It is reported in the Theravada Canon of Scripture, purported to be the most historically accurate record of the Buddha's acts and words, that when he was about to leave our world he refused requests to appoint a successor, saying instead to "let the Dharma be your guide.......be ye lamps unto yourselves".
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| A complete set of the Pali Canon |
The Dharma is Truth, simply the way things actually are, and according to Buddhism a "come and see for yourself" sort of thing ( ehipassiko in Pali ). It includes the teaching of not-self, ( anatta ) and a well respected Buddhist Dictionary has it that the failure to understand this teaching will ensure that all else is misunderstood. Alas, often not-self is thought to have much to do with getting rid of the ego - and thus often Buddhism is misunderstood, entering the realms of certain "new-age" notions of "non-ego" and "living in the moment".
In my own rambling way of coming to see for myself I came to question just what the lamp was that was to be "ourselves", this in the light of "not-self".
It seemed a complicated procedure to follow. In the end, among other things, I stumbled upon the words of a Pure Land devotee, who said:
The love that inspired Oya-sama to go through
All the sufferings and all the hardships -
I thought I was simply to listen to the story
But that was a grievous mistake, I find.
(Oya-sama.......simply, that which "protects and guides me", the infinite light and life that is Amida Buddha, Reality-as-is.)
Yes, I think it is a grievous mistake to think that grace means we can sit back and wait for things to happen of themselves. We are instead faced with the paradox that though there is nothing to do, we cannot just do nothing. Ultimately this is very much the same paradox that plagues so much Christian dialogue concerning the "contradiction" between salvation by faith and salvation by works. Buddhism has its own dialogue. The Pure Land saint (myokonin) Saichi had this to say concerning this:-
O Saichi, please tell us of Other Power
Yes, but there is neither Other Power nor self power
What is, is the graceful acceptance only.
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| Graceful Acceptance |
Compare this with an example of the Christian dialogue, from the pen of Thomas Merton:-
In our being their is a primordial YES that is not our own; it is not at our disposal; it is not accessible to our inspection and understanding; we do not even fully experience it as real......basically......my being is not an affirmation of a limited self, but the YES of Being itself, irrespective of my own choices. Where do "I " come in? Simply in uniting the YES of my own freedom with the YES of Being that already IS before I have a chance to choose. This is not "adjustment". There is nothing to adjust. There is reality........the actuality of one YES.......in this actuality no question of "adjustment" remains......
( from "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander )
Much of this will make no sense if we associate "wisdom" with the accumulation of knowledge, or with "salvation" as being initiated by our very own choice to accept a Creed and thus gaining the Sky God's favour. It will make sense ( hopefully ) if we recognise that wisdom/enlightenment/salvation is to come to the realisation of that which has always been. "What we must be is what we are" said Merton, and in words of his own Christian perspective, "we already possess God, yet how far I have to go to find You in Whom I have already arrived!"
Drawing upon this, is the journey the thing itself, is the path itself home? But maybe this question belongs elsewhere. But I will finish with the opening of Basho's "Narrow Road to the Deep North":-
The moon and the sun are eternal travellers. Even the years wander on. A lifetime adrift in a boat, or in old age leading a tired horse into the years, every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home. From the earliest times there have always been some who perished along the road. Still I have always been drawn by windblown clouds into dreams of a lifetime of wandering.
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