Buddhist Snapshots

 Much like Christianity, Buddhism is not one monolithic teaching that has remained constant for over 2000 years, but a rich variety of paths and expressions. Rather than present "The Four Noble Truths" or the steps of the "Noble Eight Fold Path",  I think it better to offer various word images and snapshops, words that have informed me on my own journey through the Buddhist world.

Many of those born in the West have come to love some of the varieties of the Dharma. One such was Thomas Merton, who on his Asian "pilgrimage" visited the Sri Lankan site of Polonnaruwa which contains many statues of the Buddha and his disciples. In his Journal, Merton spoke of his experience......

The vicar general, shying away from "paganism," hangs back and sits under a tree reading the guidebook. I am able to approach the Buddhas barefoot and undisturbed, my feet in wet grass, wet sand. Then the silence of the extraordinary faces. The great smiles. Huge and yet subtle. Filled with every possibility, questioning nothing, knowing everything, rejecting nothing, the peace not of emotional resignation but of Madhyamika, of sunyata, that has seen through every question without trying to discredit anyone or anything - without refutation - without establishing some other argument. For the doctrinaire, the mind that needs well-established positions, such peace, such silence, can be frightening. I was knocked over with a rush of relief and thankfulness at the obvious clarity of the figures.................looking (at them) I was suddenly, almost forcibly, jerked clean out of the habitual, half-tied vision of things, and an inner clearness, clarity, as if exploding from the rocks themselves, became evident and obvious. The queer evidence of the reclining figure, the smile, the sad smile of Ananda standing with arms folded.....The thing about all this is that there is no puzzle, no problem, and really no "mystery". All problems are resolved and everything is clear, simply because what matters is clear. The rock, all matter, all life, is charged with dharmakaya.....everything is emptiness and everything is compassion.

Polonnaruwa

Well, a few words there possibly requiring further explanation - not least to myself - but the gist of it, at least for me, is the rejection of the "mind that needs well-established positions". Once I posted the above account on a Discussion Forum and an ardent Fundamentalist Christian sought to remind me that Thomas Merton was actually describing a rock and implied that he was guilty of idolatry. Well, that's one way of seeing it. "The heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and stone" as the old hymn goes.

The English poet and mystic William Blake once wrote:- "We are led to believe a lie when we see with not through the eye". For me, Merton was seeing through the eye.  As an ancient Hindu text says, "Thou art formless; your only form is our knowledge of You." Bowing down to wood and stone indeed!

There is an idolatry of words. No image need be involved.

You are not able to wander for long on any Buddhist Forum without being accosted with the following quote from the Kalama Sutta, part of the Theravada Canon of Scripture. It is often quoted with approval as some sort of "free thinkers" charter - as opposed to the "dogmatism" perceived to be found in some other Religions - yet the words "commended by the wise" actually sets some sort of parameter to just how "free" our thought should be! (Again, it seems to me that it is not a "religion" as such that is dogmatic, more individual adherents) But anyway, here we are:-

Do not be satisfied with hearsay or with tradition or with legendary lore or with what has come down in scriptures or with conjecture or with logical inference or with weighing the evidence or with liking for a view after pondering over it or with someone else's ability or with the thought "The monk is our teacher." When you know in yourselves: "These things are wholesome, blameless, commended by the wise, and being adopted and put into effect they lead to welfare and happiness," then you should practice and abide in them....

The Buddha chats to the Kalamas

So, who are the "wise"? Well, I've already had one rambling and possibly incoherent blog on this so perhaps best to just leave the question in the air. Nevertheless, I will give again a little zen proverb that has lived with me for many years now:- "A clearly enlightened person falls into a well. How is this so?", a proverb which often pops into my mind at random moments. One thing that this suggests is that wisdom, or in this case, "enlightenment", is maybe not what we suppose it to be, or anticipate it to be. Much like the zen guy sitting in the lotus position and saying:- "I have thought about it so much beforehand that now I'm actually enlightened I'm just a little bit disappointed", a joke I told on a Buddhist Forum and received a rap over the knuckles for mocking the whole idea of enlightenment. 

Perhaps a little bit disappointed?

My side of the story is that someone was lacking a sense of humour, or maybe lacked wisdom.

 

Here is a third "snapshot" of Buddhism, a small excerpt that gives the flavour of the Theravada texts. It is from the Majjhima Nikaya, or "The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha" Chapter 63. The Buddha is recorded as speaking to a would be disciple, Malunkyaputta, a man desperate to have "answers" to some apparently fundamental questions:-

Suppose, Malunkyaputta, a man were wounded by an arrow thickly smeared with poison, and his friends and companions brought a surgeon to treat him. The man would say: "I will not let the surgeon pull out the arrow until I know the name and clan of the man who wounded me; whether the bow that wounded me was a long bow or a crossbow; whether the arrow that wounded me was hoof-tipped or curved or barbed.

All this would not be known to that man and meanwhile he would die. So too, Malunkyaputta, if anyone should say: "I will not lead the noble life under the Buddha until the Buddha declares to me whether the world is eternal or not eternal, finite or infinite; whether or not an awakened one continues or ceases to exist after death" that would still remain undeclared by the Buddha and meanwhile that person would die.

No, don't pull the arrow out. Just tell me how it got there!

Here are the words of Stephen Batchelor, a modern Western Buddhist, as he reflects upon this passage:-

Dharma practice requires the courage to confront what it means to be human. All the pictures we entertain of heaven and hell or cycles of rebirth serve to replace the unknown with an image of what is already known. To cling to the idea of rebirth can deaden questioning.

Failure to summon forth the courage to risk a non-dogmatic and non-evasive stance on such crucial existential matters can blur our ethical vision. If our actions in the world are to stem from an encounter with what is central in life, they must be unclouded by either dogma or prevarication. Agnosticism is no excuse for indecision. If anything, it is a catalyst for action; for in shifting concern away from a future life and back to the present, it demands an ethics of empathy rather than a metaphysics of hope and fear.

Stephen Batchelor comes in for a lot of stick from some doctrinaire Buddhists for challenging supposedly key teachings. Yet often, at least to me, his take on things seems more authentic, not least with this "ethics of empathy", examples of which are all around us, found in the most unlikely of places.

All Religions seem to love spreading themselves and therefore encourage a bit of missionary activity. Here is the Buddhist exhortation to spread the Dharma, drawn from the Theravada Scriptures:-

Go forth, O monks, to bless the many, to bring happiness to the many, out of compassion for the world; go forth for the welfare, the blessing, the happiness of all beings.........Go forth and spread the teaching that is beautiful in the beginning, beautiful in the middle and beautiful in the end.

I ask myself exactly what is it to spread "the Dharma", or indeed anything else worth spreading. It seems to me that love is worth spreading, or compassion, empathy and other such human traits (and not so human at times, given the nature of dogs) Sadly, many in the past, and even now, associate the spread of such things not with "walking the talk" themselves, but more with repeating doctrines and creeds - and insisting upon the need to "believe" them.

Here again we have Stephen Batchelor, speaking in the above context of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism:- ".....the crucial distinction that each truth requires being acted upon in its own particular way (understanding anguish, letting go of its origins, realizing its cessation, and cultivating the path) has been relegated to the margins of specialist doctrinal knowledge. Yet in failing to make this distinction, four enobling truths to be acted upon are neatly turned into four propositions of fact to be believed. The first truth becomes: "Life is Suffering", the second: "The Cause of Suffering is Craving" - and so on. At precisely this juncture, Buddhism becomes a religion. A Buddhist is someone who believes these four propositions and are thus distinguished from Christians, Muslims, and Hindus, who believe different sets of propositions."

Meeting together

To my mind this distinction exists within all faiths in various forms and ways. It also seems to me that if people of faith acted upon such distinctions, seeking the true heart of their faith, all perhaps could meet at the centre, instead of arguing on the perimeter of the circle! Well, easier said than done.

To be continued.