What the Buddha Taught 14

    If a country is ruled by men and endowed with such qualities, it is needless to say that the country must be happy. But this was not a Utopia, for there were kings in the past, like Asoka of India, who had established kingdoms based on these ideas.

     The world today lives in constant fear, suspicion, and tension. Science has produced weapons capable of unimaginable destruction. Brandishing these new instruments of death, great powers threaten and challenge one another, boasting shamelessly that one could cause more destruction and misery in the world than the other.

     They have gone along this path of madness to such a point that, now, if they take one more step forward in that direction, the result will be nothing but mutual annihilation along with the destruction of humanity.

    Humans, fearing the circumstances of their own making, seek an escape and a resolution. However, the only proper solution lies in the teachings of Buddha—his advocacy for non-violence and peace, love and compassion, tolerance and understanding, truth and wisdom, and respect for all life, free from selfishness, hatred, and violence.

     The Buddha says, ' Never is hatred appeased by hatred, but it is appeased by kindness. This is an eternal truth.’

     ‘One should win anger through kindness, wickedness through goodness, selfishness through charity, and falsehood through truthfulness.

     There can be no peace or happiness for man as long as he desires and thirsts after conquering and subjugating his neighbour. As the Buddha says: “The victor breeds hatred, and the defeated lies down in misery. He who renounces both victory and defeat is happy and peaceful.’ The only conquest that brings peace and happiness is self-conquest. One may conquer millions in battle, but he who conquers himself, only one, is the greatest of conquerors.’

     You will say this is all beautiful, noble and sublime but impractical. Is it practical to hate one another? To kill one another? To live in eternal fear and suspicion like wild animals in a jungle? Is this more practical and comfortable? Did hatred ever appease hatred? Did evil ever win over evil? But there are examples, at least in individual cases, where hatred is appeased by love and kindness, and evil is won over by goodness. You will say that this may be true and practicable in individual cases but that it never works in national and international affairs. People are hypnotized, psychologically puzzled, blinded and deceived by the political and propaganda usage of such terms as ‘national,’ ‘international,’ or ‘state.’ What is a nation but a vast conglomeration of individuals? A country or a state does not act; the individual acts. What the individual thinks and does is what the nation or the state thinks and does. What applies to the individual applies to the country or the state. If hatred can be appeased by love and kindness on the individual scale, surely it can be realized on the national and international scale, too. Even in the case of a single person, to meet hatred with kindness, one must have tremendous courage, boldness, faith and confidence in moral force. May it not be even more so about international affairs? If by the expression ‘ not practical’ you mean ‘not easy,’ you are right. It is not easy. Yet, it should be tried. You may say it is risky to try it. Indeed, it cannot be more dangerous than trying a nuclear war.

It is a consolation and inspiration to think today that at least there was one great ruler, well-known in history, who had the courage, the confidence and the vision to apply this teaching of non-violence, peace and love to the administration of a vast empire, in both internal and external affairs-Asoka, the great Buddhist emperor of India-‘the Beloved of the gods’ as he was called.

At first, he followed the example of his father (Bindusara) and grandfather (Chandragupta) and wished to complete the conquest of the Indian peninsula. He invaded and conquered Kalinga and annexed it. Many hundreds of thousands were killed, wounded, tortured and taken prisoner in this war. Later, when he became a Buddhist, Budda's teachings completely changed and transformed him. In one of his famous Edicts, inscribed on rock (Rock Edict XIII, as it is now called), the original of which one may read even today, referring to the conquest of Kalinga, the Emperor publicly expressed his ‘repentance.’ He said how ‘extremely painful’ it was for him to think of that carnage. He publicly declared that he would never draw his sword again for any conquest, but that he ‘wishes all living beings non-violence, self-control, the practice of serenity and mildness. This is considered the chief conquest by the Beloved of the gods (i.e., Asoka), namely the conquest by piety (dhamma-vijaya). ‘Not only did he renounce war himself, but he also expressed his desire that ‘my sons and grandsons will not think of a new conquest as worth achieving...let them think of that conquest only which is the conquest by piety. That is good for this world and the world beyond.’

This is the only example in humanity's history of a victorious conqueror at the zenith of his power still possessing the strength to continue his territorial conquests, yet renouncing war and violence and turning to peace and non-violence.

Here is a lesson for the world today. The ruler of an empire publicly turned his back on war and violence and embraced the message of peace and non-violence. No historical evidence shows that any neighbouring king took advantage of Asoka’s piety to attack him militarily or that there was any revolt or rebellion within his empire during his lifetime. On the contrary, there was peace throughout the land, and even countries outside his empire seemed to accept his benign leadership.

To talk of maintaining peace through the balance of power, or the treat of nuclear deterrents, is foolish. The might of armaments can only produce fear and not peace. It is impossible to achieve genuine and lasting peace through fear. Through fear can come only hatred, ill will, and hostility, suppressed perhaps for the time being but ready to erupt and become violent at any moment. Genuine peace can prevail only in an atmosphere of metta and amity, free from fear, suspicion and danger.

Buddhism aims at creating a society where the fateful struggle for power is renounced, where calm and peace revail away from conquest and defeat, where the persecution of the innocent is vehemently denounced, and where one who conquers oneself is more respected than those who conquer millions by military and economic warfare; where hatred is conquered by kindness, and evil by goodness; where enmity, jealousy, ill-will and greed do not infect men’s minds; where compassion is the driving force of action; where all, including the least of living things, are treated with fairness, consideration and love; where life in peace and harmony, in a world of material contentment, is directed towards the highest and noblest aim, the realization of the Ultimate Truth, Nirvana.

 

SELECTED TEXTS

 

A word of explanation may help the modern reader to understand and appreciate the style of the original Pali texts selected for translation here.

           Three months after the Buddha’s Parinirvana (death), a Council of the disciples closely associated with him was held, at which all his teaching, discourses and rules of discipline, as they were remembered, were recited, approved as authentic and classified into five Collections, called Nikayas, which constitute the Tipitaka (Triple Canon). These Collections were entrusted to the various Theras or Elders and their pupillary succession for oral transmission for the benefit of future generations.

           Regular and systematic recitation is necessary to perpetuate an unbroken and authentic oral transmission. It must be noted that this recitation was not the act of a single individual alone but of a group. This mode of collective recitation was meant to keep the texts intact, free from change, modification or interpolation. If one group member forgot a word, another would remember it, or if one modified, added or omitted a word or a phrase, another would correct him. It was hoped that nothing could be changed, modified, added or omitted in this way. Texts handed down through an unbroken oral tradition of this kind were considered more reliable and authentic than any record of the teachings set down by a single individual alone many years after the death of their promulgator. The teachings of the Buddha were committed to writing for the first time at a Council in the first century B.C., which was held in Ceylon four centuries after his death. Up to that time, the whole Tipitaka had been handed down from generation to generation in this unbroken oral tradition.

           The original texts are in Pali, a soft, melodious and smooth-flowing language. Their frequent repetitions and the use of categories help memorization, which is necessary for the continuity of oral tradition, and also gives them poetic beauty and charm. They use poetic rhythms and have all the grace of poetry. The recitation of these texts in the original Pali in the calm atmosphere of a tropical grove or a monastery still produces beautiful, harmonious and serene effects. The sonorous Pali words, their grandeur, and the well-known cadence of repetitions produce the effect, even for someone who does not know their meaning, of a solemn chant in an unknown tongue. Recitation of this kind, with its conventional melodic line, was so peaceful and moving that some narratives related that the deities in the woods were sometimes fascinated and attracted by it.

           In the following selections from the original Canon, the repetitions are rendered in full only in some places to give the reader an idea of their style. In other places, they are indicated by dots. I have tried to render the original Pali as closely as possible in English without offending either the sense and tone of the Buddha’s words or modern English usage.

 

SETTING IN MOTION THE WHEEL OF TRUTH

 

(the First Sermon of the Buddha)

 

Thus have I heard. The Blessed One once lived near Varanasi in the Deer Park at Isipatana (the Resort of Seers). There, he addressed the group of five bhikkhus: ‘Bhikkus, these two extremes ought not to be practised by one who has gone forth from the household life. What are the two? There is devotion to the indulgence of sense-pleasures, which is low, typical, the way of ordinary people, unworthy and unprofitable, and there is devotion to self-mortification, which is painful, unworthy and unprofitable.

           ‘Avoiding both these extremes, the Tathagata has realized the Middle Path: it gives vision, it provides knowledge, and it leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment, to Nibbana. And what is that Middle Path...? It is simply the Noble Eightfold Path, namely, right view, proper thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. This is the Middle Path realized by the Tathagata, which gives vision, provides knowledge, and leads to calm, insight, and enlightenment for Nibbana.

           ‘The Noble Truth of suffering is this: Birth is suffering; aging is suffering; sickness is suffering; death is suffering sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering; association with the unpleasant is suffering; dissociation from the pleasant is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering-in brief, the five aggregates of attachment are suffering.

           ‘The Noble Truth of the origin of suffering is this: It is this thirst (craving) that produces re-existence and re-becoming, bound up with passionate greed. It finds fresh delight here and now: thirst for sense pleasures, existence and becoming, and non-existence (self-annihilation).

           ‘The Noble Truth of the Cessation of suffering is this: It is the complete cessation of that thirst, giving up, renouncing it, emancipating oneself from it, detaching oneself from it.

           ‘The Noble Truth of the Path leading the Cessation of suffering is this: It is simply the Noble Eightfold Path, namely right view; proper thought; right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.

 ‘” This is the Noble Truth of Suffering (Dukkha)”: such was the vision, the knowledge, the wisdom, the science, the light, that arose in me about things not heard before. “This suffering, as a noble truth, should be fully understood”: such was the vision, the knowledge, the wisdom, the science, the light that arose in me about things not heard before. “This suffering, as a noble truth, has been fully understood”: such was the vision, the knowledge, the wisdom, the science, the light that arose in me about things not heard before.

출처: https://storytellingis.tistory.com/3 [붓다:티스토리]