The Role of Monasteries

In March 2008 Melvin Bragg's 'In Our Time' show focussed on the dissolution of the monasteries of Britain in the 16th century by King Henry VIII. Although the monasteries were wealthy and this was something that lead to their downfall, I was struck by how the role of the monasteries was defined: they were there to pray for the nation and the king. There is a parallel here with Japan in the Nara and Heian periods - the two eras which Kūkai's life straddled.

Before the dissolution there was probably no place in the UK more than thirty minutes from a monastery. European monasteries had a routine of daily prayers which were always the same, and chanted or sung at the same time every day. They also celebrated saints days and festivals. In the case of Japanese monasteries the chants were Buddhist sūtras, but otherwise the form and function were very similar.

Monastery and monk are related to the word mono and all convey the idea of 'singular', an individual or one alone. Clearly the term must have applied originally to hermits or anchorites. Anochorite comes from Greek anakhoretes, lit. "one who has retired." However these days we understand a monk to be someone who lives communally. The term for this is 'cenobite' from the Greek koinobion "life in community, monastery." The traditional terms bhikṣu/bhikkhu are often translated as 'monk', and this works because although bhikkhus were likely to have been anchorites in the very early days, they have mostly been cenobites for many centuries. The word 'nun' by the way comes from an entirely different source - it is a name for a female elder and is related to 'nana' (which is what we called my grand-mothers as kids).

I like this image of numerous widespread groups of people whose sole responsibility was praying for the benefit of the nation and the king or queen. Of course this was before the present scientific era, and prayer was a far more prominent approach to dealing with suffering. These days we think that science and technology have suffering beat. There is no doubt that scientific medicine has made a huge difference in our lives - we live longer, survive diseases that might have killed us, and have a more comfortable life generally. However we still grow old, still get sick (in ways that cannot be simply cured by drugs), and we still die. These facts are very much at the heart of the Buddhist definition of suffering, and they haven't changed. Often we feel a greater sense of unease about old-age, sickness and death and I think this is why a rigidly rational approach to life fails to satisfy. Keep in mind here that recent research on the placebo effect has shown that if we believe that prayer helps us recover from illness, then it will help!

I think it's fair to say that the image of the Buddhist monk these days is quite different, and to be fair the monks themselves seem ambivalent about what they are doing. I have heard it said that becoming a monk is a selfish act. I disagree with this, but I can see where the idea might have come from. Monks don't work, and rely on others for their living. This is inimical to the Protestant work ethic, and so is frowned on in the west. Monks appear to reject worldly things, although it is clear that many monks maintain an active engagement with worldly things. Rejecting materialism is not always viewed positively in western culture, but it is hard to see how a monk with a computer, ipod and pension plan can really be said to be a renunciant. The clearest mark of a monk is celibacy something which is clearly fraught with problems. Celibacy as a lifestyle choice is a mystery to most of us. We don't see how it could benefit anyone - though I note that a recent New Scientist article suggests that irrational acts of sacrifice help to reinforce belief in others.*

The idea that a Buddhist monk might have become a monk for the benefit of all beings has not really taken root because it's not obvious how beings benefit from such behaviour. In the current world view it is not clear "what is in it for me" to support monks. Sadly many of us do not take the effects of acts of devotion seriously, despite the evidence.

Japanese monks focussed on a small number of Mahāyāna texts which state that anyone who chants the sūtra will gain protection from misfortune for themselves, the nation and the king - for instance the Golden Light Sutra. They took this on face value and set up a network of regional temples for the purpose of chanting there sutras. Another aspect of supporting monks is the accumulation of merit (puñña/puṇya). By acting meritoriously one tried to attain a more fortunate rebirth from which the pursuit of liberation is easier. The role of lay people in Buddhist society often devolves to simply supporting monks. At worst the role of the monks is simply to teach lay people how to follow the rituals about supporting the monks. An example of this is the Sri Lankan bhikkhus who go to India to meet with the Dalits and rather than teaching them the Four Noble Truths, or how to meditate, focus on the correct procedure for bowing to a bhikkhu.

There are now a number of well established Buddhist monasteries in the West. I've not had any direct experience of them - though friends of mine have.** I think one of the reasons that the FWBO has not yet developed monasteries is that we are not entirely clear what they are for. Long solitary retreats are quite popular, and some longer retreats (particularly the annual three month order retreat at Guhyaloka) are now available. But what role would a monastery play? I know that a number of my colleagues are interested in this question and it will be intriguing to see if we develop a cenobitical lifestyle at part of the FWBO mix.

Notes

* Holmes, B. "Suffering for your beliefs makes others believe too," New Scientist volume 202 no 2710, 30 May 2006, p.9. On the New Scientists website as "Religions owe their success to suffering matyrs".
** See for instance Jayasiddhi. June at Gampo Abbey.

image: Tiger's Nest Monastery, Bhutan. unusuallife.com

Eternalism

'Eternalism' is the English translation of the Pāli terms sassatavāda or sassatadiṭṭhi. The former indicates the profession of a doctrine of eternalism, indicated by the word vāda meaning 'speech' or 'words'; while the second is the eternalist view or belief, using the word diṭṭhi 'see', or 'view' and by metaphor an 'idea'. In practice they are more or less synonymous. Sassata, therefore, should mean something like 'eternal'.

The Pāli English Dictionary (PED) suggests that sassata comes from the Vedic śaśvat, and means 'eternal, perpetual'. So far I have not found a convincing etymology of the word śaśvat. It is used in some form in the older books of the Ṛgveda, but not often. Of the words that begin with śaś- the vast majority are to do with hares or rabbits, or with the moon. Ancient Indians saw a rabbit in the moon and so named it, amongst other things, Śaśin - literally 'with a rabbit'. The root śaś is said to mean 'leap' and a rabbit is a leaper. These other words however all suggest something recurring: śaśaya, śaśīyas, śaśvadhā, śaśvāya, śaśvata, śaśvatika. Now one of these in particular gives us some information. Śaśīyas is a comparative in which the suffix -īyas is added to an adjective. The dictionary tells us that śaśīyas means 'more numerous, mightier, richer'. This suggests that there is an adjective śaśi or śaśī meaning 'numerous, mighty, rich', and a verbal root śaś. However neither is in the dictionary, or in the Whitney's list of verbal roots. As one friend said - not every word can be traced to a verbal root, and śaśvat may be irreducible. If there were a root śaś then the suffix -vat might be a possessive, and śaśvat may be conceived of as something like possessing numerousness. Etymology not withstanding the basic idea conveyed by śaśvat seems to be recurrent rebirth and redeath (punarbhava and punarmṛtyu).

Skeat's etymological dictionary relates "eternal" to the Indo-European root √i 'to go' which occurs in Sanskrit as the verb 'eti'. The same verb occurs in Pāli, and in the imperative may be familiar from the phrase ehi bhikkhu - "come monk" - with which the Buddha indicated that he had accepted someone as a disciple. The word comes into English via the Latin word ævum meaning 'age' or 'life period'. Eternal, age and aeon are related words.

This illustrates that when we translate we need to sensitive to nuance, because eternal suggests to an English speaker something which is 'always on'. And unending process or state. Whereas the India word suggests something which happens again and again, an recurrent process and a repeating state. Thought these two concepts are related, they are not identical. However eternalism is so established as the translation of sassata that I doubt it will change because I say so!

Let us turn to what eternalism is according to the Pāli Canon. We do not have to go far because sassatavāda is defined near the beginning of the first Sutta in the Canon - the Brahmajala Sutta. The eternalist doctrine is said to be applied in two ways: to the ātman and to the loko. I think that this is one of those occasions where the word 'loka' means the material world. We might translate it here as 'universe'. There are four ways that one can come to hold the sassata doctrine. The first three of these are of most interest to us. Firstly a person may, through meditation, experience recall of very many previous lives. And they may conclude that this process simply goes on for ever. Or they may, again in meditation, see either a few, or many world ages (these are two of the four cases). A world age is the almost infinitely long period in which the universe is created, persists, and is destroyed in a conflagration. Having seen these repeat themselves in visionary meditative experiences a person may come to believe that they just keep happening without end. The fourth involves reasoning - one simply comes up with a metaphysical theory. These kinds of theories are not all bad - the theories of physics and chemistry for instance are useful even though we know them to be only models - but in this case the theory is not helpful.

The idea that the ātman comes back again and again is a view from the early phase of Upaniṣads. Already in the later parts of the Ṛgveda there are hints that the Brahmins believed that having died here one went to the fathers (pitṛ) there, but after a time returned to live here again. This process seems to have been endless. In the Bṛhadāranyka Upaniṣad (BU) the idea undergoes a refinement which Johannes Bronkhorst associates with the śramaṇa group known as Ājivakas. We mainly know about the Ājivakas from the polemics against them in Buddhist texts. In the first chapter of BU there is a form of rebirth which is a cycling between this world and 'the other' and it is the ātman which journeys between the two. Note that here there is no sign of a way out of the cycle - no liberation or mokṣa. Later on again the Brahmins adopted the idea of mokṣa. Note that the reference to this world and the next is commonplace in the Pāli texts - which suggests that this version of rebirth remained current alongside other theories, for sometime.

Why is a view that the ātman or the universe is eternal a bad thing? It is because there is no possibility of escape from the cycle. Escape from the cycle, liberation, mokṣa was a crucial aspect of the what the Buddha offered to his followers. It is likely that the Buddha was not the first to talk about escaping the round of rebirth, that the Jains and Ājivakas also believed that escape was possible which is what motivated them to do severe austerities. But clearly some people in the Buddha's day still believed in this relatively unsophisticated view of rebirth and did not accept that liberation was possible. If we do not believe in liberation we won't be motivated to practice with the intensity required for liberation. So the eternalist belief is counter-productive.

You may be wondering why these ancient metaphysics are still relevant. If we believe in rebirth at all, we certainly don't literally believe in an endless cycle of rebirths. Western Buddhists tend to take on views of rebirth consistent with whatever Buddhist tradition they follow, and they are forewarned against eternalism. It turns out the any kind of eternalistic belief denies the possibility of liberation, any kind of unchanging entity fouls up the logic of it. And we do tend to have eternalistic beliefs. The whole world view of Christianity is based around ideas of an eternal God, and an eternal soul; eternal heaven, eternal damnation. Salvation is not based on being liberated from suffering, but from an acceptance of Christ leading to eternity in heaven. Many Western Buddhists, even those not overtly bought up as Christians, will have a view like this lurking somewhere in their psyche. More over the idea of an eternal soul plays along with the human tendency to see ourselves as continuous over time, and going on with out end - we think we're going to live forever and so we don't face the world as though our time here is limited and precious.