WHAT THE BUDDHA TAUGHT

 

by

 

Walpola Rahula

 

Grove Press

NY, NY

 

Paper, 151 pages

ISBN 9-780802-130310

 

 

 

Walpola Rahula provides a simplified outline of the mystery and complexity of Buddhism in his lucid book What The Buddha Taught. First published in 1959, it is written with such clarity it shines like a fine, fresh morning, the sun at your back, sunlight angled across the land ahead of you.

Rahula first describes the Buddha (the enlightened one ) as living in the 6^th century BCE in Nepal. His given name was Siddhattha Gotama. His father was the king. By custom, he married at age 16. At 29, he left his family after the birth of his child to search for the solution to the problem of universal suffering. Rahula does not say what became of wife and child, whether they suffered without him, or whether they re-united. It is tragically human and ironic that the search for human happiness begins with the breakup of a family.

For six years he journeyed in the Ganges valley, meeting religious teachers, applying their practices, finding nothing to satisfy him. He then went his own way, and one evening, beneath a tree on a riverbank, he attained Enlightenment. For the next 45 years, he taught what he had learned. When he died at age 80, his disciples held a council, gathered his teachings and rules into five Nikayas ( Collections ), which were transmitted orally for four centuries until written down in Ceylon in the 1^st century BCE.

The Buddha made no class distinctions and recognized no differences of caste or social groupings. His teachings were open to all. He claimed only to be a human being he claimed no inspiration from any god or external power.

He attributed all his realization, attainments and achievements to human endeavour and human intelligence. A man and only a man can become a Buddha. Every man has within himself the potentiality of becoming a Buddha, if he so wills it and endeavours.

 

With man as his own master, there was no higher power to judge man. This is a concept so radical in its departure from a monotheistic culture such as ours that we have difficulty comprehending it. But it can be considered, in part, in the context of American individualism, a parallel to the Buddhist s teaching that each person must develop himself and work out his own emancipation, for man has the power to liberate himself from all bondage through his own personal effort and intelligence.

Through the principle of individual responsibility, Buddhism also preaches freedom of thought an idea foreign to Catholicism and Islam which demand strict adherence to specific beliefs. According to Rahula, freedom of thought is necessary because: man s emancipation depends on his own realization of Truth, and not on the benevolent grace of a god or any external power as a reward for his obedient good behaviour. Similar to gnosticism, Buddhism looks inward for answers, rather than a blind faith in an external, unknown power.

Just to say I believe does not mean that you understand and see. When a student works on a mathematical problem, he comes to a stage beyond which he does not know how to proceed, and where he is in doubt and perplexity. As long as he has this doubt, he cannot proceed. If he wants to proceed, he must resolve this doubt. And there are ways of resolving that doubt. Just to say I believe, or I do not doubt will certainly not solve the problem.

 

Of course, the mathematical equation of life may pose such difficulties that faith-based monotheism may offer an easier solution, since one need only believe in a higher, external power, much as a child may blindly put faith in parents, workers may blindly follow employers, or citizens may fall in line behind nationalistic leaders.

Whether one looks inward or outward or both, the Buddha taught the spirit of tolerance, compassion, and understanding, similar to what Jesus taught, only 600 years before. This spirit of tolerance is such that it does not condemn but honors other religions. Unlike the long bloody history of Christianity and Islam, there is not a single example of persecution or the shedding of a drop of blood in converting people to Buddhism, or in its propagation during its long history of 2500 years.

Violence in any form, under any pretext whatsoever, is absolutely against the teaching of the Buddha.

 

Rather than define humans by discriminative labels, with all their inherent prejudices, Buddhism looks to fundamental human qualities and emotions that cut across all people love and hate, patience and impatience, friendship and enmity, knowledge and ignorance.

Other religions also cling rigidly to ritual and doctrine, so that the means to a religious experience becomes an end unto itself. Consider how long the Catholic church held Mass in Latin when few could understand it. The teachings of the Buddha, however, are considered akin to a raft to be used to cross to a new realm of knowledge, and then left on the new shore, not carried forever on one s back.

The basic principle of Buddhism is dukkha translated roughly as all life is suffering pain (an interpretation that Rahula regards as highly unsatisfactory and misleading because it also includes concepts such as imperfection, impermanence, emptiness, and insubstantiality). For instance, joy and pleasure are impermanent, and when they pass, sadness may take their place.

The Buddha taught that the source of dukkha from family quarrels to wars between nations arises from a craving or attachment to sense-pleasures, wealth and power, conceptions and beliefs. Left unsaid is the fact that nearly everyone and everything compete against one another, if not to survive, then to rise above. This is true for humans and nature. A river, ever flowing to the sea, cuts a course through the land, and the land erodes into the river. So, too, do the four seasons turn with the earth. The deer eat the grass, and the wolf kills the deer. A wolf-pack has an alpha-pair, male and female; and humans, too, have their leaders and subordinates, their constant struggle to succeed. A dominant, successful male has his pick among females; a dominant, successful female has her pick among males.

The goal of Buddhism is to liberate humans from dukkha, to eliminate the main root of dukkha, which is thirst. This utopian hope seems an impossibility. But consider this Buddhist parable:

The tortoise told his friend the fish that he (the tortoise) just returned to the lake after a walk on land. Of course, the fish said, You mean swimming. The tortoise tried to explain that one couldn t swim on the land, that it was solid, and that one walked on it. But the fish insisted that there could be nothing like it, that it must be liquid like his lake, with waves, and that one must be able to dive and swim there.

 

Just as the fish had no words to express the nature of solid land he had never seen or experienced, our own words are symbols of things and ideas known to us, incapable of describing the other side of enlightenment. Those stuck in ignorance get stuck in words like an elephant in mud.

If we are fish, unable to conceive of swimming on land, how to learn to swim on land? To take the Middle Path and avoid extremes. Such moderation is not foreign to Western philosophy. What is different is the means to apply it. One must use right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

It is helpful to examine right thought, by which one must think good thoughts, thoughts of love and non-violence, and avoid thoughts of selfish desire, ill-will, and hatred. Compare this to Jesus teaching that lust in the heart is the same as acting as lust. Wrong thoughts lead to wrong speech, wrong action. Like the Ten Commandments, right speech requires abstention from lies. More than this, it means no backbiting, no slander, no rude or impolite talk, no gossip. As we were taught when young, if there is nothing good to say, say nothing.

While some Buddhist ideas on the right way to live find parallels in Western culture, other concepts are far different. One is the idea of no soul. In Christianity, one s soul is rewarded or punished in the after-life for good or bad behavior. In Islam, martyrs in a jihad go to heaven with virgins. In Nordic mythology, warriors who died in battle go to Vahalla. Buddhism does not have a carrot and stick reward and punishment system to instill certain behavior. The Buddha believed the idea of a soul led to the idea of self which produces harmful thoughts of me and mine, selfish desire, craving, attachment, hatred, ill-will, conceit, pride, egoism, and other defilements, impurities and problems. In this way, it is a distant departure from American individualism.

Two ideas are psychologically deep-rooted in man: self-protection and self-preservation. for self-protection man has created God, on whom he depends for his own protection, safety and security, just as a child depends on his parent. For self-preservation man has conceived the idea of an immortal Soul or Atman, which will live eternally. In his weakness, fear, and desire, man needs these two things to console himself. Hence he clings to them deeply and fanatically.

 

Rahula asserts Buddhism is unique in history as denying the existence of a soul, and that the idea of God and Soul are false and the result of ignorance. Buddhism aims instead to enlighten man.

Similar to the interdependence of earth s ecosystem, Buddhism takes into account a combination of physical and mental aggregates, which are working together interdependently in a flux of momentary change within the law of cause and effect, and that there is nothing permanent, everlasting, unchanging and eternal in the whole of existence. This said, the Buddha recognized one might remain largely free of physical ailments, but it was the rare person who remained free from mental defilements. One way to deal with mental ailments is meditation.

You breathe in and out all day and night, but you are never mindful of it, you never for a second concentrate your mind on it. Now you are going to do just this. Breathe in and out as usual, without any effort or strain. Now, bring your mind to concentrate on your breathing-in and breathing-out; let your mind watch and observe your breathing in and out; let your mind be aware and vigilant of your breathing in and out.

 

Rahula suggest doing this for merely a few minutes. But it is of the utmost difficulty to quiet your own mind. The monkey mind wants only to dart here and there. As Rahula says:

At the beginning you will find it extremely difficult to bring your mind to concentrate on your breathing. You will be astonished how your mind runs away. It does not stay. You begin to think of various things. You hear sounds outside. Your mind is disturbed and distracted. You may be dismayed and disappointed. But if you continue to practise this exercise twice daily, morning and evening, for about five or ten minutes at a time, you will gradually, by and by, begin to concentrate your mind on your breathing. After a certain period, you will experience just that split second when your mind is fully concentrated on your breathing, when you will not hear even sounds nearby, when no external world exists for you. This slight moment is such a tremendous experience for you, full of joy, happiness and tranquility, that you would like to continue it. But still you cannot. Yet if you go on practising this regularly, you may repeat the experience again and again for longer and longer periods. That is the moment when you let yourself completely in your mindfulness of breathing.

 

Rahula states (as recent medical studies have proven) that meditation is good for health, relaxation, sound sleep, and efficiency at work. It makes you more mindful of everything you do. It teaches you to live in the present, a goal of both the teachings of Buddha and Jesus.

People do not generally live in their actions, in the present moment. They live in the past or the future. Though they seem to be doing something now, here, they live somewhere else in their thoughts, in their imaginary problems and worries, usually in the memories of the past or in desires and speculations about the future. Therefore they do not live in, nor do they enjoy, what they do at the moment. So they are unhappy and discontented with the present moment, with the work at hand, and naturally they cannot give themselves fully to what they appear to be doing.

 

Meditation may also be used to objectively examine troubles, unhappiness, and worries. Rahula suggests that we try to see clearly why there is a sensation of unhappiness, to examine how it arises, its cause, its cessation; to study it like an objective scientist.

. . . you should not look at it as my feeling or my sensation subjectively, but only look at it as a feeling or a sensation objectively. You should forget again the false idea of I . When you see its nature, how it arises and disappears, your mind grows dispassionate towards that sensation, and becomes detached and free.

 

While Christianity may teach an unquestioning, unwavering faith in an external power, Rahula suggests that One should be bold and sincere and look at one s own mind as one looks at one s face in a mirror. This is similar to the ancient gnostic belief, prevalent in the Mediterranean world, that the mirror shows through to the likeness of God by which God is a spark of divinity within each of us. The difference is that gnostics find within each human the existence of an external, although benign, force; while Buddhists simply find an internal human force, albeit with the potential for enlightenment.

While monotheism rigidly sets judgment between good and evil, Rahula states that self-examination of your own mind is not to judge, but to inquire as a scientist.

To cultivate the qualities of such self-examination requires desire. In short, you must want it. It must be a goal. And there lies the apparent contradiction of Buddhism to eliminate desire, you must desire to eliminate it. But the genius is that it harnesses desire for a more peaceful end. It therefore takes the root of human conflict and misery to grow a different flower.

 

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