Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c9: Part II. The Doctrines of Buddhism

Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c9

Language
English

Contents

Part II. The Doctrines of Buddhism

c9.1

THE DOCTRINES OF BUDDHISM.

c9.2

CHAPTER I.

Chapter I. The Tenet of Suffering

c9.s1.1

“At one time,” as we read,* “the Exalted One was staying at Kosambî in the Sinsapâ grove. And the Exalted One took a few Sinsapâ leaves in his hand and said to his disciples: “what think ye, my disciples, whether are more, these few Sinsapâ leaves, which I have gathered in my hand, or the other leaves yonder in the Sinsapâ grove?”

c9.s1.2

“The few leaves, sire, which the Exalted One holds in his hand are not many, but many more are those leaves yonder in the Sinsapâ grove.”

c9.s1.3

“So also, my disciples, is that much more, which I have learned and have not told you, than that which I have told you. And, wherefore, my disciples, have I not told you that? Because, my disciples, it brings you no profit, it does not conduce to progress in holiness, because it does not lead to the turning from the earthly, to the subjection of all desire, to the cessation of the transitory, to peace, to knowledge, to illumination, to Nirvâna : therefore have I not declared it unto you. And what, O disciples, have I preached unto you? ‘This is suffering’—thus, O disciples, have I proclaimed unto you. ‘This is the origin of suffering’—thus have I proclaimed unto you. ‘This is the cessation of suffering’—thus have I proclaimed unto you. ‘This is the path to the cessation of suffering’—thus have I proclaimed unto you.”

c9.s1.4

∗ In the “Samyuttaka Nikâya,” at the end of the work (vol. iii, fol. as of the Phayre MS.).

c9.s1.5

This passage states briefly and clearly what the doctrine of Buddhism is and what it is not. It does not purport to be a philosophy, which inquires into the ultimate grounds of things, unfolds to thought the breadths and depths of the universe. It addresses itself to man plunged in sorrow, and, while it teaches him to understand his sorrow, it shows him the way to exterminate it, root and all. This is the only problem with which Buddhist thought is concerned. “As the vast ocean, O disciples, is impregnated with one taste, the taste of salt, so also, my disciples, this Law and Doctrine is impregnated with but one taste, with the taste of deliverance.”*

c9.s1.6

Yet this deliverance is not an inheritance for the poor in spirit but only for the wise. And therefore the Buddhist doctrine of deliverance is by no means content with merely those simple ethical reflections, which appeal more to the sensation of a pure heart than to the intellectual faculty of a trained mind. The main outlines of the doctrine might be grasped by every one endowed with a lively feeling among the members of the Church; the more detailed dialectical deductions, however, the proficiency in which was by no means regarded as an unnecessary accomplishment, can have been within the grasp of but comparatively few individuals, even among a people so exceptionally highly endowed with a capacity for dealing with abstract thought as the Indians, and among men who devoted their whole life exclusively to these very thoughts. In the circles of the ancient Church also they were fully conscious of this. “To men concerned with worldly pursuits, who have their occupation and find their pleasure in worldly pursuits, will this matter be difficult to comprehend, the law of causality, the chain of causes and effects;” thus Buddha is said to have remarked to himself, before he took upon himself to preach his doctrine (p. 120). And so we find, when we open the sacred writings of the Buddhists, side by side with those simple, beautiful apothegms, such as are contained in the Dhammapada, those most abstruse dogmatic expositions also, those circuitous, much-involved systems of ideas, comprehensive classifications, long lists of categories, which are held together by a causal nexus or some other logical tie. “If this be, that also is; if this arises, that also arises; if this be not, then that also is not; if this perishes, that also perishes:”* thus they were accustomed to reason in the period in which the sacred writings originated, and we have already (p. 182) seen that it is probable, that Buddha’s own mode of thought and speech moved in these very paths of abstract discussion, of technical, often scholastic expression and of a, it may be, not very dexterous dialectic.

c9.s1.7

∗ “Cullavagga,” ix, 1, 4.

c9.s1.8

On the whole we shall be authorized to refer to Buddha himself† the most essential trains of thought which we find recorded in the sacred texts, and, in many places, it is probably not too much to believe that the very words, in which the ascetic of the Sakya house couched his gospel of deliverance, have come down to us as they fell from his lips. We find that throughout the vast complex of ancient Buddhist literature which has been collected, certain mottoes and formulas, the expression of Buddhist convictions upon some of the weightiest problems of religious thought, are expressed over and over again in a standard form adopted once for all. Why may not these be words which have received their currency from the founder of Buddhism, which had been spoken by him hundreds and thousands of times throughout his long life, devoted to teaching?

c9.s1.9

∗ Cûlasakuludâyi Suttanta, in the Majjhima Nikâya. † A distinction of earlier and later can as yet be drawn in but few cases, and only with tolerable accuracy, in the collection of Buddha’s didactic discourses (the “Sutta-Piṭaka”). This affects the greater and lesser antiquity of dogmatic notions and doctrines as well as that of the texts. One of the oldest, if not the oldest, of these texts is the “Sutta-Nipâta,” frequently quoted in other works. We find in it already all the more important dogmatic categories and tenets enumerated or alluded to. In fact when we think what the mental labours of Brahmanism and the

c9.s1.10

The meaning which he conveyed by such words we can often only approximately determine. Here, as in every case where the word has a preponderant importance over the thought, where it does not smoothly fit the thought, but compresses it within its own straight form, the inquirer who desires to reconstruct remote and foreign forms of thought, has not that surest key which consecutive progression, the inherent necessity of the thought, can give him. Those hundred-fold repetitions, those permutations and combinations of every kind, in which dogmatic technicalities meet us, but through which a living current of dialectic movement does not flow, hardly render the meaning of those expressions more comprehensible to us. Moreover, we find the same technical term

c9.s1.11

older sects have transmitted to Buddhism ready made, it does not seem improbable that the latter started at the very beginning with a very comprehensive and very definitely formulated dogmatic apparatus. It is not impossible, but not quite probable, that, if the Sutta texts be given to the public in their full extent, we may be able to go farther in the process of eliminating later elements than we can go at present.

c9.s1.12

used often in distinctly different meanings, or we find the same thought expressed in different settings, which can be only partially harmonized with each other. The most serious obstacle, however, which stands in the way of our comprehending Buddhist dogmatics is the silence with which everything is passed over which does not lead "to the separation from the earthly, to the subjection of all desire, to the cessation of the transitory, to quietude, knowledge, illumination, to Nirvâna." We remarked that an extensive stock of metaphysical, and especially psychological technicalities, was esteemed anything but superfluous for him who seeks after quietude and illumination; but advance in this direction was made only up to a certain point, and no farther. Speculations like those which were proposed can only be thoroughly comprehensible when they present themselves as a complete, self-contained circle. But here we have a fragment of a circle, to complete which, and to find the centre of which, is forbidden, for it would involve an inquiry after things which do not contribute to deliverance and happiness. When we try to resuscitate in our own way and in our own language the thoughts that are embedded in the Buddhist teaching, we can scarcely help forming the impression that it was not a mere idle statement which the sacred texts preserve to us, that the Perfect One knew much more which he thought inadvisable to say, than what he esteemed it profitable to his disciples to unfold. For that which is declared points for its explanation and completion to something else, which is passed over in silence—for it seemed not to serve for quietude, illumination, the Nirvâna—but of which we can scarcely help believing that it was really present in the minds of Buddha and those disciples, to whom we owe the compilation of the dogmatic texts.

The Four Sacred Truths. The First, and Buddhist Pessimism

c9.s1.t1.1

Ancient tradition, like Nature, provides us with a starting-point, equally commended to us by ancient tradition and by the natural condition of the question itself, from which we must begin our sketch of Buddhist teaching. At the basis of the whole body of Buddhist thought lies, like a permeating and leavening principle, the contemplation of the suffering of every form of life here on earth.* The four sacred truths of the Buddhists treat of suffering, of the origin of suffering, of the removal of suffering, and of the path to the removal of suffering: it is evermore the word and the idea of suffering which gives the key-note to Buddhist thought.

c9.s1.t1.2

In these four truths we have the oldest authentic expression of this thought. We may describe this as the Buddhist creed. While most of the categories and propositions which we find imbedded in Buddhist teaching are treated, not as something peculiar to this faith, but as the obviously common property of all reflecting religious minds,† the four sacred truths always appear to us as something which the Buddhists hold beyond all non-Buddhists,* as the kernel and the pole of the Dhamma (the Doctrine). Many were the steps of knowledge which Buddha had taken on his long and toilsome journey to the Buddhahood: yet evermore was there something wanting to his attainment of the knowledge that gives deliverance. On that night, under the Açvattha tree at Uruvelâ, the four truths at last dawn on him; they become the key-stone of his knowledge; now he is the Buddha. And when he goes to Benares to preach to the five monks what he has himself learned—“Open ye your ears, ye monks; the deliverance from death is found: I instruct you, I preach the Law”—again there are those very four sacred truths which constitute the gospel of the newly-discovered path of peace (p. 128 seq.). And throughout the long career of Buddha as a teacher, as it is depicted for us in the sacred texts, the discourse on the four truths is constantly coming to the front as that “which is the most prominent announcement of the Buddhas.” The Buddhists describe ignorance as being the ultimate and most deeply-hidden root of all the suffering in the universe: if anyone inquires the ignorance of what is regarded as this fatal power, the uniform answer comes: the ignorance of the four sacred truths. And thus we find these propositions times without number in the canonical texts repeated, discussed, and their importance magnified in extravagant terms. It is difficult to avoid the presumption that the thoughts they convey and the wording in which they are expressed go back to Buddha himself, or at any rate to Buddha’s first circle of followers.

c9.s1.t1.3

∗ If Buddhism be treated strictly as philosophical doctrine, it must indeed be admitted that it looks upon the suffering of the universe not as an ultimate hypothesis, but as the product of deeper-lying factors. We might therefore be tempted in reviewing the system to begin preferably with the latter, with the fundamental metaphysical notions of Buddhism. It appears to me, however; more in keeping with the subject to follow the course laid down by our authorities themselves, and to state the result first, instead of the premises, the former being foremost and most important for the religious consciousness, though probably not so in strict dialectic.

c9.s1.t1.4

† E.g., the doctrine of metempsychosis, of ecstatic conditions, the idea of the saint (Arhat), etc.

c9.s1.t1.5

∗ To give but one proof out of many: if sun and moon do not shine, it is said in the “Saṃyuttaka Nikâya” (vol. iii, fol. aṃ), darkness prevails in the world; day and night, months and years are not observable. So also darkness prevails in the world, if perfect, saintly Buddhas do not appear in it; then the four sacred truths are not preached, taught, proclaimed, revealed, etc.

c9.s1.t1.6

We here repeat these propositions, as they have already met us in the sermon at Benares, in order to lay them as a foundation for our sketch of the Buddhist teaching.

c9.s1.t1.7

“This, O monks, is the sacred truth of suffering: Birth is suffering, old age is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, to be united with the unloved is suffering, to be separated from the loved is suffering, not to obtain what one desires is suffering, in short the five-fold clinging (to the earthly*) is suffering.

c9.s1.t1.8

“This, O monks, is the sacred truth of the origin of suffering: it is the thirst (for being) which leads from birth to birth, together with lust and desire, which finds gratification here and there: the thirst for pleasures, the thirst for being, the thirst for power.

c9.s1.t1.9

“This, O monks, is the sacred truth of the extinction of suffering: the extinction of this thirst by complete annihilation of desire, letting it go, expelling it, separating oneself from it, giving it no room.

c9.s1.t1.10

“This, O monks, is the sacred truth of the path which leads to the extinction of suffering: it is this sacred, eight-fold path, to wit: Right Faith, Right Resolve, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Living, Right Effort, Right Thought, Right Self-concentration.”†

c9.s1.t1.11

∗ The hankering after corporeal form, after sensations, perceptions, conformations, and after consciousness.—Köppen (i, 222, n. 1) finds quite groundlessly in these last words a “metaphysical postscript” to the original text of the four truths. Buddhism has at all times possessed as much of metaphysical terminology as is comprised in these words.

c9.s1.t1.12

† “Köppen,” i, 225, n. 2: “These eight divisions or branches also do not belong originally to the simple dogma.” We cannot enter a strong enough protest against this setting aside of everything which militates against this gratuitous conceit of a peculiar simplicity of the earliest Buddhism. It cannot count up to eight without it being suspected of “metaphysical postscripts!”

c9.s1.t1.13

The four truths give expression to Buddhist pessimism in its characteristic singularity.

c9.s1.t1.14

They teach us first of all to direct attention to what this pessimism is not.

c9.s1.t1.15

A widespread opinion finds the ultimate ground of this pessimism in the thought that, of all that is, the true existence is the Nothing.—The Nothing is alone certain. And if the world which surrounds us, or appears to surround us, is not wholly unreal, if it contains a certain, though ever so hollow a degree of existence, which cannot be ignored, this is a misfortune; and it is wrong, for right is only the Nothing. The wrong must be removed; we must remove it. Being, which originated in and from nothing, must again go to nothing, for it is essentially nothing.*

c9.s1.t1.16

A strange error is this picture of what Buddhism is represented to have been. Whoever looks, not into the metaphysical speculations of later centuries, but into what the oldest traditions disclose to us of the teaching of Buddha, of the belief of that order of wandering mendicants, will not find therein one tenet of these all lucubrations regarding the Nothing. Neither openly expressed nor otherwise, neither in the foreground, nor in the farthest background of the religious thought, does the idea of the Nothing find a place. The tenets of the sacred truths show us clearly enough that, if this world has been weighed by the Buddhists and found wanting, the ground of this is not, that it, an illusory, specious something, is in reality a mere nothing, but the sole ground is that it consists of suffering and nothing but suffering.

c9.s1.t1.17

All life is suffering : this is the inexhaustible theme, which, now in the strict forms of abstract philosophical discussion and now in the garment of poetical proverb, evermore comes ringing in our ears from Buddhist literature. We may take as the standard dialectic expression of this thought one of those discourses which Buddha, according to tradition, held at Benares soon after his first sermon, before those five earliest disciples, to whom he first proclaimed the four sacred truths.*

c9.s1.t1.18

∗ Adolf Wuttke has made by far the most clever and intelligent efforts to evolve Buddhism from these fundamental thoughts, vide “Geschichte des Heidenthums,” ii, 520 seq., especially pp. 55, 535. Cf. also “Köppen,” 214 seq.

c9.s1.t1.19

"And the Exalted One," so the tradition narrates, "spake to the five monks thus:

c9.s1.t1.20

"The material form, O monks, is not the self. If material form were the self, O monks, this material form could not be subject to sickness, and a man should be able to say regarding his material form: my body shall be so and so; my body shall not be so and so. But inasmuch, O monks, as material form is not the self, therefore is material form subject to sickness, and a man cannot say as regards his material form: my body shall be so and so; my body shall not be so and so.

c9.s1.t1.21

"The sensations, O monks, are not the self"—and then follows in detail regarding the sensations, the very same exposition which has been given regarding the body. Then comes the same detailed explanation regarding the remaining three component elements, the perceptions, the conformations, the consciousness, which in combination with the material form and the sensation constitute man's sentient state of being. Then Buddha goes on to say:

c9.s1.t1.22

"How think ye then, O monks, is material form permanent or impermanent?"

c9.s1.t1.23

"Impermanent, sire."

c9.s1.t1.24

"But is that which is impermanent, sorrow or joy?"

c9.s1.t1.25

"Sorrow, sire."

c9.s1.t1.26

∗ This discourse is usually described as the "Sutta of the tokens of not-self" (of the non-ego). The text is to be found in the "Mahâvagga," i, 6, 38 seq.

c9.s1.t1.27

“But if a man duly considers that which is impermanent, full of sorrow, subject to change, can he say: that is mine, that is I, that is myself?”

c9.s1.t1.28

“Sire, he cannot.”

c9.s1.t1.29

Then follows the same exposition in similar terms regarding sensations, perceptions, conformations, and consciousness: after which the discourse proceeds:

c9.s1.t1.30

“Therefore, O monks, whatever in the way of material form (sensations, perceptions, etc., respectively) has ever been, will be, or is, either in our cases, or in the outer world, or strong or weak, or low or high, or far or near, it is not self: this must he in truth perceive, who possesses real knowledge. Whosoever regards things in this light, O monks, being a wise and noble hearer of the word, turns himself from material form, turns himself from sensation and perception, from conformation and consciousness. When he turns therefrom, he becomes free from desire; by the cessation of desire he obtains deliverance; in the delivered there arises a consciousness of his deliverance: re-birth is extinct, holiness is completed, duty is accomplished; there is no more a return to this world, he knows.”

c9.s1.t1.31

The characteristic fundamental outlines of Brahmanical speculation turn up again in this discourse of Buddha’s with dominant force. We have shown how that speculation works in the conception of a dualism. On one side the eternal immutable, which is endowed with the predicates of supreme freedom and happiness: that is the Brahma, and the Brahma is nothing else but man’s own true self (Âtman). On the other side the world of origination and decease, birth, old age, death, in a word, of suffering. From this very dualism flow the ground-axioms, on which Buddha’s discourse on the not-self proceeds: that proposition, which needed no proof for the Buddhists, that refuge can only be had where origination and decease have no dominion, the identity of the ideas of change and sorrow, the conviction that the self of man (attâ = sansk. âtman) cannot belong to the world of evolution. The elements, in which the empirical state of man matures itself, are liable to continual change; the bodily as well as the spiritual life flows on, while one event is linked to another and closes up with another. Man stands helpless in the middle of this stream, the waves of which he cannot keep back or control. He cannot attain happiness or peace; how can happiness and peace be thought of, where there is no continuance, but only uncontrollable change holds sway? But if he cannot press this impermanence into his service, he can sever himself from it: where all contact with the earthly ceases, there are deliverance and freedom.*

c9.s1.t1.32

At one point this discourse on the transitory nature of the earthly, shows a gap in its train of thought; to fill up which was, as we shall see later on, with a definite purpose omitted. One portion of the old Brahmanical dualism, the belief in an external world involving origination, decease and suffering, is adopted without reservation. What is the attitude of Buddha’s doctrine with reference to the other side of this dualism? What does it teach regarding the eternal, the Âtman? It is said that whatever is subject to change and suffering cannot be the self. Is, then, the self something raised above this phenomenal world, separated from it, or has it no existence at all? Is deliverance a return of the self which is involved in change to itself, to its freedom? or is there nothing left, which in the disappearance of the transitory, shows itself real and permanent? We note for the present that the sermon at Benares leaves these questions open. The answer to them, so far as Buddhism has given any answer at all to them, can claim our attention only in another connection.

c9.s1.t1.33

∗ “What is inconstant, is sorrow; what is sorrow, is not-self; what is not-self, that is not mine, that am not I, that is not myself.” “Samyuttaka Nikâya,” vol. ii, fol. ka, where the equivalence of the categories here indicated is carried out to a great length in repetitions of all kinds.

c9.s1.t1.34

We return to the Buddhist thoughts of the impermanence and sorrow of earthly things. The abstract and ideal development of these thoughts has been unfolded to us in the discourse quoted. But this is only a one-sided, imperfect expression. In a form, the most concrete, with the convincing and overwhelming force of a painful reality, there is ever present to the vision of the Buddhist, the picture of the universe and man enveloped in suffering. There are not shadows only, not clouds, which sorrow and death cast over human life, but sorrow and death pertain inseparably to every state of being. Through the delusion of happiness and youth the Buddhist looks on to the sorrow into which happiness and youth must soon turn. Behind the sorrowful present lies an immeasurable sorrowful past, and there extends equally immeasurably through the endless distance, which the belief in the transmigration of souls discloses to the awe-struck imagination, a future full of sorrows for him who does not succeed in attaining deliverance, “putting an end to sorrow.”

c9.s1.t1.35

“The pilgrimage (Samsâra) of beings, my disciples,” Buddha says,[*] “has its beginning in eternity. No opening can be discovered, from which proceeding, creatures, mazed in ignorance, fettered by a thirst for being, stray and wander. What think ye, disciples, whether is more, the water which is in the four great oceans, or the tears which have flown from you and have been shed by you, while ye strayed and wandered on this long pilgrimage, and sorrowed and wept, because that was your portion which ye abhorred and that which ye loved was not your portion? A mother's death, a father's death, a brother's death, a sister's death, a son's death, a daughter's death, the loss of relations, the loss of property, all this have ye experienced through long ages. And while ye experienced this through long ages, more tears have flown from you and have been shed by you, while ye strayed and wandered on this long pilgrimage, and sorrowed and wept, because that was your portion which ye abhorred and that which ye loved was not your portion, than all the water which is in the four great oceans."

c9.s1.t1.36

∗ “Samyuttaka Nikâya,” vol. i, fol. ṭho.

c9.s1.t1.37

Birth, old age, death, are the leading forms in which the sorrow of earthly existence is depicted. "If these things were not in the world, my disciples, the Perfect One, the holy, supreme Buddha, would not appear in the world, the law and the Doctrine, which the Perfect One propounds, would not shine in the world. What three things are they? Birth and old age and death."* Impermanence holds sway with the pitiless, inexorable power of natural necessity. "There are five things which no Samana, and no Brahman, and no god, neither Mâra, nor Brahma, nor any being in the universe, can bring about. What five things are these? That what is subject to old age, should not grow old, that what is subject to sickness, should not be sick, that what is subject to death, should not die, that what is subject to decay, should not decay, that what is liable to pass away, should not pass away—this can no Samana bring about, nor any Brahman, nor any god, neither Mâra, nor Brahma, nor any being in the universe."†

c9.s1.t1.38

∗ "Anguttara Nikâya," vol. iii, fol. thai. † From the discourse with which the monk Nârada consoled the king Munda at Pâtaliputta on the death of the Queen Bhaddâ.—Anguttara Nikâya, vol. ii, fol. khai.

c9.s1.t1.39

The actions of men who pursue earthly pleasures, are under the curse of impermanence, illusion, vanity. Paining, deceiving, sweeping, destroying, turning hoped-for enjoyments into sorrow and death, the inexorable necessity of progression holds dominion over all life and hopes. Whoever seeks to acquire worldly goods, the merchant, the farmer, the shepherd, the soldier, the civil servant of the crown, must expose himself to the inconveniences of heat and cold, the bite of serpents, to hunger and to thirst.* If he does not gain the object of his pursuit, he laments and grieves : in vain did I exert myself, in vain was all my labour. If he attains his object, he must guard his gains with anxiety and trouble, that kings or robbers may not wrest them from him, that fire may not burn them, that floods may not sweep them away, that they may not fall into the hands of hostile relations. To gain property and gratify desire, kings wage war, father or mother quarrels with son, brother with brother, warriors make their arrows fly, and their swords flash, and they brave death and mortal agonies. To gain pleasure, men break their word, commit robbery, murder, adultery : they endure excruciating tortures as human punishments, and when their bodies succumb in death, they go the way of evil-doers; in the kingdoms of hell they will be born again to new torments.

c9.s1.t1.40

And these same powers of decadence and sorrow, to which human life is subject and which extend through all hells, have also power over heaven. The gods may have assured to them an incomparably longer and more happy state of being than earthly humanity : still even they are not immortal or free from sorrow. "The three and thirty gods, and the Yâma-gods, the happy deities, the gods who joy in creation, and the ruling gods, bound by the chain of desire, return within the power of Mâra. The whole universe is consumed with flames, the whole universe is enveloped in smoke, the whole universe is on fire, the whole universe trembles.”*

c9.s1.t1.41

∗ I here paraphrase briefly a part of the "Mahâdukkhakkhandha Suttanta" (in the Majjhima Nikâya).

c9.s1.t1.42

The proverbial wisdom of the “Dhammapada” gives the truest picture of all of Buddhist thought and feeling, how the disciples of Buddha saw in everything earthly the one thing, vanity and decay.

c9.s1.t1.43

“How can ye be gay,”† it is said, “how can ye indulge desire? Evermore the flames burn. Darkness surrounds you: will ye not seek the light?”

c9.s1.t1.44

† “Dhammapada,” v, 146, 47, 48, 128, 212, 213, 170, 414.

c9.s1.t1.45

“Man gathers flowers; his heart is set on pleasure. Death comes upon him, like the floods of water on a village, and sweeps him away.”

c9.s1.t1.46

“Man gathers flowers; his heart is set on pleasure. The Destroyer brings the man of insatiable desire within his clutch.”

c9.s1.t1.47

“Neither in the aërial region, nor in the depths of the sea, nor if thou piercest into the clefts of the mountains, wilt thou find any place on this earth where the hand of death will not reach thee.”

c9.s1.t1.48

“From merriment cometh sorrow: from merriment cometh fear. Whosoever is free from merriment, for him there is no sorrow: whence should come fear to him?”

c9.s1.t1.49

“From love cometh sorrow: from love cometh fear: whosoever is free from love, for him there is no sorrow: whence should come fear to him?”

c9.s1.t1.50

“Whoso looketh down upon the world, as though he gazed on a mere bubble or a dream, him the ruler Death beholdeth not.”

c9.s1.t1.51

“Whosoever hath traversed the evil, trackless path of the Sansâra, of error, who hath pushed on to the end, hath reached the shore, rich in meditation, free from desire, free from irresolution, who, freed from being, hath found rest, him I call a true Brahman.”

c9.s1.t1.52

∗ From the “Bhikkhunî Saṃyutta,” vol. i, fol. ghai.

c9.s1.t1.53

Is it dialectic only with its comparison between the notions of becoming, decease, sorrow, which causes the world to appear to the Buddhist that immeasurable, painful waste?

c9.s1.t1.54

It is true, indeed, that wherever the popular mind cannot obtain a sure anchorage for itself in the firm and clear realities of practical life, where it is under the overpowering influence of thought, of dreamy fancy without any counterpoise, there speculation, with its real or supposed logical conclusions, gains an incalculable influence as to which shall be the answer given by individuals as well as collective masses, to the question whether life is worth living. But it is not merely the speculation of the Indian which furnishes the answer. Speculation is bound up with his wishes and hopes; it shares with them the character of impatient impetuosity, untrained to deal with realities. Thought, which passes over everything, and arrives with one bound at the absolute, finds its counterpart in a craving whose impatience pushes from itself all goods, which are not the supreme, everlasting good. But what is the supreme good? As the glow of the Indian sun causes rest in cool shades to appear to the wearied body the good of goods, so also with the wearied soul, rest, eternal rest, is the only thing for which it craves. Of this life, which promises to the cheerful sturdiness of an industrious, struggling people, thousands of gifts and thousands of good things, the Indian merely scrapes the surface and turns away from it in weariness. The slave is tired of his servitude, the despot is still sooner and more completely wearied of his despotism, its unlimited enjoyment. The Buddhist propositions regarding the sorrow of all that is transitory are the sharp and trenchant expression, which these dispositions of the Indian people have framed for themselves, an expression, the commentary to which is written not alone in the sermon at Benares and in the apothegms of the “Dhammapada,” but in indelible characters in the whole of the mournful history of this unhappy people.

c9.s1.t1.55

In some of the sayings, which we have quoted from the “Dhammapada,” the thought of the impermanence and unsubstantiality of the earthly world is blended with the praise of him who has succeeded in breaking the fetters which bind him to the prison-house. And this brings us to fill in a necessary part without which our sketch of the Buddhist pessimism would be very incomplete. Some writers have often represented the tone prevailing in it, as if it were peculiarly characterized by a feeling of melancholy which bewails in endless grief the unreality of being. In this they have altogether misunderstood Buddhism. The true Buddhist certainly sees in this world a state of continuous sorrow, but this sorrow only awakes in him a feeling of compassion for those who are yet in the world; for himself he feels no sorrow or compassion, for he knows he is near his goal which stands awaiting him, noble beyond all else. Is this goal annihilation? Perhaps it is. We cannot here answer this question yet. But be this as it may, the Buddhist is far from bewailing as a misfortune, or as an injury, to which he must submit with sad resignation as to an unalterable destiny, the constitution of things, which has provided just this goal and only this goal for man’s existence. He seeks Nirvâna with the same joyous sense of victory in prospect, with which the Christian looks forward to his goal, everlasting life.

c9.s1.t1.56

The following sayings also of the “Dhammapada” reflect this spirit*:- “He whose appetites are at rest, like steeds thoroughly broken in by the trainer, he who has put away pride, who is free from impurity, him thus perfect the gods themselves envy.”

c9.s1.t1.57

∗ Verse 94, 197 seq. 373.

c9.s1.t1.58

“In perfect joy we live, without enemy in this world of enmity; among men filled with enmity we dwell without enmity.”

c9.s1.t1.59

“In perfect joy we live, hale among the sick; among sick men we dwell without sickness.”

c9.s1.t1.60

“In perfect joy we live, without toil among toilers; among toiling men we dwell without toil.”

c9.s1.t1.61

“In perfect joy we live, to whom belongeth nothing. Our scrip is pleasantness, as of the effulgent gods.”

c9.s1.t1.62

“The monk who dwells in an empty abode, whose soul is full of peace, enjoys superhuman felicity, gazing solely on the truth.”

c9.s1.t1.63

It is not enough to say that the final goal to which the Buddhist strives to pass as an escape from the sorrow of the world, is Nirvâna. It is also necessary to any delineation of Buddhism to note as a fact assured beyond all doubt, that internal cheerfulness, infinitely surpassing all mere resignation, with which the Buddhist pursues this end.

c9.s1.t1.64

THE TENETS OF THE ORIGIN AND THE EXTINCTION OF SUFFERING.

The Formula of the Causal Nexus

c9.s1.t2.1

IN order to understand the first of the four sacred truths, the tenet of suffering, we needed to acquaint ourselves only with the criticism which Buddha’s discourses give of the events of daily life, the dispositions and inclinations which govern our actions, and the consequences which follow from them. The tenets of the origin of suffering and its extinction bring us out of the domain of the popular speculative view of life, into the realms of abstract notions of Buddhist dogmatic, and therewith into a region where the ground vanishes from beneath our feet at every step.

c9.s1.t2.2

“This, O monks, is the sacred truth of the origin of suffering: it is the thirst (for being), which leads from birth to birth, together with lust and desire, which finds gratification here and there: the thirst for pleasures, the thirst for being, the thirst for power.

c9.s1.t2.3

“This, O monks, is the sacred truth of the extinction of suffering: the extinction of this thirst by complete annihilation of desire, letting it go, expelling it, separating oneself from it, giving it no room.”

c9.s1.t2.4

The state of being, as it surrounds us in this world, with its restless oscillation between origination and decease, is our misfortune. The ground of our existing is our will. This is our besetting sin, that we will to be, that we will to be ourselves, that we fondly will our being to blend with other being and extend. The negation of the will to be, cuts off being, for us at least. Thus the two tenets of the origin of suffering and its cessation, comprise the sum of all human action and all human destiny.

c9.s1.t2.5

But the sum must be resolved into the elements of which it is composed. The former tenet, as we have quoted it, speaks of the thirst for being, which leads from one birth to another. Whence this birth? It, the ground of our being, on what ground does it itself rest? And what law, what mechanism is there, what intermediate links are there, which the repetition of our being, re-birth with its sorrows, is connected with it?

c9.s1.t2.6

The very oldest traditions from which we draw our account of Buddhist speculations, show that these questions had been asked. People found the brief and concise setting of the sacred truths obviously inadequate and two formulas, or, more correctly speaking, a bipartite formula was drawn up, which was intended to supplement, or rather strengthen, the tenets regarding the origin of suffering and its cessation, the formula of the "Causal Nexus of being" (paṭiccasamuppâda).[*]

c9.s1.t2.7

Tradition assigns to this formula the next place in sacredness to the four truths. The knowledge of the four verities is what makes Buddha Buddha; the formula of the causal nexus, which had occurred to him already before the attainment of

c9.s1.t2.8

[*] This is frequently designated in later literature the formula of the twelve nidânas (Bases of Existence), an expression which, as far as I know, occurs neither in Buddha's discourses nor in the Vinaya texts.

c9.s1.t2.9

Buddhahood had been vouchsafed to him, occupied his mind while he sits under the tree of knowledge, “enjoying the happiness of deliverance.”* And when he combats the fear that his gospel will not be comprehended on earth, it is especially the law of the causal nexus of being, to which this fear attaches: “Men who move in a worldly sphere, who have their lot cast and find their enjoyments in a worldly sphere, will find this matter hard to grasp, the law of causality, the chain of causes and effects.”†

c9.s1.t2.10

† *Vide* supra, p. 120.

c9.s1.t2.11

Occasionally the sacred texts make the formula of the causal nexus actually an integral portion of the sacred truths themselves, by omitting the second and third truths and inserting in their stead this formula in its two branches.‡

c9.s1.t2.12

‡ So in the “Anguttara Nikâya” (Tikanipâta, Phayre MS., vol. i, fol. ce’).

c9.s1.t2.13

The propositions of the causal nexus of being, in the form which is most commonly met with in the traditions, and which may be regarded as the most ancient form, with their double, their positive and negative, arrangement—“forwards and backwards,” as the texts express themselves—are worded as follows:—

c9.s1.t2.14

“From ignorance come conformations (sankhârâ); from conformations comes consciousness (viññâṇa); from consciousness come name and corporeal form; from name and corporeal form come the six fields;§ from the six fields comes contact (between the senses and their objects); from contact comes sensation; from sensation comes thirst (or desire); from thirst comes clinging (to existence: upâdâna); from clinging (to existence) comes being (bhava); from being comes birth; from birth come old age and death, pain and lamentation, suffering, anxiety and despair. This is the origin of the whole realm of suffering.

c9.s1.t2.15

∗ “Mahâvagga,” i, 1 (supra, pp. 116, 117). In the “Saṃyutta Nikâya” (Phayre MS., vol. i, fol. ja) Buddha says that, in his case as in the case of the prior Buddhas, the knowledge of this hitherto unheard-of wisdom dawned on him before the attainment of the Buddhahood (pubbeva me bhikkhave sambodhâ anabhisambuddhassa).

c9.s1.t2.16

§ The fields of the six senses and their objects. In addition to the five senses the Indians reckoned understanding (mano) the sixth.

c9.s1.t2.17

“But if ignorance be removed by the complete extinction of desire, this brings about the removal of conformations; by the removal of conformations, consciousness is removed; by the removal of consciousness, name and corporeal form are removed; by the removal of name and corporeal form, the six fields are removed; by the removal of the six fields, contact (between the senses and their objects) is removed; by the removal of contact, sensation is removed; by the removal of sensation, thirst is removed; by the removal of thirst, the clinging (to existence) is removed; by the removal of the clinging (to existence), being is removed; by the removal of being, birth is removed; by the removal of birth, old age and death, pain and lamentation, suffering, and despair are removed. This is the removal of the whole realm of suffering.”

c9.s1.t2.18

The attempt is here made by the use of brief pithy phrases to trace back the suffering of all earthly existence to its most remote roots. The answer is as confused as the question was bold. It is utterly impossible for anyone who seeks to find out its meaning, to trace from beginning to end a connected meaning in this formula. Most of the links of the chain, taken separately, admit of a passable interpretation; many arrange themselves also in groups together, and their articulation may be said to be not incomprehensible; but between these groups there remain contradictions and impossibilities in the consecutive arrangement of priority and sequence, which an exact exegesis has not the power, and is not permitted to clear up. Even the ancient Buddhist theologians, who were by no means accustomed to construe too strictly in every case the requirement that "ein Begriff muss bei dem Worte sein,"* found here a stumbing-block; the variations, with which the formula of causality is found in the sacred writings, afford unmistakable evidence of this.

The Third Link in the Chain of Causality

c9.s1.t3.1

It seems advisable for the explanation of the formula of causality not to begin at the beginning. The first links of the series—the ultimate ground of earthly existence, ignorance, and the "conformations" which develop themselves from ignorance—are in their nature much more difficult of comprehension by concrete explanation than the following categories. We shall return later on to the attempt here made to denominate the cause of causes; at present we begin where consciousness appears in the chain of categories and with it we step upon the ground of conceivable reality. The sacred texts also apparently justify us in proceeding thus, as they themselves often begin the chain of causality with the category of consciousness, omitting the first members. "Ignorance" and "conformations" are evidently among the things, of which Buddhist dogmatists have, as far as possible, omitted to speak. "From consciousness"—runs the third proposition in the series—"come name and corporeal form."

c9.s1.t3.2

∗ Göthe's "Faust," Dialogue of Mephistopheles and the Student. Anglicé: "A meaning must underlie words."—[Translator.]

c9.s1.t3.3

One of the dialogues on this subject in the collection of the sacred texts, in which Buddha unfolds to his beloved disciple, Ânanda, the greater part of the formula of causality,* gives us a very concrete explanation of this proposition, which undoubtedly expounds the original meaning. "If consciousness, Ânanda, did not enter into the womb, would name and corporeal form† arise in the womb?"—"No, sire."—"And if consciousness, Ânanda, after it has entered into the womb, were again to leave its place, would name and corporeal form be born into this life?"—"No, sire."—"And if consciousness, Ânanda, were again lost to the boy or to the girl, while they were yet small, would name and corporeal form attain growth, increase, progress?"—"No, sire."

c9.s1.t3.4

† I reserve for the Excursus the more particular statements which the sacred texts make regarding this double notion of "name and corporeal form," derived from older Brahmanical speculation. Originally in this expression undoubtedly the Name, in so far as it expresses what is only this person and no other, is regarded as a peculiar element annexed to the body, somehow connected with the body, and this interpretation has not wholly disappeared from the Buddhist texts. Meanwhile another view grew up, by which "name" was understood to include the more subtle immaterial functions connected with the body in contradistinction to the body formed of earth, water, fire, and air.

c9.s1.t3.5

Thus the proposition, "From consciousness comes name and corporeal form," leads us to the moment of conception. We shall, when treating of the Buddhist notions of soul and metempsychosis, come to understand from another point of view still more completely the ideas which meet us here; here we must only state this much, that in death the other elements, which constitute the body-cum-spirit state of being of a man, are dissolved; the body, the sensations, the perceptions vanish, but not the consciousness (viññâṇa). Consciousness forms, so long as the existent is bound in metempsychosis, the connecting link which connects the old existences with the new; not till the bourne of deliverance, the nirvâna is reached, does the consciousness also of the dying perfect one vanish into nothing. As the human body is formed out of the material elements, so consciousness also is regarded as consisting of an analogous spiritual element. "There are six elements, my disciples," says Buddha, "the element of earth, the element of water, the element of fire, the element of air, the element of æther, the element of consciousness." The stuff of which consciousness is made is highly exalted above the other elements; it dwells, as it were, in its own world. "Consciousness," it is written, "the indemonstrable, the everlasting, the all-illuminating; it is where nor water nor earth, nor fire nor air, finds a place, in which greatness and smallness, weakness and strength, beauty and non-beauty, in which name and material form cease altogether."

c9.s1.t3.6

∗ The Mahânidânasutta (Dîgha Nikâya).

c9.s1.t3.7

That which in the dying man is constructed of this highest of earthly elements, the consciousness-element, becomes at the moment when the old being dies the germ of a new being; this germ of consciousness seeks and finds in the womb the material stuffs, from which it forms a new state of being coined in name and material form.

c9.s1.t3.8

But as name and material form rest on consciousness, so also the latter rests on the former. Those passages in the texts, which do not carry back the line of causality to the ultimate end, to Ignorance, are wont to make it run in a circle with these two categories interchangeably dependent on one another We have already quoted from Buddha's and Ânanda's dialogue the passage bearing on the one side of this subject, on the allegation that name and material form rest on consciousness. On the other side, then, it is said in the same conversation: "If, Ânanda, consciousness were not to find name and materia form as its resting-place, would then birth, old age, and death, the origin and development of sorrow, reveal themselves in succession?"—"No, sire, they would not."—"Therefore, Ânanda, is this the cause, this the ground, this the origin, this the basis of consciousness: name and material form." And thus comprehensively are the bases on which all nameability and all existence of the existent, their birth, death, and re-birth, rest, described as "name and material form combined with consciousness."

c9.s1.t3.9

We extract from other texts some more characteristic passages for the elucidation of this subject:—

c9.s1.t3.10

"What must there be, in order that there may be name and material form? Whence come name and material form?—Consciousness must be in order that there may be name and material form; from consciousness come name and material form.—What must there be in order that there may be consciousness? Whence comes consciousness?—Name and material form must be, in order that there may be consciousness; from name and material form comes consciousness. Then, my disciples, the Bodhisatti Vipassi* thought: consciousness conversely depends on name and material form: the chain goes no farther."†

c9.s1.t3.11

And in another place‡ the following simile is put into the mouth of Sâriputta, the greatest authority among Buddha's disciples: "My friend, as two bundles of sticks leaning against each other stand, so also, my friend, consciousness grows out of name and material form, and name and material form out of consciousness.” It “grows out of” it—this is not intended to convey that consciousness is the element, out of which name and material form are made : it is merely tantamount to saying, that consciousness is the forming power, which originates from the material elements or being, which bears a name and is clothed with a body.

c9.s1.t3.12

∗ Vipassi is one of the mythical Buddhas of the past, to whom are attributed these reflections on the chain of causality, while he was still Bodhisatta (pursuing the path to the Buddhahood). † Mahâpadhânasutta (Dîgha Nikâya), second Bhâṇavâra. ‡ "Samyatta N." vol. i, fol. ñâh'.

The Fourth to the Eleventh Link in the Chain of Causality

c9.s1.t4.1

When the spirit has found its body and the body found the spirit and united itself to it, this being compounded of spirit and body, provides itself with organs to put itself into communication with the external world. “From name and material form,” runs the fourth term of the formula, “come the six fields”*—the “six fields of the subject” (ajjhattika âyatana), eye, ear, nose, tongue, body (as organ for sensations of touch), understanding,† and the six corresponding fields of the object world, corporeal forms as the object of the eye, and so on—sounds, odours, taste, tangibility, and last, as the object of the understanding, thoughts (or ideas, notions, “dhammâ”), which are represented evidently as something standing present before the thinking faculty in quite an objective existence and realized by it, in the same way as visible bodies before the eyes.

c9.s1.t4.2

∗ The version contained in the “Mahânidânasutta” (Dialogue between Buddha and Ânanda) skips the categories of the “six fields,” and goes on from “name and material form” straight to the next following category of contact. (Vide infra.)

c9.s1.t4.3

† “Understanding” (mano) and “consciousness” (viññâṇa) are always quite distinct in the sacred texts, wherever they express themselves strictly. Turns such as these: “What people are accustomed to call thought (citta) or understanding (mano) or consciousness (viññâṇa)” occur, as far as I know, only in such a connection that they may be described as an intentional accommodation to customary modes of speech.

c9.s1.t4.4

The organs of the subject now step into communication with the objective world. "From the six fields comes contact. From contact comes sensation." We meet also with a certainly not very clearly expressed, and at the same time scarcely well-thought-out, attempt, to still further analyze these processes. Before the organ of sense grasps the object, an operation of the central organ, consciousness, on the organ of sense in requisition, gives it the command to join communication with the object, apparently in such a way that the former sets the latter in a certain manner to work. And when this communication follows, then by means of it, besides the two elements primarily concerned, the organ of sense and the object, the third element, consciousness, the author and supervisor of this communication, is at the same time in play. It is somewhat in this way, I believe, that we must understand the following proposition which recurs not unfrequently in the sacred texts: "From the eye and visible bodies comes consciousness, directed to the eye (cakkhuviññāṇa), the conjunction of the three, the contact." And similarly in that address of Buddha's already quoted (p. 185 seq.), the series of ideas and processes treated of in this connection, is expressed in the following fashion: "Eye—body—consciousness directed to the eye—contact of the eye (with the objects)—the sensation, which arises from the contact of the eye (with the objects), be it pleasure be it pain, be it neither pain nor pleasure."* Of course similar processes take place in the case of the other organs of sense to those which occur in the case of the eye.

First 112 of 493 passages. Read on

Linked texts (27)