Engaged in life at the
turn of a civilization, we must confront all crucial conflicts due to the chaos
of differing ideologies mankind has been entangled in from the very beginning
of civilization. The more we struggle and our efforts increase, the more exhausted
and further down pressed into hopelessness and misdirection, and the heavier the
loss of confidence in oneself. The social cataclysm has left its imprint on every
man's face, the most deeply in the mind and heart of those in their twenties
At
this particular impasse of history, it is the intelligentsia who is expected to
lead us on the way to the final deliverance from human bondage.
To bring light
a life of significance and faith, it is essential to reform our knowledge-and-understanding,
which is deformed by shortsighted historians and the negative influence of their
one-way credo that there is only one right way of history. That men have also
been governed to insane, collective massacres motivated by the ill will of a minority
makes the situation even more serious. Toward their own interests, they have indifferently
bartered men's blood and life in struggles for political power. Human lives have
been sacrificed for private interests of individual, of class, or of race.
It
is not until man is enlightened and is deprived of every insane craving that he
will be freed from this continuous pathos of life, social inequality and historical
misdirection.
Enlightenment is much more heard of nowadays than ever before
but mostly from those who are abused. They typically misunderstood enlightenment
as meaning awareness of individual or class rights or other things of similar
earthily meaning. These are only bare words just spoken or written in publication.
Nothing of enlightenment well-meant and well-realized except selfish privilege,
power and pride.
Noble enlightenment, as Tagore expresses it, is when you
are awakened by the spiritual call:
"Atmanam viddhi"
Know
thyself
(R. Tagore 1917)
Prior to any possible freedom, let one first
rid himself of prejudice, pride and selfishness. It is also true that one's self-liberation
must depend for its full realization upon the common cause of humanity like the
twin "shadow-and-image". Without this grand vision, we can only go halfway
at most or be lost at last.
Self-indulgence naturally means one's excessive
attention to his self, that shell indifferently shutting out all problems of common
life. Individualistic to selfishness or self-indulgent to aloofness is not much
of an enlightened state of being. Of perfect knowledge, kindness and wisdom, he
is to do all and everything for the common cause of life, for a world of harmony
founded upon self-understanding. The life of Buddha reveals to us, "His was
the right path, right speech, right thought and right conduct".
His immense
sacrifice, his great renunciation and the immaculate purity of his life left an
indelible imprint upon the mind and heart of generation after generation of Asia.
It has become a message to the whole world, as suggests Gandhi,
" For
Asia to be not for Asia but the whole world, it has to relearn the message of
the Buddha and deliver it to the whole world"
(Gandhi's speech Harijan,
24-12-1938)
As long as we are Buddhists, whose life owes a great deal to the
inspiration derived from his teaching, we cannot keep silent and motionless in
the face of suffering.
"By their fruits shall ye know them"
By
this spirit of realistic compassion, wisdom, equality and altruism we have conferred
many and great benefits upon society and are to recover our inner peace, resettle
social order and move forward to prosperity.
History is proceeding on to the
threshold of the Great Synthesis. All kinds of current problems are overwhelming
national boundaries into international development. Modern solutions are required
to have sufficient insight to get rid of religious, racial and class prejudices
and to look forward to a possible society where in justice will by no means be
harmful to any free personality. This life impulse, whose natural destiny is to
find right expression, whose spiritual force beyond one's I-NESS permits the universe,
this universal stratum simultaneously manifested within every individual. Everyone
has his own rights, on what he thinks, ponders and chooses, and on how he lives,
serves and creates. This concept, might, somehow, seem to pave the way for an
excess of individualism should it not be confirmed that we really mean a willing
acceptance of every obligation we owe to men as social beings, of which Tagore
said in a letter to Gandhi in 1919:
"Give me the supreme courage of love,
this is my prayer, the courage to speak, to do, to suffer as they will, to leave
all things or to be left alone".
The message was revived through Radhakrishna's
inaugural address to the "UNESCO Tagore's Centenary Celebration in Paris".
We must assume our responsibility to help the coming generations build a new
life by destroying the springs of man's actions, which lie deep in Ignorance,
Hatred and Selfishness.
What we are longing for is supreme compassion in action.
Upon such a basic conception, we can maintain firm and lasting justice, social
equilibrium. Let the social order be upset and freedom will thus be violated,
or vice versa:
Let this be, and so will that be.
This non-being makes
that nothing.
Let this be born, so will that be.
That this does end makes
that ending.
The Buddhist teachings assert as such, the life is as such, and
the nature's law of universal mutation as such. And such is the supreme criterion
which the Buddhist must always keep in mind, and moreover, bring up to life for
the sake of a modern society where in all present conflicts, liberal ownership
and family rules be in tune with national common schemes, then nationalism come
to terms with international livelihood and humanism! Only whence can we find war
come to an end, living conditions over the world be leveled, and no more class
rivalries, nor aversion among social communities. Once enmity is annulled, cravings
gradually becalmed, the way to freedom will be revealed to all, true religion
flowers in full bloom, the glory of Man's transcendental becoming.
Buddhism
has been known for its universal compassion human love, its self-perfection and
self-understanding, and especially its emphasis upon individual experience, human
energy and free will for his self-realization. As far as concerning its grand
vision of ideo-cultural synthesis, its living adaptability, peace loving, earthy
and practical as well as imaginative and speculative spirit, Buddhism can therefore
bring forth to the modern world a life of greater significance and happiness.
By the way, who is the man to lead us people to the blissful state?
The
first and foremost are Buddhists or "Buddhas-to-be". Whether or not
could Buddhism be fruitful today depends not upon some canonical scriptures or
sutras, but mainly upon those intelligent intercessors who preach the LAW to the
time and adapt themselves to today's social circumstances and, moreover, to emphasize
how to make this perennial religion be up-to-date, help it be enriched and enlivened,
convey it to men of all levels, intellectually and socially speaking.
Buddhism
today can only persist its lasting existence if its adaptability works harmoniously
with all essential exigencies of the modern time. Such is the way to peace and
happiness.
We have heard it contended by men of ideological bias or laymen
who interpret Buddhism as sympathyless and atheistic. They interpret Buddhism
as standing aloof from secular society, therefore, reactionary and anti-humanistic.
According to them it is the right to question and doubt and criticize and choose.
But in fact, Buddhism is never so arrogant or arbitrary a dogma as to enjoy such
an attempt as inducing people to believe in it as the only belief. Buddhism, on
the other hand, must be understood as the guide that leads man from his blindness
and desire towards the blissful state of supreme liberation. "Man is to be
the master of his own desire". This truly emphasizes one's individual efforts
for his self-salvation.
Its all-pervasive survival and spread over Asia for
more than two millenniums, its lively adapting thereto and reconciliation with
the Western World of modern technology, all provide conclusive evidence against
the shallow criticism based on lay observations. Endowed with a deeper insight
in Buddhism, we believe we can reveal the truth to all, do our best to make the
noble teachings well-understood, and inspire the rest of the world with a right-view
and right-understanding of the religion in relation to, and in harmony with, all
aspects of secular life.
Sentiment, should it mean extreme self-indulgence,
would certainly be rejected by Buddhist thought and practice. Buddhism discovers
in our Saha-world that terrific realm of desires where men are constantly disturbed
from within and without by bodily inevitabilities and social influences. This
is, as the Buddha called it, the "world of sensual desire" namely Kamadhatu,
which brings forth to the growth of birth, existence, decay, and death and ultimately
all sufferings. Superior to ours is the "world of pure form" namely
Rupadhatu of deities whose life rises above all desires to the sphere of interplaying
motives of Form. A higher "world of no-form or Arupadhatu excludes all and
every sensual desire and form save the mind of interrelation and inter-communication
which is still subject to redemption within that sorrowful cycle of re-birth.
It is not until being delivered from this triple world that one would attain
the blissful state of nothingness, that of the fully Enlightened which is thoroughly
transparent, beyond the trap of transmigration.
It is right in this "world
of sensual desire" that the Buddha lived his life as we do ours. The difference
is in that He had carried out an ultimate struggle against desirous inclination
for the sake of self-purification in order to evoke the brightness of mind realized
in the Great Wisdom and Universal Tolerance.
His love was not that enslaved
by an attractive woman, nor meant for self-loving, ownership, filial relationship,
unequalled wealth and splendor. His love was meant for all and was one with every
sorrowful being. His compassionate love emerged of his transcendental self. Be
it not so piteous, he might have not renounced the worldly life, nor have he been
so pensively engaged in the world of suffering in which men would pursue their
lust for life in sanguinary contention so indulgently that they couldn't pay any
attention to their near coming imminent. There we are with true love as highly
elevated in the very Buddhist meaning, and right there can we find the true love
of a mind free from defilement.
To criticize Buddhism as atheistic is hasty
and subjective, knowing nothing about it. You cannot find in any Buddhist realms
an omnipotent God with caprice of love and hate, that is, a mere personification
by human imagination. Now, if you set on a search for God as Mind-Being in the
eternally pure essence of Reality, the highest Truth, that the mortal ever tend
to reach and to get at that condition of purity, yes there he is as evidence.
Mind-Being is the essence of reality and, though not openly expressed, is
latent in everything and every sentient being, expressed or not extant. It transcends
all categories and limitations; however, it will only be revealed to those being
free from the veil of illusory phenomena, those who fight and already win pure
Love and bright Wisdom over earthily Desire, his inner-self be one with that of
the universal Suchness. Buddhism as such may somehow be conceived as a theism
whose Deities (or divas) are not far from man but as nucleus latent in every living
creature. They only come into being and in sight of those who have possessed a
universal vision. All such Buddhist terms as "Buddhahood" (the nature
of Buddha) or "Suchness" or " Blissful state" or "Nibbana"
are various names of the One Mind. Mind is inherent in all. Accordingly, every
sentient being can practice the way and develop it to the full realization of
the illuminating reality in its essence.
Owing to its conception of Mind as
the innermost nature of everybody, Buddhism thus gives way to higher human status
but nothing debasing human dignity. Although Buddhism uses the word "sentient
being"in a general way, there is, however, the difference among "spheres
of existence" due to the force of karma.
Man is one of the most elevated
in the spheres of "Samsara", and possesses the best faculty which enables
him to get out of this infinite cycle of re-birth and redemption. Buddhism conveys
the true meaning of Man-hood or "humanism", to use a term in vogue today.
It is Buddhism that puts consciousness forth into practical life. Even in
opposition to the tragic conditions of life, the Buddhist has never given way
to defeatism, neither praying for external assistance, leaning upon another before
trying his best to get rid of his self-bondage. Let us imagine a child sleeping
by its mother, who dreams a powerful lion, is attacking her child. Can the mother
save her child from danger or kill the lion in her dream? No, she can't. She cannot
enter into the dream nor do anything but wake up from dreaming. To be awakened,
the child will be freed naturally.
"In the same way, one who realizes
that his own Mind is Dukkha frees himself instantly from the sufferings arising
from (the ignorance of the law of) ceaseless change within the Six Realms. "1
Without self-realization, one cannot understand such things as these. Should
he not try to save himself, neither a Buddha nor a Patriarch would be to save
him at all. It is up to him paying his dues and completing self-perfection out
of his own effort. Outside help, if any, must not outrun the limit of an expedient
governed by inter motive of liberation of the self-liberator. It is this emphasis
upon the subjective, which, socially speaking has unjustly been charged with selfishness,
individualism or irresponsible aloofness.
As long as Buddhism keeps promoting
the initiative of self-mastery then it should not be viewed as pessimism, nor
a set of abstract intellect far removed from the concerns of the society. Buddhism
has its own way of serving and there is, for each one, an individual way to self-realization
that is not devoid of the great compassionate heart. However, its adaptability-and-tolerance
too has subjected Buddhism to misunderstanding and criticism at the expense of
its loving-kindness, all-embracing and all-forgiving practices. The only thing
he can and must do in response is to do good for the sake of all men. A Buddhist,
in spite of his being trapped in the sphere of sensual desire, is supposed to
make great effort to time himself and do right, to reject wealth and pride, to
remove far from lust and discrimination and be ready to serve humanity as doing
whatever a man has to do for others.
To criticize Buddhism as an obstacle
in the course of historical evolution is to say at the expense of the Buddhist
vanguard ideals which were first preached over two millenniums ago, and still;
are promoted since the Buddha's first sermon as the earliest call of liberation
for personal values and self-realization, especially for intellection to be freed
from those socio-theocratic bounds of early India. There in Buddhism lies deeply
the nucleus of all recent revolutions of modern societies.
1 Footnote
(the three Pillars of zen, p. 161 - A Weathermarh edition).
The
Buddhistic revelation to the modern world involves the rediscovery of a coherent
view of life that prevents the materialistic civilization from ending in disaster.
Societies now come to the climax of cultural ferment where the progressive quality
of Modern Art, Technology and Knowledge depends on the amount of sense of purpose,
compassion, and humanistic initiatives for coping with life as a whole. Such is
the essentials of the Buddhist culture.
To a majority of people, Buddhism
is this practice of an age-old cult, carried out and promoted by those half-dreaming
ones devoted to dozy, monotonous praying for salvation. They believe in a Buddha
similar to a Hindu god Brahma. They worship the Lord Buddha as the Almighty and
beseech him for blessings, salvation, and even earthly favors. This misunderstanding
has created a veil of religious myths, fictitious and profane, which conceal the
realistic spirit of the True Law. That is the reason why Buddhism will be conceived
as "a religion both profound and profane. "1
We have to take the
responsibility to reveal what is profound in Buddhist teaching to the extent that
Buddhism will not come to be a yoke preventing the believers from acquiring spiritual
freedom, social prosperity, self-realization and the achievement of world salvation.
There in a serene, aloof monastic cave lived an enlightened monk with his
disciples, many of whom had realized the Path. One of the most excellent disciples,
known to the whole monastery for his faithfulness and kindness to the teacher
and mates, was still far from ultimate success. Year after year and the disciples
one after another had reached supreme knowledge and left the monastery for their
propagation trips in different directions, but nothing was changing with the long
trained disciple, obedient and righteous.
The teacher, after a very long time
of studying the situation, came to realize, when a sudden snowstorm brought winter
about, that the mind of his student had reached a point when "One More step"
or one final thrust is required to attain enlightenment. The cave was thrilled
with freezing coldness while the teacher's heart warmed up at the thought that
it was possibly the right moment for the disciple to be awakened. After a walk
surveying around the monastery, the venerable was found back at his patriarchal
seat; beside it was the only fireplace with so dim a fire that it seemed to be
nearly extinct. The situation was urgent. So he called his disciple thereto and
gave him an order:
"It's necessary now to find some wood for keeping
up the warming fire. Go and see if we could get some, my son?" He thus obeyed
and left, but he knew the wood storage was already empties after some of those
days under unceasing snowstorm. Moreover, snow had blocked up all the ways down
to the lower forest. He had tried his best in this vain searching before he returned
with nothing but a very sad look.
"I am sorry, Sir; but there is not
a single piece of wood on hand while the storm outside is so mighty that nobody
can go out
. "
"But how about searching all over the inside,
first. If you see anything made of wood or flammable material, bring it here,
will you?" was his kind consolation. The religious candidate obediently bowed
and went out on another search.
Nothing but rock was available. He presented
himself to the teacher at last and exclaim desperately:
"Finally nothing
is wooden material, Sir!"
"Oh, worthy one! I believe you will find
one thing made of wood, which is right inside this cave only if you try to use
the best of your sight faculty. "
In spite of his overwhelmed despondency,
he made a decisive exertion to survey all and every corner of the monastery and
go as far as the main shrine of the Buddha. Under the throne of the statue, he
knelt down and prayed for His revelation before going on a last searching. No
doubt, nothing was a wooden thing except the Buddha statue. All the rest is of
rock and iron. He came to the climax of dejection and finally was found kneeling
before the monk with fear and trembling from head to toe. He said:
"Oh,
sir, there is nothing of wood at all except the Buddha's statue! Yes, the statue
is made of wood, really, but Oh, my Lord! It is our Lord Buddha. "
For
the first time, the master seemed to be out of temper and scolded loudly:
"You
fool! Why don't you shut up all non-sense words as such? Now, bring it here, that
wooden thing. You understand!" Startled and filled with doubt and bewilderment,
both physically and mentally, he made for the Buddha statue. He lowered it down
from the high throne to carry it back to the monk after he has expressed his utmost
respect-with-fear to the statue.
The expression of compassion and calmness
then, reappeared on the face and in the eye of the enlightened monk. He picked
up an axe, raised it above his head then, with all his strength, chopped down
at the glittering gold-plated Buddha into such broken pieces as the very heart
and mental cataclysm of the faithful disciple. His sweat streamed down from every
pore, his body trembled and eyes uncontrollably came to tear, while his master
was quietly throwing the broken wood piece after piece into the flame being increasingly
enlivened. The rocky hall was so brightened as this mind-flower flourishing into
enlightenment, such blissful moment as when an Archimedes exclaims a triumphant
achievement: "Eureka! Eureka!"
"We have now come to the point
where we are obliged to consider the spirit, the soul and the physical form as
an indivisible unit
" was the belief of Russian physiologist Pavlov,
announced in a famous essay on Esprit Scientifique Russell (p. 55). Actually it
strikes the time for us to make the Buddhist beholder forsake all illusory manifestation
of the religion so that the essential reality is revealed eventually to all humanities.
Only in this sense will Buddhism become the most active and realistic, that enables
us intelligentsia to find out satisfactory answers to all spiritual necessities,
and to re-discover there in the powerful motivation for the growth of a golden
civilization with physical progress in harmony with transcendental humanism.
Buddhism
has been formed as a crystallization of various schools of the perennial philosophy
of ancient India. The Buddha came to life to bring forth to the great synthesis
all the former theological, religious and ideological tendencies of Vedic tradition2
. His Noble Path is a complete expression of the human philosophical science ever
known to history. In Buddhism are included all fundamental problems of existence,
great and small, where all past and present may find definite outlets. That it
has not been conceived as such, but otherwise, misunderstood is badly due to ambiguous
manifestations in varying languages and forms of overdue conventions. As modern
exponents of Buddhism, we have the task of revealing the realistic essence of
Buddhist thought to the modern technology, art and learning, which is the meaning
of the Unity of all realities, both physical and spiritual.
The tragedy of
humanities today thus is the warring conflicts of arbitrary conceptions of life,
which in reality is a whole, the indivisible unity. We must agree with professor
Nguyen Ðang Thuc's note of this noble unifying vision of life: "
that human society is now experiencing a terrible moral and physical crisis can
be explained by the lack of the moral conditions for this unification
the
present phase will be one of control of the inner self.
"Experimental
science, with its democratic character and with the experience of religions of
the East will help the average man master his desires. " (Asian Culture,
Vol, III, No, 2)
And Buddhism, due to its adaptability to the needs of men
of diverse mental and cultural and racial backgrounds, is to make more and greater
contributions to social progress and spiritual freedom of Man today.
This
great synthesis expressed the highest creative spirit of humanity against the
natural background of lofty mountains and shady forests of India. Their thought
was ceaselessly probing into mysterious phenomena of the boundless universe wherein
they seemed to be imprisoned by the Brahma's indecipherable creative work.
With
this belief in Brahma, the God, they established Brahmanism with the basic concept
of reincarnation namely SAMSARA, the transmigration or "metempsychosis"
that gave way to a social system of caste. The schools of Upanishad appeared not
quite as an ultimate negation of that Brahma's mightiness but did raise foremost
the highest doubt on the nonsense and uselessness of this illusive manifestation.
This inquiring spirit was the source of all the coming philosophies: The Vedantism
first drew Brahma down into every mortal and turned to the cause of human equality.
Much more vigorous opposition to former theologies was the philosophy of realistic
Vaisesika.
An eclectic tendency opened the way of Samkhya, proposing the dualist
existence of transcendental self (Purusa) and primordial nature (Prakriti), the
Soul and Matter. The transcendental self 's will to communicate to, and become
one with, the primordial nature would have created this world of illusion. Should
this "Will" be nullified, all illusion would consequently cease, and
there is revealed the Identity of Purusa and Prakriti.
More than two thousand
five hundred years later, the Buddha came to life making his reconciliation of
all former perennial philosophies into Buddhism which, upon the foundation of
COMPASSION AND BELIEF IN MAN'S POTENTIALITY FOR ENLIGHTENMENT, SPIRITUAL LIBERTY,
INDEPENDENCE and SELF-REALISATION, revealed to the world THE REALISTIC CONTENT
OF A PERFECT LIFE so far as concerning the SPIRITUAL and PRACTICAL ASPECTS of
the WAY TO ENLIGHTENMENT.
The Great Master gave a sharp look at everything
in existence as it really is, found at its core the SUCHNESS, which he described
as this threefold principle:
- Every phenomenon is impermanent
- Every
existence is without a self
- Such is Eternity
This is the nature of things.
"An-sich-sein" or "Nomos"3 (a-b) to use Heidegger's language,
the keyword for man at the threshold of the immense treasure of universal secrets,
the very original source of this world. This understanding of THING-IN-ITSELF
only helps him unload ignorant attachments one by one, and get closer to his transcendental
self.
The world of phenomena is a component system of universal causation.
Men who will make up his mind to probe into the deep mysteries of life and the
universal evolution must know this Noble law of "cause-and-effect" relativity
in making efforts to turn the Wheel to a finer moral status, human salvation will
be achieved eventually.
One's Karmic record of life makes him suffer in the
mortal world, and undergo a series of incarnations. Sufferings, we believe, are
originated from sensual cravings that never cease to increase day by day. Only
by following the Noble Eightfold Path (aryastanga marga) can one realize that
blissful state of Nirvana.
Buddhism starts from its spiritual point of view
to make its way through the Six-Dust World for the ultimate liberation from human
bondage. However the point of departure, i. e. Buddhism, is not the absolute truth,
but only a means, provisional and non-real, like the "finger that points
to the moon" a symbol of the true reality. The most emphasized Buddhist concepts
are the personal value and the freedom of thought that help it be developed and
embellished by generations one after another. The freedom of thinking is the most
essentials of all and no wonders Buddhism has been widespread and welcome all
over the world while no warring conflicts are known in the history of its religious
propagation at all.
German historian Dietrich Seckel, in "The art of
Buddhism" expresses his convictions as such when he writes: "It will
be appreciated that this was not the foundation upon which one could establish
an obligatory dogma. Hence Buddhism could easily adapt itself to alien ways of
thinking, doctrines and cultural conditions, without sacrificing its basic concepts.
This of course meant that it had to renounce the lives and thoughts of the people
under its sway
It was presumably this modesty in its claims that enabled
it to spread peacefully into such vast areas, where the cultural pattern was so
different. " P. 18-19.
Over two millenniums of existence with the peace-loving
peoples on the eastern part of the world, Buddhism never ceases to develop and
open up new dimensions of spiritual life, thought and feeling.
ON ART
The Buddha's First Speech, since the moment of his Enlightenment, was artistically
expressed verbally. His eloquent teachings were therefore highly appreciated by
the great variety of beholders and have lent themselves to artistic representation
all over the world of Buddhism.
His metaphors delivered to his disciples were
recorded in the "SUTRAS of HUNDRED EXAMPLES" each skillfully conveyed
the deep meaning of his message of salvation. It provides various good descriptions
of this suffering humanity, the cause of sufferings, "also presents a moral
conclusion for each story to suggests to every one of its characters a definite
outlet according to every particular circumstances. This enables the religious
beholders the good examples out in their practical life.
The Buddha's attitudes
and noble behavior gave way to the very formation of Buddhist rituals and conventions.
His solemn voice was the prototype of later rhythmic praying and such art forms
as religious prose and poetry, ritual and music. The fine arts produced thousands
of stupas, pagodas and icons of Buddha for the sake of religious contemplation
as well as the means of propagation of the Dharma. Some hundred years before Christ,
the Buddhist painting and sculpture had gradually developed but were not fully
in bloom until the first century of Christ. This literature, sacred writings,
music, painting, sculpture and architecture, drama and then modern cinema and
television are now sufficiently available on the message of Compassion and Wisdom
of Buddhism.
There is remarkable virtue of stylistic adaptability to all native
arts in the ecumenical world of Buddhism where the Buddha's original concepts
and art-forms have been willingly undergoing various metamorphoses to be come
one with all and every native embodiment.
The more it elaborates, the richer
it is in form and expression. As a rule, Buddhism, when penetrated into the soul
of a community, serves to raise its culture and civilization to a higher horizon
of the Buddhist worldview. In many instances it was only with the coming of Buddhism,
only through the stimulus it provided and the aspirations it awakened, that art
could develop fully and reach standards acceptable in all parts of Asia. Thanks
to Buddhism the various art traditions, which until then had been largely regional
in scope and self-sufficient, were enabled to establish contact with one another
on an ever-growing scale, to exchange ideas and to fertilize each other.
As
concerning the greatest of all contributions Buddhism have made to the art of
Asia, Professor Seckel writes: "Buddhism succeeded in solving one of the
major problems of Asian art: the problem of rendering the sacred in a human form
of universal validity and appeal. "
In fact, the history of Buddhism
from the third century B. C intimately comes to be one with that of Buddhist art.
ON KNOWLEDGE
On the foundation of synthesis and freedom of thinking,
the Buddhist literature has evolved, with the participation of generations of
intelligentsia, into a magnificent treasury of sacred books, namely: "Ocean
of letters, forests of bibles. "
The sacred books are divided into three
main sources, namely The Bible "Sutram", The Law "Vinaya",
and The Philosophy "Abhidharma."
The source of Sutram includes verbal
teachings of the Buddha as reported by his disciples in the five great Sacred
Books.
The source Vinaya, the system of essential laws that are to be observed
by both the renounced and the Buddhist believers, serves as the substratum of
the Buddhist order.
The source of Abbidharma includes philosophical treaties
that explain and develop the essential meanings of the original Sutram.
This
great treasury of literature came from successive generations of Buddhist authors.
After The Master's Parinirvana, the first council of the Sangha was organized
to gather his original teachings and basic religious laws as the cornerstone of
the Buddhist order. This was the meeting of about 500 disciples or so, taken place
at Ràjagriha city. The Bibles were Anada's dictation, and the Books of
Law under Upali. The Essays or Abhidharma were later written as the further development
from the former bibles. Two collections of the sacred books, namely Agamas and
the Tenfold Recitation Vinaya hence came into being as the output of this gathering.
A century later, a second meeting was organized at Vesàli, aiming at
a general review over the former sutras and vinayas, and in the mean time, to
clear out all nucleus of strange conceptions and evils scattered right inside
the community. This was also conceived as a turn of the ideology toward coming
divergences into a variety of schools.
It has been said that Master MAHADEVA
with his fivefold revolutionary manifesto4 had launched the first blow of a liberation
movement that split the primitive Buddhism into two schools namely the conservatism
of Hinasanghika and the liberalism of Mahasanghika. Both still underwent many
further sub-divisions5 .
This complex dissociation showed an interesting panorama
of the wealthy treasure of Buddhist literature on the one hand, but otherwise
might lead learners into the kaleidoscopic world of letters, with a great variety
of confusing and contradictory of aspects. It is up to the Buddhist missionary
first and foremost to gain a good insight into the matter in order to build modern
creative writings on the old treasure.
Buddhism in India was found to be geographically
divided into the Northern school of Mahayana and the Southern school Hinayana
before spreading out abroad: The Northern Buddhism took metropolitan Gandhara
as point of departure to travel eastward to China through Central Asia, the highway
of Buddhism, thence moved forward in various directions to Mongolia, Manchuria,
Korea, Japan and Vietnam. The Southern school spread out from Ceylon to reach
Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. On its pervasive travel, Buddhism adapted
itself to all and every native belief while adopting more and more novelties.
Buddhist intelligentsia all over the world and the representatives of every
Buddhist nation are now making all their best for the achievement of (what may
justly be called) the Unity of Buddhism for the common cause of the world's peace
and happiness.
After the past two millenniums or so of polarization now, Buddhism
is at the very threshold of the long-fought for unification and synthesis (as
is the case of the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church which was brought to life in
1963). We expect this remarkable reconciliation of the Northern and Southern school
in Vietnam will lead to the rise of the Buddhist world unification some day.
For
the cause of great harmony inside the Buddhist world, the follower of Buddha is
supported to have an open mind and welcome whatever is essential coming from all
sides of the earth, while trying incessantly to gain a deeper insight into the
Noble content of the Great Master's teachings.
ON TECHNOLOGY
It is
impossible for Buddhism to answer satisfactorily to the exigency of practical
problems so far as concerning material and man's power for organizing a working
technological system, but on the other hand it does reveal the realistic basis
of the essential principles of science. This should be conceived as the very output
of man's thought and consciousness over the experimental and practical problems
of the time, there was, and still is a scientific theory as the technological
world today. That's why Kantilya, an Indian scholar says: "Philosophy is
the lamp of all sciences, the means of performing all. " The further science
is proceeding onto the atomic age and its investigation into space, the closer
it is related to Buddhism. The Buddhist view point is not that of an infinitesimal
physics, indeed, but due to the non-empirical experience to give worthy explanations
of the physical world which are really on good terms with modern scientific insight.
Hundreds of years before the modern astronomers asserted the existence of
the multitude of other worlds of being in the outer space, the Buddha had, from
his Boddhi tree of Enlightenment, taught of the Trisaharasramahasahasro lokadhatu
or one billion worlds that exist in the universe around our planet. It was quite
impossible for such a radical concept to be acknowledged by his contemporaries
until recently it was so reaffirmed by modern science. There is no question that
the early Buddhism is one of the most original "ideas" that the history
of philosophy ever presents. In its fundamental ideas and essential spirit it
approximates remarkably to the advanced scientific thought of the nineteenth century.
The modern thought of Schopenhauer and Hartmann is only a revised version of ancient
Buddhism.
"As far as the dynamic conception of reality is concerned,
Buddhism is a prophecy of the creative evolutionism of Bergson. Early Buddhism
suggests the outline of a philosophy suited to the practical wants of present
day and helpful in reconciling the conflict between faith and science. "
S. Radharkrishnan6 .
Buddhism is thus conveyed to us not only as a philosophy
or spiritualism but also a functional basis of science. Other than a way of salvation,
Buddhism still expresses itself as the realistic ideology, which is capable of
evolving into a complete development of Modern culture as concerning Art, Learning
and Technology.
Now is the right time for those endowed with the heritage
of wisdom from our Lord Buddha to put His Noble Truth into action? Let's transcend
the human conditions and establish a finer and better life in the harmonious religious-secular
regime on earth. To that extent Buddhism will come to be adaptable to all the
variety of intellectual exigencies of the age.
To deal with the culture of
Buddhism, the history of a cultural synthesis with a long existence of more than
two millenniums, this general survey is quite impossible and really inadequate.
However, most essentials have been revealed as:
- First, our consideration
of the modern world: its situation at the turn of a civilization and its "debasement"
promoted by the proposed Buddhistic motivation.
- Secondly, the misunderstanding
of Buddhism.
- Thirdly, the fundamental principles of Buddhist teachings.
Last but not least is the ideo-culture of Buddhism or Buddhistic consciousness
and force to be brought to life for the good of the present propagation of the
Law.
May the Light of Compassion be with us all.
translated by Pham
Kim Khanh
1 (The Buddha and Buddhism-The New Face of Buddha, tru?ng phòng
lc, 18 by Jerrold Schecter)
2 the Buddha was a religious reformer an Asian
Martin Luther, Like Luther, the Buddha questioned the prevailing religious doctrine
of his time and sought to change it. The Buddha rejected what he considered to
be the abuses of the Hindu religion, with its rigid caste system and animal sacrifices.
He rejected the Hindu scriptures, the Vedas, as divine revelation, and he did
not accep the all-powerful Creator-God Brahma, the Hindu Universal Lord of Life.
(The New Face of Buddha- J. Sehecter,tru?ng phòng lc 1-2)
3 a) "Le
"NOMOS' n'est pas seulement la loi, mais plus originellement l'assignation
cache' dans le décret de l'Etre. Cette assignation seule permet d'enjoindre
l'homme à l'Etre." HEIDEGGER, Lettre sur l'humanisme (ÜBER DEN
HUMANISMUS) page 148 Question III.
b) "In the deep mystery of this "THINGS-AS-THEY-ARE"
we are released from our relations to them". Things as they are, the coldness
of ice and the sound of rain, the fall of leaves and the silence of the sky, are
ultimate things, never to be questioned, never to be questioned away.
"when
all things are seen WITH-EQUAL-MIND they return to their nature."
-the
Hsinhsinming-Zen & Zen classics, Vol. I, Page 87. R.H. Blyth
4 MAHADEVA'S
Five Points:
Arhats are Still influenced by the Evils that make out their
sperm pollution in dreams;
2- Arhat are Still unaware of their own indisrriminate
wisdom, namely their false knewledge on the Dhamma (the truth);
3- Arhats
are Still harbored in their unsettled Skepticism;
4- Arhats couln't know the
attainment of their Arhatship by themselves, but by the Enlightened One's revelation;
5- Arhats could be, for their own enlightenment, awakened to the Way thanks
to the various Sounds.
5 THERAVADINS (The Elders Sect):
-Haimavatra
-
Sarvàstivàda
- Vàtsiptra
- Dharmottariya
- Bhadrayànika
- Sammiti
- Sanhagarika
- Mahisàsaka
- Dharmàgupta
- Kasyapyà
- Sutravàda
b) MAHÀSANGHIKAS (The
Greater Assembly Sect):
- Ekayàvahàrika 1
- Lokottaravàda
2
- Kukkutika 3
- Bahusrutiya 4
- Aparacaila 5
- Caitika 6
-
Prajnaptivàda 7
- Uttaracaila 8
6 Indian Philosophy, Vol I, pp.
342