What the Buddha Taught 8

Concerning mind activities, one should be aware of whether one’s mind is lustful or not, given to hatred, deluded or not, distracted or concentrated, etc. In this way, one should be aware of all mind movements and how they arise and disappear.

One should know the nature of ideas, thoughts, conceptions, and things, how they appear and disappear, how they are developed,  suppressed and destroyed, and so on.

The Satipatthana-sutta (Setting up Mindfulness) treats these four forms of mental culture or meditation in detail.

The third and last factor of Mental Discipline is Right Concentration, leading to the four stages of Dhyana: passionate desire and specific unwholesome thoughts like sensuous lust, ill-will, languor, worry, restlessness, and skeptical doubt are discarded, and feelings of joy and happiness are maintained, along with certain mental activities.  In the second stage, all intellectual activities are suppressed, tranquillity and ‘one-pointlessness’ of mind developed, and the feelings of joy and happiness remain.  In the third stage, the sense of pleasure, an active sensation, also disappears, while the disposition of joy remains in addition to mindful equanimity.  In the fourth stage of Dhyana, all sensations, even happiness and unhappiness, joy and sorrow, disappear, with only pure equanimity and awareness remaining.

Thus, the mind is trained, disciplined, and developed through Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.

The remaining two factors, namely Right Thought and Right Understanding, constitute Wisdom.

Right, Thought denotes the thoughts of selfless renunciation or detachment, thoughts of love and the outs of non-violence, which are extended to all beings. It is exciting and vital to note here that thoughts of selfless detachment, love and non-violence are grouped on the side of wisdom.  This clearly shows that actual knowledge is endowed with these noble qualities and that all thoughts of selfish desire, ill-will, hatred and violence result from a lack of wisdom in all spheres of life, whether individual, social, or political.

Correct Understanding is understanding things as they are, and the Four Noble Truths explain things as they are.  Correct Understanding, therefore, is ultimately reduced to the understanding of the Four Noble Truths. This understanding is the highest wisdom, and it sees the Ultimate Reality.  According to Buddhism, there are two sorts of understanding: What we generally call understanding is knowledge,  an accumulated memory, and an intellectual grasping of a subject according to specific given data. This is called ‘knowing accordingly’. It is not very deep. A deep understanding is called ‘penetration, ' which is seeing a thing in its true nature without name and label. This penetration is possible only when the mind is free from all impurities and is fully developed through meditation.

From this brief account of the Path, one may see that it is a way of life practiced and developed by each individual.  It is self-discipline in body, word, mind, self-development and self-purification. It has nothing to do with belief, prayer, worship or ceremony.  In that sense, it has nothing which may popularly be called ‘religious.’ It is a path leading to the realization of the ultimate reality: complete freedom, happiness, and peace through moral, spiritual, and intellectual perfection.

In Buddhist countries, there are simple and beautiful customs and ceremonies on religious occasions. They have little to do with the absolute Path, but they have their value in satisfying certain religious emotions and the needs of the less advanced and helping them gradually along the Path.

About the Four Noble Truths, we have four functions to perform:

The First Noble Truth is Dukkha, the nature of life, its suffering, its sorrows and joys, its imperfection and unsatisfactoriness, its impermanence and insubstantial.  Our function is to understand this as a fact clearly and thoroughly.

The Second Noble Truth is the Origin of Dukkha: desire, ‘thirst,’ accompanied by all other passions, defilement and impurities.  A mere understanding of this fact is not sufficient. Here, our function is to discard, eliminate, destroy, and eradicate it.

The Third Noble Truth is the Cessation of Dukkha, Nirvana, the Absolute Truth, the Ultimate Reality.  Our function here is to realize it.

The Fourth Noble Truth is the Path leading to the realization of Nirvana.  A mere knowledge of the Path, however complete, will not do. In this case, our function is to follow and keep to it.

 

CHAPTER 6

THE DOCTRINE OF NO-SOUL: ANATTA

 

What, in general, is suggested by Soul, Self, Ego, or to use the Sanskrit expression Atman, is that in man, there is a permanent, everlasting and absolute entity, which is the unchanging substance behind the changing phenomenal world.  According to some religions, each individual has a separate soul, which is created by God, and which, finally, after death, lives eternally either in hell or heaven, its destiny depending on the judgment of its creator.  According to others, it goes through many lives until it is completely purified and finally united with God or Brahman, the Universal Soul of Atman, from which it originally emanated. This soul or self in man is the thinker of thoughts, feeler of sensations, and receiver of rewards and punishments for all its actions, good and bad.  Such a conception is called the idea of self.

Buddhism stands unique in the history of human thought in denying the existence of such a Soul, Self, or Atman; according to the teaching of the Buddha, the idea of self is an imaginary, false belief that has no corresponding reality, and it produces harmful thoughts of ‘me ‘ and ‘mine,’ selfish desire, craving, attachment, hatred, ill-will, conceit, pride, egoism, and other defilement, impurities and problems. It is the source of all the troubles in the world, from personal conflicts to wars between nations. In short, this false view can be traced to all the evil in the world.

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 protection, safety and security, just as a child depends on his parents.  For self-preservation, man has conceived the idea of an immortal soul or atman who will live eternally.  Man needs these two things to console himself in his ignorance, weakness, fear, and desire.  Hence, he clings to them deeply and fanatically.

The Buddha’s teaching does not support this ignorance, weakness, fear, and desire but aims to enlighten man by removing and destroying them, striking at their very root. According to Buddhism, our ideas of God and Soul are false and empty. Though highly developed as theories, they are all subtle mental projections garbed in intricate metaphysical and philosophical phraseology. These ideas are so deep-rooted in man and so near and dear to him that he does not wish to hear, nor does he want to understand, any teaching against them.

The Buddha knew this exceptionally well.  He said his teaching was ‘against the current,’ against man’s selfish desires. Just four weeks after his Enlightenment, seated under a banyan tree, he thought: ‘I have realized this Truth which is deep, difficult to see, difficult to understand...comprehensible only by the wise...Men overpowered by passions and surrounded by a mass of darkness cannot see this Truth, Which is against the current, which is lofty, deep, subtle and hard to comprehend.’

With these thoughts in his mind, the Buddha hesitated for a moment, whether it would not be in vain if he tried to explain the Truth he had just realized to the world.  Then he compared the world to a lotus pond: In a lotus pond, there are some lotuses still under water; there are others which have risen only up to the water level; there are still others which have risen only up to the water level; there are others which have risen only up to the water level; there are still others which stand above water and are untouched by it. In the same way, in this world, there are men at different levels of development. Some would understand the Truth. So, the Buddha decided to teach it.

The doctrine of Anatta or No-Soul is the natural result of, or the corollary to, the analysis of the Five Aggregates and the teaching of Conditioned Genesis.

We have seen earlier, in the discussion of the First Noble Truth, that what we call a being or an individual is composed of the Five Aggregates and that when these are analyzed and examined, there is nothing behind them which can be taken as ‘I,’ Atman, or Self, or any unchanging abiding substance. That is the analytical method.  The same result is arrived at through the doctrine of Conditioned Genesis, which is the synthetic method, and according to this, nothing in the world is absolute.  Everything is conditioned, relative, and interdependent. This is the Buddhist theory of relativity.

Before we go into the question of Anatta proper, it is helpful to have a brief idea of the Conditioned Genesis.  The principle of this doctrine is given in a short formula of four lines:

 

When this is, that is

This arising that arises

When this is not, that is not

This ceasing that ceases

 

On this principle of conditionality, relativity and interdependence, the whole existence and continuity of life and its cessation are explained in a detailed formula which is called Paticca-samuppada ‘Conditioned Genesis’, consisting of twelve factors

 

1.      Through ignorance, deliberate actions or karma-formations are conditioned.

2.      Through volitional actions is conditioned consciousness.

3.      Through consciousness, mental and physical phenomena are conditioned.

4.      Through mental and physical phenomena are conditioned the six faculties (i.e. five physical sense-organs and mind)

5.      Through the six faculties is conditioned (sensorial and mental) contact.

6.      Through (sensorial and mental) contact is conditioned sensation.

7.      Through sensation is conditioned desire, ‘thirst.’

8.      Through desire (‘thirst’) is conditioned clinging.

9.      Through clinging, the process of becoming is conditioned.

10.   Through the process of becoming is conditioned birth.

11.   Through birth are conditioned (12) decay, death, lamentation, pain, etc.

 

This is how life arises, exists and continues. If we take this formula in reverse order, we come to the cessation of the proforma in reverse order; we come to the cessation of the process: Through the complete cessation of ignorance, volitional activities or karma formations cease; through the cessation of voluntary activities, consciousness ceases; ...through the cessation of birth, decay, death, sorrow, etc., cease.

It should be remembered that each of these factors is conditioned and conditioned. Therefore, they are all relative and interdependent; hence, no first cause is accepted by Buddhism, as we have seen earlier.  Conditioned Genesis should be considered a circle, not a chain.

The question of Free Will has occupied an important place in Western thought and philosophy. However, according to Conditioned Genesis, this question cannot arise in Buddhist philosophy.  If his whole existence is relative, conditioned and interdependent, how can will alone be free? Like any other thought, Will, included in the fourth Aggregate, is conditioned. So-called ‘freedom’ itself in this world is not free.  That, too, is conditioned and relative.  There is, of course, such a conditioned and relative ‘Free Will,’ but not unconditioned and absolute.  There can be nothing free in this world, physical or mental, as everything is conditioned and relative.  If free will implies a will independent of conditions and cause and effect, such a thing does not exist.  How can a will, or anything for that matter, arise without conditions, away from cause and effect, when the whole of life, the whole of existence, is conditioned and relative? Here again, the idea of free will is connected with the ideas of God, soul, justice, reward, and punishment. Not only is so-called free will not free, but even the concept of Free Will is not free from conditions.

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