Buddhism/Part 5

By: John Ankerberg, John Weldon; ©2000

For the Buddha, the essential problem of humanity was not one of sin, but of suffering and misery. But how could suffering be alleviated? His “enlightenment” on the matter led him to formulate the four noble truths and the eightfold path that are the foundation of Buddhism.

The Buddha and His Teaching

According to Buddhist history, Siddhartha Gautama was raised in a wealthy family, sheltered and protected from life’s unpleasantness and tragedies. One day, however, he saw the world as it really was. In observing a decrepit old man, a corpse, a diseased man and a beggar, he realized the fundamental condition of man was one of suffering. For the Buddha, the essential problem of humanity was not really one of sin or selfishness or rebellion against God, as Christianity teaches. It was suffering and misery. But how could suffering be alleviated? This occupied the Buddha’s thoughts and he eventually received “enlightenment” on the matter. Buddha formulated the foundation of Buddhism: the four noble truths and the eightfold path.^[1]

The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path

From a Christian perspective, Siddhartha attempted to find a solution to the symptoms of man’s problem instead of the basic or underlying problem itself . Thus, in Christianity, suffering and misery in life are caused largely by sin and rebellion against God. By rejecting God and the dynamics of man’s relationship to God, Buddha’s only option was to deal with symptoms (e.g., suffering) instead of causes (e.g., sin). This basic misdiagnosis conditions everything subsequent in Buddhism.

In brief, the four noble truths are:

1. all life involves suffering,
2. suffering is caused by desire (e.g., “selfish” craving defined, in part, as the desire to exist as an independent self),
3. desire can be overcome, and
4. the means to overcome desire is the eightfold path.

The eightfold path consists of the proper or correct exercise of eight conditions or actions which aim at eliminating desire and hence suffering. These include :

1. right vision (knowledge or views,)
2. right conception (aspirations,)
3. right speech,
4. right behavior (conduct),
5. right livelihood,
6. right effort,
7. right concentration or mindfulness, and
8. right one-pointed contemplation (or meditation).

However, we must remember to interpret these eight requirements from a Buddhist rather than a Western or Christian perspective. Since these are defined in light of a Buddhist worldview and its presuppositions, they take on distinctly Buddhist implications. As such, they are implicitly or explicitly non-Christian. In fact, given Buddhist premises, the Christian world view is easily considered a spiritual detriment or evil.^[2] For example, right understanding is the correct understanding and acceptance of the four noble truths and the Buddhist perception of the world and self. Right concentration or mindfulness in the sense of awareness of one’s own actions is achieved by meditation (often leading to occult states of trance and/or development of psychic powers). Right morality “does not consist in passive obedience to a code imposed by a God…” but is determined by tradition (ultimately determined by the Buddha, i.e., the first Buddhist traditions).^[3] In fact, according to Buddha, belief in the Christian God and morality are delusive, harmful beliefs. He thus argued, “It is no wonder that people holding these conceptions lose hope and neglect efforts to act wisely and avoid evil.”^[4]

The Law of Dependent Origination

The dilemma of man’s suffering is exemplified by the Buddhist “law of dependent origination” which asserts that, in a vicious cycle, existence itself perpetuates suffering. Thus, existence itself (which is comprised of an ever impermanent flux of phenomena, both mental and physical) causes corresponding effects. These effects result in more impermanent phenomena. These in turn cause ignorance of the Permanent state (nirvana). Such ignorance of reality brings more harmful desires–which results in suffering–which brings karmic rebirth. All this causes the perpetuation of a bondage to individual existence from which there is no escape.

In The Teaching of Buddha we read the following statements by Buddha:

Because of ignorance and greed, people imagine discriminations where, in reality, there are no discriminations. Inherently, there is no discrimination of right and wrong in human behavior; but people, because of ignorance, imagine such distinctions and judge them as right or wrong….As a result, they become attached to an delusive existence….In reality, therefore, it is their own mind that causes the delusions of grief, lamentation, pain and agony. This whole world of delusion is nothing but a shadow caused by the mind…. It is from ignorance and greed that the world of delusion is born, and all the vast complexity of coordinating causes and conditions exists within the mind and nowhere else. Both life and death arise from the mind and exist within the mind….An unenlightened life rises from a mind that is bewildered by its own world of delusion. If we learn that there is no world of delusion outside the mind, the bewildered mind becomes clear; and because we ceaseto create impure surroundings, we attain Enlightenment…..Since everything in this world is brought about by causes and conditions, there can be no fundamental distinctions among things. The apparent distinctions exist because of peoples absurd and discriminating thoughts….In action there is no discrimination between right in wrong, but people make a distinction for their own convenience. Buddha keeps away from these discriminations and looks upon the world as upon a passing cloud. To Buddha every definitive thing is delusion;..^[5]

So how does the Buddhist escape from the endless round of desire, karma and more desire? In order to understand the Buddhist solution, we must further understand how Buddhism views reality.

In Buddhism, existence is believed to be made up of extremely temporary, ever changing phenomena or aggregates. These are termed dharmas or skandhas. Dharmas constitute experiential moments, i.e., the building blocks of existence. (In another definition, Dharma means Buddhist Law, i.e., Buddha’s teachings).^[6] Skandhas refer to the five aggregates making up the person–1) the body, 2) feelings, 3) perceptions, 4) volition; impulses and emotions, 5) consciousness.^[7] It is maintained that existence, by its very nature, is so fleeting that none of its components can, in any sense, be held to be permanent. Such phenomena (broken down to their constituent parts) exist for so short a time (e.g., nano-seconds) that they cannot be said to constitute anything even resembling permanence. However, reality must be something permanent if it is to be real. That which is impermanent cannot be real. Hence, one must transcend all impermanence and arrive at nirvana, the only permanent and real state of existence.^[8]

Naturally, if our existence is impermanent and “unreal”, the logical solution is to eradicate our personal existence and achieve permanence, that alone which is real. As noted this is the Buddhist goal: to attain the state of nirvana. The Buddha, who sometimes had little love for common sense, argued that existence is unreal and to therefore treat it as real is absurd. To treat it as real is a grave error preventing enlightenment. And so, he scolded the ignorant masses for their ignorance in believing the world is real: “It is a mistake to regard this world as either a temporal world or as a real one. But ignorant people of this world assume that this is a real world and proceed to act upon that absurd assumption. But as this world is only an illusion, their acts, being based on error, only lead them into harm and suffering. A wise man, recognizing the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it were real, so he escapes the suffering.”^[9] Again, the Buddhist view of phenomenal existence (things, man, the universe) is that it is in such a state of constant flux and impermanence that, ultimately, it has no reality in any meaningful, personal, eternal sense. It is not, for example, that the ego does not exist; it “exists” as the sum of its various constituents which are in constant flux, and as such it can be perceived and distinguished as a separate entity. Still, our existence has no reality in the sense of being something permanent, for the Buddhist concept of impermanence does not believe anything phenomenal can be permanent long enough to be real. Everything is the delusory creation of our minds. Thus, even the perception of the individual self is a delusion: “Separate individual existence is really an illusion, for the self has neither beginning nor ending, is eternally changing, and possesses only a phenomenal existence.”^[10] And, “Existence consists of dharmas, things or objects, but what can be said of these objects? They are all impermanent and changing, and nothing can be said of them at one moment which is not false the next. They are as unreal as the atman [self] itself.”^[11]

One Buddhist scripture complains that the “foolish common people do not understand that what is seen is merely (the product of) their own mind. Being convinced that there exists outside a variety of objects…they produce false imaginings.”^[12] Reminiscent of advita Vedanta, other scriptures liken conventional reality to a magical illusion, a mirage and a dream.^[13] Buddhism tells us that since reality as we perceive it does not exist, one should arrive at this awareness and come to that state which alone is permanent, the state of nirvana. Ostensibly, this state lies somewhere “in-between” personal existence (which it isn’t) and complete annihilation (which it also, allegedly, isn’t). Recognition of this Buddhist truth is held to be an enlightened state of being, for one now understands what is real and what is not real.

Essentially, Buddhism is a religion with one principal goal: to eliminate individual suffering by attaining the permanent state. In attaining this goal it does not look to God for help, but, paradoxically, only to the impermanent: to man himself. From the delusory mind, the illusory world appears, but “from this same mind, the world of enlightenment appears.”^[14] (One wonders how a mind so deluded and disordered that it creates a world of illusion, could ever discover an enlightenment from that depth of delusion?) In spite of its denial of any permanent reality to man, Buddhism is essentially, if paradoxically, a humanistic faith that, in the end, destroys what it virtually worships: man as man. As Hendrik Kraemer, former professor of the History of Religions at the University of Leiden, Netherlands, asserts: “Buddhism teaches with a kind of prophetic rigour that what really matters is man and his deliverance, and nothing else….Behind the screen of sublime philosophies and mystical and ethical ‘ways’ to deliverance, or in the garb of fantastic textures of magic and occultism, man remains the measure of all things.”^[15]

In Buddhism, man has no savior but himself; hence men and women only need look inward for deliverance. “Since Buddhism does not have a God, it cannot have somebody who is regarded as God’s prophet or messiah.”^[16] Buddhism, then, is:

1. atheistic practically speaking,
2. agnostic, in that most Buddhists don’t really care if a supreme God exists (irrespective of the polytheism of later Buddhism),and
3. anti-theistic in that belief in a supreme Creator God as in Christianity is something evil because it prohibits personal liberation.

We now turn to a discussion of Buddhist and Christian philosophy where these ideas and their implications are seen more fully.

Notes

1. ↑ For a description of these in more detail see Richard A. Gard (ed.), Buddhism (NY: George Braziller, Inc., 1961), pp. 106-167.
2. ↑ F.L. Woodward, trans., Some Sayings of the Buddha (NY: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 124-125.
3. ↑ Alexandria David-Neel, Buddhism Its Doctrines and Its Methods (NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1977), p. 25; Charles Prebish, “Doctrines of Early Buddhists,” in Buddhism: A Modern Perspective (ed.), Charles S. Prebish (University Park & London: Pennsylvania University Press, 1975), p. 30.
4. ↑ The Teaching of Buddha, p.88.
5. ↑ Ibid., rev., 1988, pp. 84-104.
6. ↑ See e.g., T.O. Ling, A Dictionary of Buddhism: A Guide to Thought and Tradition (NY: Charles Schribners’ Sons, 1972), pp. 96-97.
7. ↑ Ibid., pp. 156-158.
8. ↑ Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary (Colombo, Ceylon: Frewin and Company, Ltd., 1972), pp. 105-107.
9. ↑ The Teaching of Buddha, p. 112.
10. ↑ J.N.D. Anderson (ed.), The World’s Religions (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdman’s Publishing Co., 1968), p. 124. See the Dhyayitamushti-sutra quoted in The History of Buddhist Thought, Edward J. Thomas, (London: Reutledge and Kegan Paul Ltd, 1975), p. 223.
11. ↑ Edward J. Thomas, The History of Buddhist Thought, p. 218. He cites, Sutta-Nipata 1119; Majjhima 121, 122 Samy. iv, 54; the two Prajnaparmita-hrdaya-sutras, etc.
12. ↑ Edward Conze et al. (eds.), Buddhist Texts Through the Ages (NY: Philosophical Libary, Inc., 1954), p. 212 citing Lankavatara Sutra, 90-96.
13. ↑ Ibid., pp. 215-216 citing Asanga Mahayanasamgraha II, 27, including Vasubandhu’s comments.
14. ↑ TB, p. 86.
15. ↑ Hendrik Kraemer, The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publ., 1977), pp. 174-175, 177.
16. ↑ Walt Anderson, Open Secrets, A Western Guide to Tibetan Buddhism (NY: Viking Press, 1979), p. 23.