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It is a great pleasure to be asked to speak to you
today about the two main traditions of Buddhism: those of the
so-called hinayana and mahayana : the lesser way and the
greater way, the ways of Shravaka to become an Arhat and the
way of the Bodhisattva to become a Buddha.
Oh dear! Lots of foreign words - shravaka, arhat,
bodhisattva- 30 seconds into the talk and you might already
feel like going home!
Well, let's try to explain these terms simply, before
going into the details. Most religions are about the
relationship between you, the individual, and God or, in the
case of some religions, between you and a whole series of
Gods. This God or these Gods are believed to be the governing
power of the universe: creator of the universe. Buddhism is
different. It has no belief at all in a creator
God.
All of Buddhism is about working with the potential
that exists in the human mind. Not about a relationship with
another being, a Supreme Being, but about understanding and
changing oneself. It is about awakening to the possibilities
of life and in particular about using this extraordinary thing
-which is our own mind- to the full: to become a wiser,
kinder, more peaceful person. Buddhism believes that there is
a timeless, perfect purity, a profound love for all beings, a
perfect peace and amazing wisdom deep within each and every
one of us. Life's task is to discover it.
The Buddha taught very extensively about the nature of
life and our human potential. He taught to thousands of people
over a 45 year period. He taught each person according to his
or her needs and capacities. Over the two and a half thousand
years since he taught, all of those teachings of the Buddha
have given rise to two main ways of working with one's life,
known as the Greater Way and the Lesser Way.
Those following the Lesser Way -Hinayana- want to find
perfect inner peace and want to live in a kind, truthful and
generous way in the world. They are sometimes called
Shravakas: Shravakas means those who heed the teachings. They
have a certain "been there, done that" feeling about most of
the pleasures of this world and are no longer interested in
them one bit. You know, the way you feel about whatever was
the craze three years ago - it just doesn't grab you any more.
These Shravakas see the world as obsessed with satisfying the
senses to find happiness -seeing beautiful things, hearing
nice sounds, smelling pleasant odours, tasting good food and
seeking pleasant physical sensations. They consider such
happiness too shallow, too fragile and find great inner
strength instead in meditation. The end of their journey,
their dream, their goal -the perfection of inner peace- is
called the state of being an Arhat. Sometimes you can achieve
that state in one lifetime of intense meditation, sometimes it
takes many lifetimes.
Those following the Greater Way -Mahayana- are called
Bodhisattvas: bodhi -sattva means with a mind to be Buddha.
They are people who are also very aware of life's fragile
happiness and the suffering that exists in most people. They
are so moved by this suffering that they promise, from the
depths of their hearts, to dedicate this life and all future
lives to caring for other beings. They feel that the best way
to care is to become just like the Buddha. Buddhahood is a
state far beyond that of the Arhat. It takes hundreds of
lifetimes -hundreds of reincarnations- to achieve. The
bodhisattva way is based upon truthfulness, peace and
non-violence but its main characteristic is not a withdrawal
from the world into inner peace but an active engagement with
the world, a development of incredibly deep loving kindness,
compassion and care for others. In fact, from beginning to
end, the Bodhisattva's way is the way of compassionate
care.
So that you are clear about 'where I'm coming
from', you should know I belong to the mahayana tradition and
that I'll be teaching today's topic in the traditional way in
which it is presented in the mahayana.
Please have a good look at these terms - they'll come
up a few times in the talk. Please notice that shravakas and
bodhisattvas are those following a spiritual path, and that
the ends of those paths are the states of Arhat and Buddha.
Having introduced these two main strands of Buddhism very
briefly, I'd like to go into them more deeply by talking about
a topic traditionally called the three types of valuable human
being, taught widely in India in the 11th century. They are
called 'valuable humans' because -from a Buddhist point of
view, in terms of Buddhist value judgements -they are really
doing something with their lives: making a marked and
definitive change to themselves, and perhaps other people, for
the better. If you like, they can be considered the three
sorts of audience for Buddhism or the three psychological
types that Buddhist teachings address. This topic will help us
understand where Arhats and Bodhisattvas fit in -they are the
second and third types of valuable human- and help us define
these words hinayana and mahayana.
The first type of valuable human being: the person
who lives wisely in the world.
The vast majority of dedicated Buddhists (as opposed to
people just born into a Buddhist culture and not strongly
practising it) belong to this first type of valuable human
being. They are not yet following the way of either the Arhat
or the Bodhisattva. It is too soon. They are like children
learning to walk. Shravakas and Bodhisattvas are like adults
drive cars or pilot a plane. Unlike the Shravaka and
Bodhisattva, this first type of valuable human is not yet
ready to let go of its attachment to worldly things, in order
to seek spiritual peace. The Buddha's teachings can
nevertheless still help them greatly. So really today's talk
could have been about three ways and been called the ways of
the worldly Buddhist, the Arhat and the
Bodhisattva.
How does the Buddha help the first sort of valuable
human, the worldly Buddhist? By helping them live their lives
according to principles based on the laws of karma. Karma
means action and the laws of karma explain why things happen
and how our actions determine our destiny. Everyone wonders
why things happen. You know, you must have asked yourselves
why you are you, different from the person sitting next to
you. Why is there life's exquisite beauty? Why are there
life's atrocious horrors? Most religions describe these things
in terms of God's purpose: divine forces are pulling the
strings and pushing the buttons of life. Buddhism, by
contrast, says that events are not God-created but the
long-term consequences of our own action: actions as
individuals and actions as groups. Buddhism says our actions
make us what we are and make our world what it is.
The Buddha taught that nearly all the things we do, say
and think have long-term consequences for their doer. What we
are doing now is shaping our own future, in this life and
lives to come. What we are now has been shaped by how we acted
and reacted in the past. Remember that Buddhists believe this
life to
be just one in a long chain of lives, as we
reincarnate over and over again. What we do in this life
generates all the details of our future lives: who we meet,
the way the environment changes, our health, our suffering,
our happiness. When we live in a harmonious, helpful and wise
way with each other now, this generates happiness for later.
When we live in conflict, self-centredly and unwisely now, it
stores up suffering for later.
Thus, if we protect and save life -in this life- then
we ourselves will be born with long life and good health next
time round. If we are generous and caring now, we will feel
satisfied with our lot in the future life and be cared for by
others. If we lead what Buddhism defines as a respectful,
responsible life in one's sexual relationships, we will find
loving, caring and suitable partners in the next life and so
on and so forth.
The Buddha gave many teachings about our actions - and
in particular a very helpful list of the 10 main actions to
avoid and the 10 to cultivate. These form the basis for
Buddhist morality just as the 10 commandments do in the
Judaeo-Christian traditions. I have listed these 10 in the
printed version of this talk, which is also on the
Web.
There is, of course, in the action of this first type
of Buddhist, a fair degree of self-interest: a studied concern
for one's own worldly future. These are not Buddhists who
desperately want to leave all worldliness and find the lasting
peace of nirvana. If we use Shakespeare's words, "To be or not
to be..." then our first Buddhist customer is definitely not
ready not to be. This person likes life, still wants to be
someone, somewhere in the world but preferably would like to
be a healthier, happier and more prosperous person in a better
family and social environment than at present. Even
if that does not look likely in this existence, they try to
live according to the Buddha's teaching on karma so that they
will have a better time in the next life.
In teaching the laws of karma - the cause and effects
of our actions - the Buddha was not only trying to help people
help themselves but also trying to make for a better society:
one in which there is less violence, less dishonesty and
greater respect for others.
Furthermore, our other two types of valuable human
being -those following the ways of the Arhat and the
Bodhisattva- emerge from this pool of good people. One day,
one life, it is said, there will dawn in their minds a
profound awareness of the extent of suffering that there is in
the world and indeed in one's own mind; then they become
candidates for the ways of the Shravaka and the
Bodhisattva.
The second type of valuable human being: the
Shravaka, who shuns worldliness to attain nirvana; the nirvana
of the Arhat.
Now we come to the second type of
Buddhist or second type of valuable human being. These are
people who -if we return to Shakespeare's to be or not to be
-no longer want 'to be' someone, somewhere. They have
understood that there is a deep, spiritual state of equanimity
and peace, far more satisfactory than anything this world can
offer. You know, it's as though you've been in a smoky, noisy,
crowded room all your life and suddenly you discover
the vast, clean open spaces of nature. The crowded,
smoky room is a busy, worldly mind. The purity and freshness
is discovered in the inner space of meditation. It is a
peaceful, infinite space which transcends personality and the
cult of personality - you know what I mean by cult of
personality, where ME, I is all important - a world in which
you have to assert yourself, create territory, be beautiful,
be intelligent, BE …someone.
Our second type of valuable human being has had enough
of seeking the pleasures of the senses and of having a
happiness that always depends on external things: on other
people, on the weather, on food, on sights, on sounds, on
success at work, on human affection etc. They are shocked by
the fragility
and impermanence ( anicca) of such happiness
and by the price-tag of suffering ( dukha) that goes along
with it. They know that the Buddha and the Arhats of the past
managed to stopped being reborn into lives of mixed happiness
and suffering. How did they do it? By stopping doing the
harmful actions - karma- that generate rebirth. How to stop
these harmful actions? By getting rid of their cause: anger,
jealousy, pride, ignorance and desire. How to get rid of all
those? by destroying their cause: the illusion of self, of ME
of I.
These saintly beings cleanse their mind of all these
unhelpful emotions, feelings and illusions and instead
cultivated very natural states of inner peace and harmony. The
advantage of this inner happiness is that it does not depend
on other people and external things. It is a state of constant
well-being which does not depend upon the up-and-down world of
personality and feelings. It is self-contained. It is free of
suffering. When it is perfected, it will remain forever. It is
called nirvana. This is what the Shravaka hopes to
achieve.
At this point, I think it will be useful to clarify the
meaning of this word nirvana. Nirvana is not something in
particular: not something that is . Nirvana means "suffering
transcended". In other words, it is defined by what it isn't:
it isn't suffering. It means that you have got free from
suffering forever. It is like saying, "got out of the fire". One is no longer being
burnt by the sufferings of life. But this does not tell us
where we actually are: in a swimming-pool, up a mountain, in a
space-capsule. It only tells us that we are out of the fire.
So this word nirvana can cover many possibilities. This will
become important when we look at the way of the bodhisattva.
We will find that the bodhisattva is trying to achieve a much
higher nirvana than that of the Arhat. Both are nirvana
inasmuch as both have gone beyond the suffering of the world
because both have ceased creating the karma that causes
suffering. But the bodhisattva aims to become a Buddha and a
Buddha has far more qualities than an Arhat and has removed
more blockages from the mind.
To give an analogy: if we think of worldliness as the
planet Earth, the Arhat has gone beyond the Earth's
gravitational field and is floating in the space of
meditation. The Buddha has also gone beyond the Earth's
gravity but has reached the heart of the Sun of
Wisdom.
Now let us return to the way of the Arhat. It consists
of the Triple Training: Conduct, Meditation and Wisdom. I
think you may know these. The basis for the Arhat's path to
the Arhat's nirvana is a very pure ethical and moral conduct
in all one says, all one does physically and also in one's
profession. In one respect, it is similar to the careful
attention to karma of the first type of valuable human being.
But the motivation is different. Here the pure conduct is
aimed at switching off the video of life, not at making it
into a better film! This different motivation channels things
differently. It is like earning the same amount of money but
investing it in another account. The Arhat's good karma is not
paying the worldly mortgage - it is going in to the permanent
retirement fund.
On this basis of pure conduct, nirvana is achieved
through the skilful combination of two things: meditation and
wisdom. Let us first examine meditation.
Concentration meditation is the way in which those
becoming Arhats overcome their passions, angers and other
agitations of the mind. Concentration meditation cultivates
inner peace. As the peace develops, desires, aggravations, and
all these other things naturally diminish. As the peace grows,
worldiness diminishes. It is like water. Let's just think
together for a minute. Has everyone seen a turbulent ocean?
Try to imagine it: those vast, powerful, rolling grey-green
waves Brrrr! You can't see into it, it is busy, dangerous and
it reflects nothing clearly. That's the worldly mind: very
agitated, very busy with itself, very short-sighted and very
endless. Now let's think of clear water - a very calm loch.
Got the image? As water becomes calm, the waves subside. When
water is calm, you can see all the fish and plants in its
depths and it reflects the sky by day and the stars at night.
The meditation mind is very still, clear and beautiful, like a
very calm ocean. It has far-seeing wisdom.
As anger, desires and so on diminish through
meditation, the peace becomes more lasting and more stable.
This reveals levels of thought and subconscious activity of
which one was not previously aware. Again and again, one
refines the process of inner peace, until the mind is
exceedingly clean and pure, knowing nothing but happiness and
equanimity. A great, calm ocean of peace. Meditation requires
careful training in mindfulness, concentration and channeling
one's effort.
Now let us consider wisdom. As meditation improves, the
quietness and clarity of mind enables great precision in the
mind's self-knowledge. Just as our modern science pierces the
secrets of the material universe through very fine
investigation into the atom and into the human genome, the
science of concentration meditation investigates the complex
workings of the human mind and this knowledge is very helpful
in transforming the mind and bringing it to stability and
wisdom.This wisdom ends up being real insight
into the Four Noble Truths, which lie at the very heart of the
Buddha's teaching. When I say 'real insight' I mean that the
Four Truths are no longer ideas but things vividly, directly
experienced as true, direct insight into life itself, without
the need of thoughts. This gives you the "right view" of
things -the right perspective- and provides the right
intention for instructing other people.
I don't want to get too technical in this talk. The
Buddha's own teachings -called sutra- on this topic of the way
of the Arhat fill dozens of books. We could -for example-
examine extensively the real meaning of the Eightfold
Path that I have just described.
We could also explore (if we had time) how meditation
actually changes the mind, bringing freedom and peace as well
as the emergence of saintly qualities, which are quite
extraordinary; miraculous.
Also, given time, we would explore the nature of wisdom
in this path, seeing how it is anatta - a complete de-masking
of all the delusions of self that the human mind can
fabricate, whether it be a personal self or a cosmic self in
the form of a God or a series of gods. This wisdom also
recognises anicca - the totally transient, or impermanent,
nature of the various phenomena of the worlds
of mind and
matter and understands in detail how they come together and
trigger each other into making the events we perceive as life,
with all of its suffering; dukkha.
The Hinayana mental journey of purification is a voyage
deep into the inner peace of one's mind. There are four main
stages on the journey, with Arhat being the final
stage.
1. Stream-entrant when one has profound faith in what
one is doing because the results are emerging and the process
is very obvious. If we compared the path of meditation to
unblocking a drain, it is at this stage that -after poking for
ages with the rods- the blockage clears and the water starts
to flow swiftly.
2. Once-returner when one has purified so much of one's
mind and karma that
there will be only one more rebirth in
the world.
3. Non-returner when one is living that last life in
which one becomes an Arhat
4. Arhat the final achievement when every trace, gross
or subtle, of ego-delusion and its subsequent desires, anger,
jealousy, pride and confusion are all irreversibly eliminated
from the mind and the mind will rest continuously in deep,
far-reaching meditation.
At this stage, I would like to sum up so far. We have
looked at two types of what are called valuable human beings.
Together, they make up what is known as the hinayana or the
smaller way. I must make it clear that the term hinayana does
not refer to the Buddhism of any particular country. It refers
to the Buddhism suitable to a certain psychological type: a
person who is working first and foremost for his or her own
well-being. That person could be in Tibet, Sri Lanka or
Scotland, following any school of Buddhism. Such people are
not without love or compassion for others. It is just that
they feel -quite pragmatically- that, in the end, we cannot
change other people that much but that we can
change
ourselves and that self-transformation is our prime
duty as human beings. So much of the world's problems come
through people trying to change each other but being unwilling
or unable to change themselves.
Hina means smaller or lesser and Yana means the power
to carry. Because these first two types of valuable human
being can, at best, only take one person to liberation -that
person being oneself- then their way is called the lesser way.
It's like a car with only one seat. We will see that the
greater way aims to carry many people to liberation. It's like
a jumbo jet.
C. The third type of valuable human being: the
bodhisattva, who works within the world, in order
to attain
the 'non-situated' Nirvana of the Buddha
The bodhisattva shares absolutely all the positive
points of the hinayana follower: he or she recognises the
futility and suffering of worldliness (samsara) and also knows
that there is a much more elevated state to be achieved. But
instead of wanting to make the Arhat's journey deep into the
mind's peaceful
recesses, the bodhisattva wants to become a
Buddha, so as to be able to help thousands of other people
free themselves from suffering. A Buddha is not only a great
guide and friend for living beings: a Buddha's attainment -
the Buddha's Nirvana- is far purer than that of the Arhat. It
is in understanding the difference between their two
"nirvanas" that one can clearly understand the different paths
of the bodhisattva and the Shravaka.
In the printed version of this talk, I have spelt the
Buddha's Nirvana with a capital N and the Arhat's nirvana with
a small n. The Buddha's nirvana is called non-situated
Nirvana, because we cannot situate it:
1. either in samsara
- the world
2. or in the profound inner peace of the
Arhat's nirvana.
The Buddha's Nirvana -with a captial N- is therefore
said to be neither samsara nor nirvana (with a small n). Here
I'd like to remind you of the all-important point made
earlier: nirvana simply and only means that all suffering has
ended but not all nirvanas are the same.
Like all nirvanas, the Nirvana of the Buddha has
transcended worldly suffering and the necessity of rebirth as
someone, somewhere. But it is much, much more than the
profound peace of the Arhat's nirvana. The Buddha's Nirvana is
the total discovery of the timeless, perfect, heart-essence of
the universe. It is everywhere and in everything and everyone.
It is a natural, brilliant world of peace present everywhere
(once you know how to recognise it), not the peace of
withdrawal into an inner sanctum. It is something naturally
sacred, ultimately pure and radiant with immeasurable
qualities of universal love, universal compassion and an
incomprehensible outreach, helping beings to the farthest ends
of the universe. Because it is so sublime, so far-reaching and
so much beyond the imagination, we call it the undefinable or
unlocated or non-situated Nirvana which we can locate neither
in the things of this world nor in the peaceful meditation of
the Arhat's nirvana. The Arhat's nirvana we can, by contrast,
define very clearly, in terms of concentration
meditation.
I really hope that as you come to understand this point
about the difference between the two nirvanas. If you do, it
will clear up the confusion created in books about Buddhism,
in which they say that the bodhisattva renounces nirvana in
order to help other beings. It sounds almost like somebody
giving up their holiday in order to stay at home to help the
family. Or like someone in prison who could be released but
somehow has to commit more crimes to stay inside and help the
inmates. This really is a misunderstanding. It is true that
the bodhisattva abandons one sort of nirvana (the one with a
small 'n', that of the hinayana path - the inner peace) but
this is because he or she is taking a quite different route
towards a different Nirvana: that of the Buddha: the peace of
the compassionate, totally-wise mind. Nirvana with a capital
N.
The only way to reach this Nirvana of the Buddha -often
called buddha nature-is through perfect compassion. Compassion
involves being in living contact with the suffering of the
world, facing it and doing all one can to eliminate it.
Furthermore, here one is not shutting off the senses but
liberating them. There is a very good expression in
Christianity which explains exactly what the bodhisattva is
doing: being in the world but not of the world. Take the work
of primary school teachers, for example. They need to
skilfully enter into the world of 5 and 6 year-olds. They give
these tiny children the magnificent skills of literacy and
numeracy. It doesn't mean that they have to become childish
themselves and renounce their adulthood. They operate in the
world of small children but are not themselves of that
world.
Someone who dedicates this life and all future lives to
attaining this universal essence which is Buddhahood and
helping millions of beings alleviate their suffering is called
a bodhisattva. Bodhi means Buddha and sattva means mind, in
the sense of a determined and courageous mind. Thus a
bodhisattva is someone with the courage and determination to
become a Buddha. The word Arhat means the one who has
conquered the enemy, the "enemy" being the delusion of
personality and all the desires and adversities it
produces.
What does the bodhisattva's path involve? First, all
the same mind-purifying work of the hinayana path. Whichever
Buddhist path one follows, every trace of selfish desire,
anger, jealousy, pride and confusion must be eliminated from
the mind.But the way in which these are eliminated by the
bodhisattva is different. You will remember that -in the
hinayana way- it is done by going ever more finely
into the
tranquil depths of concentration meditation. The mind draws
away from the senses, draws away from all that is worldly and
goes deep inside. The bodhisattva does not need to withdraw
from the world but instead faces the world and learns through
the world and through his or her own reactions to it. It
is
not so much a path of escape as one of transformation. Anger
is transformed into love. Jealousy is transformed into a
sincere joy, which rejoices in the achievement of others.
Pride is transformed into an awareness of the sameness of us
all, before what is eternal and so on and so forth.
This work -of transforming emotions- is made possible
by meditation, as only meditation gives clear insight into how
the mind works. You know, if you want to fix something you
first need to know how it works. Meditation helps us discover
how the human mind works. The bodhisattva's meditation
practices are structured differently from those of the
hinayana path. Also, there are many more of them. As mentioned
before, the bodhisattva is avoiding the nirvana (with a small
'n') of the hinayana path and the bodhisattva is very careful
not to be drawn into its beautiful inner peace of meditation's
tranquillity. One of the main tools for doing this is right
thought or prayer.
In other religions, people pray to a God or to several
gods, asking for their help. In Buddhism, prayer is not
addressed to an external, other, being. Prayer is an organised
way of changing the mind. By repeating good thoughts,
sincerely from the depths of one's heart, over and over again,
they become habitual ways of thinking. They change the mind.
In the end, the way one reacts to life's situations will be
made very different, just through constant prayer. The main
prayer of the bodhisattva is a commitment to help all beings,
by achieving the perfection of Buddhahood. Why is this? The
Buddha was just one person. All he had were three robes, a
begging bowl and one or two small objects. Yet,
through his
purity and deep wisdom, he was able to help many tens of
thousands of people personally during his own lifetime and
many thousands of millions after his death, through his
extensive teachings, which show people how to help themselves.
The bodhisattva remembers this over and over again.
One
person helps millions simply by attaining a perfect
mind. The Bodhisattva knows that the finest way to help others
is to become totally pure, totally wise and totally skilful in
guiding others on the path, just like the Buddha. Many times a
day, the bodhisattva dedicates his life to this end, in
prayer, and tries to do every daily task -even making a cup of
tea- with a mind filled with compassionate love for all other
beings and a deep longing to attain buddhahood.
But longing to achieve something is not enough. One
must actually do the work. I can stand here for years, longing
to go to Hawaii, but I won't budge an inch. One needs to earn
the money, buy the ticket, buy the baggy shorts, get to the
airport, catch a plane and so on and so forth. What the
bodhisattva has to do in order to really become a Buddha is
usually described through six things. These are like six parts
of a puzzle. When they are all complete and perfectly put
together, the puzzle of Buddhahood is complete. What are
they:
The six paramitas LINK
1. Perfect generosity.
2.
Perfect right conduct.
3. Perfect forbearance (you could
call this one patience or tolerance).
4. Perfect
diligence.
5. Perfect meditation.
6. Perfect wisdom.
The six are called the six paramita or six transcendent
perfections. You will have noted that I have tried not to use
Pali or other foreign words in this talk. We only need to use
them when we have no equivalent term in English. I know a lot
about this as my own life's work is translating scriptures
from Tibetan. Your
school examiners may want you to know
words like anicca or dukkha but I cannot see the point too
much. We have perfectly good words for these in English
-impermanence and suffering- and why should you learn the Pali
words, rather than the Sanskrit or the Japanese or the
Tibetan? Anyway, paramita is a word without a direct
equivalent in English and so it is useful to use the
Sanskrit.
It literally means "gone to the other shore".
This is because when all these six qualities have been brought
to an absolute perfection, one has crossed the ocean of
worldly existence (samsara) and attained the other shore of
Buddhahood. We can look at it another way. What is a Buddha?
Someone in
whose mind these six things are totally,
immaculately perfect.
Why does the bodhisattva work with his or her mind in a
different way from the hinayana follower? Let us compare this
universal essence -of love, compassion and wisdom which is
everywhere and which we call buddha nature- to a bright light.
Although this light is in each and every one of us, it cannot
shine because it is covered up, blocked off. There are two
layers of blockage:
1. The first is called klesha in Sanskrit. This is
often translated as mind poisons or cankers or defilements. I
have mentioned it a couple of times already today: it consists
of selfish desire, aggression, jealousy, pride and ignorance.
All of these feelings arise through the negative delusions of
personality -the harmful ways in which one defines oneself- I
must have, I can't stand, I ought to have what he has, I'm
better than she is etc. In the hinayana path one removes all
such deluded ideas about self and this removes this first
covering on the light of truth. By simply doing that, one no
longer needs to act selfishly, therefore there is no bad karma
and so one stops the cycle of rebirth after rebirth into
worldly existence ( samsara) and eventually become an
Arhat.
2. The second covering, blockage or veil is something
much more subtle. For simplicity, we can call it "duality". It
is the split-second by split-second play of our minds, which
is constantly defining not only ourselves but also the world
around us. It is like a piece of mind-programming which
produces, second
after second, a two-sided movie: me and
you, self and other, ours and theirs, my body and the world in
which it moves, my mind and my body etc. etc. It is through
these conscious and subconscious processes that we define
ourselves and our world: our parents, friends, enemies, every
detail of life.
Each of us has his or her totally unique
way of seeing and defining the world. We each move in our own
unique universe. In the mahayana path, one needs not only to
see anatta - that our delusions about ourselves are de void of
truth - but also to see how our delusions concerning other
people and other things are also devoid of truth. Piercing
through the illusions and seeing the raw truth of the cosmos
is called discovering its voidness (sunyata). We say voidness
because we discover that other people and other things are
devoid of the illusions we have been projecting onto them -
like suddenly realising
that a mirage is just an optical
illusion and not real water on the road or like realising that
someone you have been assuming was uninteresting is in fact
pretty cool. Part of the discovery of voidness concerns the
non-ego (anatta) discovered in the hinayana path. But it is
only a part. By only uncovering anatta, one becomes an Arhat.
By uncovering the whole truth about everything, sunyata, one
becomes a Buddha.
One simple way of putting things may be this: the Arhat
overcomes all illusions concerning himself and is therefore
totally at peace with himself. The Bodhisattva is overcoming
all illusions not only about himself/herself but also about
all other people and the entire universe and is therefore at
peace with
everything. By destroying all illusions, the
bodhisattva becomes a Buddha, knowing everything there is to
be known. The Buddha is omniscient. The Arhat is
extraordinarily wise but not ommniscient.
In the six paramita, the main work of discovering
voidness is accomplished through a combination of the
meditation paramita and the wisdom paramita. The second of
these -wisdom paramita- is called prajnaparamita in Sanskrit.
It is exceedingly important in mahayana Buddhism and there are
many gigantic phiolosophical texts elaborating the meaning of
voidness. Although there are so many texts, the truth of
voidness can only be discovered directly, in meditation, as it
transcends all thought and philosophy.
As the six paramita - generosity, right conduct,
forbearance, diligence, meditation and wisdom - come to
completion, the real meaning of the word Buddha becomes
apparent.
QUOTE
At the start, Buddha simply meant
someone: an historical figure who gave us the Buddhist
teachings. But as time goes by, one realises that the
historical Buddha Sakyamuni simply achieved something that
everyone, one day, in one life or another, will achieve. What
he discovered is inside each and every one of us. It is our
true nature, our Buddha-nature. This does not mean that each
of us is really, at heart, an Indian prince! It does mean that
there is perfect love, perfect compassion, infinite wisdom and
a great ability to help and guide others, locked up in each
and every one of us. It is the inner light. We just need to
find it and to remove all the layers of illusion covering it
and blocking off its power.
This timeless light, universal peace or cosmic wisdom
manifests in three ways, known as the three kaya.
LINK FROM
GOLDEN ROSARY
1. This Buddha nature, just as it is and as
only a Buddha will ever know it, is called dharmakaya.
Dharmakaya is formless: that means it has no shape, colour,
sound, smell or form whatsoever. It is a vast, cosmic wisdom:
the wisdom of voidness
2. Bodhisattvas who are very saintly, who are no longer
reborn in human worlds but have bodies of light, experience
this buddha nature through the filters of their senses. Though
it is formless, they see it as thousands of different Buddhas
in various pure paradises. They hear it as deeply moving
teachings
expressing the universal laws of truth. The whole
experience of their senses is an uninterrupted mental 'movie'
of transcendent perfection. The way Buddha-nature appears in
these bodhisattva's minds is called sambhogakaya: the
enjoyment body, meaning the visions and experiences of purity
enjoyed
by saintly bodhisattvas.
3. More ordinary beings, who are still in the world of
rebirth and suffering, also have an experience of Buddha
nature. They will have religious experiences, perhaps see a
Buddha or a being of light in a vision and so on and so forth.
This happens in moments when the mind is pure and open. It
doesn't last
and is not nearly so pure or so accurate as
the experience of the bodhisattvas mentioned just now. The
bodhisattvas' experience is constant, never interrupted.
Nevertheless, when worldly beings have experience of the
Buddha mind, it is usually a remarkable moment which changes
and shapes
the whole of their life. This aspect of
Buddha-nature or Buddha mind is called nirmanakaya: the
emanated body.
Today, I have spoken briefly -and very quickly- about
the three types of valuable human being. Of course, this does
not mean that other beings are worthless. It is just that
these three types live lives which help themselves mature as
human beings and they help the world. When the Buddha came to
our planet, he came, like all great spiritual teachers, to
help everyone, not just Buddhists. Understanding that we are
each unique, he taught everyone he met according to their
individual needs and, in general, he helped the three
psychological types. I have spoken of today as the three sorts
of valuable human being: the everyday Buddhist and those
deeply committed to the paths of the Arhat and the
Bodhisattva. It is not that one way is better than the other.
They are just different way suited to different
people.
Today I have not spoken about the "sociological" side
of Buddhism: its different temples, different customs for
marriages etc. These are simply the outer shell of a faith.
They are the clothes it wears. The actual faith is a series of
beliefs and attitudes towards life, towards oneself and other
people. They form the real body of the religion. It is true
that some Buddhist countries accentuate some of these ways,
while others have dropped into the background or disappeared.
I could have spent the whole lecture describing the
geographical and historical develoment of Buddhism. Instead I
have chosen to sketch the psychology of these main strands of
Buddhism and tried to explain how the Buddha was trying to
help everyone through these three approaches.
The Buddha often used the analogy of a doctor to
describe himself. His teachings are like medicine, our mind's
impurities and our karma are like the sickness. These three
ways are suited to different types just like different
medicines are suited to different diseases. Can we say a heart
medicine is better than medicine for rheumatism? Of course
not. Would ther be any point in giving the rheumatism medicine
to the heart patient? Of course not. These three ways of
living one's life and meditating suit different types of
people. When someone comes to our monastery in Dumfriesshire
for training, we use all three types
according to the
individual.
In fact, when you look closely, you will see that
-besides denoting types- these three psychologies often exist
side by side in nearly all of us. One part of us wants very
much to be, another part seeks a peace beyond the passing
pleasures of this world and another part of us seeks the way
to truly serve and help other beings find their way to
liberation. I would like to conclude by expressing my profound
respect for all the goodness achieved by all three types of
valuable human being and by saying that I think the Buddha was
extremely wise and broad-minded in providing such an immense
spectrum of advice concerning these three ways, teachings
filling over a hundred books, during the 45 years of his
teaching. |
