First Thoughts on Buddhism

In The Foundations of Buddhism, Gethin describes a commonly held outsider belief of Buddhism: “On the basis of its analysis of the problem of suffering, some have concluded that Buddhism must be judged a bleak, pessimistic and world-denying philosophy” (62). From a literary standpoint (I’m considering being an English major after all,) I admire Gethin’s placement of this idea, considering that the few pages before this passage left me with the same feeling. Mostly this feeling arose after reading how “suffering” or duhkha could apply to situation such as coming home tired and stressed. Perhaps because of the nature of society today with the idea of remaining “busy” held on high pedestal or because I am a college student, I think that being tired of stressed is a normal part of life. I don’t like being stressed per se, but I do enjoy being tired in some circumstance because I feel accomplished. So for these reasons I was a bit turned off during that point of the reading. However, I do find other aspects of Buddhism quite appealing and applicable to everyday life regardless of one’s religious status, such as the striving to let go of action based on guilt, jealousy or other strong emotion.

Thoughts on Nirvana

When reading the section on nirvana in chapter 3 of Gethin (p.74-79) I had some thoughts about nirvana and how a person would know if they had truly reached or experienced nirvana.

In the text, Gethin differentiates a person that has experienced nirvana and a person that hasn't by saying, "all his or her thoughts, words, and deeds are completely free of the motivations of greed, aversion, and delusion, and motivated instead entirely by generosity, friendliness, and wisdom" (p. 75). However, the text also makes a point to say that a person who has experienced nirvana will still continue to live in the world with other humans, and will "think, speak, and act as other people do" (p.75). My thoughts are, how would a person know when they've truly experienced nirvana? There is a quote from the Udana in the text that describes what the Buddha's mind experienced at the moment of nirvana, which certainly seems to be an indicator of having experienced nirvana. But keeping one's thoughts completely free of greed and delusion is not an easy task, and must take enormous effort to maintain throughout one's life. If you've experienced nirvana, does that mean that it is effortless to keep ones thoughts completely motivated by generosity and wisdom after that moment? Or, as stated before how people having experienced nirvana will continue to act like the others around them, does it still take all the concentration and effort that it did before? And finally, if this is the case and they still need to work to keep their thoughts in order, does that mean a person can (and this wording is I'm sure incorrect or problematic, but I'm not quite sure how else to put it) "leave" that awakened state if they accidentally "slip up" and have a thought that is not devoid of delusion?

If it's not already obvious, I have a very basic understanding of these philosophies, and I hope that even suggesting being able to leave an awakened state isn't an offensive question to ask.

Two Rivers to Cross?

Two Rivers to Cross?

In The Concealed Art of the Soul, Ganeri, while discussing the instrumentality of the Buddha’s truth, says, “the Buddha, clearly, does not regard the truth even of his own teachings as having an unconditional value. The truth is not a holy grail, something to which everything else has to be sacrificed. So the value of truth is conditional” (55). The relationship between truth and condition seem to steer the teachings of the Buddha towards a subjective sphere. The objectiveness of the truth is therefore limited to an individual level of receptivity. This idea brings me back to the idea of multiple rivers or even currents within the raft metaphor.

Are there multiple rivers if the end is subjective or even indeterminate/ without limit (45)? Do we cross these rivers with new truths, as our situation and conditions change? Or perhaps, is the river just really wide, and the way in which we might perceive there to be multiple rivers is in fact the product of large currents? If the truth is applied subjectively, how is reality seen to be objective (for example, this object is yellow, a fruit, and has seeds, therefore it must be a lemon)? The latter of my question might go back to how convenience and language interrelate to describe reality.

Also, the idea of interpreting the ‘two truths’ as a hermeneutical device, as a device that should “certainly not to be confused with the philosophical distinction between appearance and reality” (59), is perhaps where I am going wrong! Maybe as I ponder multiple truths and rivers, I am confused with the distinction between appearance and reality AND truth.

Thoughts?

On the Coin's Edge: Buddhism and Madhyama

 (My writings are built on an understanding of the fifth chapter of Foundations of Buddhism, written by Rupert Gethin. I will quote a few specific passages but the argument arises from the chapter. I will also briefly mention the Nikayas.)

The teachings of the no self, which tell us that the "I" of the moment is something like the beads on an infinite necklace, connected to other lives by the events that make up the chain, but ultimately insubstantial, circular, holding together but worn by nothing and no one. Yet this chain provides a sense of stability despite the empty lack of a neck, claiming neither to exist or to not exist--simply to be, broken only by awakening. And the understanding of the necklace, of the links that make up its change, of the life-beads that string it, allows it to be unlatched, for that web of events to cease growing.

This is the middle path, madhyama, one of the great challenges of Buddhism, for the temptation to pick either "is" or "is not" is so overwhelming that the Buddha warns about being entangled in its conflict (Brahmajala Sutta, Buddha's warning quoted in full on pages 148-149 of the Ganethin text). The middle way involves neither grasping at notions of importance that would lead us to believe in the self (Ganethin text, page 146), believing that we are constant, that we do not change--although the whole world changes!--or denying that there are links, that the particular bead on the chain that is inhabited at this point in time has its own influences, its own shaping marks, becoming more or less inclined toward all the different branches of life (Ganethin text, page 145). Specifically, "the middle way is that there is only the connectedness, there is only dependent arising" (Ganethin text, page 145), where dependent arising is the idea of the web of causality, that we are constantly changed by every decision and event, so much so that no "we" truly exists, for it differs so much as it passes through its lives. "No substantial self endures during a lifetime, so no substantial self endures from death to rebirth," writes Ganethin (page 144).

The middle path requires an effort of will to grasp, but it, in Buddhist philosophy, differentiates Buddhism from nihilism (Ganethin text, 144). And the Buddha would argue, I think, that the middle path spares us of the turmoil of worrying whether or not there is or is not. In the Nikayas, I quote, "Whether one holds the view that world is infinite [...] or finite, there is still birth, aging, death, grief, despair, pain, and unhappiness--and it is the destruction of these here and now that I declare" (The Short Dialogue

         with Maluitky, section 430).

Thoughts on "The Short Dialogue with Malunkya"

In "The Short Dialogue with Malunkya," Malunkya asked the Buddha if he could explain some questions about if the world is finite or eternal, if the soul is connected to or separate from the body, and what happens after death. The Buddha tells Malunkya that the answers to the questions don't matter because they won't bring him closer to achieving enlightenment or nirvana. However, if the Buddha knew the answers, what would be the harm in divulging them? If the Buddha did not know the answers, why didn't he just say so? As Malunkya says, "But if the Blessed One does not know . . . then the only honest thing . . . is to say, 'I don't know, I don't see.'" Could admitting he doesn't know make him lose face (Probably not, but it was the only possible explanation I could think of)? The last possibility is that these questions are "by their very nature unanswerable." Maybe the ones about the soul being connected to the body and what happens after death, but if you remember the story of how the Buddha became enlightened, you might remember that the earth stood up as witness to the Buddha's pledge to teach others because it is eternal; the earth is the thing that remains. 
I have a feeling that the Buddha knew the answers, but told Malunkya a lie to protect him. Maybe Malunkya would grasp the truth incorrectly, like grasping the tail of a snake, or fixate on the answers as one must not do. Convincing him that knowing the answers would not help him achieve enlightenment or nirvana was probably the right thing to do, because in the end, "Malunkyaputta felt joy at the Blessed One's words. 

The Simile of the Snake in connection with the Simile of the Raft

The simile of the snake and the simile of the raft are both very important and telling teachings of the Buddha. The two together lay out the way in which truth should be grasped in order to be free one from suffering. The simile of the snake applies to the actual grasping of the truth of Buddha's teachings while the simile of the raft explains what to do after one has successfully grasped the teachings. The simile of the snake, in basic terms, is saying that the truth of Buddha's teachings must be handled in the same way as catching a snake. One must grab the snake by the head to prevent a fatal bite but this fatal bite may come if the snake is grabbed by the tail. This implies that there is a right and wrong way to take hold of the truth and the wrong way can be deadly. Ganeri explains this further by saying, "The truth wrongly seized will bite the one who grabs it" (Ganeri 43).

The simile of the raft speaks more specifically to what to do after one has grasped the snake properly or in this case, crossed the river successfully. To cross a river to safety, one must build and use a raft. This raft can be seen as Buddha's teachings. The teachings are used to cross the dangerous river to the better and safer land. When one arrives at the other side, the question is: what do I do with this raft? It has helped so much along the dangerous river and is the only thing that helped me to safety so, why would I merely discard it now? The Buddha is saying, why would you choose to lug around a heavy raft when you don't need to cross any more rivers? The teachings helped along the way but are not of use anymore. In my opinion, this can be directly connected to the simile of the snake. Just as one must let go of the heavy raft, one must also eventually let go of the snake. There will come a time when one becomes exhausted from holding the snakes head so firmly and the grip starts to loosen and if it loosens too much, it will result in a fatal bite even though the initial grasp was successful.

“It’s an Arittha World, and I’m Just Living in It”

 Throughout my lifetime and the interactions I’ve experienced thus far, I’ve seen to have met a plentiful majority share of those with rafts piled high on their backs and many swinging snakes overhead with the grasp of their tail. When the time came in my life years ago when I was asked to take inventory and specifically label my religious orientation, the best answer I had was, ‘I have no idea what that means.’ My uncertainty was met ultimately with trying to label and explain in words the transcendent thing in my life that couldn’t be explained, something that could be defined I suppose as a ‘religious experience’. What I struggled to understand was how others belonging to a specific religion or religious denomination were more involved with texts and terms and accumulated knowledge and lacked any interest in addressing the fundamental truths veiled beneath the abstracts and in practicing the ‘truth’ in daily life. I’ve come across modern day Arittha’s who misinterpret the truth and fail to grasp the totality of meaning. In response to my blog post last week, ‘What does it mean to be religious?’,  the answer ‘to be religious’ among world consensus might be more closely tied to the variance of the value of truth within each individual realm. The teachings of Buddha and Dhamma seem to make the answer more clear. In personal experience, the Snake and Raft similes seem to nail the bulls eye. With a compassionate and honest eye, I’ve witnessed more blind interpretations among those devoutly ‘religious’, seemingly farthest from themselves and many who instrumentally conceive teachings without any regard for the active pursuit of underlying truth and the self reflective practice that sustains time. Those who grab the snake’s tail while waving to the raft holders seem to interpret in the wrong context and acknowledge truth as an absolute, an end. With the idea of the thought consuming notion of ‘means to an end’, where is room for the journey itself? With a more pliable mind and receptive eye, there seems to be a greater chance at defeating self-deception that can insurmountably confiscate efforts in attaining the ultimate truth. We may live in a world of Arittha’s that make it difficult to understand the truth in it’s genuine context, but that’s the beauty of the journey-to assimilate, to be open and to have an active reflective acceptance of the truth.