character, it is about making something no less magnificent than the Cologne Cathedral: a Buddha. It is only this level of higher meaning that can produce Awakening.

    If we fail to find that higher meaning of our practice we can instead easily see no further than making our present lives temporarily more comfortable until we die, at which point any progress along the path will disappear anyway along with the entire human predicament that evoked it. Our practice will be like beginning construction on a village church, rather than a Cathedral, which we expect to occupy and preach in this very life. The result might indeed be competent, but hardly magnificent, something more like common psychotherapy. We will have failed to transcend a petty fathom-long body and few decades of life and thereby squandered the opportunity for an Awakening that might otherwise have been possible even in this very life and body.

    Without deliberation our human life is tossed by the sea, blown by the the wind, an plaything of circumstance. This is presumably how most animals live, simply responding to changing conditions one by one with predictable needs and fears. Even when this life presents the human with for sensual pleasures it is still is formless, arbitrary, directionless and existentially empty, until boredom, depression or despair catches up to its indulgences. Victor Frankl (2006), for instance, attributes much of what is diagnosed as neurosis in fact no more than the experience of meaninglessness.

    With deliberation and vow the human life can take on new form in the form of purpose, as found, for instance, in career and family. Frankl relates how inmates of Nazi concentration camps pretty predictably gave up hope when they felt they had nothing to live for. For him personally, thoughts of reuniting with his family and reconstructing and publishing his research kept him going, even though he estimated at the time that his chances of survival were no better than 1 in 20. Yet as he attributes to Nietzsche, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

    The highest meaning however is not something the human adds to his life, but that into which he embeds his life, as if his life were a single scene in a larger play. Frankl calls this “super-meaning.” If meaning seems better than meaninglessness, super-meaning should be better than normal meaning. A life devoted to service of God, a life devoted to beauty, a life devoted to developing the conditions for Awakening, these exemplify one’s relationship to a higher meaning that transcends this present life, and at the same time brings satisfaction to this present life.

    Pretense in Human Affairs.

    Very typically a higher meaning requires a correspondingly higher level of trust often in things unseen and possibly unknowable. The argument often raised against accepting things unseen and unknowable is that they are quite possibly not true. Do we really want to entrust our lives to something pretend? We will see that Buddhist transcendence might involve less pretense than, say, God, but just in case lets look first at this pretense thing.

    One of the outstanding characteristics of Buddhism is its relatively high degree of empiricism. This has two sources: First, Buddhism is concerned with developing a set of skills in order to perfect the human character behaviorally, affectively and cognitively. This is the topic of the stem of the flower, the Path toward Nibbana and is necessarily a nuts and bolts enterprise, requiring dealing intimately with real observable phenomena, just as the potter cannot learn his craft without learning the feel of clay in his fingers. Second, the Buddha was remarkably parsimonious in avoiding philosophical speculation and unnecessary metaphysics. The two primary metaphysical assumptions of the Buddha seems to have been:

    1. When this is, that is. From the arising of this comes the arising of that. When this isn’t, that isn’t. From the stopping of this comes the stopping of that. — AN 10.92
    2. I recollected my manifold past lives, i.e., one birth, two… five, ten… fifty, a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand, many eons of cosmic contraction, many eons of cosmic expansion, many eons of cosmic contraction & expansion: ‘There I had such a name, belonged to such a clan, had such an appearance. Such was my food, such my experience of pleasure & pain, such the end of my life. Passing away from that state, I re-arose there. There too I had such a name, belonged to such a clan, had such an appearance. Such was my food, such my experience of pleasure & pain, such the end of my life. Passing away from that state, I re-arose here.’ – MN 36

    The first is the metatheoretical assumption that things arise and fall dependent conditions. It gives rigor to almost everything the Buddha taught, and is generally pleasing to the scientifically minded (though modern quantum physicists might raise objections even to this). The second cannot be verified or observed in the present life except by those of exceptional memory. This makes the second almost unique in the Buddha’s thinking. Why did he say this?

    The answer is in fact the point of the famous “Kalama Sutta”: the Buddha promoted rebirth for its efficacy. The Buddha argues in this sutta that the proper grounds for accepting a teaching are not epistemological but ethical. He itemizes every possible way short of direct experience that we might think we “know” something and tells the Kalamas not to go by those things. Rather we should ask, with the help of the wise, where the benefit is, where the harm is.  For instance, suppose the Flubovian scriptures tell them that God has given the land of Fredonia to them regardless of who happens to occupy Fredonia at the time (the Fredonians, as it turns out). Should this teaching be accepted? No, because it would cause harm. Even if the scriptures are as true as the Flubovians firmly believe, it would not be countenanced by the good dhammic Flubovian. It is important to recognize what this is an exceedingly strict criterion, often overlooked in the world’s religions.

    The Buddha at the conclusion of this same sutta applies the same criterion to the teaching of rebirth, considering the case in which deeds of good or evil alternatively do or do not bear fruit in a future life and discovers that under no circumstances is there a downside to accepting the rebirth position. The lesson: accept rebirth, as a matter of pretense if necessary.

    Pretense is well within the realm of human capability, and humans certainly have this capability for practical purposes. Consider that all of fiction, including theater, movies, novels, operas, and so on, are pretense. Entertainment without pretense would be pretty slim indeed. Most children’s play is pretense, and most mammals seem capable of play. Dogs pretend to fight with one another, to chase sticks as if they were chasing prey. This enables them to practice and develop skills prior to real fighting or real hunting. Play also underlies many ritual or ceremonial enactments in religion, whose rationale is not necessarily in the acts themselves but in their function in developing skills. Food offerings to Buddha statues are common and is recognized as pretense in the knowledge that the Buddha is really going to eat what is offered. It’s play.

    A baseball game, also a kind of play, is a pretense, even for spectators. While there are real physical actions going on, these actions have interpretations that are just made up, a running pretense that accompanies the physical actions, a counting-for-something. Someone hits a ball with a stick and because it goes somewhere it counts as a home run. Someone touches someone else with a ball and it counts as being “out.” Three “outs” and the other team comes up to bat. A sport, for many among the most tangible experiences in life, is pretense! Myth, religious or otherwise, is pretense by definition, but can likewise shape one’s attitudes in many helpful ways.

    Nothing I know of illustrates the usefulness, and at the same time the palpability, of pretense as well as money. Money, such a huge factor in modern life and human consciousness, does not even exist! Historically money has had a physical counterpart, for instance, clams, cattle, silver, gold, then paper, for which a running pretense of counting-for-something was critical, in this case having a certain recognized value in commercial exchange. The physical part has since gone almost completely by the wayside, the physical money we carry in our pockets (actually not in mine) is now a very small portion of the money supply. The rest is entirely pretense: Banks pretend to create it at will simply by clicking some figures on a keyboard to enter it into someone’s account, then pretend mime-like to track its movements from bank to bank. There is nothing more substantial there than 1’s and 0’s in computer memory.  An satirical news article in The Onion imagines a scenario in which the economy grinds to a halt as “Nation Realizes Money Just a Symbolic, Mutually Shared Illusion.”

    Pretense is something we use privately all the time to broaden the limits of our reality. A bashful young man about to ask someone on a first date will imagine himself much sauver than he actually is before dialing. Visualization techniques create realities that we then try to fit ourselves into. Athletes find such techniques improve their performance. They don’t have to be objectively “true.” To relax we might imagine ourselves lying on a sunny beach in the Bahamas. Even Buddhism makes use of visualizations in certain forms of meditation.

    Pretense is something we use to manipulate others as well as ourselves. As a precaution against nocturnal mischief some American children are told that the “Boogie Man” will “get” them if they get out of bed at night. A grownup is even more gullible: even knowing that the beautiful blonde in the car ad does not actually come with the car, he buys it anyway, just in case. The divine rights of kings, the idea of a better life hereafter, the battle of good and evil, the promotion of “free markets” as an unquestioned force for good, and even an unnaturally strict interpretation of the Law of Karma are pretenses that have all been introduced as forms of social control.

    If God is a pretense, He is a whopper. When one grows up with God, and develops a personal relationship with God, recognizing in God the central role in the universe, and in oneself a subservient role, interpreting all things of the world in relationship to God, then God becomes every bit as palpable as money or football. Pretense or not, God serves a number of beneficial functions, the most immediate of which, as I understand it, is to dethrone the Self from the center of the universe. He may also sometimes, in some hands, with some understandings be abused in the service of harmful functions, in some cases, for instance, legitimizing Osama-like what no person could justify on his own. This is perhaps a reason why harm and benefit above all are the criteria by which Buddhist accept or deny teachings. Many faithful hold many of their pretenses lightly, often regarding them as useful tools in negotiating life, much like money, but, when questioned, not literally true, for instance when scientific push comes to religious shove. Karen Armstrong maintains that most people in most lands throughout history have simply never thought about the difference between pretense or myth and truth, and would not particularly care.

    Science itself is not immune from pretense, it just keeps it on a shorter leash. The quaint Nineteenth Century idea of purely objective truth has since given way to conceptual models that only approximate reality. Niels Bohr, who developed our model of the atom, stated about his own field of research, “There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature…” Scientists are captives in the realm where they can only make things up, progressively more skillful pretenses which however inevitably challenge what is the observable.  Bohr also said, “A physicist is just an atom’s way of looking at itself.” Models of progressively greater clarity but less correspondence with finer empirical data, trail off into folk science, the science of the common layperson. Models of motion within a curved universe give way to models of mutual gravitational attraction of masses, which give way to sets simple principles like, “things fall downward,” and “what goes up must come down.” What’s interesting is that the scientist probably picks his model opportunistically, reverting past the level of relating acceleration to mass and force down to the level during his leisure time of , “pressing the gas pedal makes the car go more.”

    As we move from realm to realm, for instance, from commerce to science, from science to sports, from sports to religion, and from one religion to another, some pretenses become out of place, so we shift to new pretenses. We negotiate a world of often contradictory pretenses and social skill demands a particular capacity for tracking and accounting for the pretenses of others as well as of our own.  Interfaith dialog requires perhaps the greatest skill in this regard and teaches to hold our own doctrine convictions a little less tightly. But short of Awakening we all have them. We live in a world of pretense, so why not one more if it brings higher meaning into our life.

    Rebirth

    When the mind was thus concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished, rid of defilement, pliant, malleable, steady, and attained to imperturbability, I directed it to the knowledge of the passing away and reappearance of beings. … I discerned how they are inferior and superior, beautiful and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate in accordance with their kamma: ‘These beings — who were endowed with bad conduct of body, speech, and mind, who reviled the noble ones, held wrong views and undertook actions under the influence of wrong views — with the break-up of the body, after death, have re-appeared in the plane of deprivation, the bad destination, the lower realms, in hell. But these beings — who were endowed with good conduct of body, speech and mind, … have re-appeared in the good destinations, in the heavenly world.’  – MN36, the Buddha reporting the second knowledge gained just prior to his Awakening.

    Rebirth turns a narrowly circumscribed attempt at happiness and comfort within this single life into an epic struggle for salvation from a beginningless history of suffering. Unless that struggle succeeds that history will repeat itself ceaselessly into the future. This evokes the urgency of samvega, horror at the predicament in which we all find ourselves. As the Buddha spoke,

    Which is greater, the tears you have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — or the water in the four great oceans?… This is the greater: the tears you have shed…

    He also talked about the mountains of bones we have left behind. We need not succeed fully within this life in this struggle, but we can make great strides then continue in the next life and the next. This is the source of hope, passada, the calm trust that through diligent practice we are well on our way to winning the struggle to replace step by step the lot of the common being with something magnificent, with a Buddha. What’s at stake in this project dwarfs all other considerations in this life; after all every decision you make will be for a world eager to end suffering, long after the ephemeral gains, losses and fatigue of your small present life are long forgotten. This means you will continue to practice virtue, even under the pressure of bad times or of good short-term gains, because it is your virtuous kamma that will carry over into future. The fruits of the practice of this small life will acquire huge meaning in the context of this project. Sicknesses, deaths, births, falling stock prices will barely deter you in your determination to see the work continue without interruption. Even if rebirth should fail and bring our project to a halt at our deaths, we will have lived a life of great meaning.

    The alternative to rebirth is annihilationism, the view that all our efforts and progress, everything, comes to naught with the breakup of the body. At our death it will matter not one twittle whether we’ve practiced assiduously or just goofed off. The hapless annihilationist lacks the urgency that might otherwise propel him toward Awakening, even in this life, and the Buddha repeatedly reproved his viewpoint.

    This former, deeper perspective is the function of rebirth in Original Buddhism, and explains why the Buddha, otherwise scrupulously wary of metaphysics or philosophical speculation, took a clear and firm stand in this one case. What is really at stake, as with Refuge, is the attitude behind our practice. Bhikkhu Bodhi states more succinctly than I have had space for the point I present here:

    “To take full cognizance of the principle of rebirth will give us that panoramic perspective from which we can survey our lives in their broader context and total network of relationships. This will spur us on in our own pursuit of the path and will reveal the profound significance of the goal toward which our practice points,…”

    For those well disposed to religious skepticism and well practiced in the raising of eyebrows rebirth is regrettably sometimes a deal breaker. Given the well considered importance the Buddha attributed to rebirth it is important not to dismiss it lightly. Actually we have five well placed options in how to think about rebirth:

    1. Rebirth is literally true as described in Original Buddhism. Probably this is the dominant view historically.
    2. Rebirth is a beneficial working assumption even as a pretense. As we have seen, the Buddha recommends this remedy for the the skeptical.
    3. Rebirth is an approximation for something more refined. Aha, I hadn’t mentioned this option yet, but will take it up presently.
    4. Rebirth is a humbug. Why, the “Buddha’s” teachings on rebirth might well have been slipped into sutta after sutta later by monks tainted with brahmanic views.

    Having hopefully mitigated the resistance to the pretentiousness of option 2, I will weigh in in favor of option 3, since 3 subsumes 1, is much more satisfying than 2, avoids recourse to the unfortunate option 4 and might have, as I will show, a sound scientific basis bound to appeal to the most skeptical of eyebrows.

    There is no doubt that our present lives are woven as short threads into a rich and immense tapestry of human history, of family history, of evolutionary history, of cultural history, of political history, of religious history, of Buddhist history of trends in art, technology and popular entertainments, of relentless patterns and recombinations of neediness, aversion, confusion, contentment, kindness and clarity. Our life and therefore our practice is woven inextricably into something far grander in scale that in fact lends it its higher meaning.

    Consider this: If you know that water is flowing into one end of a pipe you know that it must be flowing out the other end. The pipe in this metaphor is our present life and the water is (old) karma (Pali, kamma). (Actually if Awakening occurs in this present life then miraculously water flows in but not out, but that neither here nor there.) Our old karma at any point in time is the content of our character, our deeply rutted and shallow habit patterns of body, speech and mind, our views, our identities, our pleasures and our anguish, our skills, our strengths and faults. It is conditioned continually throughout our lives through out intentional actions (new karma), and also corresponds to the quality of our life.

    Let’s let the degree of purity of the water represent the quality of life or character (good or bad karma). A strong Buddhist practice should serve to turn scuzzy water flowing into the pipe into pure flowing out.
    (Incidentally in a quote above “inferior and superior, beautiful and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate,” “plane of deprivation, the bad destination, the lower realms, in hell,”  and “good destinations, in the heavenly world” functionally express quality of life at the beginning of a new life; they need not really require the existence of supernatural realms, since we are perfectly capable of creating and experiencing heaven and hell right here.)

    The main point is that there is water flowing into our pipe. Think, for example, about your habit patterns, your tendency to anger, for instance, or to indulgences, the way jealousy manifests, or envy, the way judgments arise. Where did all that come from? I know I am not smart enough to have come up with half of the things that have arisen in my mind in my (uh, pre-monastic) years. This is called our “ancient twisted karma,” referring its obscure antediluvian origins. Our twisted karma is ancient because  our present lives are woven as short threads in a rich and immense tapestry. Our present actions have been anticipated in the lives of our ancestors before us, in our culture, in our evolutionary history and in the rest, then transmitted to us through various channels, even, if you insist, directly from our “previous life.” This is the water that  flows into our pipe.

    Since there is water flowing into our pipe there must be water flowing out. Notice that in this model karma can flow out through multiple channels because in Buddhism it does not have to hang on to a personal identity. The karma that flows out is the legacy of the present life. That is why our practice matters beyond this fathom long body and few decades of life. That is what gives our practice its transcendent meaning. We are each engaged in an epic struggle with karmic forces from the ancient past and outcomes that will reach endlessly into the future. Our practice has vastly more at stake than happiness and comfort in this present life. It has never been exclusively about this one present life.

    Each element of this refined model can, I believe, be independently examined and verified; the fact is nowadays we know of many channels for interpersonal communication of karmic factors — genetic, behavioral, social, environmental, etc. — that would have been dimly understood at the time of the Buddha. The difference between this refined model and the traditional model of rebirth is that the latter is much more linear. I will accordingly call these the reticulated model and the serial model respectively.

    For the serial model pipes would be laid serially end to end such that all of the water that flows out of one pipe flows directly into the next, our next life is heir to our present karma. The reticulated model is more general than the traditional serial model; the traditional model is a special case of the reticulated. But the serial model is (1) inadequate in itself — We can observe the lateral transmission of at least some karma, for instance, from culture to individual, or heck from kalyanamitta (admirable friend) to individual — and (2) difficult to examine and verify — though very compelling research, particularly of Dr. Ian Stevenson and his colleagues at the University of Virginia, suggests that this kind of transmission does at least sometimes occur.

    Now … the big question: In moving from the serial to the reticulated have we preserved functionality, that is, are we still within the scope of Core Buddhism? In either case we realize a higher transcendental meaning of our practice as desired, in either case it is found in a responsibility to the future, in producing purity, not scuzz, in this life. There is a difference, however, in the perspective each provides of the gradual progression of our practice through stages of attainment culminating in Awakening. The linear model provides a straight path, passing through many lives but serially, toward Nibbana. The reticulated model provides in this life a greater potential for Awakening in the future, but with less certainty about who will exploit that potential in the future — often many — and less sense of following a direct path. Interestingly the reticulated model fits well with the bodhisattva ideal articulated in much later Mahayana Buddhism, whereby we practice “not for ourselves but for all beings.” I will come back to the bodhisattva ideal in a couple of chapters.

    In Sum

    Dedicating one’s life to a higher meaning is a condition that in the arts and sciences can produce genius. Dedicating one’s life to a higher meaning is a condition that in Buddhism can produce Awakening. In either case it will produce a fulfilling present life, one of purpose.

    Higher meaning for the Christian is attained through God. Higher meaning for the Buddhist is attained through “that panoramic perspective from which we can survey our lives in their broader context and total network of relationships” that comes from realizing that our lives and therefore our practices are woven inextricably into something far grander in scale, a rich and immense tapestry of human affairs. We realize that we are each engaged in an epic struggle with karmic forces from the ancient past and with outcomes that will reach endlessly into the future. Our practice therefore has vastly more at stake than happiness and comfort in this present life. It has never been exclusively about this one present life. From this the urgency that impels us to deep practice develops that also opens up the prospect of Awakening.

    Serial rebirth is the model the Buddha provides to help us find our way into this panoramic perspective. Features of this model are difficult to verify and many modern people have difficulty with their assumption and have demonstrated an unwillingness to accept it even as a working assumption in the absence of better evidence. I have explored a way in this model can be generalized in a way that makes these features unnecessary yet nearly preserves the essential functionality of the Original model.

  • Fundamentals of Buddhist Religiosity: Community

    Uposatha Day, New Moon, February 10, 2013

    Index to this series

    This is the next chapter of my eBook on Buddhist Religiosity. I am doing well so far in producing a chapter a week, and I am about half-way through. These are probably long for popular blog tastes (parse: popular tastes in blogs, not tastes in popular blogs). Sorry. The chapter numbering has been reworked; you were probably expecting Chapter 3. I have decided to insert a chapter before this one, on Salvation in Buddhism, but it is not yet written.

    Chapter 5. The Buddhist Community.

    CommunityFlowerThe sun that shines on the Buddhist community is the Buddha. The water that nourishes it is the Dhamma. The soil in which it is planted is the Sangha. The lifeblood of the community is generosity, its most eminent members are Noble Ones, it greatest quality is harmony, its foremost entitlement is the opportunity for Buddhist practice and study, and its primary support is monastic discipline. The Buddha designed the Buddhist community, the Parisa. But he did this by organizing not the prevailing laity, but rather the monks and nuns, confident that the behavior of the laity would fall into place with no formal obligation, with no command structure and with no threat of excommunication held over the laity. The responsibilities of the parisa are taken on willingly conditioned by the embedding the Sangha within.

    To understand how this works, let’s start with the better defined monastic Sangha. The logic of all this is rarely clarified.

    The Bhikkhu-Sangha

    Whereas we find the sublime in the Dhamma, we find in the Buddha’s institutional teachings nuts and bolts pragmatism. The Sangha (here meaning the Bhikkhu-Sangha, the monastics, the roots of the Parisa) is an institution, as well as a collection of monks and nuns. The fundamental purpose of this institution is to produce Noble Ones, saints, the finest in admirable friends, now and in the years to come. Its founding charter provides the optimal training conditions for the practice that produces Noble Ones, it also sustains a wholesome and inspiring influence on the broader Buddhist community, and it ensures the future integrity of the practice and understanding of the Dhammavinaya.

    The Sangha has striking parallels with science as an institution, the disciplined community of scientists organized largely within or as universities and research institutions. Each, the Buddhist community and the scientific community, is a complex system responsible for many things: for training its members, for authorizing its teachers, for maintaining the integrity of its tradition against many many misguided and popular notions, for upholding pure standards whereby its results can be assessed, for encouraging the growth, prosperity and longevity of its functions, for rewarding patience where results are not immediately forthcoming, for maintaining harmony among its members, for nurturing a positive perception in the public eye, and for many other similar functions. Just as scientific discipline is intrinsic to to the practice and perpetuation of Science, and Science as we know it would collapse without it, Vinaya is intrinsic to the practice and perpetuation of Buddhism and Buddhism in all its depth cannot exist without it or something quite like it. Both institutions are conservative and remarkably unchanged over the centuries. From these parallels I will draw helpful analogies to better understand the function of the Sangha in terms of that of the perhaps more familiar scientific institution.

    It is not often enough told that the founding of the Sangha was a truly monumental achievement. Consider this: The Buddhist Sangha is likely the world’s oldest human organization in continual existence! And it is still entirely recognizable in terms of attire, life-style, practice and function after 100 generations! It was there as great empires, the Roman, Mongolian, Muslim and British, arose and grew, it was there as each of those empires collapsed. From India it extended its civilizing reach to Ceylon and Southeast Asia and into Indonesia, into Central Asia where it followed the Silk Road eastward into China and East Asia and westward as far as the Mediterranean. In modern times it has begun to board airplanes and to sprinkle down on North America, Europe, Australia, South America and even Africa. Buddhism has never penetrated new lands without it, nor established itself without  establishing a Sangha.

    Yet in spite of its robustness the Sangha is delicate. Without any centralized authority or substantial hierarchy, its governance is based on the consensus of local communities (sanghas) of monks and nuns, its regulations are enforced through an honor system and its support is completely entrusted to the good-will of others. The Buddha could have set up a hierarchy something like Pope and bishops and a range of severe punishments for transgressing authority, but he did not. Who would have thought it would last?

    This amazing institution is the product of one genius, who cobbled it together from diverse elements present in ascetic practices, gave it a mission and a charter and released it into the world. And this genius is the very same person who composed the Dhamma, among the most sophisticated and skillfully expounded philosophical, psychological and religious products of the human mind, and the very same person who attained complete Awakening without a teacher to light the way, the threefold genius we call the Buddha.

    The Functions of the Discipline

    The Buddha consistently called the body of his teachings not “Dhamma,” not “Sasana,” and certainly not “Buddhism,” but rather “Dhammavinaya,” the Teachings and Discipline.  On his deathbed the Buddha refused to appoint a successor, saying,

    “Whatever Dharma and Vinaya I have pointed out and formulated for you, that will be your Teacher when I am gone,” (“Mahaparanibbana Sutta,” DN16)

    The Vinaya is fundamentally about community. Although it defines the monastic life, the fastest vehicle to Nirvana, it actually contains virtually no discussion of morality (blamelessness or benefit), or of the attainment of higher mental states through renunciation; instead these are topics of the Suttas, of Dhamma. The Vinaya is addressed indeed to monks and nuns, but throughout its focus is on their responsibility to the Buddhist community including the lay community. The Buddha’s teachings on community provide the mechanism through which the light of the Buddha’s teachings burn brightly, through which it spreads to attract new adherents and through which it retains its integrity as it is passed on to new generations.
    Here is how the Buddha itemizes the aims of the Vinaya in ten points:

    • The excellence of the Sangha,
    • The comfort of the Sangha,
    • The curbing of the impudent,
    • The comfort of well-behaved monastics,
    • The restraint of effluents related to the present life,
    • The prevention of effluents related to the next life,
    • The arousing of faith in the faithless,
    • The increase of the faithful,
    • The establishment of the true Dharma,and
    • The fostering of Discipline.

    The following is a very brief overview of the main features of the Discipline organized according to the aims they respectively support.

    “The excellence of the Sangha.” The Sangha must be excellent because it sustains something quite sophisticated and precious, the living Dhamma, the teachings of the Buddha as they manifest in the lives of people, both monastic and lay. The nuns and monks are the designated full-time caretakers of the Dhamma. The Vinaya ensures the conditions for deep practice and study and  for harmony within the Sangha.

    Excellence of the Sangha entails that its membership is exclusive. Its members become exclusive through their vows, through the willingness to take on very simple lives of renunciation, a lifestyle fully in accord with Dhamma but beyond the consideration of most people. Initially to become a member is quite easy, but sustained membership requires enormous trust in the Dhamma, recognition of the disadvantages of samsaric life and oodles of personal discipline. In this life among the renunciates the Dhamma burns most brightly.

    By way of analogy the scientific community must be excellent because it sustains something sophisticated and productive of rapid progress in understanding the nature of our universe. Science concentrates people of exceptional training into a persistent stimulating and highly cooperative if not always harmonious community. Excellence also entails that its membership be exclusive, in this case ensured through years of intense education, evaluation and training, culminating in apprenticeship under a senior research scientist to qualify as competent to conduct independent research.

    “The comfort of the Sangha.” The Sangha seems to be planned as the ideal society writ small. The excellence of the Sangha makes that feasible. Internally the Sangha as envisioned by the Buddha observes no class distinctions, provides an exemplary level of gender equality, is regulated in a way to avoid conflicts and maintain harmony, observes procedures to negotiate disagreements should these arise, is democratic and only minimally hierarchical.

    At the same time the Sangha is embedded in and dependent on a greater society whose values may be often contrary but with which it must harmonize. Accordingly it takes care to conform, or at least provide the perception of conforming to the expectations of the wider society and certainly its standards of etiquette. It is worth noting that a preponderance of rules observed by Buddhist monks and nuns were originally recommended or inspired by lay people discontented with monastic behavior. Some regulations seem to be symbolic and I suspect purely for public perception and not reflective of the values of the ideal society (for instance, nuns pay respects to monks but not vice versa).  The uniform appearance of the Buddhist Sangha is specifically not to be confused with ascetics of other traditions who may observe other standards, and under no circumstances with the laity who have a distinct role.

    As an ascetic renunciate community, monks and nuns receive complete material support from the lay community. This affords them the leisure of practice, study and good works. Remarkably the Buddha not only makes receipt of this support mandatory (they cannot for instance grow their own food or live off their own resources) but then sharpens this dependence by limiting the monastic’s right to retain offerings, especially food for which the ownership expires at noon on the day it is offered! Monastics are not allowed to engage in exchange, such as Dhamma talks for food. This provides a high degree of insularity from the concerns and influences of the outside world. It means, for instance, that the Dhamma will never become a commercial product, manipulated for popular appeal. It also means that monastics can engage patiently in long-term practice toward profound but long-term attainment without the pressure to produce identifiable results.

    The scientific community similarly receives material support, through professorships, research grants, etc, from the broader society, both to sustain its much higher living standards and to offset the costs of research equipment, publication, travel and so forth that its functions entail. This permits its members engage in nearly full-time research, training and teaching, fulfilling the functions of the community. The assumption of academic freedom and the institution of tenure gives the scientific community a high degree of insularity from the prevailing concerns of the outside world, unbiased by politics, religion, superstition, other popular notions, practical applications or benefits or profitability. It also means scientists can engage patiently in long-term research with no pressure to produce identifiable results.

    “The curbing of the impudent” and “The comfort of well-behaved monastics.” The Sangha maintains high standards of behavior to ensure ethical conduct, conduct befitting the role of renunciate (celibacy, a nominal personal footprint, etc.), harmony of the Sangha, harmony beween Sangha and laity, preservation of the reputation of the Sangha, reaching group decisions and restraint of self-gratifying behavior.

    Regulations are enforced primarily through simple personal acknowledgment of infractions with the intention to do better next time. The Sangha has no forms of corporal punishment and implements justice largely on an honor system. More serious matters are enforced through peer pressure, through expulsion or moving impudent members to the uneasy fringes of the community for periods of time, but only upon admission of guilt. For a very small set of very serious offenses the wayward monk or nun is from that very instant no longer of the Sangha. If one manages to hide such an offense one is simply a berobed lay person successfully impersonating a monk or nun.

    Those whose behavior is unblemished garner a great deal of respect.

    Scientific communities also maintain high ethical standards, albeit in quite different realms having to do with potential falsification of data and plagiarism, disharmonious and unproductive discourse and debate and with ensuring productive evaluation of results and theoretical proposals, scientific standards and methods and peer evaluation. Such communities are largely self-regulating, generally at the institutional level with relatively little centralization of authority. Governance is often in a local university administration, but similar standards of professional conduct are generally recognized and enforced throughout the world scientific community. Institutions share common practices for expelling members or to move them to the fringes of communal activities through hiring, funding  and tenure decisions. Pursuit of professional reputation is typically a strong determinant of the behavior of scientists.

    “The restraint of effluents related to the present life” and “The prevention of effluents related to the next life.”  These two aims alone among the ten refer to the results of actual practice toward Awakening. Effluents are unwholesome tendencies and views, the taints from which the human character is purified on the Path. The Sangha functions in this regard by securing for itself the life most conducive to upholding Buddhist principles, a life so barren of any opportunity for personal advantage that a self can scarcely find root. Into its stead flow wisdom and compassion. Liberated from the tyranny of personal neediness these burst here and there into various stages of Awakening.  In this way the Sangha so effectively produces Noble Ones from among its ranks.

    Monastics are allowed by their vows to do almost nothing for themselves. They are permitted no livelihood, nor trade. They are isolated from the conventional exchange economy. Their material needs are offered entirely by the laity. Monastics are proscribed except in exceptional circumstances from asking for anything, they do not beg, contrary to folk opinion, but only offer the opportunity to give. On alms rounds they are not to prefer one house (the wealthy one or the home of the French chef) over another. They are not even allowed to endear themselves through charm and wit to families with the intent of garnering better or greater offerings, nor are they allowed to show off any special powers or talk about attainments to gain in reputation. They can build themselves a dwelling or sew for themselves robes, but these must be limited in size and quality. They also curtail frivolous speech, shows and entertainments and self-beautification, observe limits on what they can own or store, and do not eat after noon. Of course curtailing sexual activity is foundational to monasticism, obviating the most direct route to entanglement in samsara.

    On the other hand there are almost no restrictions on what a monastic can do for others: on teaching, pastoral care, good works, advice, even physical labor, as long as it is not compensated. Interestingly the restrictions on the monastics’ aid to others bear on traditionally priestly functions, such as predicting the future, healing or interceding with deities and other otherworldly powers.

    Virtually all of the progress one is likely to make on the Buddhist Path will be directly correlated with what is given up, physically or mentally: the physical trappings of life, relations and obligation like debt and car ownership, behaviors like partying flirtatiously or imbibing, needy emotions of lust, greed, envy,  pride, avarice, aversive emotions of anger, hatred, fear, jealousy, and distortions of self-view, having to be somebody and confusion. The Buddhist Path entails a long process of disentanglement strand by strand from soap-operatic existence, of renunciation. The power of the monastic life is in setting high standards of physical renunciation and offering virtually no channel for the practical expression of the afflictive mental factors that refuse to let go and generally assault for a time even the most dedicated monastic heart. Within the monastic container meditation and study quickly develop and plump fruit.

    The analogous discipline of science develops a different kind of quality in its practitioners: talent for research. It implements policies that provide very high standards for assessing its quality, for publicizing results and for allocating research funding and employment where future results prove most promising. Through continuous discourse at conferences, in published journals and in informal contexts, research results are continually refined and reevaluated cooperatively within the community to improve their quality. Peer review, and standards for hiring professors, granting tenure, awarding research grants, etc. also provide another forms of constraint and encouragement.

    “The arousing of faith in the faithless” and “The increase of the faithful.” Where there are Noble Ones trust will be inspired, for they display first-hand the peace and happiness, wisdom and compassion that result from complete immersion in the Buddhist life. The Noble Ones are close at hand, they teach, they inspire with their deportment, their good works and their knowledge. They inspire self-reflection concerning one’s own life and tend to curtail samsaric tendencies. They are the adepts, consulted as authorities to which folk Buddhists will defer when Dhammic questions arise. They thereby constrain popular speculative views of Dhamma with a firm anchor in the practice and understanding of the Noble Ones.

    Although most people do not enjoy first-hand access to scientists, the volume and continuous production of results gives Science much of its reputation and influence in the world, most particularly in the production of technology, including the wonderful gadgets that now fill our homes, cars and pockets, along with broad published outreach in popular media. Scientists are popularly regarded as the experts to whom others defer, thereby providing popular speculative views of science with an anchor in scientific research.

    “The establishment of the true Dharma.” Buddhism has been noted as the first world religion. It has proved remarkable in its robustness, especially considering that hardly any other religions has been able to penetrate foreign cultures without military conquest. This has been possible because the integrity of the Core Dhamma is preserved in an excellent community that enjoys insularity, is strong in its practice, is sustained by the laity and is is actively involved in its own education. It is not hard to imagine that something as refined as Buddhism might degrade into superstition, pop psychology or religious intolerance even in its native culture, but the anchor of the Sangha is difficult to budge.

    The integrity of scientific results is similarly preserved in an excellent community that enjoys insularity, does strong collaborative work, is well supported and that is actively involved in its own education. It is not hard to imagine how something as refined as Science might degrade into superstition, magic or wild speculation from which it arose in the first place, but it doesn’t, even though the oddest notions about the domain of science are rampant outside of the firmly planted scientific community.

    “The fostering of Discipline.” Monastic discipline is probably the most archaic element of Buddhism. While scriptures vary throughout the Buddhist world, particularly with the proliferation of the later Mahayana Sutras, the Vinaya in slightly varying versions is a constant throughout Buddhist Asia, except for Japan due to a long history of government interference. The discipline is preserved by those who maintain the discipline and ordain nuns and monks who will maintain the discipline. As long as the discipline is maintained there will be arahants in the world, as well as the lesser Noble Ones. As long as there are Noble Ones in the world the Dhamma also will not go too far astray.

    Imagine by way of illustration that the Buddhist Sangha as a whole decided that from now on the support of a monk will depend on his popularity among the laity, perhaps in terms of how many students he attracts, how many people read his Dharma talks, how well he avoids the unnerving word “renunciation.” This change would compromise the comfort of the Sangha, because it would put essential functions under outside influence. It would also compromise the restraint of effluents, because it would force the monk into the self-centered and perhaps competitive behavior of actively seeking approval of others as a matter of livelihood.

    Imagine additionally that members of the Sangha are self-qualified simply by hanging up their shingle, “Venerable Schmoe,” with no commitment to the renunciate life. This would compromise the excellence of the community. It is easy to imagine how Buddhism would dissolve in a short flash of unprecedented popularity. Influence over casual seekers would grow for a time, but fewer and fewer people will be inspired or guided into deep practice and study of the Dhamma. Fostering of discipline is critical.

    The discipline of the scientific community is perhaps its most archaic element. Interestingly it is not preserved as a uniform text and not so deliberately studied as the Buddhist Vinaya is. Yet working scientists and university administrators seem to have an implicit sense of what discipline entails and are very sensitive to any assault on its integrity as a community. These various elements of scientific discipline are for the most part very old, implicitly understood by working scientists, and show every sign of enduring into the future.

    Imagine, for instance, that the scientific community as a whole decided that from now on the merit, publication or funding of research will depend on the popularity of the researcher or his research, perhaps in terms of how many students he attracts or how many people read his research results, or if he can write a best-selling book. This would compromise the comfort of the scientific community, because it would put its critical functions under outside influence, popular opinion. It would also compromise the restraint of mistaken notions, because it would eliminate the guidance of peer review in favor of a much less expert process of review.

    Imagine additionally that researchers are self-qualified, simply by hanging up their shingles, “Professor Schmoe, PhD. This would compromise the excellence of the community. It is easy to see how serious Science would dissolve in a short flash of unprecedented popularity. Scientific understanding would also be compromised when unqualified researchers publish results with little feedback from perhaps better qualified members of the scientific community, and when they ignore the important but mundane or complex work of research in favor of what sells. In the end Science would be largely discredited. Luckily this scenario is unlikely to play itself out fully, because scientists have a sense of the discipline their community requires.

    I have written of the Sangha in ideal terms and limited discussion to the original Sangha, but I realize that it like all human institutions to date, including the scientific, it is faulty and inevitably subject to falling short of its own standards, and yet the Sangha always recovers. It is easy to be cynical about institutions and governance in general, and about the Sangha in particular because the latter is expected to uphold pristine standards indeed. Yet institutions at the same time are necessary to coordinate and preserve. Dismissing institutions or governance out of hand is like the tsunami survivor proclaiming, “That’s it, I’ve had it with water!” or the tornado survivor gasping, “No more air for me.” Like institutions water or air can get unruly, but without them what would you drink or breathe? In fact the Vinaya is a massive attempt to correct as a matter of training even the smallest unruliness or tiniest impropriety as far at the Buddha could discern it. The Buddha was raised a prince and likely trained in politics and even warfare; he would have had some insight into such matters. In fact he produced the institution with the best track record ever to date.

    The Shape of the Lay Community.

    The Third Gem has a distinct advantages over Gem One and Gem Two: immediate living presence. It ennobles the Parisa to have monks, nuns and particularly Noble Ones in its midst. These are the Sangha, under both inclusive and exclusive definitions, those disciples of the Buddha who root their lives entirely in the Dhamma.

    The Noble Ones in particular are the teachers, the adepts, the most admirable friends who impart the Dhamma both verbally and bodily, through explanation and through example. What they explain is very deep, very sophisticated and very difficult to grasp without equally deep practice. Sangha members individually gain reputations for their teaching or humanitarian work, for their inspiring meditation practice or for their scrupulous observance of monastic discipline.

    As the laity opens its heart to the Third Gem and to the individual adepts, the teachings flow in more freely. However relatively few in the general population will have the time, energy or inclination to go deeply, the understanding of the folk Buddhist remains very limited, it is often subject to misunderstandings, they think that Nibbana is a place and that all monks have magical powers. All the while, however, they know there are adepts who can clarify and correct when needed. This is much the same with science: Relatively few people develop deep scientific knowledge, the armchair scientists are subject to misunderstandings, they wonder how rocket ships avoid bumping into all the orbits out there and why it is cold at the North Pole, the highest point on earth close to the sun according to the map. Yet they know there are adepts who can clarify and correct such things if needed. Adepts are great to have around.

    If the lay devotee should find the time, energy and aspiration to go deeply, to begin to ascend the stem that reaches toward Nibbana, there is a kind and friendly helping hand available to explain the meaning of the Buddha’s life and Awakening and clarify step by step the highly sophisticated teachings to lead the instructling toward and up the Path toward Awakening. If the devotee wishes, he might take advantage of the highly recommended opportunity to ordain and pursue the Path as a member of the Sangha, with the full and enthusiastic support of his neighbors.

    Most immediately the Sangha provides a constant breathing example of what it is to live a Buddhist life. They are walking science experiments, demonstrating with every word and gesture what happens when one lets go, when one renounces everything that common sense says is necessary for felicity, for fun, for fulfillment: they end up being the most joyfully contented people in town! The Noble Ones serve as a reality check for folk people as they make life’s decisions, and a subversively civilizing influence on the whole community.

    The wholesome practice of veneration extends particularly easily to the Living Gem and dovetails with the project of satisfying their material needs, which becomes an expression of both veneration and affection. In a very real sense monastics are like house pets. Their needs are modest but constant, and recall that the Buddha’s regulations actually make them unnaturally constant. People find great joy in feeding and clothing monks and nuns, so adorable in their fluffy robes and shaved skulls. This puts the devout layperson right at the center of the wholesome practice of generosity (dana), which becomes the lifeblood of the Buddhist community. It has been written that the Buddhist community has an Economy of Gifts. The monastics are not allowed to participate in the exchange economy in any case, are sustained entirely from gifts and are at liberty to give immaterial gifts freely. The communal life around the monastics, later around the monasteries, which would commonly become at the same time community centers for the Parisa, this is the principle that prevails.

    Through their support of the Sangha as well as the rest of the Buddhist community folk Buddhists develop the joyful feeling of doing their share, of participating fully in bringing the civilizing influence of the Noble Ones into the community and in upholding the sasana to preserve Buddhism in its pristine purity for future generations. The relationship between the Sangha and lay Parisa is one of complementary roles in partnership. The Sangha upholds the teachings, produces the adapts and thereby serve the Parisa.  The Noble Ones are the soil that provides not only the nourishment of water and mineral but ensures that the entire practice, roots, leaves, stem and blossom, will not be carried away by the wind in the years to come. The Parisa supports the Sangha’s material needs. Generosity on both sides binds the two together. What authority the Sangha holds is only conveyed as wisdom or knowledge and conduct; it has no coercive power beyond  the layperson’s willingness to accept advice or admonition or to view the monastic as a role model. The laity’s authorityactually can become coercive: Dissatisfaction with the monastic Sangha can turn into withdrawal of support, a constant external check on the integrity of the institutional Sangha.

    Because generosity is such a joyful condition monasteries like the one I happen to live in are very happy places in which to practice this fundamental Buddhist value, along with selfless veneration. It encourages community involvement, requires no sophisticated knowledge and provides a wholesome environment into which to bring the kids. It also opens into an opportunity to rub shoulders with Noble Ones, benefit from their wisdom and advice and begin to learn and practice the Path to Awakening. The Buddhist community provides an oasis of sanity in a world otherwise  perpetually spinning crazily out of kilter out of control.

  • Fundamentals of Buddhist Religiosity: Refuge

    Uposatha Day, February 3, 2012

    Index to this series

    Chapter 3. Refuge.

    RefugesFlowerIn summary of the last chapter, reverential trust (or faith) in the Triple Gem, that is, of the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha, is what nourishes our Buddhist aspirations and practice just as sun, water and soil nourish a flower. This is what first turns our heads toward virtue, wisdom, peace and the rest of our highest values. Furthermore, this is in Core Buddhism, it is present in the original teachings of the Buddha and it is upheld in any Authentic Buddhism ever since. I would like to explore this Refuge thing more fully here.

    Trust in the Triple Gem is essential. Until we understand what what it is the Buddha realized, what it is the Buddha taught and what it is the Sangha has upheld for one hundred generations, we cannot be certain where this way of life and Path of practice will lead us. Until we have experienced deeply this way of life and traveled far on this Path of Practice we will not understand what the Buddha understood, taught and entrusted to the Sangha. Therefore, until we have experienced this way of life and traveled far on this path we require trust, ardent trust in the Triple Gem. Those born into Buddhist cultures and families learn that trust from infancy, others acquire it through sometimes accidental means. Sariputta, who would one-day become the Buddha’s leading disciple in wisdom, gained it first simply by observing the deportment of one of the early Noble One on alms rounds.

    There is nothing unusual or uniquely religious about any of this: Any decision, whether secular or religious, requires Trust because we live in a hopelessly uncertain world. Trust is the only thing that can bridge the gap between the little we actually know and the heap we would need to know to make a decision with certitude. It is either the nuts or the bolts of human cognition. We may try to bring as much discernment as possible into the decision but in the end we necessarily make a jump, big or little, into the unknown, “[Gulp] Well, here goes!” In this way we have entrusted ourselves for good or bad to our baby sitters, to our teachers, to our accountant, to TV pundits and to our dentist. Those born into a modern nation state at one time learned to trust its leaders and its military from childhood often through ritual pledge and incantation and to trust science as the most reliable information source. Discernment may or may not back up our trust, but some degree of trust in one thing or the other is an unavoidable part of any decision.

    Life-altering decisions require big acts of trust and therefore great courage; they are way beyond the reach of the timid who cling fearfully to certitude and baby steps. This is the courage of the hippies of yore on quest in India with nothing but a backpack, and more commonly of the betrothed or of the  career bound, stirred by deep longing or desperation. The Buddhist Path fully embraced by the one who will ascend the stem toward Nibbana will shake one’s life to the core and this will demand a particularly courageous trust in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha, stirred by samvega, a kind of horror at the full realization of the nature and depth of the human condition. It is said that the Buddha-to-be experienced samvega when as a somewhat frivolous Nepalese playboy he learned to his dismay of sickness, of old age and of death, and thus began his quest to India.

    Trust driven by desperation is appropriate even where little certainty can be discerned. Suppose the flood waters are rising and huts at the river’s edge are already being swept away. The villagers panic as they recognize the foolishness of building their village against a sheer cliff. Most of them begin running frantically back and then forth along the river bank. The chief, on the other hand, grabbing up his youngest daughter in one hand and his exquisitely embellished staff of authority in the other, shouts, “Follow me, villagers!” and plunges into the water. Many others follow immediately. Still others, the more timid, wait until they ascertain the chief’s ascent up the opposite river bank, but many of the timid are tragically swept away in the still rising waters for having hesitated. There is no discernment in timidity, to trust is to take control of our fate.

    The safety we seek, should samvega arise, is already at hand in the bridge of Refuge in the Triple Gem. Underlying both metaphors of Refuge・and Gem・is the property of Protection.・A refuge at the Buddha’s time was the protection provided by a mentor, patron or benefactor in return for a vow of allegiance. Gems were generally believed to have special protective properties. Generally there is a sense of calm relief and confident safety associated with taking Refuge in the Triple Gem known as pasada, the antidote to the distress of samvega. It is said that the Buddha-to-be experienced pasada at the sight of a wandering ascetic before he left the frivolity of the palace life. The Triple Gem along with the life of the Buddhist community is a precondition, a kind of launch pad, for the Magga, the Path of practice toward Awakening.

    Refuge in the Buddha

    Such indeed is the fortunate one, the worthy one, the supremely awakened one,
    Endowed with knowledge and virtue, well-gone, knower of Worlds,
    Peerless tamer and driver of the hearts of men, master of gods and men,
    The awakened one, the exalted one. – AN 10.92

    Most religions worship some personality. Buddhism is striking in that that role of deep veneration is occupied by a (now deceased) human being rather than a deity or supernatural being, albeit a person who attained some remarkable attributes. We already tend to venerate people with remarkable qualities, for instance, our favorite geniuses like Einstein or Mozart. The Buddha was a three-fold genius!

    First, the Buddha became a supremely awakened one, a Buddha, worthy, exalted, with no one to light the Path for him. He thereby attained perfect mastery of the mind, achieving perfect wisdom, virtue and equanimity. This was his first genius.

    Second, he was able to teach what he had attained, to lay out the Dhamma, the proper knowledge of the world and the means to tame, drive and master humans and whoever else wanted to travel the Path. This was his second genius.

    Third, he organized the Buddhist community, in particular the institution of the Sangha, to support, propagate and perpetuate the understanding and practice of his teachings. His third genius is rarely mentioned as such, but the reader should appreciate the immensity of this accomplishment by the end of the next chapter. In short, the Buddha’s three-fold genius is directly tied to the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha.

    When we take Refuge in the Buddha we see in the enormity of this personality the highest qualities we might choose to emulate. Refuge in the Buddha is nonetheless an act of trust, trust that such a personality is even possible. It is only with deep practice and study, with our own progress on the Path that we begin to see how his qualities of mind actually start to begin to commence emerging gradually. Trust is necessary in the beginning until we see for ourselves, veneration encourages trust, it opens up the heart and mind to the influence of the Buddha.

    Veneration is a Core Buddhist practice that is rather simple in Original Buddhism but assumes sometimes wildly embellished forms in some of the later traditions. Veneration gives Buddhism much of its religiosity. Veneration, or its stronger version, worship, may be the primary practice of many religions. So let’s look at its forms and functions in Original Buddhism. Two chapters from now we will see how it evolved in some of the later traditions of Buddhism.

    The living Buddha was venerated and expected to be venerated in a number of ways according to the customs of the culture in which he lived. These included a number of physical expressions, most significantly  anjali, produced by bringing the palms together before the chest or face. Anjali is a quite ubiquitous expression of respect or greeting in its land of origin. What is significant is that Buddhism has carried it from India to every land in which Buddhism has taken root regardless of how dissimilar the culture. This is evidence of the importance of the function of veneration in Buddhism. It is at the same time evidence of how a particular cultural artifact is quite readily carried along to a new land when that artifact is the established expression of some Core Buddhist function in the old land. Sometimes this process even leaving traces of one-time Buddhist influence where Buddhism is no longer evident, as is almost certainly the case in the Christian use of anjali for prayer.  We will see further examples of this in chapters to come when we consider the evolution of religiosity in the later traditions.

    Veneration to the Buddha was also originally expressed through full prostrations sometimes touching the Buddha’s feet, by circumambulation keeping the Buddha on one’s right, by covering one’s otherwise bare shoulder with one’s robe and by sitting on a lower seat than the Buddha, by standing when the Buddha entered the room, by walking behind the Buddha or not turning one’s back to the Buddha and by proper forms of address. In the early scriptures the Buddha occasionally actively chastised a visitor for not showing proper respect, beginning with the Buddha’s re-encounter after his Awakening with the five ascetics to whom he delivered his first Dhamma talk. His Vinaya also required of monks that they not offer Dhamma talks to those who do not offer proper respect to them.

    The original practice of veneration to the Buddha applied of course to a living being. Nearing his parinibbana he anticipated that his relics, the remains after his cremation, would become objects of veneration and accordingly specified, as described in the Parinibbana Sutta (DN 16) that they be divvied up and distributed to specified clans of lay devotees, so that they might build stupas over them. This became the primary physical symbol of the Buddha for purposes of veneration; Buddha statues were a much later development. I also mentioned in the last chapter that the Buddha specified four sites associated with his life as places of pilgimage. The Buddha also recommended contemplations about himself for recitation such as the one that began this subchapter, alongside contemplations of the Dhamma and Sangha.

    The way the Buddha set himself up, albeit in a modest way for the times, as an object of veneration had nothing to do with an “ego trip”; that would contradict all we know about the personality of the Buddha, about the doctrine and practices he espoused which were directed unambiguously toward selflessness, and with the trajectory of development dedicated disciples of the Buddha have experienced throughout history. It was as if Gandhi, realizing the veneration that would continue after him and realizing that this veneration would serve to keep his project alive, had left us with an ample supply of portraits of himself to hang on our walls. The Buddha undoubtedly was well aware of the importance of his Awakening for mankind and understood the value of refuge in a human personality and would have defined practices around this accordingly.

    There is also subsidiary value in veneration itself in developing wholesome states in its practitioners. Bowing and other expressions of veneration powerfully generate personal humility, they deflate the ego, knock it out of its privileged position in the universe by deferring to another. This seems to be a function of veneration or worship in all religions I am aware of, and I presume an essential function of the God idea in most. Prostration in particular seems to be a natural embodiment or enactment with deep genetic roots; consider how lesser dogs instinctively make a similar gesture to express submission to greater dogs. This practice is an easy and profound antecedent to the gradual weakening along the Path of self-view. Expressions of veneration result in calm and the stilling of inflictive emotions as self-centeredness relaxes. The Buddha states,

    When a noble disciple contemplates upon the Enlightened One, at that time his mind is not enwrapped in lust, nor in hatred, nor in delusion. … By cultivating this contemplation, many beings become purified. (AN 6.25)

    Refuge in the Dhamma

    Well expounding is the teaching of the Buddha,
    To be seen together, with immediate fruit, inviting investigation, leading onwards,
    To be realized by the wise each for himself.  – AN 10.92

    Most religions have some form of doctrine or belief system, generally providing a metaphysics, an account of the origin of the world, of mankind or of a particular tribe. The Dhamma stands out in its sophistication and its emphasis on the mind rather than on external forces. It deals with the human dilemma, existential crisis, anguish, suffering and dissatisfaction, delusion, harmfulness, meaninglessness and the rest, as human problems with human causes that arise in human minds, and require human solutions. It provides a program whereby the mind is tuned, honed, sharpened, tempered, straightened, turned and distilled into an instrument of Virtue, Serenity and Wisdom. The Dhamma itself is among the greatest products of the human mind, skillfully articulated by the Buddha. On the basis of trust in the Triple Gem we begin to study, practice, develop and gain insight through the teachings of the Buddha. As the Buddha states,

    He who has gone for refuge to the Buddha, the Teaching and his Order, penetrates with transcendental wisdom the Four Noble Truths — suffering, the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the Noble Eightfold Path leading to the cessation of suffering. – Dhammapada 190-191

    The Dhamma also stands out in its empirical quality, “inviting investigation.” This phrase translates Pali ehipassiko, which is an adjective formed from “come and see.” The Dhamma points almost entirely to what can be verified in our direct experience, or instructs us in ways to move the mind into certain experiences. Many in the West are first inspired to trust in the Dhamma in the first place upon learning of this refreshing quality of the Dhamma.

    Some caution is however in order lest one think this means that we should trust our own experience. In fact for the Buddha the typical “uninstructed worldling” is actually astonishingly deluded and the Dhamma quite “against the stream” from his perspective. We get hopelessly confused in trying to see or interpret our own experience. For this reason the Buddha in the famous but often misquoted Kalama Sutta warns us not to base one’s understanding on one’s own thinking:

    … don’t go … by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability … (AN 3.65)

    In fact, when the Buddha says “come” he is shouting down to us flatlanders from the mountaintop. To arrive at his vantage point we need to scramble up hills, struggle through brambles and ford rivers. When the Buddha says “see” we need to focus our eyes intently in the right direction to barely make out what the Buddha sees with great clarity of vision. In order to be willing to do any of this we have to establish from the beginning great faith and trust that the Buddha knows what he is talking about. This is Refuge. What else would induce us to make the difficult climb up the mountain? Investigation and personal verification are necessary parts of following the Dhammic Path but they take time and effort before we can say, “I’ve come and now I see.” Until then trust or faith is essential.

    For instance, the Buddha taught that craving is the origin of suffering (the Second Noble Truth). At first this will seem an abstract proposition which we ponder and try our darnedest to match up with observation. The most likely early outcome is to dismiss this proposition as faulty.  It seems pretty clear to us, for instance, that buying that snazzy shirt would  make us exceedingly dashing and that that would lead to improved prospects for romance and other forms of social success. Therefore craving clearly leads not to suffering but to happiness.  Refuge entail instead the we decide to trust the Buddha before what we think we are experiencing.

    Eventually through years of examination on and off the cushion we might discover that the Second Noble Truth is not an abstraction at all; it is something that bites us on the nose over and over all day every day. As soon as the craving comes up the suffering is right there with it. As soon as we “have” to have that shirt there is stress and anxiety, unmistakenly. We would discover we had been living in a world of incessant suffering, a world aflame, all along and not noticing it! Without Refuge we would never have scrambled to the mountaintop. As the contemplation at the beginning of this subchapter states, it is the wise who realize for ourselves.

    The Japanese-American Zen master Shohaku Okumura in a similar vein once said of Zen meditation, “It takes a lot of faith to do zazen. Otherwise nobody would do something so stupid.”

    Although the Buddha’s quite empirical methods seem generally to turn away from what we tend to think of as religiosity — the Buddha quite clearly had no sympathy for blind faith — I should in all fairness point out that his teachings are not entirely empirical. The ultimate criterion for Dhammic truth is not verification, but benefit. This again is made clear in the Kalama Sutta:

    “Kalamas, when you yourselves know: ‘These things are bad; these things are blamable; these things are censured by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill,’ abandon them. ” (AN 3.65 )

    He then goes on to argue how belief in rebirth, apparently as controversial in Buddha’s day as it is today, fits this criterion, as a working assumption if need be for the unconvinced. He does not argue for rebirth on the basis of criteria of objective verification but of ethics. This brings myth, or what many will interpret as myth, within the Buddha’s purview, even while it is rare that it is found a Core role.

    Certainly the primary original way to venerate the Dhamma would have been to listen to discourses attentively and to recite and memorize them.

    Refuge in the Sangha

    Of good conduct is the Sangha of disciples,
    Of upright conduct is the Sangha of  disciples,
    Of wise conduct is the Sangha of disciples,
    Of dutiful conduct is the Sangha of disciples,
    Namely the four pairs of persons and the eight kinds of individuals,
    Worthy of offerings, worthy of hospitality,
    Worthy of gifts, worthy of reverential salutation,
    An incomparable field of merits in the world. – AN 10.92

    Living, breathing role models are found in every religious tradition, but in Buddhism these become primary objects of veneration and faith. This makes perfect sense since living breathing persons have the most immediate influence on our lives and are most likely to have brought us to Refuge in the Triple Gem in the first place. Unfortunately sometimes we accord this privilege unknowingly to ruffians and scoundrels rather than to admirable friends. For the Buddha the Ariyasangha is most worthy.

    The line in the verse above, “Namely the four pairs of persons and the eight kinds of individuals,” refers to the four stages of Awakening, beginning with Stream Entry, and subdividing each of these by “path” and “fruit,” that define the Ariyasangha in terms of spiritual attainment. The subsequent lines refer to the practice of giving alms to monks and nuns, the Bhikkhusangha, along with veneration. The idea is that the Sangha brings great benefit to the world but that their attainment and presence are enabled by those who sustain them and thereby share in bringing benefit to the world, as it were watering a fertile field. The generosity of alms is thereby the primary means of expressing veneration to the Third Gem. Both practices, veneration itself and generosity as a specific expression, are important elements of Buddhist religiosity in cultivating wholesome mental factors for the actor, which is what merit really is.

    I’ve written a bit about the relationship of the Ariya- and Bhikkhu-sanghas, the soil and the roots, in the last chapter, and will examine this in detail in the next chapter. Suffice it to say here that there is an ambiguity between the two. Recall that the former are individuals of great attainment, the Noble Ones, and the latter the members of the monastic order, who individually may or may not be so Noble. Generally when we extol the virtues of the “Sangha,” as in the contemplation above we speak of the Noble Ones, yet the most common formula for first taking Refuge in the early discourses usually in the Buddha’s presence, explicitly uses the word Bhikkhusangha.  It gets confusing but the confusion seems to be deliberate. If we think of the Bhikkhusangha as a school that trains people to become Ariyans but actually includes some monks and nuns of little attainment, for instance, the newly ordained, we realize that offering alms to the Bhikkhusangha is a necessary function for ensuring that there are Noble Ones in the world. Moreover it is the monks and nuns who are readily recognized as a Sangha thought their distinctive attire. As such the Bhikkhusangha not only sustantially includes the Ariyasangha, but nuns and monks collectively or individually symbolize it, even if sometimes much as a piece of plaster sitting on a modern altar might symbolize the Buddha. It helps if the practice of giving alms is thought of not as the practice of giving to a particular Noble One or a particular nun or monk, but to the Sangha as a whole, undifferentiated, on behalf of which a particular nun or monk receives the alms. Accordingly the Buddha said,

    “An offering made to the monastic Sangha is incalculable, immeasurable. And, I say, that in no way does a gift to a person individually ever have a greater fruit than an offering made to the Sangha.” – MN 141

    Although the Buddha included himself in the Sangha it is remarkable that the “person individually” referred to was specifically himself in the context of the discourse, the Noble One of the Noble Ones. For the Buddha the Refuge in the Sangha was huge.

    Continuity.

    The Buddhist Path fully embraced by the one who will ascend the stem toward Nibbana will shake his life to the core and this will demand a particularly courageous trust in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. I want to return briefly to the theme of urgency that impels this level of faith.

    The Great Cathedral in Cologne, Germany began construction in 1248 A.D. and was to be magnificent. It was completed in 1880, over six centuries later! This makes me think of the original founders of the Cathedral, and marvel at what their motives were and what inspired them to start a project of this size that would not live to see past the very earliest stages. This undertaking certainly required a great trust that others will be there to continue the work through the generations and centuries to come. It certainly required patience when progress must have seemed so gradual in their lifetime. Along with patience it must have fostered a sense of urgency as the significance of this project dwarfed all other considerations in the lives of these founders; after all every decision they made was for an eager posterity, for untold generations to come, long after the ephemeral gains, losses and fatigue of their small lives had long been forgotten. Their small lives must have acquired huge meaning in the context of this project. I imagine that sicknesses, deaths, births, droughts barely deterred the founders in their determination to see the work continue without interruption.

    This particular sample of selfless urgency and determination, of meaningfulness and zeal, comes out of a religious context, but similar examples are found in secular realms as well, for instance, in science or in art or among explorers, in which practitioners characteristically give themselves over completely to a project perceived as somehow greater than themselves, sometimes even to their personal neglect and peril. That greater context or perspective is often ill-defined, the glory of God, the march of human knowledge, Lasting Beauty. It is this kind of “religious” zeal that produces genius. It is also akin to the zeal evoked by samvega, horror at the human predicament, and pasada, trust, that turns to Refuge and goes on to produce Awakening. The aim of our practice is about the perfection of the human character, it is about making something no less magnificent than the Cologne Cathedral: a Buddha.

    If we fail to find that greater perspective our practice can easily slip entirely into making our present lives temporarily more comfortable until we die, at which point any horror we may have at the human predicament will disappear anyway. Our practice will be like beginning construction on a village church, rather than a Cathedral, which we expect to occupy and preach in this very life. The result might indeed be competent, but hardly magnificent. We will have failed to transcend a petty fathom-long body and few decades of life and thereby failed to secure the condition for an Awakening that might otherwise have been possible even in this very life and body.

    What would be missing in this picture is a sense of continuity with what goes on before this life, after this life and all around this life. Our practice is about our “ancient twisted karma,” about developing from what we understand as the content of our character, our deeply rutted habit patterns of body, speech and mind, our views, our identities, our pleasures and our anguish, our strengths and weaknesses. When I use the phrase “ancient twisted” I acknowledge that this karma has for the most part obscure antediluvian origins. We repeat in our lives what our ancestors have repeated before us, what our culture is accustomed to repeating, what our evolutionary history has passed on to us.     Just as ancient twisted karma has all been transmitted to us as the stuff of our practice, so do we transmit it further as a hopefully less twisted result. We are like pipes; if karma goes in one end karma has to come out the other. In short, we are embedded in a matrix of beginningless and endless cause and effect, that passes through countless lives.

    This is what makes the horror of the human predicament as well as our practice toward its resolution huge. The realization that the fruits of our practice are forever, fosters a sense of urgency as what’s at stake in this project dwarfs all other considerations in this life; after all every decision you make will be for a world eager to end suffering, long after the ephemeral gains, losses and fatigue of your small present life are long forgotten. This means you will continue to practice virtue, even under the pressure of bad times or of good short-term gains, because it is your virtuous kamma that will carry over into future. The fruits of the practice of this small life will acquire huge meaning in the context of this project. Sicknesses, deaths, births, falling stock prices will barely deter you in your determination to see the work continue without interruption.

    This deeper perspective is the function of Rebirth in Original Buddhism, and explains why the Buddha, otherwise scrupulously wary of metaphysics or philosophical speculation, took a clear stand in this case. What is really at stake, as with Refuge, is the attitude behind our practice. In  terms of rebirth Bhikkhu Bodhi states more succinctly the point I present here:

    To take full cognizance of the principle of rebirth will give us that panoramic perspective from which we can survey our lives in their broader context and total network of relationships. This will spur us on in our own pursuit of the path and will reveal the profound significance of the goal toward which our practice points,…

    I bring up rebirth in the context of religiosity because it like Refuge expresses a Core part of the mindset, the infrastructure, the launch pad, the preconditions necessary to fully embrace the Path toward Nibbana. It also incidentally gives us an opportunity to explore the boundary of Original and Core Buddhism, that is to start with an understanding of the Core functionality that needs to be preserved then to test the range of expressions of that functionality. For instance, admirable friendship itself can be viewed as channel for conveying karmic results. Modern science has revealed many new channels, genetic, behavioral, social, environmental, that would have been dimly understood at the time of the Buddha. Or we might find the more traditional linear model of pipe linearly aligned to pipe entirely satisfactory. In any case we are each engaged in an epic struggle with karmic forces from the ancient past and outcomes that will reach endlessly into the future.

    Buddhism without Refuge?

    The tyke born of a devout Buddhist family is likely to live out his life centered in religiosity; he will live in the roots and leaves, not in the stem. His is a world something like the grass of the next illustration. The little seedling will have been brought into the presence of Buddha altars, and of monks, nuns and Noble Ones, and will have been taught the forms of veneration. He will learn to recite the Refuges. He will begin to absorb a few Dhammic aphorisms and learn to recite five Precepts. With growing conviction he becomes increasingly involved in the community life, developing merit in taking care of the temple and the needs of the monastics, in chanting vigorously, and such things. He will someday become aware of the stem and may consider broadening his world to include the Path upward, perhaps ordaining. A full encounter with samvega will likely bring him to that decision. In any case he will be inclined support generously the aspirations of those who do make that choice, for he will understand the civilizing force of the Noble Ones.

    DevoteeFlowerLiving in this world seems in itself capable of achieving remarkable results. I see this in most Asian Buddhists I’ve known. I also see it in other religious traditions with similar forms of religiosity, which one way or another seem to produce some people of great attainment, even without a Noble Eightfold Path or anything resembling it! It has a remarkable capacity for generating confidence, zip and many wholesome mental factors in its adherents, and can produce centered, selfless, composed, kind and insightful people. One can thrive in the grass.

    A totally different profile would be someone who does not grow up with a foundation in Buddhist religiosity. He might be reluctant to commit to the Refuges or Precepts, has not lived in a Buddhist community, knows nothing about Noble Ones, does not know what function nuns and monks could possibly serve or why they don’t go out to get jobs. He might have begun by reading about Buddhism, inspired perhaps by a vague sense that Buddhism is a good thing, maybe having seen the Dalai Lama on TV or inspired by Buddhism’s reputation as “peaceful,” or by reading Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. In any case he has been moved to take up Buddhist practice, particularly meditation, much as he had when taking up working out in a Gym the year before. Just as the gym membership had made his body stronger, he hopes that joining a 都angha・will make his mind stronger. He likes the idea of Awakening and might even expect to if he meditates ardently for a couple of years, but has no perspective beyond improving this one life.

    This chap lives in the world of the stem, as shown in the next illustration. Without deep veneration nor involvement in a Buddhist community he is nourished only by the experience of practice itself. He lives more accurately in something like mistletoe hanging off the stem which has grown from a seed (his initial intention) that had been deposited in a bird dropping. Mistletoe is a parasite that develops enough of a root to absorb water and minerals from the host plant. It has no sense of where this nourishment comes from nor responsibility for preserving it for future generations. It gazes down upon the grass with disdain, little comprehending the roots and soil and the spiritual growth that is happening down there. I know this profile well; it used to be mine. His practice is likely to be precarious for a time, but he might eventually gain some strength if he manages grow deep religious roots. Notice that each of these illustrations omits the blossom of Nibbana.

    MeditatorFlowerPeople who grow up steeped in (perhaps Jewish or Catholic) religiosity have an easier time. They are like a graft rather than mistletoe. Much of the growth of the roots and leaves has already been experienced and is, probably with mixed degrees of success, translated into Buddhist religiosity.

  • Fundamentals of Buddhist Religiosity: Core Buddhism

    Uposatha Day, Full Moon, January 26, 2013

    Index to this series

    Chapter 2. Core Buddhism

    CoreFlowerThere is a Buddhism that shines through constantly through the various Buddhist traditions, a Buddhism visible first in the earliest scriptures and a common edifice behind the many often wild and perplexing guises appearing under the name “Buddhism.” In order to make sense of this, I am going to distinguish three related terms “Original Buddhism,” “Core Buddhism” and “Authentic Buddhism.” Imagine someone made up and told a story that was then retold many times, with different words and much retooling and embellishment of details, but keeping the basic story intact right down to the response to the punch line, we might say the “core” of the “original” story is preserved in any “authentic” retelling.

    Original Buddhism is Buddhism as taught by the Buddha, and as formulated by the Buddha. It consists of two parts, the Dhamma and the Vinaya, the doctrine and the discipline. Generally the Pali Suttas, particularly the Digha, Majjhima, Samyutta and Anguttara Nikayas as well as the Suttanipata of the Khuddhaka Nikaya along with the equivalent Chinese Agamas are generally agreed by scholars to constitute the most reliable evidence of the original Dhamma. The Vinaya, the monastic code, is available in several traditions, the Pali Vinaya being the most easily available in English. Many will quibble endlessly about what is actually original, particularly since there are many contradictions and alternative interpretations in the texts transmitted to us, and clearly alterations. I have argued elsewhere that the resolution of these quibbles requires a recognition of the system that shines through when enough of the pieces are assembled, a recognition beyond the competence of pure scholars of Buddhism, but available to those who have entered deep into the path of practice to begin to see the Dhamma experientially.

    Core Buddhism is a significant abstraction from Original Buddhism, a kind of eau de Buddhime. It is the system that shines through in Original Buddhism, but stripped of its particular formulation and stripped of extraneous elements of the ancient texts that are irrelevant to that system. This term serves as way to eschew the literalism lurking in original texts.

    For instance it is safe to say that some form of mindfulness practice is a key functional element of Core Buddhism. This is formulated as the Four Foundations of Mindfulness in Original Buddhism, but the the quite distinctly formulated Zen method of meditation called Shikantaza in Japanese along with a set of off-the-cushion practices retain (I would argue, based on personal experience) its functionality. I therefore say both formulations maintain the same functional element of Core Buddhism and Zen is at least in this regard authentic Buddhism.

    Also Original Buddhism was taught in a certain cultural context so it is inevitable that it will mention many elements that are not actually integral to Buddhism as a functional system. My own sense, for instance, is that the many devas, godly beings, who drop in on the Buddha in the early scriptures are such elements. Of course what it or is not Core Buddhism is subject to quibble at least as much as what is or is not Original Buddhism. For the most part I will describe Core Buddhism in terms of its intersection with Original Buddhism, but implicitly intend the qualification, “… or equivalent” at each step.

    Finally, I refer to an Authentic Buddhism as any formulation of Buddhism that retains or even extends Core Buddhism, and thereby preserves the functionality or intention of Original Buddhism. A new authentic form of Buddhism might arise as Buddhism enters a new cultural space in which new ways of teaching are necessary to reach new ways of thinking. Naturally Original Buddhism is also the Original Authentic Buddhism. Other Authentic Buddhisms retool or extend Core elements of Original Buddhism or simply accrue extra elements, most particularly elements of religiosity. I hope this makes sense; these distinctions will be useful in coming chapters.

    A Metaphor for Core Buddhism.

    Buddhism is a flower. It is a system of interrelated inter-functioning parts that is much greater than the sum of the individual parts. Each part has a function and, regardless of whether or not you recognize at first what that function is, the whole flower would die if it were missing any major part. Here is in a nutshell how Core Buddhism would map onto the major parts of the flower:

    • The blossom of the flower is Nibbana (I will prefer Pali here, this is Nirvana in Sanskrit).
    • The stem that supports the blossom is Magga, the path, the instructions for practice and understanding, originally expressed as the Noble Eightfold Path, and leading to Nibbana.
    • The leaves androots are the Parisa, the Buddhist community, the roots are the Bhikkhu-Sangha, the monastic order of monks and nuns, actually a special role within the Parisa. They collect nourishment of sun, water and soil in order that the flower thrive.
    • The sun, water and soil that nourish the flower are the Triple Gem, respectively the Buddha, the Dhamma (Dharma), and the Sangha. They inspire and bend the mind in the proper direction.

    Now, here is the same thing in more detail:

    BuddhaFlower

    Blossom. This is Nibbana, the highest attainment of human character, liberation from suffering, liberation from the taints, perfect wisdom, virtue, enlightenment, awakening, all those good things. Notice that most religions seem to have the goal of liberation or salvation, often pertaining to a life beyond this one. Nibbana itself therefore has an aspect of religiosity, though other religions would understand salvation differently.

    Stem. This is the Path of individual practice and understanding that leads to Nibbana. This is the most uniquely Buddhist part, and therefore the most distinct from religiosity. The stem is made of three strands, which are called Wisdom, Virtue and Mental Cultivation, each of which bundles two or three smaller strands. The underlying principle behind practice is loosening the entangling bonds of personal neediness, aversion and views. All the strands work together and, when taken up with conviction, energy and a sense of urgency, guarantee selfless progress. There is hardly anything like this in its practicality and sophistication in non-Buddhist religious traditions. Since this is the part of the flower that has the least to do with religiosity it will be the one I write about the least, even though it is the part the Buddha spoke of the most.

    Leaves and roots. This is the community context, the community itself and community activities and also the locus of religiosity. The community is divided into to parts, lay and monastic, with clearly defined social roles, but a member of either can begin to ascend the stem.

    Leaves. This is the Parisa,the Buddhist community, and its main component is the lay community. The main characteristic of the Buddhist lay community is that it is not explicitly organized nor commanded in any special way, but is rather inspired by the Triple Gem toward practice and understanding and toward a particular relationship with nuns and monks.

    Roots. This is the Bhikkhusangha, the community of monks and nuns. Its main characteristic is that it is organized in very specific way, inspires the support of the lay community and in this way is able to sustain a rare lifestyle that is most conducive to Buddhist study and practice. It serves to produce Nobel Ones. The particular organization of the Bhikkhusangha is a primary teaching of the Buddha, the topic of the massive Vinaya. Although the lay community is not explicitly organized its behavior plays off of that of the Bhikkhusangha.

    Nourishment for the Flower. Refuge is the part of Buddhist religiosity that allow the roots and leaves to absorb the nourishment of the sun, water and soil. Conviction focuses on the Triple Gem of the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. These nourish the entire practice, and in fact the beginning of Buddhist practice is generally considered to be Refuge in the Triple Gem.

    The Buddha reached an advanced understanding, a level of insight and knowledge that he knew would be very difficult for others to achieve. As a teacher he had to consider the process whereby others can reach that understanding, and recognized that it requires a combination of confidence in the teacher and teachings, and direct experience of what these are pointing out. Faith or trust (Pali saddha) is necessary put aside accumulated faulty notions and to open oneself completely to the light of the Buddha’s insight and its current embodiment. Veneration of the Triple Gem is an important psychological element in the development of the necessary trust.

    The sun. This is the Buddha himself. Conviction in the Enlightenment inspires the community’s commitment to deeper practice. The Buddha stands an an example to emulate, an admiral friend, present at least in the accounts of his life and in the Dharma-Vinaya, his teachings and in those most shaped by his influence.

    Water. This is the Dhamma, the teachings of the truth that the Buddha directly experienced and the instructions for perfecting the human character constitute the clean water that flows into every aspect of our Buddhist life and practice, carried by the soil through the roots into leaves and up into the stem, to inform our practice at every level on our way to Nirvana.

    Soil. This is the Sangha. This represents the adepts, past present and future, who have gone far in the practice, perhaps not reaching Nibbana, but progressing at least far enough to discern it and to attain unshakable trust in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. The Sangha nourishes the community through its visible example, its direct experience and its teaching. Notice that the Sangha here is properly called the “Ariyasangha,” the Noble Ones, to distinguish it from the Bhikkhusangha, the institution that spins off Nobel Ones. The roots are buried deep in the soil, the monks and nuns have Sangha between their toes, and the soil is made rich by the many generations of roots, of leaves, of stems and of blossoms.

    The Religiosity the Buddha Did Not Teach

    The Buddha lived in a very religious culture, made use of much of what he saw around him and dismissed what he felt was useless or harmful. He made use of a range of such religious elements in crafting his own system of thought, not only to produce practice and understanding, but also to providing the proper context to inspire correct practice and understanding now and for generations to come. I hope the reader will gain a new appreciation by the end of this essay of what a carefully conceived and well-articulated system he crafted. Let us look for now at what he pared down.

    In expressing reverence the Triple Gem Core Buddhism acquires something at least like worship. However it is not veneration toward an otherworldly being or force, but of things this-wordly: a remarkable person long deceased, of a set of teachings for and by humans and of real people who happen to embody those teachings completely in their own lives. Actually there may be irony intended in the frequent appearance of such otherworldly beings in the ancient discourses. Even higher deities, rather than demanding reverence for themselves, instead venerate those same things the good Buddhist does as higher than themselves, bowing before the Buddha and even the monks. The Buddha did on many occasions expect of others that they show proper respect for him, and actually required that monks and nuns not offer teachings if their audience shows disrespect for them. However there is little indication that the Buddha intended to become the center of a personality cult. He discouraged some of the more extreme forms of reverence he received, once telling an awe-struck follower (in the most literal sense of follower),

    “Why do you want to see this foul body? If you see the Dhamma you see me.”

    Nonetheless the Buddha did specify four significant places from his life as destinations for pilgrimage after he is gone.

    The Buddha also advocated veneration for parents, teachers, the elderly and even monastics of other traditions, yet eschewed the prevailing caste system. Reverence was clearly part of his thinking.

    Likewise limited ritual practices are current in Original Buddhism. Bowing is frequent as a gesture of veneration, as is circumambulation, for instance, “keeping the Tathagatha to his right.” Notice however these are no more than expressions. In contrast the Buddha spoke in no uncertain terms of the dangers of rites and rituals (silabbata), even classifying these as the third of the ten fetters to be abandoned on the Path. He did not have in mind ritual or conventionalized expressions, which like words are means of communication, and which would encompass many things very familiar to us in the modern world, like shaking hands or waving goodbye and saying “Ta-ta.”

    Indeed what is absent from Core Buddhism is the attribution of some special hidden efficacy to rites and rituals, for instance making a sacrifice to to gain the good favor of a deity or asking a priest to make an incantation to produce some kind of future good luck or a favorable rebirth. This way of using of rites and rituals was rife in the Brahmanism of the Buddha’s day and did not gain the Buddha’s endorsement. Specifically he did not want the monks and nuns to become priests and forbade such intermediary roles along with astrology, numerology or other means of predicting the future, as well, by the way, of exhibiting paranormal powers such as levitation in the presence of the laity.

    Trust or faith has a prominent role in Core Buddhism. Refuge in the Triple Gem is the immediate example, a trust in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. However this is far from blind faith and in fact much like the trust a student of science puts into her teachers, a science graduate student puts into the paradigm her teacher represents. This is, in other words, a trust that is subject to personal verification as the attainment and understanding of the Buddhist develops and as such it is a faith that is replaced gradually with knowing. It is helpful in this regard that the Buddha was very parsimonious in his teachings, giving nothing as an object of convictionor investigation that did not have a function in the Path.

    Another feature of Original Buddhism that bears mentioning is that there are virtually no special practices or teachings of consolation as found in other religions, beyond perhaps the peace of mind that comes with Refuge. There is no appeal to an outside power or metaphysical view that makes everything OK, old age, sickness and death and the rest. There is a notion of salvation, Nibbana, but its attainment is a matter of mental development.

    How Buddhist Religiosity Works

    The operating principle of the leaves, the roots and the nourishment of the Triple Gem is … friendship! In particular it is admirable friendship (kalyanamittata in Pali), that which is possible from having Noble Ones among us to provide wise role models and instructors. The principle is to have the opportunity to hang with persons consummate in virtue, in generosity and in wisdom. The following dialog expresses in a rather striking way the critical importance the Buddha attached to this simple principle:

    As he was sitting there, Ven. Ananda said to the Blessed One, “This is half of the holy life, lord: admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie.”

    Don’t say that, Ananda. Don’t say that. Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life. When a monk has admirable people as friends, companions, & colleagues, he can be expected to develop & pursue the Noble Eightfold Path. (SN 45.2)

    Just as it benefits us to have artists and good plumbers among us it ennobles us to have saints and sages, adepts and arahants in our midst, the more the better. These Noble Ones are the Sangha mentioned in the Triple Gem, disciples of the Buddha who root their lives entirely in the Dhamma, have already been carried far aloft by the stem of the Path and are an inspiration and a resource for us all. It is through admirable friends that the meaning of the Buddha’s life and Awakening is revealed and through such admirable friends that the highly sophisticated teachings are clarified step by step to lead the instructling toward and up the Path toward Awakening. It is the Sangha, by recognizing what shines through the words, that the core of Buddhism is preserved in its full integrity. The Sangha is therefore the soil that provides not only the nourishment of water and mineral but ensures that the entire practice, roots, leaves, stem and blossom, will not be carried away by the wind in the years to come.

    The Ariya-Sangha arises from conditions and these conditions are secured by means of the Bhikkhu-Sangha. This is expressed approximately as follows,

    “And if these monks, Subaddha, live rightly, the world will not be empty of arahants.” – DN 16.

    The world will be even less be empty of the Noble Ones, many of whom are not yet arahants, of sages and of admirable friendship. The Bhikkhu-Sangha is both a training ground and a dwelling place for the Ariya-Sangha, much like a university is both a training ground and a dwelling place for scholars. Without Noble Ones Buddhism cannot retain its integrity, and Noble Ones will be very few indeed without nuns and monks in the Buddhist community … or equivalent.

    Let’s see how this works out for a young man, Aung Myint, born into a Buddhist family in a Buddhist community. First he will be taught even as a toddler to revere the Triple Gem, the sun, water and soil that sustains the Buddhist flower. The Buddha for him will exemplify certain values such as selflessness, virtue and serenity. The Dhamma is likely not to be readily accessible until he is moved to personal investigation outside of a few aphorisms like “Happiness comes only from within.” The Sangha, with which Aung Myint could well be in daily contact, will provide living examples of what it is to live deeply according to Buddhist principles, and of the joy and wisdom that emerges in such a life. Aung Myint lives among the leaves, as a part of the Buddhist community and supportive of the monks and nuns. He grows up with a mind bent toward Buddhist values and Buddhist aspirations. The Buddha once said,

    Those who have joyous confidence in the highest, the highest fruit will be theirs. (AN 4.34)

    He has noticed that people adopt a wide varieties of ways of life. He himself for a time thinks of marrying his cute neighbor Su Su and raising a family. But he learns what a problem life can be with no easy answers. He notices that the Noble Ones are more content and full of active goodwill than anyone else in spite of their utterly simple lives. This inspires him to follow the wise into the holy life, to forsake a personal footprint in favor of the selfless Path that blossoms in Nibbana. Aung Myint joins the monastic order and begins to study as a student of one of the sages, and from the root begins his ascent upward. Eventually he becomes one of the Noble Ones, in fact an arahant (to ensure this tale a happy ending).

    Foretaste

    This has been a brief sketch of the religious infrastructure implemented by the Buddha and its functions. In the next two chapters I will go into more detail concerning the two main components of this system, Refuge, including trust and admirable friendship, and Community, including its organized and unorganized components. After that I will discuss the ways in which this religious system has been modified in the many later Buddhist traditions, including through the incursion of features that the Buddha originally wanted to keep in check. However I will finally consider the ways in which the Buddha foresaw that the presence of Noble Ones, the adapts, the Sangha, would serve to preserve the integrity of Core Buddhism yet tolerate the many pressures toward variation within those traditions.

  • Fundamentals of Buddhist Religiosity: Introduction

    Uposatha Day, First Quarter Moon, January 19, 2013

    Index to this series

    I have been reworking some of my previous writings into an eBook of maybe about 80 pages. This will include some things I posted under “Buddhist Religiosity,” “American Folk Buddhism,” etc. also with new content, assembled into an integrated whole. I intend to serialize it here as I finish each of the eight chapters. I hope my readership finds this helpful. This week: The Introduction.

    Fundamentals of Buddhist Religiosity

    Original Buddhism and its Cultural Adaptations

    Bhikkhu Cintita Dinsmore

    DRAFT, January, 2013

    Chapter 1. Introduction

    IntroBuddhaIs Buddhism a religion? Of course it depends on one’s definition. I see three options:

    1. A religion involves worship of God. This works for the Abrahamic faiths familiar in the West. Clearly Buddhism fails this criterion.

    2. A religion is a way of life. That is, it informs our life choices at the most fundamental level, our ethical standards, our values, our attitudes, our aspirations? Clearly Buddhism satisfies this criterion.

    Many suggest Buddhism is not a religion because it is a way of life. It seems to me this is exactly what is expected of a religion when embraced fully.

    1. A religion is a matter of “family resemblance,” that is, if it looks like a religion it is.

    This last seems at first like a sloppy criterion, but as a linguist I can report that family resemblance underlies the better part of language; firm definitions are the exception, even for scientific terminology. Maybe to determine if Buddhism is a religion we should try for two out of three. This would make the last, the family resemblance, criterion the deciding factor. Its applicability frames this essay.

    The degree of family resemblance, or the elements that indicate family resemblance are what I will call “religiosity.” Surely Buddhism in all of its traditional forms seems to have something of religion about it, for instance, devotional, ritual, liturgical and institutional features, to supplement somewhat unique doctrinal aspects and a program of personal practice. Yet some have argued recently that Buddhist religiosity is entirely a product of cultural accretion that began after the Buddha and has little to do with the core message of the Buddha. This yields two kinds of questions:

    (1) What is the degree of religiosity in the Buddha’s core message?

    (2) What is the degree of religiosity for any particular Buddhist tradition?

    My responses will be something of a middle way, that indeed elements of religiosity were an intrinsic part of the Buddha’s core message and that these same core elements are found in virtually every historic Buddhist tradition, but that through cultural adaptation in virtually every tradition the degree of religiosity has become more prominent, sometimes exceedingly more prominent. However this fortified religiosity may or may not be a diversion from the Buddha’s core message. A third question we will add to the mix is,

    (3) In what ways is religiosity for any particular Buddhist tradition a hindrance or an asset to preserving the Buddha’s core message?

    In this essay I will outline the important aspects of religiosity in core Buddhism and will illustrate its enhancement in a sample of later traditions. I will then turn to this process of cultural adaptation and its implications. Buddhism stands out in the following two ways: First, if it is a religion it is the earliest world religion, succeed only substantially by Christianity and Islam, which means that it has historically successfully adapted to often radically new cultures. Second, the integrity of the highly sophisticated core teachings of Buddhism have been remarkably well preserved through these cultural adaptations. I will locate the mechanism of this adaptation in core Buddhism, in fact in core Buddhist religiosity, and will illustrate this mechanism particularly with regard to current Western Buddhist adaptations and assess their implications.

    Which Buddhism?

    I count as one of those who see in Buddhism — in spite of all its doctrinal variants, sects, innovations, cultural manifestations and so on — a common core, that is, a set of unifying features that allow us to talk of “Buddhism” in the singular. In fact, it seems to me that a remarkable aspect of Buddhism — in spite of exhibiting much more scriptural variation than most of the other major religions — is that it seems to have much more consistency of purpose and understanding than, say, Christianity. Somehow, transmitted through many centuries, through many traditions and cultures, and in spite of its accrued variety, Buddhism has managed to preserve the integrity of its essential core throughout the Buddhist world. The essential core preserved in the traditions includes, for instance, a more-or-less common understanding of liberation and of the path of training toward liberation which focuses on virtue, wisdom and development of mind, and a recognition of greed, hatred and delusion as the primary qualities of mind to be appeased. It also includes placing confidence of the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha, the near ubiquity of the monastic order and a communal emphasis on the practice of generosity.

    I realize that many people see in Buddhism exactly the opposite: They find it extremely fragmented, dispersed over an impossible range of doctrinal positions, beliefs, practices and rituals. For instance, any given Buddhist tradition considers itself almost invariably the almost unique heir of Buddhist authenticity. Yet in exploring other lands and other sects it is faced with peculiarity and anomaly in the practices and beliefs of the laity, the garb of the monastics, the style of liturgy, the presence of unfamiliar figures in temple statuary, unfamiliar rites at temple altars, unknown scriptures on temple bookshelves, and hocus pocus all around. For many in the West who first come to Buddhism and survey the entire array of traditions, unbiased by any particular tradition, the variance is even more striking and it is easy to see how they might throw their hands up in despair and perhaps entertain the hope that Baha’i or Sufism is easier to sort out.

    Much of the observed diversity reveals more about the observer than about the observed. Different people and different cultures come with different perspectives and different expectations, and cultural Westerners are no different. Alongside differences in doctrinal understanding, for instance, fixed culturally induced interpretations arise for what is simply be poorly understood about someone else’s tradition. Different options for individual practice within a unified core Buddhism or progressive stages of individual practice are interpreted as distinct Buddhisms, as are differences in understanding, ranging from sophisticated to naïve, among the adherents within a particular tradition. In response I will isolate a common core Buddhism that can be recognized in the various traditions underneath their supplementary cultural accretions, and then attempt to sort out the rest.

    Religiosity in Buddhism

    The reasons I focus on religiosity are twofold: First, these elements tend to be more implicit in Buddhist teachings rather than systematically developed and therefore their significance bears exploring. Second, they tend to be conditioned culturally far more than doctrinal and programmatic aspects, for instance, sometimes assuming highly embellished forms in many of the Buddhist traditions, and they are therefore disproportionally responsible for the sometimes wild variety observed among and within the various Buddhist traditions.

    Religiosity seems to be a universal, found throughout the world. Scholars of comparative religion have probably looked at this in detail, but here are the recurring features I observe in almost all religions, many of which contribute to the family resemblance of Buddhism and “religion” :

    • Ritual and Ceremony. These are conventionalized actions and activities.
    • Ritual spaces. Certain places and spatial relations are made significant through ritual or placement at an elevation or naturally central location.
    • Ritual artifacts. A central or prominent altar is common. Sometimes clothing is an indicator of social role in religious activities. Incense, candles, flowers and images are common.
    • Respect, Devotion and Worship. Certain rituals and gestures are used to express degrees of reverence or respect, either to designated people, to ritual artifacts, to abstractions or to otherworldly beings.
    • Scripture. Texts convey the basic doctrine or mythology of the religion and often go back to the founding of the religion. Scriptures are often regarded as ritual artifacts.
    • Tradition. Many of the rituals, artifacts, scripture and so on are archaic, that is, bespeak of an ancient time to give a sense of embeddedness in a long tradition.
    • Chanting. Typically this is a group activity and involves reciting scripture.
    • Community, and Group Identity. There is a sense of belonging to a community, often assuming a certain role in a community dynamics and interrelatedness, much like belonging to a family.
    • Common world view or conviction. This is faith in a certain set of doctrines, creeds or values or confidence in an authority.
    • Clergy. There are often a class of professionals who dedicate themselves to understanding and practice of the religion, generally conduct or lead the rituals and care of the community and sometimes have the status of ritual artifacts themselves.
    • Institutions. The community is generally organized according certain principles and this organization sustains the clergy, owns ritual spaces and objects and provides some degree of governance and authority.

    Two things bear pointing out. First, “religiosity” is completely a Western notion. I doubt the Buddha would have read through this list and seen in it any more than a set of arbitrary features. Nor would he have thought to constrain the scope of religiosity in his teachings. I make no further attempt to define “religiosity” than to provide this list. Why this issue assumes prominence in the Western mind is discussed in a few chapters.

    Second, although these features characterize “religiosity,” all of these features, or their close counterparts, are found outside of religion, that is, in “secular” contexts. For instance, table manners and proper arrangements of cutlery and plates and glasses in a proper table setting exhibit a large number of these features. Sports events also involve ritual, ritual spaces, worship, chanting, group identity, and often a sense of tradition. Government functions and places of government exhibit every one of these features, by my count, with appropriate substitution of terms, elected officials for clergy, etc. Armies likewise exhibit most, maybe because they need to be equipped to deal with fundamental issues of life and death. Even Academia exhibits a lot of these features. No traditional school of Buddhism I am aware of fails to exhibit any one of them. I do not know of any movements to “secularize” any of the other realms.

    Overview

    I will begin with a statement of the common core system that shines through virtually all of the Buddhist traditions. This includes doctrinal and programmatic fundamentals as well as some aspects of religiosity as discussed above, the latter in a much more skeletal form in core Buddhism than found in almost any particular later tradition. This statement will show how these religious elements are integral and necessary to the proper function of the whole system; their justification is in their functional efficacy.

    All aspects of this core system as I will lay it out belong to original Buddhism as attested in the earliest scriptures, and also are consistently retained in virtually all traditions of Buddhism independently of the variety of cultures in which these variants have arisen. Two particularly important aspects of core religiosity are Refuge and the structure of the Buddhist community, without which a full understanding of Buddhism as taught by the Buddha is impossible. Therefore I will discuss these two aspects in some detail.

    Having established a common core for Buddhist traditions, I will then survey the ways in which particular traditions have embellished or retooled this common core. We will see that religiosity is often greatly enhanced with elements of local cultures, often mixing freely with elements of indigenous religions and commonly taking on consolatory elements, and also that doctrinal and programmatic aspects are often expressed in new and typically culturally-conditioned ways that for the most part retain their authenticity and sometimes enhance it. This will be an incomplete survey, pulling out a few hopefully representative examples of the range of variations found among the traditions.

    Finally I consider how the forms of religiosity promote or demote core Buddhism. One of the most important sources of variation in Buddhism is often overlooked. Within any particular tradition an individual understanding of that tradition will vary greatly. At the one pole are the adepts, those that have devoted much of their lives to study and training in Buddhism and may have reached some level of attainment, occasionally even Awakening. At the other pole are the normal folk — almost always historically the vast majority of adherents — who have often only a vague understanding of the tradition or of core Buddhism garnered from family and friends. This produces the inevitable dichotomy between Adept Buddhism and Folk Buddhism (actually two poles of a continuum). While an Adept Buddhism will general preserve the common core, a Folk Buddhism will tend to be a mass of culturally-conditioned understandings and misunderstandings. While an Adept Buddhism will be centered generally in the shape of doctrine and the program of practice, a Folk Buddhism will be centered primarily in the elements of religiosity. This is important, for generally we identify our own tradition, if we have one, with its Adept Buddhism while we see in any other tradition only its Folk Buddhism. No wonder the forms of Buddhism seem to vary as wildly as they do.

    After exemplifying Folk Buddhism with regard to a few Buddhist traditions, giving particular attention to how much Western Folk Buddhism is also culturally conditioned, I consider how it is that Buddhism has maintained its essence through many centuries and through transmission into vastly divergent cultures and in spite of its great accrued variance. This answer involves the ability of Adept Buddhism to to give shape to Folk Buddhism rather than the other way around, to keep it in line well enough that contradictions are relatively rare and one grades easily from one into the other. This in turn depends on Refuge and the structure of Buddhist communities. This property therefore lies within the scope of the particularities of core Buddhist Religiosity, as envisioned from the beginning by the Buddha!

    Contents

    Chapter 1. Core Buddhism

    Chapter 2. Refuge

    Chapter 3. A Buddhist Community

    Chapter 4. Modifications and Retoolings of Buddhism.

    Chapter 5. Folk Buddhism

    Chapter 6. Modern Trends in Folk Buddhism

    Chapter 7. Finding our Way in the West

  • The Calgary Talk on Dana

    Uposatha Day 1/11/2013

     

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPPFKkcdUDs]

     

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxzCSmIRDvU]

     

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5sKHsbzxCE]

     

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJFrZlqR0AQ]

  • Uposatha Day Post 1/5/2013

     

    Buddhist Rules and Culture

    The Vinaya, the First Basket of early Buddhist teachings is the Code for Monks and Nuns, the rules, regulations, policies and procedures by which the monastic Sangha lives. Although this is intended to be studied and followed only by those who have taken monastic vows I have gotten interested in the ways that they shape the broader Buddhist culture, Purisa and Sangha alike. There is no doubt that they were intended to do exactly this.

    One example of this is the regulation prohibiting a monk from touching a woman, that is, “engage in bodily contact with a woman, in holding her hand, in holding a lock of her hair or in caressing any of her limbs” when “overcome by lust, with an altered mind.” (Sanghadisesa 2). Although this was enacted after a particularly ill-behaved monk did exactly this but totally unsolicited and unwelcome, the letter of the rule is violated through the mere coincidence of lustful intent and touch, which can arise together in an instant, and carries the harsh implication of a Sanghadisesa. Naturally great care is taken around this rule.

    Although only a monk can violate this rule (there is a symmetrical rule for bhikkhunis), in Burma laywomen comply with this rule in a way that makes it easy for the monk not to violate. A Burmese Buddhist woman would never even think of touching a monk. If a monk needs to pass through a restricted space Burmese women are very quick to provide ample space and will alert others who might have their back turned. Burmese take great care that a monk is not seated next to a woman, for instance when a group is traveling in a car. Last week a couple of women undertook to make my bed here in Calgary after having washed the sheets, and I happened to notice them looking perplexed after having pulled the bottom sheet tight at three corners but unable to reach the far corner bordering on two walls. One of them ran into the other room and returned with her husband who climbed on the bed to perform the fourth stretch. I realized that in the minds of the women it would have been a violation of the monk’s space to climb on the bed, even his absence. This is how a monk’s rule not only invokes lay compliance, but evolves into a set of cultural norms about lay behavior.

    A Burmese woman has no problem handing something to a monk as an offering as long as fingers do not touch, and sometimes they might inadvertently. In Thailand however a woman will  place what is to be offered on a cloth lying on a table or other surface so that the monk can then receive it by pulling the cloth toward him. This goes far beyond the letter of the relevant rule but seems to have evolved as an embellishment to a cultural norm around a monastic rule. Someone recently reported that Thich Nhat Hanh seemed to have no inhibition about holding hands during a mindfulness walk and sure enough when I checked there he was on Youtube holding hands with a little girl. Technically this does not violate the letter of the precept unless lust arises in Thay’s 85-year-old heart, and is more typical of the looser way in which Buddhists in Mahayana cultures tend to observe precepts or are willing to adjust them to circumstances.

    Just as in some cultures many rules are interpreted in a manner stricter than the letter of the rule, often rules are interpreted more lax manner. Burmese routinely make small cash contributions to monks for the purchase of unanticipated requirements, taking care to place such a donation in an envelope. The Vinaya makes clear that a monk cannot receive money in any manner even if “wrapped in a wad of blankets,” but cash may be given to a lay steward on the monk’s behalf who they can use it to purchase material goods to offer to the monk. Furthermore regulations regarding transportation and clothing have been adjusted throughout the Buddhist world according to modern circumstances. Eating of meat is permitted in the original Vinaya, except that if a monk “sees, hears or suspects that it has been killed for him, he may not eat it.” Since the purpose of this qualification seems to be not to implicate a monk in the killing of animals, but to allow him to accept what is offered graciously when lay people wish to share what they have already prepared for themselves, it seems that the an appropriate understanding of this in the modern era of refrigeration and mass distribution of meat would seem to be, “that if he “sees, hears or suspects that it has been killed or purchased for him, he may not eat it..” After all, when a chicken is taken from a supermarket shelf another must be killed to replace it. However this is a rare understanding in Theravada countries. In East Asian Mahayana countries a stricter understanding has prevailed for many centuries: Monks don’t eat meat and they are not offered meat.

    In the non-Buddhist West such rules have of course no cultural recognition whatever. The monk is on his own. The most immediate challenge to an Asian monk up arriving in, oh, say, Austin, Texas or in Calgary, Alberta, is as one Burmese monk once put it to me with great distress in his voice, “American women like to … hug!” The challenge for the monk is to avoid the coincidence of lust and touch. If he is not quick enough to avoid the latter he might need quick and very complete control of the senses. Actually technically this will not result in a violation if the monk stands there like a wet fish because in that case he is not complicit as an agent in the action. But that will make of him a disappointing hugging partner indeed. (Western men should take similar care not to hug Buddhist nuns.)

    The greatest impact of the monastic rules for a Buddhist culture at large undoubtedly comes in connection with offerings of requisites, particularly food, to monks and nuns. Monastic rules remove every right to a livelihood, to any participation in the exchange economy, to growing or cooking one’s own food or even to storing offered food for the next day. For a monk to follow these rules requires very attentive compliance on the part of the laity; the monk is totally dependent on the laity and totally helpless without its kind offerings. Very rich cultural traditions have grown around this relationship and indeed it places the practice of generosity (dana) right at the center of the Buddhist community, a practice monks enjoy as well and that spills into all areas of the life of a Buddhist community.

     

     

  • Uposatha Day 12/28/2012

    Ch. 12. Requisites of the Bhikkhu

    A monk is like a house pet: helpless on his own, absolutely and vulnerably dependent on the kind hand that feeds him, but at the same time of therapeutic value to that kind hand (not to mention cute as a kitten in his fluffy robes and under his bald head). Like house pets bhikkhus live simple lives, need and possess little: they do not have a motorboat on the lake nor a puppy they are trying to put through college.

    Monastics are also deliberately renunciates, which means that their lifestyle leaves almost no channels for the pursuit of sensual pleasures or accumulation of stuff, nor for the intractable issues that accompany these. The effect is that we settle into a state of quiet contentment, of not struggling with the world on the other side of the looking glass, not compelled as the laity is for financial or familial reasons to struggle in that world.

    At the same time the presence of monastics moderates by example the excesses of the laity, makes teachings and pastoral care readily available and incurs less expense than the support of virtually any other clergy.

    Accepting the generosity of the lay graciously, having no resources at all of one’s own that are not donated, puts the monastic in an uncommon frame of reference, but also does the same for the lay donor. Remarkably, every time the monastic accepts something the lay donor receives a gift. This is paradoxical to the Western observer, but if you look again, you cannot mistake the sugar plums dancing in the donor’s eyes.

    MORE (pdf) …

    Index to series (html)

  • Greetings from Canada

    Banf, Alberta, in the Canadian Rockies, December 20, 2012.

    SAM_2709

  • Uposatha Day 12/21/2012 (and Mayan End-of-the-World Day)

    Tales of Burma

    This is the eleventh and  latest chapter of my autobiographical narrative Through the Looking Glass to attain draft completion. This will leave two chapters: 12. The Requisites of a Bhikkhu and 13. The American Monk. I will post chapter 12 next week.

    Chapter 11. Tales of Burma

    Shortly after my ordination and for the next twelve months life and Burma assumed a more leisurely pace that lent itself to contemplation, to settling into the patterns of Theravada monastic life and to observing the environment into which I had placed myself,  quite entranced in this very foreign land.
    Behind the Learning Curve.

    There is a steep curve for the new bhikkhu who comes from a land that provides little opportunity to observe the attire, deportment and activities of Buddhist monks. Shucks, I never even saw monks on alms round until I came to Myanmar.

    The very afternoon after my ordination, Ashin Ariyadhamma and the pilgrims were ready to move on southward. It was suggested that I might wish to stay at Pa Auk Tawya, a famous meditation center in Lower Burma, for the quickly approaching Hot Season. Saigang in particular was reputed to swelter during those months. After quick deliberation we boarded a bus for the ten-hour trip to Yangon. An immediate and ever present wardrobe challenge, my upper robe seem to shift with every bump or turn of the bus and at every stop needed to be wrapped around anew. I marveled that Ashin Ariyadhamma’s robe stayed so neatly in place.

    We  reached Yangon and rode a taxi to the Sitagu Center near Bailey Bridge. The center in Yangon serves as a kind of transit point as visitors to the various Sitagu centers and projects enter and leave the country. Fortunately for me, the famous Sri-Lankan-American Bhante Gunaratana, having left the conference in Sagaing just before my ordination, found himself stuck in Yangon, in fact in the room next door to mine, awaiting a visa to permit the next leg of his journey. In his eighties he was the hight of delight and as sharp as newly broken glass, with the same humor that shines through so effectively in his books.

    MORE (pdf)

    Index to Series