Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) by Charles Eliot

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Of the supreme importance attached to this doctrine of causation there
can be no doubt. Perhaps the best instance is the story of Sariputta's
conversion. In the early days of the Buddha's mission he asked for a
brief summary of the new teaching and in reply the essential points were
formulated in the well-known verses which declare that all things have a
cause and an end[456]. Such utterances sound like a scientific dictum
about the uniformity of nature or cosmic law. But though the Pitakas
imply some such idea, they seem to shrink from stating it clearly. They
do not emphasize the orderly course of nature or exhort men to live in
harmony with it. We are given to understand that the intelligence of
those supermen who are called Buddhas sees that the four Truths are a
consequence of the nature of the universe but subsequent instruction
bids us attend to the truths themselves and not to their connection with
the universal scheme. One reason for this is that Indians were little
inclined to think of impersonal laws and forces[457]. The law of karma
and the periodic rhythm of growth and decay which the universe obeys are
ideas common to Hinduism and Buddhism and not incompatible with the
mythology and ritual to which the Buddha objected. And though the
Pitakas insist on the universality of causation, they have no notion of
the uniformity of nature in our sense[458]. The Buddhist doctrine of
causation states that we cannot obtain emancipation and happiness unless
we understand and remove the cause of our distress, but it does not
discuss cosmic forces like karma and Maya. Such discussion the Buddha
considered unprofitable[459] and perhaps he may have felt that
insistence on cosmic law came dangerously near to fatalism[460].

Though the number of the links may be varied the Buddha attached
importance to the method of concatenation and the impersonal formulation
of the whole and in one passage[461] he objects to the questions, what
are old age and death and who is it that has old age and death. Though
the chain of causation treats of a human life, it never speaks of a
person being born or growing old and Buddhaghosa[462] observes that the
Wheel of existence is without known beginning, without a personal cause
or passive recipient and empty with a twelvefold emptiness. It has no
external cause such as Brahma or any deity "and is also wanting in any
ego passively recipient of happiness and misery."

The twelve Nidanas have passed into Buddhist art as the Wheel of Life.
An ancient example of this has been discovered in the frescoes of Ajanta
and modern diagrams, which represent the explanations current in
mediaeval India, are still to be found in Tibet and Japan[463]. In the
nave of the wheel are three female figures signifying passion, hatred
and folly and in the spaces between the spokes are scenes depicting the
phases of human life: round the felly runs a series of pictures
representing the twelve links of the chain. The first two links are
represented by a blind man or blind camel and by a potter making pots.
The third, or consciousness, is an ape. Some have thought that this
figure represents the evolution of mind, which begins to show itself in
animals and is perfected in man. It may however refer to a simile found
in the Pitakas[464] where the restless, changeable mind is compared to a
monkey jumping about in a tree.

5

We have now examined three of the four Truths, for the Chain of
Causation in its positive form gives us the origin of suffering and in
its negative form the facts as to the extinction of suffering: it
teaches that as its links are broken suffering disappears. The fourth
truth, or the way which leads to the extinction of suffering, gives
practical directions to this effect. The way is the Noble Eightfold Path
consisting of: right views, right aspirations, right speech, right
conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right
rapture. This formula is comparable not with the Decalogue, to which
correspond the precepts for monks and laymen, but rather with the
Beatitudes. It contains no commands or prohibitions but in the simplest
language indicates the spirit that leads to emancipation. It breathes an
air of noble freedom. It says nothing about laws and rites: it simply
states that the way to be happy is to have a good heart and mind, taking
shape in good deeds and at last finding expression and fulfilment in the
rapture of ecstasy. We may think the numerical subdivisions of the Path
pedantic and find fault with its want of definition, for it does not
define the word right (samma) which it uses so often, but in thus
ignoring ceremonialism and legalism and making simple goodness in spirit
and deed the basis of religion. Gotama rises above all his
contemporaries and above all subsequent teachers except Christ. In
detaching the perfect life from all connection with a deity or outside
forces and in teaching man that the worst and best that can happen to
him lie within his own power, he holds a unique position.

Indian thought has little sympathy with the question whether morality is
utilitarian or intuitionist, whether we do good to benefit ourselves or
whether certain acts and states are intrinsically good. The Buddha is a
physician who prescribes a cure for a disease--the disease of
suffering--and that cure is not a quack medicine which pretends to heal
rapidly but a regime and treatment. If we ask whether the reason for
following the regime is that it is good for us or that it is
scientifically correct; or why we want to be well or whether health is
really good: both the Buddha and the physician would reply that such
questions are tiresome and irrelevant. With an appearance of profundity,
they ask nothing worth answering. The eightfold path is the way and the
only way of salvation. Its form depends on the fact that the knowledge
of the Buddha, which embraces the whole universe, sees that it is a
consequence of the nature of things. In that sense it may be described
as an eternal law, but this is not the way in which the Pitakas usually
speak of it and it is not represented as a divine revelation dictated by
other than human motives. "Come, disciples," the Buddha was wont to say,
"lead a holy life for the complete extinction of suffering." Holiness is
simply the way out of misery into happiness. To ask why we should take
that way, would seem to an Indian an unnecessary question, as it might
seem to a Christian if he were asked why he wants to save his soul, but
if the question is pressed, the answer must be at every point, for the
Christian as much as for the Buddhist, to gain happiness[465].
Incidentally the happiness of others is fully cared for, since both
religions make unselfishness the basis of morality and hold that the
conscious and selfish pursuit of happiness is not the way to gain it,
but if we choose to apply European methods of analysis to the Buddha's
preaching, it is utilitarian. But the fact that he and his first
disciples did not think such analysis and discussion necessary goes far
to show that the temper created in his Order was not religiously
utilitarian. It never occurred to them to look at things that way.

The eightfold path is the road to happiness but it is the way, not the
destination, and the action of the Buddha and his disciples is something
beyond it. They had obtained the goal, for they were all Arhats, and
they might, if they had been inspired by that selfishness which some
European authors find prominent in Buddhism, have entered into their
rest. Yet the Buddha bade them go among men and preach "for the gain and
welfare of many" and they continued their benevolent activity although
it could add nothing to the reward which they had already won.

The Buddha often commented on the eightfold path, and we may follow one
of the expositions attributed to him[466]. What, he asks, is meant by
right views (_Sammaditthi_)? Simply a knowledge of the four truths, and
of such doctrines about personality and karma as are implied in them.
But the negative aspects of this _Sammaditthi_ are more striking than
the positive. It does not imply any philosophical or metaphysical
system: the Buddha has shaken off all philosophical theories[467].
Secondly, it does not imply that any knowledge or belief is of efficacy
in itself, as the lore of the Brahmans is supposed to be or those
Christian creeds which save by faith. The Buddha has not a position such
as the Church attributes to Christ, or later Buddhism to Amida. All that
is required under the head of right belief is a knowledge of the general
principles and programme of Buddhism.

The Buddha continues, What is right resolve? It is the resolve to
renounce pleasures, to bear no malice and do no harm. What is right
speech? To abstain from lying and slandering, harsh words and foolish
chatter. What is right conduct? To abstain from taking life, from
stealing, from immorality. What is right livelihood? To abandon wrong
occupations and get one's living by a right occupation. This is
elsewhere defined as one that does not bring hurt or danger to any
living thing, and five bad occupations are enumerated, namely, those of
a caravan-trader, slave-dealer, butcher, publican and poison seller.
European critics of Buddhism have often found fault with its ethics as
being a morality of renunciation, and in the explanation epitomized
above each section of the path is interpreted in this way. But this
negative form is not a peculiarity of Buddhism. Only two of the
commandments in our Decalogue are positive precepts; the rest are
prohibitions. The same is true of most early codes. The negative form is
at once easier and more practical for it requires a mental effort to
formulate any ideal of human life; it is comparatively easy to note the
bad things people do, and say, don't. The pruning of the feelings, the
cutting off of every tendril which can cling to the pleasures of sense,
is an essential part of that mental cultivation in which the higher
Buddhism consists. But the Pitakas say clearly that what is to be
eliminated is only bad mental states. Desire for pleasure and striving
after wealth are bad, but it does not follow that desire and striving
are bad in themselves. Desire for what is good (Dhammachando as opposed
to Kamachando) is itself good, and the effort to obtain nirvana is often
described as a struggle or wrestling[468]. Similarly though absolute
indifference to pains and pleasures is the ideal for a Bhikkhu, this by
no means implies, as is often assumed, a general insensibility and
indifference, the harmless oyster-like life of one who hurts nobody and
remains in his own shell. European criticisms on the selfishness and
pessimism of Buddhism forget the cheerfulness and buoyancy which are the
chief marks of its holy men. The Buddhist saint is essentially one who
has freed himself. His first impulse is to rejoice in his freedom and
share it with others, not to abuse the fetters he has cut away. Active
benevolence and love[469] are enjoined as a duty and praised in language
of no little beauty and earnestness. In the Itivuttaka[470] the
following is put into the mouth of Buddha. "All good works whatever[471]
are not worth one sixteenth part of love which sets free the heart. Love
which sets free the heart comprises them: it shines, gives light and
radiance. Just as the light of all the stars is not worth one sixteenth
of the light of the moon: as in the last month of the rains in the
season of autumn, when the sky is clear and cloudless the sun mounts up
on high and overcomes darkness in the firmament: as in the last hour of
the night when the dawn is breaking, the morning star shines and gives
light and radiance: even so does love which sets free the soul and
comprises all good works, shine and give light and radiance." So, too,
the Sutta-Nipata bids a man love not only his neighbour but all the
world. "As a mother at the risk of her life watches over her own child,
her only child, so let every one cultivate a boundless love towards all
beings[472]." Nor are such precepts left vague and universal. If some of
his acts and words seem wanting in family affection, the Buddha enjoined
filial piety as emphatically as Moses or Confucius. There are two
beings, he says, namely Father and Mother, who can never be adequately
repaid[473]. If a man were to carry his parents about on his shoulders
for a hundred years or could give them all the kingdoms and treasures of
the earth, he still would not discharge his debt of gratitude[474]. But
whereas Confucius said that the good son does not deviate from the way
of his father, the Buddha, who was by no means conservative in religious
matters, said that the only way in which a son could repay his parents
was by teaching them the True Law.

The Buddha defines the sixth section of the path more fully than those
which precede. Right effort, he says, is when a monk makes an effort,
and strives to prevent evil states of mind from arising: to suppress
them if they have arisen: to produce good states of mind, and develop
and perfect them. Hitherto we have been considering morality,
indispensable but elementary. This section is the beginning of the
specially Buddhist discipline of mental cultivation. The process is apt
to seem too self-conscious: we wonder if a freer growth would not yield
better fruits. But in a comparison with the similar programmes of other
religions Buddhism has little to fear. Its methods are not morbid or
introspective: it does not fetter the intellect with the bonds of
authority. The disciple has simply to discriminate between good and bad
thoughts, to develop the one and suppress the other. It is noticeable
that under this heading of right effort, or right wrestling as it is
sometimes called, both desire and striving for good ends are
consecrated. Sloth and torpor are as harmful to spiritual progress as
evil desires and as often reprimanded. Also the aim is not merely
negative: it is partly creative. The disciple is not to suppress will
and feeling, but he is to make all the good in him grow; he should
foster, increase and perfect it.

What is right-mindfulness[475], the seventh section of the path? It is
"When a monk lives as regards the body, observant of the body,
strenuous, conscious, mindful and has rid himself of covetousness and
melancholy": and similarly as regards the sensations, the mind and
phenomena. The importance of this mindfulness is often insisted on. It
amounts to complete self-mastery by means of self-knowledge which allows
nothing to be done heedlessly and mechanically and controls not merely
recognized acts of volition but also those sense-impressions in which we
are apt to regard the mind as merely receptive. "Self is the lord of
self: who else should be the lord? With self well subdued, a man finds a
lord such as few can find[476]."

Although the Buddha denies that there is any soul or self (atta) apart
from the skandhas, yet here his ethical system seems to assume that a
ruling principle which may be called self does exist. Nor is the
discrepancy fully explained by saying that the non-existence of self or
soul is the correct dogma and that expressions like self being the lord
of self are concessions to the exigencies of exposition. The evolution
of the self-controlled saint out of the confused mental states of the
ordinary man is a psychological difficulty. As we shall see, when the
eightfold path has been followed to the end new powers arise in the
mind, new lights stream into it. Yet if there is no self or soul, where
do they arise, into what do they stream?

The doctrine of Gotama as expressed in his earliest utterance on the
subject to the five monks at Benares is that neither the body, nor any
mental faculty to which a name can be given, is what was called in
Brahmanic theology atman, that is to say an entity which is absolutely
free, imperishable, changeless and not subject to pain. This of course
does not exclude the possibility that there may be something which does
not come under any of the above categories and which may be such an
entity as described. Indeed Brahmanic works which teach the existence of
the atman often use language curiously like that of Buddhism. Thus the
Bhagavad-gita[477] says that actions are performed by the Gunas and only
he who is deluded by egoism thinks "I am the doer." And the Vishnu
Purana objects to the use of personal pronouns. "When one soul is
dispersed in all bodies, it is idle to ask who are you, who am I[478]?"
The accounts of the Buddhist higher life would be easier to understand
if we could suppose that there is such a self: that the pilgrim who is
walking in the paths gradually emancipates, develops and builds it up:
that it becomes partly free in nirvana before death and wholly free
after death. Schrader[479] has pointed out texts in the Pitakas which
seem to imply that there is something which is absolute and therefore
not touched by the doctrine of anatta. In a remarkable passage[480] the
Buddha says: Therefore my disciples get rid of what is not yours. To get
rid of it will mean your health and happiness for a long time. Form,
sensation, perception, etc., are not yours; get rid of them. If a man
were to take away, or burn, or use for his needs, all the grass, and
boughs, and branches and leaves in this Jeta wood, would it ever occur
to you to say, the man is taking _us_ away, burning _us_, or using _us_
for his needs? Certainly not, Lord. And why not? Because, Lord, it is
not our self or anything belonging to our self. Just in the same way,
replies the Buddha, get rid of the skandhas. The natural sense of this
seems to be that the skandhas have no more to do with the real being of
man than have the trees of the forest where he happens to be[481]. This
suggests that there is in man something real and permanent, to be
contrasted with the transitory skandhas and when the Buddha asks whether
anything which is perishable and changeable can be called the self, he
seems to imply that there is somewhere such a self. But this point
cannot be pressed, for it is perfectly logical to define first of all
what you mean by a ghost and then to prove that such a thing does not
exist. If we take the passages at present collected as a whole, and
admit that they are somewhat inconsistent or imperfectly understood, the
net result is hardly that the name of self can be given to some part of
human nature which remains when the skandhas are set on one side.

But though the Buddha denied that there is in man anything permanent
which can be called the self, this does not imply a denial that human
nature can by mental training be changed into something different,
something infinitely superior to the nature of the ordinary man, perhaps
something other than the skandhas[482]. One of his principal objections
to the doctrine of the permanent self was that, if it were true,
emancipation and sanctity would be impossible[483], because human nature
could not be changed. In India the doctrine of the atman was really
dangerous, because it led a religious man to suppose that to ensure
happiness and emancipation it is only necessary to isolate the atman by
self-mortification and by suppressing discursive thought as well as
passion. But this, the Buddha teaches, is a capital error. That which
can make an end of suffering is not something lurking ready-made in
human nature but something that must be built up: man must be reborn,
not flayed and stripped of everything except some core of unchanging
soul. As to the nature of this new being the Pitakas are reticent, but
not absolutely silent, as we shall see below. Our loose use of language
might possibly lead us to call the new being a soul, but it is decidedly
not an atman, for it is something which has been brought into being by
deliberate effort. The collective name for these higher states of mind
is _panna_[484], wisdom or knowledge. This word is the Pali equivalent
of the Sanskrit _prajna_ and is interesting as connecting early and
later Buddhism, for _prajna_ in the sense of transcendental or absolute
knowledge plays a great part in Mahayanism and is even personified.

The Pitakas imply that Buddhas and Arhats can understand things which
the ordinary human mind cannot grasp and human words cannot utter. Later
Indian Buddhists had no scruples in formulating what the master left
unformulated. They did not venture to use the words atman or atta, but
they said that the saint can rise above all difference and plurality,
transcend the distinction between subject and object and that nirvana is
the absolute (Bhutatathata). The Buddha would doubtless have objected to
this terminology as he objected to all attempts to express the ineffable
but perhaps the thought which struggles for expression in such language
is not far removed from his own thought.

One of the common Buddhist similes for human life is fire and it is the
best simile for illuminating all Buddhist psychology. To insist on
finding a soul is like describing flames as substances. Fire is often
spoken of as an element but it is really a process which cannot be
isolated or interrupted. A flame is not the same as its fuel and it can
be distinguished from other flames. But though you can individualize it
and propagate it indefinitely, you cannot isolate it from its fuel and
keep it by itself. Even so in the human being there is not any soul
which can be isolated and go on living eternally but the analogy of the
flame still holds good. Unseizable though a flame may be, and
undefinable as substance, it is not unreasonable to trim a fire and make
a flame rise above its fuel, free from smoke, clear and pure. If it were
a conscious flame, such might be its own ideal.

The eighth and last section of the path is samma-samadhi, right
concentration or rapture. Mental concentration is essential to samadhi,
which is the opposite of those wandering desires often blamed as seeking
for pleasure here and there. But samadhi is more than mere concentration
or even meditation and may be rendered by rapture or ecstasy, though
like so many technical Buddhist terms it does not correspond exactly to
any European word. It takes in Buddhism the place occupied in other
religions by prayer--prayer, that is, in the sense of ecstatic communion
with the divine being. The sermon[485] which the Buddha preached to King
Ajatasattu on the fruits of the life of a recluse gives an eloquent
account of the joys of samadhi. He describes how a monk[486] seats
himself in the shade of a tree or in some mountain glen and then
"keeping his body erect and his intelligence alert and intent" purifies
his mind from all lust, ill-temper, sloth, fretfulness and perplexity.
When these are gone, he is like a man freed from jail or debt, gladness
rises in his heart and he passes successively through four stages of
meditation[487]. Then his whole mind and even his body is permeated with
a feeling of purity and peace. He concentrates his thoughts and is able
to apply them to such great matters as he may select. He may revel in
the enjoyment of supernatural powers, for we cannot deny that the oldest
documents which we possess credit the sage with miraculous gifts, though
they attach little importance to them, or he may follow the train of
thought which led the Buddha himself to enlightenment. He thinks of his
previous births and remembers them as clearly as a man who has been a
long walk remembers at the end of the day the villages through which he
has passed. He thinks of the birth and deaths of other beings and sees
them as plainly as a man on the top of a house sees the people moving in
the streets below. He realizes the full significance of the four truths
and he understands the origin and cessation of the three great evils,
love of pleasure, love of existence and ignorance. And when he thus sees
and knows, his heart is set free. "And in him thus set free there arises
the knowledge of his freedom and he knows that rebirth has been
destroyed, the higher life has been led, what had to be done has been
done. He has no more to do with this life. Just as if in a mountain
fastness there were a pool of water, clear, translucent and serene and a
man standing on the bank and with eyes to see should perceive the
mussels and the shells, the gravel and pebbles and the shoals of fish as
they move about or lie within it."

Similar accounts occur in many other passages with variations in the
number of stages described. We must not therefore insist on the details
as essential. But in all cases the process is marked by mental activity.
The meditations of Indian recluses are often described as
self-hypnotism, and I shall say something on this point elsewhere, but
it is clear that in giving the above account the Buddha did not
contemplate any mental condition in which the mind ceases to be active
or master of itself. When, at the beginning, the monk sits down to
meditate it is "with intelligence alert and intent": in the last stage
he has the sense of freedom, of duty done, and of knowledge immediate
and unbounded, which sees the whole world spread below like a clear pool
in which every fish and pebble is visible.