Section 40 of Hinduism and Buddhism and Historical Sketch, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Hinduism and Buddhism and Historical Sketch, Volume 1 by Charles Elliott. The Teaching of the Buddha Parts 3, 4, and 5. When the Buddha contemplated the samsara, the world of change and transmigration in which there is nothing permanent, nothing satisfying, nothing that can be called a self, he formulated his chief conclusions, theoretical and practical, in four propositions known as the four noble truths concerning suffering, the cause of suffering, the extinction of suffering, and the path to the extinction of suffering. Footnote 435, Aryasakani. Rhys Davids translates the phrase as Aryan truths, and the word Arya in Old Pali appears not to have lost its national or tribal sense. Example, Diga Nikaya in 87, Aryam Ayatanam, the Aryan sphere of influence, but was a religious teacher preaching a doctrine of salvation open to all men, likely to describe its most fundamental and universal truths by an adjective implying pride of race. Footnote 436, in Majima Nikaya 44, the word dukkha is replaced by sakkaya, individuality, which is apparently regarded as equivalent in meaning. So, for instance, the noble eightfold path is described as sakkaya niroda gamini patipada, and footnote. These truths are always represented as the essential and indispensable part of Buddhism. Without them, says the Buddha more than once, there can be no emancipation, and agreeably to this we find them represented as having formed part of the teaching of previous Buddhas, and consequently as being rediscovered rather than invented by Gotama. Footnote 437, Theragatha 487 to 493, and Pugala Panatti 41. End, footnote. He even compares himself to one who has found in the jungle the site of an ancient city and caused it to be restored. It would therefore not be surprising if they were found in pre-Buddhist writings, and it has been pointed out that they are practically identical with the four divisions of the Hindu science of medicine. Roga, disease. Rogahetu, the cause of disease. Arogya, absence of disease. Baisajya, medicine. A similar parallel between the language of medicine and moral science can be found in the yoga philosophy, and if the fourfold division of medicine can be shown to be anterior, proved so far as I know. End, footnote. The comparison of life and passion to disease is frequent in Buddhist writings, and the Buddha is sometimes hailed as the king of physicians. It is a just compendium of his doctrine, so far as an illustration can be a compendium, to say that human life is like a diseased body which requires to be cured by a proper regimen. But the Buddha's claim to originality is not thereby affected, for it rests upon just this, that he was... The first truth is that existence involves suffering. It receives emotional expression in a discourse in the Samyutanikaya. Footnote, 439. Samyutanikaya, 15, 3. End, footnote. Quote. The world of transmigration, my disciples, has its beginning in eternity. No origin can be perceived from which beings start, and hampered by ignorance, fettered by craving, stray, and wander. Which think you are more? The tears which you have shed as you strayed and wandered on this long journey, grieving and weeping because you were bound to what you hated and separated from what you loved. Which are more these tears or the waters in the four oceans? A mother's death? A son's death? A daughter's death? Loss of kinsmen? Loss of property? Sickness? All these have you endured through long ages? And while you felt these losses and strayed and wandered on this long journey, grieving and weeping because you were bound to what you hated and separated from what you loved, the tears that you shed are more than the water in the four oceans. End, quote. It is remarkable that such statements aroused no contradiction. The Buddha was not an isolated and discontented philosopher like Schopenhauer in his hotel, but the leader of an exceptionally successful religious movement in touch and sympathy with popular ideas. On many points, his assertions called forth discussion and contradiction, but when he said that all existence involves suffering, no one disputed the dictum. No one talked of the pleasures of life or used those arguments which come so copiously to the healthy-minded modern essayist when he devotes a page or two to disproving pessimism. Footnote, 440. Buddhist works sometimes insist on the impurity of human physical life in a way which seems morbid and disagreeable, but this view is not exclusively Buddhist or Asiatic. It is found in Marcus Aurelius and perhaps finds its strongest expression in the Contemptum Mundi of Pope Innocent III. End, footnote. On this point, the views and temperament of the Buddha were clearly those of educated India. The existence of this conviction and temperament in a large body of intellectual men is as important as the belief in the value of life and the love of activity for its own sake which is common among Europeans. Both tempers must be taken into account. Editative cast of Indian thought is not due to physical degeneration or a depressing climate. Many authors speak as if the Hindus lived in a damp, relaxing heat in which physical and moral stamina alike decay. I myself think that as to climate, India is preferable to Europe, and without arguing about what must be largely a question of personal taste, one may point to the long record of physical and intellectual labour performed even by Europeans in India. Neither can it be maintained that in practice Buddhism destroys the joy and vigor of life. The Burmese are among the most cheerful people in the world, and the Japanese among the most vigorous, and the latter are at least as much Buddhists as Europeans are Christians. It might be plausibly maintained that Europeans' love of activity is mainly due to the intolerable climate and uncomfortable institutions of their continent, which involve a continual struggle with the weather and continual discussion forbidding any calm and comprehensive view of things. The Indian being less troubled by these evils is able to judge what is the value of life in itself as an experience for the individual, not as part of a universal struggle, which is the common view of seriously minded Europeans, though as to this struggle they have but hazy ideas of the antagonists, the cause and the result. The Buddhist doctrine does not mean that life is something trifling and unimportant to be lived anyhow. On the contrary, birth as a human being is an opportunity of inestimable value. He who is so born has at least a chance of hearing the truth and acquiring merit. Hard is it to be born as a man. Hard to come to hear the true law. And when the chance comes, the good fortune of the being who has attained to human form and the critical issues which depend on his using it rightly are dwelt on with an earnestness not surpassed in Christian homiletics. He who acts ill as a man may fall back into the dreary cycles of inferior births among beasts and blind form of existence it is not satisfying or permanent. Dukka is commonly rendered in English by pain or suffering, but an adequate literary equivalent which can be used consistently in translating is not forthcoming. The opposite state, sukka, is fairly rendered by well-being, satisfaction and happiness. Dukka is the contrary of this, uneasiness, discomfort, difficulty. Pain or suffering are... It will be found that the point most emphasized as initiating life is its transitoriness. Is that which is impermanent sorrow or joy? he asks of his disciples. Sorrow, Lord, is the answer. And this oft-repeated proposition is always accepted as self-evident. The evils most frequently mentioned are the great incurable weaknesses of humanity, old age, sickness and death, and also the weariness of being tied to what we hate, the sadness of parting from what we love. Another obvious evil is that we cannot get what we want or achieve our ambitions. Thus the temper which prompts the Buddha's utterances is not that of ecclesiastes. The melancholy of satiety, which, having enjoyed all, finds that all is vanity, but rather the regretful verdict of one who, while sympathizing with the nobler passions, love, ambition, the quest of knowledge, is forced to pronounce them unsatisfactory. The human mind craves after something which is permanent, something of which it can say, this is mine. It longs to be something, or to produce something which is not transitory and which has an absolute value in and for itself, but neither in this world nor in any other world are such states and actions possible. Only in nirvana do we find a state which rises above the transitory because it rises above desire. Not merely human life, but all possible existences in all imaginable heavens must be unsatisfactory, for such existences are merely human life under favorable conditions. Some great evils, such as sickness, may be absent, but life in heaven must come to an end. It is not eternal. It is not even permanent. It does not, any more than this life, contain anything that God or man can call his own, and it may be observed that when Christian writers attempt to describe the joys of a heaven which is eternally satisfying, they have mostly to fall back on negative phrases such as, quote, I hath not seen, nor ear heard, end quote. The European view of life differs from the Asiatic chiefly in attributing of value to actions in themselves and in not being disturbed by the fact that their results are impermanent. It is, in fact, the theoretical side of the will to live which can find expression in a treatise on metaphysics as well as in an act of procreation. An Englishman, according to his capacity and mental culture, is satisfied with some such rule of existence as having a good time or playing the game or doing his duty or working for some cause. The majority of intelligent men are prepared to devote their lives to the service of the British Empire. The fact that it must pass away as certainly as the Empire of Babylon and that their laboring for what is impermanent does not disturb them and is hardly ever present to their minds. Those Europeans who share with Asiatics some feeling of dissatisfaction with the impermanent try to escape it by an unselfish morality and by holding that life, which is unsatisfactory if regarded as a pursuit of happiness, acquires a new and real value if lived for others. Buddhism is as full as or fuller than Christianity of love, self-sacrifice and thought for others. It says that it is a fine thing to be a man and have the power of helping others, that the best life is that which is entirely unselfish and a continual sacrifice, but looking at existence as a whole and accepting the theory that the happiest and best life is a life of self-sacrifice, it declines to consider as satisfactory the world in which this principle holds good. Many of the best Europeans would probably say that their ideal is not continual personal enjoyment, but activity which makes the world better. But this ideal implies a background of evil just as much as does the Buddha's teaching. If evil vanished, the ideal would vanish too. There is one important negative aspect of the truth of suffering and indeed of all the four truths. A view of human life which is common in Christian and Mohammedan countries represents man as put in the world by God and human life as a service to be rendered to God. Whether it is pleasant, worth living or not are hardly questions for God's servants. There is no trace of such a view in the Buddha's teaching. It is throughout assumed that man in judging human life by human standards is not presumptuous or blind to higher issues. Life involves unhappiness. That is a fact, a cardinal truth. That this unhappiness may be ordered for disciplinary or other mysterious motives by what is vaguely called one above, that it would disappear or be explained if we could contemplate our world as forming part of a larger universe, that, quote, there is some far-off divine event, end quote, some unexpected solution in the fifth act of this complicated tragedy which could justify the creator of this dukkha kanda, this mass of unhappiness. For all such ideas, the doctrine of the blessed one has nothing but silence, impervious and charitable silence which will not speak contemptuously. The world of transmigration has neither beginning nor end nor meaning. To those who wish to escape from it, the Buddha can show the way. Of obligation to stop in it, there can be no question. Footnote 441. As a general rule, suicide is strictly forbidden. See the third Parajika and Melinda for 13 and 14. For in most cases, it is not a passionless renunciation of the world, but rather a passionate and irritable protest against difficulties which simply lays up bad karma in the next life. Yet cases such as that of Goddika see Buddha-Gosa on the Dhammapada 57. Seem to imply that it is unobjectionable if performed not out of irritation but by one who, having already obtained mental release, is troubled by disease. End footnote. Buddhism is often described as pessimistic, but is the epithet just? What does it mean? The dictionary defines pessimism as the doctrine which teaches that the world is as bad as it can be and that everything naturally tends towards evil. That is emphatically not Buddhist teaching. The higher forms of religion have their basis and origin in the existence of evil, but their justification and value depend on their power to remove it. The Buddha states with the utmost frankness that religion is dependent on the existence of evil. End quote. If three things did not exist, the Buddha would not appear in the world and his law and doctrine would not shine. What are the three? Birth, old age, and death. End quote. This is true. If there were people leading perfectly happy, untroubled lives, it is not likely that any thought of religion would enter their minds and their irreligious attitude would be reasonable. For the most that any deity is asked to give is perfect happiness and that these imaginary folk are supposed to have already. But according to Buddhism no form of existence can be perfectly happy or permanent. Gods and angels may be happier than men, but they are not free from the tyranny of desire and ultimately they must fall from their high estate and pass away. End part three. Part four. The second truth declares the origin of suffering. It is for pleasure, the thirst for another life, the thirst for success. This thirst, tanha, is the craving for life in the widest sense. The craving for pleasure which propagates life, the craving for existence in the dying man which brings about another birth, the craving for wealth, for power, for preeminence, chain of causation, one of the oldest, most celebrated, and most obscure formulae of Buddhism. Footnote 442. Pali patika samupada. Sanskrit pratitya samupada. End footnote. It is stated that the Buddha knew it before attaining enlightenment, but it is second in importance only to the four truths and in the opening sections of the Mahavaga he is represented as meditating on it under the bow tree, both in its positive and negative form. End footnote. It runs as follows. Quote, from ignorant six provinces of the senses, from the six provinces comes contact, from contact comes sensation, from sensation comes craving, from craving comes clinging, from clinging comes existence, from existence comes birth, from birth come old age and death, pain and lamentation, suffering, sorrow, and despair. This is the origin of this whole mass of suffering. But by the destruction of ignorance, effected by the complete absence of lust, the sankharas are destroyed. By the destruction of the sankharas, consciousness is destroyed. End quote. And so on through the whole chain backwards. The chain is also known as the twelve nidanas or causes. It is clearly in its positive and negative forms an amplification of the second and third truths respectively, or perhaps they are a luminous compendium of it. Besides the full form quoted above, there are shorter versions. Sometimes there are only nine links or there are five links combined in an endless chain. Footnote 444. Diga Nikaya 15. Footnote 445. Contact comes from consciousness, sensation from contact, craving from sensation, the sankharas from craving, consciousness from the sankharas, contact from consciousness, and so on at infinitum. See Melinda Panha 51. End footnote. So we must not attach too much importance to the number or order of links. The chain is not a genealogy, but a statement respecting the interdependence of certain stages and aspects of human nature. And though the importance of cause, hetu, is often emphasized, the causal relation is understood in a wider sense than is usual in our idiom. If there were no birth, there would be no death. But though birth and death are interdependent, we should hardly say that birth is the cause of death. In whatever way we take the chain of causation, it seems to bring a being into existence twice. And this is the view of Buddha-Gosa, who says that the first two links, ignorance and the sankharas, belong to past time and explain the present existence. The next eight, consciousness to existence, analyze the present existence, and the last two, birth and old age, belong to future time, representing the results in another existence of desire felt in this existence. And that is perhaps what the constructor of the formula meant. It is clearest if taken backwards. Suppose the Buddha once said to Ananda, there were no birth. Would there then be any old age or death? Clearly not. Footnote 446. Diganekaya 15. End footnote. That is the meaning of saying that old age and death depend on birth. If birth were annihilated, they too would be annihilated. Similarly, birth depends on bhava, which means becoming, and it does not imply anything self-existent and stationary. All the world is a continual process of coming into existence and passing away. It is on the universality of this process that birth, jati, depends. But on what does the endless becoming itself depend? We seem here on the threshold of the deepest problems, but the answer, though of wide consequences, brings us back to the strictly human and didactic sphere. Existence depends on upadana. This word means literally grasping or clinging to and should be so translated here, but it also means fuel and its use is colored by this meaning since Buddhist metaphor is fond of describing life as a flame. Existence cannot continue without the clinging to life just as fire cannot continue without fuel. Footnote. 447. Samyuta-Nikaya. 12.53. Compare with two, the previous Sutta 51. In the Abhidhamma, and later scholastic works, we find as a development of the law of causation the theory of relations, pakaya or system of correlation, patananayo. According to this theory, phenomena are not thought of merely in the simple relation of cause and effect. One phenomenon can be the assistant agency upakaraka of another phenomenon in 24 modes. See Mrs. Reese David's article Relations in ERE. And footnote. The clinging in its turn depends on tanha, the thirst or craving for existence. The distinction between tanha and upadana is not always observed and it is often said tanha is the cause of karma or of sorrow, but strictly speaking upadana is the grasping at life or pleasure. Tanha is the incessant unsatisfied craving which causes it. It is compared to the birrana, a weed which infests rice fields and sends its roots deep into the ground. So long as the smallest piece of root is left, the weed springs up again and propagates itself with surprising rapidity, though the cultivator thought he had exterminated it. This metaphor is also used to illustrate how tanha leads to a new birth. Death is like cutting down the plant. The root remains and sends up another growth. We now seem to have reached an ultimate principle and basis, namely the craving for life which transcends the universe of our experience and personal appetite analogous to the will of Schopenhauer. The shorter formula quoted above in which it is said that the sankaras come from tanha also admits of such an interpretation. But the longer chain does not, or at least it considers tanha not as a cosmic force but simply as a state of the human mind. Suffering can be traced back that men have desire to what is desire do to sensation. With this reply we leave the great mysteries at which the previous links seemed to hint and begin one of those enquiries into the origin and meaning of human sensation which are dear to early Buddhism. Just as there could be no birth if there were no existence so there could be no desire if there were no sensation. What then is the cause of sensation? Contact. Faso. This word plays a considerable part in Buddhist psychology and is described as producing not only sensation but perception and volition. Sittana. Footnote 448 Mrs. Rhys David's Dhamma Sangani on the surface page 52 quote the sensory process is analyzed in each case into A. an apparatus capable of reaching to an impact not itself B. an impinging form Rupam C. contact between A and B D. resultant modification of the mental continuum that is first a specific sort then hedonistic result or intellectual result or presumably both end quote and footnote contact in its turn depends on the senses that is the five senses as we know them and mind as a sixth and these depend on name and form this expression which occurs in the Upanishads as well as in Buddhist writings denotes mental and corporeal life in explaining it the commentators say that form means the four elements and shape derived from them and that name means the three skandhas of sensation, perception and the sankharas this use of the word nama probably goes back to ancient superstitions which regarded a man's name as a true being but in Buddhist terminology it is merely a technical expression for mental states collectively Buddha Gosha observes that name and form are like the playing of a lute which does not come from any store of sound and when it ceases does not go to form a store of sound elsewhere on what do name and form depend? on consciousness this point is so important that in teaching ananda the Buddha adds further explanations suppose he says consciousness were not to descend into the womb would name and form consolidate in the womb? no lord therefore ananda consciousness is the cause the occasion, the origin of name and form but consciousness according to the Buddha's teaching is not a unity a thinking soul but mental activity produced by various appropriate causes footnote 449 see example magima nikaya 38 end footnote hence it cannot be regarded as independent of name and form and as their generator so the Buddha goes on to say that though name and form depend on consciousness it is equally true that consciousness depends on name and form the two together make human life everything that is born and dies or is reborn in another existence is name and form plus consciousness footnote 450 this does not mean that the same name and form of consciousness which dies in one existence reappears in another end footnote what we have learnt hitherto is that suffering depends on desire and desire on the senses for didactic purposes this is much but as philosophy the result is small we have merely discovered that the world depends on name and form plus consciousness that is on human beings the first two links of the chain the last in our examination do not leave the previous point of view the history of individual life and not an account of the world process but they have at least that interest which attaches to the mysterious quote consciousness depends on the sankaras end quote here the sankaras seem to mean the predispositions anterior to consciousness which accompany birth and hence are equivalent to one meaning of karma that is the good and bad qualities and tendencies which appear when rebirth takes place perhaps the best commentary on the statement that consciousness depends on the sankaras is furnished by a sutta called rebirth according to the sankaras footnote 451 majima nekaya 120 sankharupatti sutta end footnote the buddha there says that if a monk possessed of the necessary good qualities cherishes a wish to be born after death as a noble or in one of the many heavens quote then those predispositions sankara and mental conditions viharo if repeated conduce to rebirth end quote in the place he desires footnote 452 he should make it a continual mental exercise to think of the rebirth which he desires end footnote similarly when sitta is dying the spirits of the wood come round his deathbed and bid him wish to be an emperor in his next life thus a personality with certain predispositions and aptitudes may be due to the thought and wishes of a previous personality and these predispositions asserts the last article of the formula depend upon ignorance footnote 453 so too the sankya philosophy the samskaras are said to pass from one human existence to another they may also remain dormant for several existences and then become active end footnote we might be tempted to identify this ignorance with some cosmic creative force such as the unconscious of heartmen or the maya of sankara but though the idea that the world of phenomena is a delusion bread of ignorance is common in India it does not enter into the formula which we are considering two explanations of the first link are given in the pitakas which are practically the same one states categorically that the ignorance which produces the sankaras is not to know the four truths footnote 454 samaditi sutta end footnote elsewhere the Buddha himself when asked what ignorance means replies that it is not to know that everything must have an origin and a cessation footnote 455 samyutta-nikaya 22 126 end footnote the formula means that it is ignorance of the true nature of the world and the true interests of mankind that brings about the suffering which we see and feel we were born into the world because of our ignorance in our last birth and of the desire for re-existence which was in us when we died of the supreme importance attached to this doctrine of causation there can be no doubt perhaps the best instance is the story of sariputta's conversion in the early days of the Buddha's mission he asked for a brief summary of the new teaching and in reply the essential points were formulated in the well known verses which declare that all things have a cause and an end footnote 456 mahavaga 23,4,5 the passage is remarkable because it insists that this is the principle and essential doctrine of gotama compare to the definition of the dama put in the Buddha's own mouth in magima 79 damam te desesami imas mim sati idam hoti imas upada idam upajati etc end footnote such utterances sound like a scientific dictum about the uniformity of nature or cosmic law but though the patakas imply some such idea they seem to shrink from stating it clearly they do not emphasize the orderly course of nature or exhort men to live in harmony with it we are given to understand that the intelligence of those supermen who are called Buddhas sees that the four truths are a consequence of the nature of the universe but subsequent instruction bids us attend to the truths themselves and not to their connection with the universal scheme one reason for this is that Indians were little inclined to think of impersonal laws and forces footnote 457 the sankya might be described as teaching a law of evolution but that is not the way it is described in its own manuals end footnote the law of karma and the periodic rhythm of growth and decay which the universe obeys are ideas common to Hinduism and Buddhism and not incompatible with the mythology and ritual to which the Buddha objected and though the patakas insist on the universality of causation they have no notion of the uniformity of nature in our sense footnote 458 take among hundreds of instances the account of the Buddha's funeral end footnote the Buddhist doctrine of causation states that we cannot obtain emancipation and happiness unless we understand and remove the cause of our distress but it does not discuss cosmic forces like karma and maya such discussion the Buddha considered unprofitable and perhaps he may have felt that insistence on cosmic law came dangerously near to fatalism footnote 459 the Angutara Nikaya book 4 chapter 77 forbids speculation on four subjects as likely to bring madness and trouble two of the four are Kamavipakko and Loka Sinta an attempt to make the chain of causation into a cosmic law would involve just this sort of speculation footnote 460 the Pitaka insist that causation applies to mental as well as physical phenomena end footnote though the number of the links may be varied the Buddha attached importance to the method of concatenation and the impersonal formulation of the whole and in one passage he objects to the questions what our old age and death and who is it that has old age and death footnote 461 Samyuta Nikaya 1235 though the chain of causation treats of a human life it never speaks of a person being born or growing old and Buddha Gosa observes that the wheel of existence is without known beginning without a personal cause or passive recipient and empty with a 12 fold emptiness footnote 462 Vesudemaga 17 Warren page 175 end footnote it has no external cause such as Brahma or any deity quote and is also wanting in any ego passively recipient of happiness and misery end quote the 12 Nidanas have passed into Buddhist art as the wheel of life an ancient example of this has been discovered in the frescoes of Ajanta and modern diagrams which represent the explanations current in medieval India are still to be found in Tibet and Japan footnote 463 see Waddle J.R.A.S 1894 pages 367 to 384 Reese David's American Lectures pages 155 to 160 end footnote in the nave of the wheel are three female figures signifying passion, hatred and folly and in the spaces between the spokes are scenes depicting the phases of human life round the felly runs a series of pictures representing the 12 links of the chain the first two links are represented by a blind man or blind camel and by a potter making pots the third or consciousness is an ape some have thought that this figure represents the evolution of mind which begins to show itself in animals and is perfected in man it may however refer to a simile found in the pitakas where the restless changeable mind is compared to a monkey jumping about in a tree footnote 464 samyuthanikaya 1261 see II Theragatha verses 125 and 1111 and for other illustrative quotations Mrs. Reese David's Buddhist psychology pages 34 35 and footnote and part 4 part 5 we have now examined three of the four truths for the chain of causation in its positive form gives us the origin of suffering and in its negative form the facts as to the extinction of suffering it teaches that as its links are broken suffering disappears the fourth truth or the way which leads to the extinction of suffering gives practical directions to this effect the way is the noble eightfold path consisting of right to views right aspirations right speech right conduct right livelihood right effort right mindfulness right rapture it is comparable not with the decalogue to which correspond the precepts for monks and laymen but rather with the beatitudes it contains no commands or prohibitions but in the simplest language indicates the spirit that leads to emancipation it breathes an air of noble freedom it says nothing about laws and rights it simply states that being happy is to have a good heart and mind taking shape in good deeds and at last finding expression and fulfillment in the rapture of ecstasy we may think the numerical subdivisions of the path pedantic and find fault with its want of definition for it does not define the word right sama which it uses so often but in thus ignoring ceremonialism and legalism and making simple goodness in spirit and deed the basis of religion gotama rises above all his contemporaries and above all subsequent teachers except christ in detaching the perfect life from all connection with a deity or outside forces and in teaching man that the worst and best that can happen to him lie within his own power and holds a unique position indian thought has little sympathy with the question whether morality is utilitarian or intuitionist whether we do good to benefit ourselves or whether certain acts and states are intrinsically good the buddha is a physician who prescribes a cure for a disease the disease of suffering and that cure is not a quack medicine it tends to heal rapidly but a regime and treatment if we ask whether the reason for following the regime is that it is good for us or that it is scientifically correct or why we want to be well or whether health is really good both the buddha and the physician would reply that such questions are tiresome and irrelevant with an appearance of profundity they ask nothing worth answering the eightfold path is the way and the only way of salvation its form depends on the fact that the knowledge of the buddha which embraces the whole universe sees that it is a consequence of the nature of things in that sense it may be described as an eternal law but this is not the way in which the pitakas usually speak of it and it is not presented as a divine revelation dictated by other than human motives come disciples the buddha was want to say lead a holy life for the complete extinction of suffering holiness is simply the way out of misery into happiness to ask why we should take that way would seem to an indian an unnecessary question as it might seem to a christian that he wants to save his soul but if the question is pressed the answer must be at every point for the christian as much as for the buddhist to gain happiness footnote 465 but see majima nikaya 79 for the idea that there is something beyond happiness end footnote incidentally the happiness of others is fully cared for since both religions make unselfishness the basis of morality and hold that the conscious and selfish pursuit of happiness is not the way to gain it but if we choose to apply european methods of analysis to the buddha's preaching it is utilitarian but the fact that he and his first disciples did not think such analysis and discussion necessary goes far to show that the temper created in his order was not religiously utilitarian it never occurred to them to look at things that way the eightfold path is the road to happiness but it is the way not the destination and the action of the buddha and his disciples is something beyond it they had obtained the goal for they were all our huts and they might if they had been inspired by that selfishness which some european authors find prominent in buddhism have entered into their rest yet the buddha bade them go among men and preach quote for the gain and welfare of many and they continued their benevolent activity although it could add nothing to the reward which they had already won the buddha often commented on the eightfold path and we may follow one of the expositions attributed to him what he asks is meant by right views samadithi simply a knowledge of the four truths and of such doctrines about personality and karma as are implied in them but the negative aspects of this samadithi are more striking than the positive it does not imply any philosophical or metaphysical system the buddha has shaken off all philosophical theories secondly it does not imply that any knowledge or belief is of efficacy in itself as the lore of the brahmins is supposed to be as christian creeds which save by faith the buddha has not a position such as the church attributes to christ or later buddhism to amida all that is required under the head of right belief is a knowledge of the general principles and program of buddhism the buddha continues what is right resolve it is the resolve to renounce pleasures to bear no malice and do no harm what is right speech to abstain from lying and slandering harsh words and foolish chatter what is right conduct is living by a right occupation this is elsewhere defined as one that does not bring hurt or danger to any living thing and five bad occupations are enumerated because of a caravan trader slave dealer butcher publican and poison seller european critics of buddhism have often found fault with its ethics as being a morality of renunciation and in the explanation epitomized above each section of the path is interpreted in this way but this negative form is not a peculiarity of buddhism only two of the commandments in our decalogue are positive precepts the rest are prohibitions the same is true of most early codes the negative form is at once easier and more practical for it requires a mental effort to formulate any ideal of human life it is comparatively easy to note the bad things people do and say don't the pruning of the feelings the cutting off of every tendril which can cling to the pleasures of sense is an essential part of that mental cultivation in which the higher buddhism consists but the patakas say clearly that what is to be eliminated is only bad mental states desire for pleasure and striving after wealth are bad but it does not follow that desire and striving are bad in themselves desire for what is good dhamma-chando as opposed to kamma-chando is itself good and the effort to obtain nirvana is often described as a struggle or wrestling footnote 468 padanam but in later buddhism we also find the idea that nirvana is something which comes only when we do not struggle for it end footnote similarly though absolute indifference to pains and pleasures is the ideal for habiku this by no means implies as is often assumed a general insensibility and indifference the harmless oyster-like life of one who hurts nobody and remains in his own shell European criticisms on the selfishness and pessimism of buddhism forget the cheerfulness and buoyancy of its chief marks of its holy men the buddhist saint is essentially one who has freed himself his first impulse is to rejoice in his freedom and share it with others not to abuse the fetters he has cut away active benevolence and love are enjoined as a duty and praised in language of no little beauty and earnestness footnote 469 metta corresponding exactly to the greek greek agapei of the new testament end footnote in the itivutaka the following is put into the mouth of buddha footnote 470 37 the translation is abbreviated end footnote quote all good works whatever 116 which sets free the heart footnote 471 more literally quote all the occasions which can be used for doing good works end quote end footnote love which sets free the heart comprises them it shines, gives light and radiance just as the light of all the stars is not worth 116 moon as in the last month of the rains in the season of autumn when the sky is clear and cloudless the sun mounts up on high and overcomes darkness in the firmament as in the last hour of the night when the dawn is breaking the morning star shines and gives light and radiance even so does love which sets free the soul and comprises all good works of light and radiance end quote so too the sutta nipata bids a man love not only his neighbor but all the world as a mother at the risk of her life watches over her own child her only child so let everyone cultivate a boundless love towards all beings end quote footnote 472 sutta nipata 1-8 sp. volume 10 page 25 and see also angutara nikaya 4190 which says that love leads to rebirth in the higher heavens and samyuta nikaya 24 to the effect that a little love is better than great gifts also questions of melinda 4 16 end footnote nor are such precepts left vague and universal if some of his acts and words seem wanting in family affection the buddha enjoyed filial piety as emphatically as moses or confucius there are two beings he says namely father and mother who can never be adequately repaid end footnote 473 angutara nikaya 1-2-4 end footnote if a man were to carry his parents about on his shoulders for a hundred years or could give them all the kingdoms and treasures of the earth he still would not discharge his debt of gratitude footnote 474 compare with mahavaga 822 where a monk is not blamed for giving the property of the order to his parents end footnote but whereas confucius said that the good son does not deviate from the way of his father the buddha who was by no means conservative in religious matters said that the only way in which a son could repay his parents was by teaching them the true law the buddha defines the sixth section of the path more fully than those which precede right effort he says is when a monk makes an effort and strives to prevent evil states of mind from arising to suppress them if they have arisen to produce good states of mind and develop and perfect them hitherto we have been considering morality indispensable but elementary this section is the beginning of the specially buddhist comparison with the similar programs of other religions buddhism has little to fear its methods are not morbid or introspective it does not fetter the intellect with the bonds of authority the disciple has simply to discriminate between good and bad thoughts to develop the one and suppress the other it is noticeable that under this heading of right effort or right wrestling as it is sometimes called both desire and striving for good ends are consecrated sloth and torpor are as harmful to spiritual progress as evil desires and as often reprimanded also the aim is not merely negative it is partly creative the disciple is not to suppress will and feeling but he is to make all the good in him grow he should foster increase and perfect it what is right mindfulness the seventh section of the path footnote 475 sati is the Sanskrit smriti footnote it is when a monk lives as regards the body observant of the body strenuous conscious mindful and has rid himself of covetousness and melancholy and similarly as regards the sensations the mind and phenomena the importance of this mindfulness is often insisted on it amounts to intuition but also those sense impressions in which we are apt to regard the mind as merely receptive quote self is the lord of self who else should be the lord with self well subdued a man finds a lord such as few can find end quote footnote 476 dhammapada 160 end footnote although the Buddha denies that there is any soul or self apart from the skandhas yet here his ethical system seems to assume that a ruling principle which may be called self does exist nor is the discrepancy fully explained by saying that the non-existence of self or soul is the correct dogma and that expressions like self being the lord of self are concessions to the exigency see when the eight fold path has been followed to the end new powers arise in the mind new lights stream into it yet if there is no self or soul where do they arise into what do they stream the doctrine of gotama as expressed in his earliest reference on the subject to the five monks at benares is that neither the body nor any mental faculty to which a name can be given is what was called in brahmanic theology atman that is to say an entity which is absolutely free imperishable changeless and not subject to pain this of course does not exclude the possibility that there may be not come under any of the above categories and which may be such an entity as described indeed brahmanic works which teach the existence of the atman often use language curiously like that of buddhism thus the Bhagavad Gita says that actions are performed by the gunas and only he who is deluded by egoism thinks I am the doer footnote 477 bug Gita 3 27 and footnote and the Vishnu Purana objects to the use of personal pronouns 78 Vishnu Purana 2 13 the ancient egyptians also though for quite different reasons did not accept our ideas of personality to them man was not an individual unity but a compound consisting of the body and of several immaterial parts called for want of a better word souls, the ka the ba, the sekhem etc which after death continue to exist independently and footnote the accounts of the buddhist higher life would be easier to understand if we could suppose that there is such self that the pilgrim who is walking in the paths gradually emancipates develops and builds it up that it becomes partly free in nirvana before death and wholly free after death Shrader has pointed out texts in the pitakas which seem to imply that there is something which is absolute and therefore not touched by the doctrine of anatta in footnote 479 uber den stan der indischin philosophie zur zeit machaveras und buddhas 1902 and on the problem of nirvana in journal of polytext society 1905 c2 samyutanekaya 22 15 to 17 end footnote in a remarkable passage the buddha says therefore my disciples get rid of what is not yours footnote 480 majima nikaya 22 end footnote to get rid of it will mean your health and happiness for a long time form, sensation perception etc are not yours get rid of them if a man were to take away or burn or use for his needs all the grass and boughs and branches and leaves in this jeta wood would it ever occur to you to say the man is taking us away burning us or using us for his needs certainly not lord and why not because lord it is not our self or anything belonging to our self just in the same way replies the buddha get rid of the skandhas the natural sense of this seems to be that the skandhas have no more to do with the real being of man than have the trees of the forest where he happens to be footnote 481 compare also the sermon on the burden and the bearer and samyutanekaya 22 it is admitted that nirvana is not dukkha and not anikam and it seems to be implied it is not anatam end footnote this suggests that there is in man something real and permanent to be contrasted with the transitory skandhas and when the buddha asks whether anything which is perishable and changeable be called the self he seems to imply that there is somewhere such a self but this point cannot be pressed for it is perfectly logical to define first of all what you mean by a ghost and then to prove that such a thing does not exist if we take the passages at present collected as a whole and admit that they are somewhat inconsistent or imperfectly understood but the result is hardly that the name of self can be given to some part of human apply a denial that human nature can by mental training be changed into something different something infinitely superior to the nature of the ordinary man perhaps something other than the skandhas footnote 482 see the argument with yamaka in samyutanekaya 285 end footnote one of his principal objections to the doctrine of the permanent self was that if it were true emancipation and sanctity would be impossible because human nature could not be changed footnote 483 see samyutanekaya 3 22 97 footnote in india the doctrine of the atman was really dangerous because it led a religious man to suppose that to ensure happiness and emancipation it is only necessary to isolate the atman by self mortification and by suppressing discursive thought as well as passion but this the buddha teaches is a capital error that which can make an end of suffering is not something lurking ready made in human nature but something that must be built up man must be reborn not flayed and stripped of everything except some core of unchanging soul as to the nature of this new being the patakas are reticent but not absolutely silent as we shall see below our loose use of language might possibly lead us to call the new being a soul but it is decidedly not an atman for it is something which has been brought into being by deliberate effort the collective name for these higher states of mind is pana wisdom or knowledge footnote 484 also panakanda or vija end footnote this word is the polyequivalent of the Sanskrit prajna and is interesting as connecting early and later buddhism for prajna in the sense of transcendental or absolute knowledge plays a great part in mahayanism and is even personified the patakas imply that buddhas and arhats can understand things which the ordinary human mind cannot grasp and human words cannot utter later indian buddhists had no scruples in formulating what the master left unformulated they did not venture to use the words atman or atta but they said that the saint can rise above all difference and plurality transcend the distinction between subject and object and that nirvana is the absolute buta tathata the buddha would doubtless have objected to this terminology as he objected to all attempts to express the ineffable but perhaps the thought which struggles for expression in such language is not far removed from his own thought one of the common buddhist similes for human life is fire and it is the best simile for illuminating all buddhist psychology to insist on finding a soul is like describing flames as substances fire is often spoken of as an element but it is really a process which cannot be isolated or interrupted a flame is not the same as its fuel and it can be distinguished from other flames but though you can individualize it and propagate it indefinitely you cannot isolate it from its fuel and keep it by itself even so in the human being there is not any soul which can be isolated and go on living eternally but the analogy of the flame still holds good unceasable though a flame may be and undefinable as substance it is not unreasonable to trim a fire and make a flame rise above its fuel free from smoke clear and pure if it were a conscious flame such might be its own ideal the eighth and last section of the path is samasamadhi seeking for pleasure here and there but samadhi is more than mere concentration or even concentration and may be rendered by rapture or ecstasy though like so many technical Buddhist terms it does not correspond exactly to any European word it takes in Buddhism the place occupied in other religions by prayer prayer that is in the sense of ecstatic communion with the divine being the sermon which the Buddha preached to king Satu on the fruits of the life of a recluse gives an eloquent account of the joys of samadhi footnote 485 diganikaya 2 end footnote he describes how a monk seats himself in the shade of a tree or in some mountain glen and then quote keeping his body erect and his intelligence alert and intent and quote purifies his mind from all lust ill temper sloth fretfulness and perplexity footnote 486 these exercises are hardly possible for the laity end footnote when these are gone he is like a man freed from jail or debt gladness arises in his heart and he passes successively through four stages of meditation footnote 487 see chapter 14 for details end footnote then his whole mind and even his body is permeated with a feeling of purity and peace he concentrates his thoughts and is able to apply them to such great matters as he may select he may revel in the enjoyment of supernatural powers for we cannot deny that the oldest documents which we possess credit the sage with miraculous gifts though they attach little importance to them or he may follow the train of thought which led the Buddha himself to enlightenment he thinks of his previous births and remembers them as clearly as a man who has been a long walk remembers at the end of the day the villages through which he has passed he thinks of the birth and deaths of other beings and sees them as plainly as a man on the top of a house sees the people moving in the streets below he realizes the full significance of the four truths and he understands the origin and cessation of the three great evils love of pleasure love of existence and ignorance and when he thus sees and knows his heart is set free quote and in him thus set free there arises the knowledge of his freedom and he knows that rebirth has been destroyed the higher life has been led what had to be done has been done he has no more to do with this life just as if in a mountain fastness there were a pool of water clear translucent and serene and a man standing on the bank and with eyes to see should perceive the muscles and the shells the gravel and pebbles and the shoals of fish as they move about or lie within it end quote similar accounts occur in many other passages with variations in the number of stages described we must not therefore insist on the details as essential but in all cases the process is marked by mental activity the meditations of indian recluses are often described as self hypnotism and I shall say something on this point elsewhere but it is clear that in giving the above account the Buddha did not contemplate any mental condition in which the mind ceases to be active or master of itself when at the beginning the monk sits down to meditate it is quote with intelligence alert and intent end quote in the last stage she has the sense of freedom of duty done and of knowledge immediate and unbounded which sees the whole world spread below like a clear pool in which every fish and pebble is visible end part 5 end section 40 recording by Linda Johnson