VEDANTA, IN ESSENCE

Vedanta teaches that the purpose of man's life is to realize the ultimate Reality, or Godhead, here and now, through spiritual practice.  The word Vedanta may refer solely to the nondualistic aspect of the philosophy, Advaita Vedanta.  Advaita, literally non-dualism, is the premier and oldest extant among the Vedanta schools and has as its principal exponent Shankara, or Shankaracharya (circa 750 A.D.) 

Advaita declares that the manifold universe of name and form is a misreading of the one ultimate Reality.  This Reality is called Brahman when regarded as transcendent, and Atman when regarded as immanent.  Since it is omnipresent, this Reality must be within every creature and object.  Therefore, man, along with everything else, is essentially divine.  Direct intuitive experience of his identity with Atman-Brahman releases man from all worldly bondages he has superimposed on his true nature, granting him spiritual perfection and eternal peace. 

Vedanta is often, but less correctly, called Hinduism, a word first used by the Persians for the inhabitants of India, because they lived on the far side of the river Sindhu, or Indus.  Vedanta accepts all the great spiritual teachers and personal or impersonal aspects of the Godhead worshiped by different religions, considering them as manifestations of the one Reality.  By demonstrating the essential unity at the source of all religions, Vedanta serves as a framework within which all spiritual truth may be expressed.

THICH NHAT HANH, CONTEMPORARY ZEN BUDDHIST

Thich Nhat Hanh was born in central Vietnam in 1926 and, at the age of sixteen, was ordained a Buddhist monk.  Eight years later, he co-founded what was to become the foremost center of Buddhist studies in South Vietnam, the An Quang Buddhist Institute. 

In 1961, he went to the United States to study and to teach at Columbia and Princeton Universities.  In 1963, however, his monk-colleagues in Vietnam asked in a telegram that he come home and join them in their work to stop the escalating war.  This was following the fall of the oppressive Diem regime.  He returned at once and helped lead one of the great non-violent resistance movements of the century, based entirely on Gandhian principles.

In 1964, along with a group of university professors and students in Vietnam, he founded the School of Youth for Social Service, called the "little Peace Corps" by the American Press, in which teams of young people went into the countryside to establish schools and health clinics, and later to rebuild villages that had been bombed.  By the time of the fall of Saigon, there were more than 10,000 monks, nuns, and young social workers participating in the work. 

Also at this time, he helped set up what was to become one of the most prestigious publishing houses in Vietnam, La Boi Press.  In his own books, and as editor-in-chief of the official publication of the United Buddhist Church, he called for reconciliation between the warring parties in Vietnam, and because of that, his writings were censored by both opposing governments.

In 1966, he accepted an invitation from the Fellowship of Reconciliation and Cornell University, to go to the U.S. "to describe to [us] the aspirations and the agony of the voiceless masses of the Vietnamese people" (New Yorker, June 25, 1966).  He went on to speak convincingly in favor of a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement.  Martin Luther King, Jr. was so moved by Nhat Hanh and his proposals for peace that he nominated him for the 1967 Nobel Peace Prize.  Largely due to Nhat Hanh's influence, King came out publicly against the war at a press conference, with Nhat Hanh present, in Chicago. 

When Thomas Merton, the well-known Catholic monk and mystic, met Nhat Hanh at his monastery, Gethsemani, near Louisville, Kentucky, he said, "Just the way he opens the door and enters a room demonstrates his understanding.  He is a true monk."  Merton went on to write an essay, "Nhat Hanh Is My Brother," an impassioned plea to listen to Nhat Hanh's proposals for peace.

Following meetings with key U.S. senators and government officials, Nhat Hanh went on to Europe where he had two audiences with Pope Paul VI, urging cooperation between Catholics and Buddhists to help bring peace to Vietnam.  In 1969, he set up the Buddhist Peace Delegation to the Paris Peace Talks. 

After the Peace Accords were signed in 1973, he was refused permission by the now Communist government in Vietnam to return to his homeland.  He then established a small community a hundred miles south of Paris.  There he spent his time meditating, reading, writing, binding books, gardening, and occasionally receiving visitors.

In June 1982, he set up a larger retreat near Bordeaux.  In the years since, he has travelled regularly to North America to lead retreats and to give lectures on mindful living and social responsibility. 

HINAYANA AND MAHAYANA

There are two principle schools of Buddhism: the Hinayana or "Lesser Vehicle or Way," and the Mahayana or "Greater Vehicle or Way."  Both were born in India. 

In Hinayana Buddhism, found predominantly now in Sri Lanka and other Southeast Asian countries, the monk is the central figure.  The ideal of the monk is the attainment of arhatship (sainthood).  This state the monk can realize by his own efforts, without the aid of outside agencies.  In all of the Hinayana monasteries, solitary meditation is the rule.  Hinayana stresses the three Refuges--the Buddha, the Dhamma (teachings), and the Sangha (brotherhood of monks).  Hinayana claims to be the only form that follows the original teachings of the Buddha.  In this way, it is also called Theravada Buddhism, or Teachings of the Elders.  The monks, clad in yellow and with shaved heads, go forth in the morning to beg, just as in Gautama's day, and they follow the same daily schedule as in old times.  The whole emphasis of their lives as monks is the acquiring of merit toward salvation.

But while all this is in strict conformity to Gautama's original teachings, even the Hinayana doctrine has developed in the direction of the popularized Buddhism of  the Mahayana school.  For instance, all Hinayanists take a reverent attitude toward the relics of the Buddha, and have made images of him of every size, from the minute to the colossal.  Even Hinayana's Pali texts depart at times from Gautama's own views, and contain essentially many of the ideas elaborated later in the Mahayana.  They, for example, declare what Gautama may have said, although it is doubtful, that he had predecessors in other ages, and that he will have successors, such as Maitreya, a messianic, apocalyptic buddha.

By the time Buddhism, speaking now of the Mahayana, had established itself in countries beyond India, in China and its satellites especially, buddhas and other deities had multiplied to such a degree as to rival in numbers the Hindu gods whom Gautama had opposed as superstition.

An important development of the Mahayana school was the bodhisattva, or buddha-to-be.  Anyone could become at least an arhat, as in Hinayana Buddhism, but in Mahayana they could also become a bodhisattva.  The idea was that once a bodhisattva became a buddha, he could no longer be present to aid humanity, so therefore it was highly desirable and noble indeed for him to remain a bodhisattva.

Unlike Hinayana Buddhism, which stressed the individual and his own and solitary path to salvation, Mahayana offered everyone in the world salvation and in a far less isolated way.  This was accomplished by offering the Buddha's teachings on the one hand, but then, in some sects, by faith alone.  The point was, a person was not required to renounce the world and family and enter a monastery in order to gain salvation.  In the Pure Land sect, for instance, salvation required only faith in Amida Buddha.  One needed only say Amida's name to be saved, in this case to enter Pure Land's paradise.  Tibetan Buddhism, Shingon, and Zen/Chan are among the other Mahayana sects.

Where Hinayanists were lamps only to themselves, Mahayanists were to light the way for others, for the entire world if possible.  The rationale of Mahayanists is that no person lives alone, to himself and no one else.  The whole creation lives as one life and shares a common karma, a common working out of fate, to which every person contributes for good or ill.

THE TRUTHS AND THE PATH

The Buddha's Four Noble Truths are like a physician's diagnosis of an ailment. First, there is the determination that there is a problem, in this case human suffering. As the Buddha put it, birth is suffering; decay is suffering; illness is suffering; death is suffering. Presence of objects we hate is suffering; separation from objects we love is suffering; not to obtain what we desire is suffering; clinging to existence is suffering.

Second of the Truths is the determination that this suffering has a cause. Craving is the cause, the Buddha said, craving in the sense of blind compulsion. Suffering is caused by craving what one cannot have, or craving to avoid what cannot be avoided. Craving money when one is poor leads to suffering; craving health when one is ill leads to suffering; craving immortality in the face of the inevitability of death leads to suffering, etc.

Third of the Truths is the determination that this suffering has a remedy. Suffering ceases with the complete cessation of craving, the Buddha said.

The fourth Truth states that the cessation of craving is accomplished by the Noble Eight-fold Path, which is Right View or Belief, Right Aspiration or Purpose, Right Speech, Right Behavior or Conduct, Right Means of Livelihood, Right Effort or Endeavor, Right Mindfulness or Attentiveness, Right Meditation, Contemplation, or Absorption. The word "right," incidentally, is not in a moral sense but in the sense of correctness, what is accurate.

Right View is an understanding of and belief in the Four-Noble Truths and the possibilities reflected in them. To begin with, a person must look at life for what it truly is. When he understands that his trouble is caused by his not seeing the true facts of this life, and when he accepts responsibility for this, he can proceed to eliminate his craving/suffering. The Buddha said that as long was we see life from the wrong viewpoint, we will continue our craving, as though the things we crave will make us happy.

The second step on the path is Right Aspiration or Purpose. Everyone aspires after something. The trouble is that often we aspire after the wrong things. We do not focus on worthwhile objectives, such as kindness and compassion. Aspiring to kindness and compassion can only occur, stating it further, when we have gone beyond "I," "me," "mine." Self-centeredness has no place in Buddhism.

The first two steps deal with correct understanding while the next three address correct conduct. Accordingly, Right Speech states that one must not participate in gossip, slander, and abusive or idle talk. Our speech must be controlled, considerate, and thoughtful, stemming as it should from kindness and compassion. Right Speech means avoiding all talk that would lead to unhappiness and using instead that speech that would bring about happiness.

Right Behavior means avoiding killing or hurting, and precludes stealing, cheating, and all otherwise immoral activity. One's actions should aim at promoting peace and happiness in others and respecting the well-being of all living creatures.

Right Livelihood extends the principle of Right Behavior to one's chosen profession. It rules out professions that would harm others, such as trading in firearms, liquor, drugs, poisons, killing, etc. Only those means of living that promote peace and well-being are in accord with this principle.

The final group in the Noble Eight-fold Path deals with correct concentration. Here Buddhism is most akin to Brahmanism. The goal of these steps is the pure ecstasy that comes from meditative exercises. Thus, Right Endeavor or Effort entails a commitment to discriminating between wise and unwise desires and attachments, with a determination to live a liberated life. This sets the stage for Right Mindfulness.

By Right Mindfulness or Attentiveness the Buddha meant paying attention to all of one's activites, be they of the body, of sensing and feeling, of perceiving, or of thinking. Being attentive this way means understanding what these activities are, how they arise, how they are developed, controlled, linked together, and, if need be, gotten rid of. Being aware this way yields a calmness that in turn sets the stage for the final step, Right Concentration.

Right Concentration, Meditation, or Absorption is the turning away from unwholesome mental activites such as lust, ill-will, laziness, worry, anxiety, and doubt,and replacing them with feelings of joy and happiness. Next is seeing through and getting beyond ALL mental activities, no matter what they are, and replacing them, once again, with feelings of joy and happiness. This is followed by a going beyond joy and happiness and proceeding to feelings of equanimity. Finally comes complete equanimity beyond all feelings, which is bliss, nirvana.

At the heart of the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eight-fold Path is the Buddha's contention that the mind is behind everything. If we are unhappy, the mind can be blamed. If we are happy, the mind can be thanked. As the Buddhist Dammapada puts it:

"Mind precedes all unwholesome states and is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts, misery follows him like the wheel that dogs the foot of the ox. Mind precedes all wholesome states and is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts, happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow.