What the Buddha Taught 10

Further, the Buddha explained to Ananda how one could be one's island or refuge, how one could make the Dhamma one's island or refuge through the cultivation of mindfulness or awareness of the body, sensations, mind, and mind-objects (the four Satipatthanas). There is no talk at all here about an Atman or Self.
Another reference, oft-quoted, is used by those who try to find Atman in Buddha's teaching.  The Buddha was once seated under a tree in a forest on the way to Uruvela from Benares. On that day, thirty young friends went on a picnic with their young wives in the same forest. One of the princes, who was unmarried, brought a prostitute with him.  While the others were amusing themselves, she purloined some objects of value and disappeared.  In their search for her in the forest, they saw the Buddha seated under a tree and asked whether he had seen a woman. He enquired what was the matter.  When they explained, the Buddha asked them: 'What do you think, young men? Which is better for you? To search after a woman or to search after yourself?
Again, it is a simple and natural question, and there is no justification for introducing far-fetched ideas of a metaphysical Atman or Self into the business.  They answered that it was better for them to search after themselves.  The Buddha then asked them to sit down and explain the Dhamma to them. In the available account, in the original text of what he preached to them, no word is mentioned about an Atman.
Much has been written on the Buddha's silence when a certain Parivrajaka named Vacchagotta asked him whether there was an Atman. The story is as follows: Vacchagotta comes to the Buddha and asks:
‘Venerable Gotama, is there an Atman?
The Buddha is silent.
‘Then Venerable Gotama, is ther no Atman?
Again, the Buddha is silent.
Vacchagotta gets up and goes away.
After the Parivrajaka had left, Ananda asked the Buddha why he had not answered Vacchagotta's question. The Buddha explains his opinions:
'Ananda, when asked by Vacchagotta the Wanderer, "Is there a self?" If I had answered, "There is a self," then Ananda would be siding with those recluses and Brahmanas who hold the eternalist theory.
'And, Ananda, when asked by the Wanderer: "Is there no self?" if I had answered: "There is no self," then that would be siding with those recluses and Brahmanas who hold the annihilationist theory.
'Again, Ananda, when asked by Vacchagotta: "Is there a self?", if I had answered: "There is a self," would that be by my knowledge that all dhammas are without self?'
'Surely not, Sir.'
'And again, Ananda, when asked by the Wanderer: "Is there no self?", if I had answered: "There is no self," then that would have been a greater confusion to the already confused Vacchagotta.  For he would have thought: Formerly indeed I had an Atman (self), but now I haven't got one.'
It should now be quite clear why the Buddha was silent. However, it will still be clear if we consider the whole background and the way the Buddha treated questions and questioners, which is altogether ignored by those who have discussed this problem.
The Buddha was not a computing machine giving answers to whatever questions were put to him by anyone without consideration. He was a practical teacher, full of compassion and wisdom. He did not answer questions to show his knowledge and intelligence but to help the questioner on the way to realization. He always spoke to people, considering their development standards, tendencies, mental make-up, character, and capacity to understand a question.
According to the Buddha, there are four ways of treating questions: (1) Some should be answered directly; (2) others should be answered by way of analyzing them; (3) counter-questions should answer others; (4) and lastly, there are questions which should be put aside.
There may be several ways of putting aside a question. One is to say that a particular question is not answered or explained, as the Buddha had told this very same Vacchagotta on more than one occasion when those famous questions, whether the universe is eternal or not, etc., were put to him. In the same way, he had replied to Malunkyaputta and others. But he could not say the same thing about whether there is an Atman (Self) because he had always discussed and explained it.  He could not say 'there is self' because it is contrary to his knowledge that 'all dhammas are without self.' Then he did not want to say 'there is no self' because that would unnecessarily, without any purpose, have confused and disturbed poor Vacchagotta, who was already confused on a similar question, as he had himself admitted earlier. He was not yet in a position to understand the idea of Anatta. Therefore, to put aside this question by silence was the wisest thing in this particular case.
We must remember that the Buddha had known Vacchagotta quite well for a long time. This was not the first time this inquiring Wanderer had come to see him. The wise and compassionate teacher gave much thought and extensively considered this confused seeker. There are many references in the Pali texts to this same Vacchagotta the Wanderer, who goes around quite often to see the Buddha and his disciples and asks the same kind of question again and again, evidently very worried and almost obsessed with these problems. The Buddha's silence seems to have had more effect on Vacchagotta than any eloquent answer or discussion.
Some people take 'self' to mean what is generally known as 'mind' or 'consciousness.' But the Buddha says a man should take his physical body as self rather than mind, thought, or consciousness. The former seems more solid, and the mind, thought, or consciousness changes constantly, day and night, even faster than the body.
The vague feeling 'I AM' creates the idea of self with no corresponding reality, and to see this Truth is to realize Nirvana, which is not very easy. In the Nikaya, there is an enlightening conversation between a bhikkhu named Khelmaka and a group of bhikkhus.
These bhikkhus ask Khemaka whether he sees any self or anything about a self in the five Aggregates. Khemaka replies, 'No'. Then the bhikkhus say that, if so, he should be an Arahant free from all impurities. But Khemamka confesses that though he does not find in the Five Aggregates a self, or anything about a self, 'I am not an Arahant free from all impurities. O friends, about the Five Aggregates Attachment, I have a feeling "I AM." Still, I do not see "This is I AM."' Then Khemaka explains that what he calls 'I AM' is neither matter, sensation, perception, mental formations, consciousness, nor anything without them.  But he felt 'I AM' about the Five Aggregates and thought he could not see clearly 'This is I AM.'
He says it is like the smell of a flower: it is neither the scent of the petals nor the colour nor the pollen but the smell of the flower.
Khemaka further explains that even a person who has attained the early stages of realization still retains this feeling of 'I AM.' But later on, when he progresses further, this feeling of 'I AM' altogether disappears, just as the chemical smell of a freshly washed cloth disappears, just as the chemical smell of a newly washed cloth disappears after a time when it is kept in a box.
This discussion was so helpful and enlightening to them that at the end of it, the text says, all of them, including Khemaka himself, became Arahants free from all impurities, thus finally getting rid of 'I AM.'
According to the Buddha's teaching, it is as wrong to hold the opinion 'I have no self' (which is the annihilationist theory) as to hold the opinion 'I have self' (which is the eternalist theory), because both are fetters, both arising out of the false idea 'I AM.' The correct position about the question Anatta is not to take hold of any opinions or views but to see things objectively as they are without mental projections, to see that what we call 'I' or 'being' is only a combination of physical and mental aggregates, which are working together interdependently in a flux of momentary change within the law of cause and effect, and that there is nothing permanent, everlasting, unchanging and eternal in the whole of existence.
Naturally, a question arises: If there is no Atman or Self, who gets the results of karma (actions)? No one can answer this question better than the Buddha himself. When a bhikkhu raised this question, the Buddha said, 'I have taught you, O bhikkhus, to see conditionality everywhere.
The Buddha's teaching on Anatta, No-Soul, or No-Self should not be considered harmful or annihilistic. Like Nirvana, it is Truth and Reality, and Reality cannot be negative. It is the false belief in a non-existing imaginary self that is negative. The teaching of Anatta dispels the darkness of false beliefs and produces the light of wisdom. It is not negative: as Asanga aptly says, 'There is the fact of No-selfness.'
 
CHAPTER 7
 'MEDITATION' OR MENTAL CULTURE: BHAVANA
 
The Buddha said: 'O bhikkhus, there are two kinds of illness. What are those two? Physical illness and mental illness. There seem to be people who enjoy freedom from physical disease for a year or two, even for a hundred years or more. But, O bhikkhus, rare in this world are those who enjoy freedom from mental illness even for one moment, except those who are free from mental defilements.
The Buddha's teaching, particularly his way of 'meditation,' aims to produce perfect mental health, equilibrium and tranquillity.  Unfortunately, hardly any other section of the Buddha's teaching is so much misunderstood as 'meditation,' both by Buddhists and non-Buddhists. The moment the word 'meditation' is mentioned, one thinks of an escape from the daily activities of life, assuming a particular posture, like a statue in some cave or cell in a monastery, in some remote place cut off from society, and musing on or being absorbed in, some mystic or mysterious thought or trance. True Buddha's teaching on this subject was so wrong, or so little understood, that in later times, the way of 'meditation' deteriorated and degenerated into a kind of ritual or ceremony almost technical in its routine.
Most people are interested in meditation or yoga to gain spiritual or mystic powers, like the 'third eye,' which others do not possess. Some time ago, a Buddhist nun in India was trying to develop the power to see through her ears while she still possessed the 'power' of perfect eyesight! This kind of idea is nothing but 'spiritual perversion.' It is always a question of desire, a 'thirst' for power.
           The word meditation is an inferior substitute for the original term bhavana, which means 'culture' or 'development,' i.e., properly speaking, it is the mental culture in the complete sense of the term. It aims at cleansing the mind of impurities and disturbances, such as lustful desires, hatred, ill-will, sloth, worries and restlessness, and skeptical doubts, and cultivating such qualities as concentration, awareness, intelligence, will, energy, analytical faculty, confidence, joy, tranquillity, leading finally to the attainment of highest wisdom which sees the nature of things as they are and realizes the Ultimate Truth, Nirvana.

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