THERAVADA BUDDHISM

The term "Theravada" means "Teaching of the Elders."  Theravada Buddhism is found in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand.

Theravadins maintain that they alone possess the true doctrines and disciplines of Buddhism, while others are either too rigid or too lax in their interpretation. 

Theravada, originally called Hinayana, has kept the Buddhist scriptures in Pali rather than Sanskrit, which is employed, along with other languages, in the Mahayana schools.  The Pali dialect is used because Sanskrit is moreover the language of Brahmanism which Theravadins reject.

Theravadin beliefs include that the Buddha was a man like any other, the difference being his high state of understanding and intuition into life as it truly is.

Theravadins further believe that Buddhism has nothing to do with religious mysticism or with dreams and ecstasies, visions and trances, which other religions, including various forms of the Mahayana, regard as leading to supernatural powers. 

They also hold that belief in a permanent self or soul is a pernicious error, the result of longing for a deathless life which is certain to produce attachment to life.

The central institution of Theravada Buddhism is the Sangha, the celibate Brotherhood of bhikkus (monks) who wander about singly or in small groups begging for a livelihood and existing in utmost simplicity.  Some women may also belong to such groups.

Theravada stresses the Three Refuges, namely the Buddha, the Dharma (teachings), and again the Sangha.

Theravada is dismissed by Mahayanists, especially the Chinese, who say that it is merely a preparation for more complex methods.  They say too that it is preached to disciples of limited receptiveness.

BUDDHIST LOVE

The training of Buddhist monks in the Theravada school includes sitting quietly in a concentrated effort to love all beings.  Yet is this all-encompassing love likely to be achieved by a cloistered monk?  How, in other words, can love issue from a person engrossed in his own salvation? 

What the Buddha evidently meant was that the love which his disciples should cultivate should be a love of everyone, but not the love of any one.  It is not like the love of one individual for another, which is a relation of dependence and passionate attachment and therefore fraught with potential miseries. 

Kept on a high, impersonal level, this broader love could bring no pain, the Buddha held.  Nothing could check it.  Bestowed on good and evil alike, it would not waver.  Nor was it affected by the response it met.  Through every rebuff, it remained inalienable.

THE BUDDHA'S VIEW OF NIRVANA

On the surface, Nirvana seems a completely negative conception. It means the end, the "blowing out" of existence, so that there will be no more reincarnation, and since the elements (skandhas) constituting a person are now dispersed, it would seem that Nirvana is "annihilation." 

But the Buddha would not say this.  He did not know whether this was true.  All he knew, and all he cared to know, was that Nirvana was the end of painful becoming;  an eternal state of being, it was the final peace.  

Western minds trained in logical and analytical thinking boggle at this.  The Buddha, however, declared that Nirvana was far more than merely a negative condition.  Rather, it was a state of bliss."

ARAHATSHIP

The "arahat" is the  Buddhist saint, the ideal of Theravada, original Buddhism.  Arahatship is the state of "him who is worthy," of him "who has reached the end of the Eightfold Path." 

The arahat has conquered "the three intoxications"--sensuality, ignorance, and the "thirst" leading to rebirth.  He enjoys the "higher insight" (sambodhi) with its mingling of joy, energy, calm, benevolence, and concentration. 

His joy is deep, because he has already had a foretaste of Nirvana in his achieving the highest state of consciousness.  For the balance of his days he will know the bliss of salvation from misery-producing desires.

The energy of the arahat is purely spiritual.  He no longer feels suffering, and takes no pleasure in earthly joys.   He is able to say, "I do not wish for death, I do not wish for life."  In this state he awaits with calm contentment and without fear the "putting out of his lamp of life," which is the entrance into final Nirvana at death.  Just what this final state will be, he does not greatly care.  He is free.

THE PATH

The steps of the Noble Eightfold Path fall under three headings:  understanding, morals, and concentration.  They are so planned as to lead progressively to arahatship (sainthood) and thus finally to Nirvana.

The first step in the Eightfold Path is Right Belief, that is, belief in the Four Noble Truths and the view of life implied in them. 

The next step, Right Aspiration or Purpose, is reached by resolving to overcome sensuality, by having the right love of others, by causing no harm to other beings, and by suppressing all misery-producing desires generally.

The third and fourth steps, Right Speech and then Right Conduct, are defined as not indulging in loose or harmful talk or ill-will. 

Right Means of Livelihood, the fifth step, means obtaining one's livelihood in ways consistent with Buddhist principles, such as, again, bringing no harm to others.

The sixth step, Right Effort, implies unremitting intellectual alertness in discriminating between wise and unwise desires and attachments. 

Right Mindfulness, the seventh step, comes of well-disciplined thought habits and attention to topics helpful to oneself and to others.

Lastly, Right Meditation or Absorption refers to the climax of all the other processes, the final attainment of states of consciousness that assure passage at death into Nirvana, all karma consumed, and rebirth forever at an end.

ETHICS CLARIFIED

The first, and negative, principle in the Buddha's ethics requires strict non-indulgence in the cravings, desires that clearly produce suffering.  Any form of desire whose indulgence entails misery is to be overcome. 

But how is one to know that the desires he is indulging in are of this sort?  The first three of the Four Noble Truths provide the criterion:  Where life becomes miserable, the misery is always the result of partaking in some sort of desire, hence such misery-producing desires are to be abandoned.

The Buddha, however, does not condemn all desires.  Salvation obviously cannot be attained by negative means alone.  Hence, the second, and positive, principle in the Buddha's ethics states that by the attainment of the right or truly joy-bringing desires, one can transcend completely, and erase from consciousness, the kinds of desires that produce suffering. 

The fourth of the Four Noble Truths therefore asserts that desires whose indulgence will not result in an increase of misery, but rather in the decrease or elimination of it, are the desires leading to salvation. 

The ultimate goal is that all desires will be swallowed up in the complete peace of no-desire.

DIAGNOSIS AND PRESCRIPTION

The Buddha's solution to the problem of human suffering begins with his Four Noble Truths.  These he presents in the form of a doctor's diagnosis and prescription.  First he states that there is a problem, then he details what the problem is, then he states that there is a cure, and finally he prescribes the cure.

The Noble Truth of Suffering:   Birth is suffering; illness is suffering; decay 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.

The Noble Truth of the Cause of Suffering:  Suffering is the result of craving that leads to rebirth, accompanied by pleasure and lust.  It is the craving for pleasure, the craving for existence, and the craving for abundance.

The Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering:  Suffering ceases with the complete cessation of this craving, with the abandoning of this craving, with the doing away with it, with the deliverance from it, with the destruction of all desire.

The Noble Truth of the Path that leads to the cessation of suffering:  Right Belief, Right Aspiration, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Means of Livelihood, Right Endeavor, Right Mindfulness, Right Meditation.  This is the holy Eightfold Path.

THE BUDDHA'S CONCLUSION

The Buddha concluded that humans suffered from three frustrating conditions:  impermanence (annica), the ultimate unreality of the self (anatta), and suffering (dukka), the third following remorselessly upon the other two. 

Impermanence was the big one.  The Buddha saw that it was foolish for humans to cling with longing, as most people did, to sentient life and its pitifully few pleasures, when all through life the pain of change was so predominant.

At the same time, this will-to-live-and-to-have, this "thirst" for the world and its objects was by far the most striking of the characteristics that passed from one existence to another. 

If this clinging could be made to die away, then the chief cause of rebirth would be removed, the Buddha believed.  If it could be made to die away, then it should be made to do so.

WHAT THE BUDDHA ACCEPTED

Two major Hindu doctrines the Buddha accepted.  He believed in the law of karma and in reincarnation, albeit with modifications to both. 

In the Buddha's view, a person of any caste or class could experience so complete a change of disposition as to escape the full consequences of transgressions in previous lives.  This is a change in position from the traditional view that the law of karma operated remorselessly and without an inch of remission for past misdeeds.

As for the doctrine of reincarnation, the Buddha held firmly to this, but with the somewhat puzzling view that no actual soul-substance passed over from one existence to another.  The Buddha's reflection upon his own personality led him to deny that any of its elements had any permanence.  All there was was an impermanent aggregation or composite of constantly changing states of being.  At death, this aggregation dispersed. 

But if no substantial entity, a "soul" or a "psyche," passed over from one existence to the next, how could the Buddha hold to the doctrine of reincarnation?  The Buddha went on to explain that all that passed over to the next life was a karma-laden character structure, likened to a seal pressed upon wax.  A particular individuality in one existence was the direct cause of the type of individuality in the next.

WHAT THE BUDDHA REJECTED

The Buddha rejected philosophical speculation (jnana marga, the way of knowledge).  He was  not interested in philosophizing as long as so many humanly vital concerns remained unaddressed.  His interest was more in the area of what is now considered psychology. 

The Buddha also dismissed devotion (bhakti marga) as a way of salvation.  While he believed that the universe abounded in gods, goddesses, demons, and other nonhuman powers and agencies, all were without exception finite, subject to death and rebirth, in his view.  Since there was no transcendent, eternal Being, prayer and other forms of devotion were of no avail.

The Buddha also put no reliance on the Vedas, or on practice of their nature worship, or on the performance of their rituals as a means of redemption.  Nor did he accept going to the Brahmins as priests.  This is why Buddhism is a heresy to the devout Hindu.

BHAGAVATA PURANA

Of all Hindu works, the Bhagavata Purana ranks next to the Bhagavad Gita in popularity.  The legendary Maharshi Veda Vyasa, author of the Mahbharata, is accredited with the composition of it.

The Bhagavata is a complex synthesis of numerous streams of Hindu thought in many literary forms, from the purest Bhakti hymns to a variety of stories.  There are retellings of ancient myths, with much emotion, some eroticism, and a good mixture of anthropomorphism.  The doctrine of lila, divine sportive play, explains the creation.

Composed in the ninth or tenth century A.D., the Bhagavata is written in a lofty and difficult form of Sanskrit.  There are twelve sections divided into 320 chapters.  The tenth section of ninety chapters tells the story of Lord Krishna.

The view of Krishna here is considerably different from that of the Bhagavad Gita.  In the Bhagavata, we see Krishna in a more human and semi-divine aspect rather than fully divine.  He is seen partaking in ordinary life, with special emphasis on his childhood and youth.

KARMA IN BHAKTI

According to karma, one is fated to undergo the suffering consequent to one's past lives, for whatever good or evil one may have done.  But in bhakti, the way of devotion, karma is set aside.  The devotee expects that the Divine will return love for love and will alter or ignore the predestined course of karma.  As this is in conflict with basic Hindu beliefs, brahmins (priestly caste) have balked at it.  The matter has yet to be settled, even as it is generally ignored by the masses.

AVATARS IN BHAKTI

The Divine manifesting itself on the earth in some form, be it animal or human, in order to aid humankind in times of trouble, is the phenomenon of the avatar.  It is an underlying theme of bhakti, the way of devotion.  Krishna as the charioteer in the Bhagavad Gita is the supreme example of the avatar.  Avatars, though, are endless and beyond count in bhakti.

While the Bhagavad Gita is the major bhakti text, the Bhagavata Purana is of equal importance. The Purana is a grand synthesis of the many themes and schools of bhakti, and contains not only bhakti presented in its fullest, but also many legends, folk stories, discourses, theological and philosophical asides, and bits of anthropology and sociology, centered around hundreds of avatars, saints, heroes, gods, and holy people.

BHAKTI

Bhakti is the path of devotion as opposed to the path of knowledge (jnana marga) and the path of works (karma marga) in Vedanta. 

The Bhagavad Gita is the first major expression of bhakti.  It centers on the adoration of Vishnu, who appears in the person of Krishna, the charioteer, in the work.  Other popular deities worshipped in bhakti are Shiva and Shakti.

When the bhakti movement first began to gain popularity, it attracted brahmins (priestly caste) in large numbers.  However, since it disregarded traditional Vedic rituals, often ignored caste differences--many of the bhakti saints and leaders were of the lowest castes--and emphasized devotion over, especially, knowledge, bhakti fell out of favor with brahmins. And brahmins traditionally favored calm speculation when it came to religious matters, compared to bhakti which preferred mystical exuberance.

Bhakti is essentially the religion of the masses of India, since it enables the individual to approach the Divine directly and to become a part of his/her all-encompassing love.