Suffering, Nihilism, and the Buddha

A quick search on Google is sure to reveal that the idea that "everything is suffering" persists amongst Buddhists. This misunderstanding of the Four Truths of the Noble Ones* has been particularly tenacious and pernicious. It has lead some people to label Buddhism as nihilistic, though such an idea is clearly bonkers. However the fact that the misunderstanding persists amongst Buddhists does not help. The arguments usually goes that because every thing (thing in the sense of an object of the senses) is impermanent and insubstantial (anicca and anatta in Pāli) that we suffer. All conditioned things are impermanent, therefore all conditioned things are suffering.

In his Survey of Buddhism (p.142ff) Sangharakshita makes an important contribution to understanding the truths of the Noble Ones. He points out that the Buddha made a distinction between doctrine and method. The charge of nihilism is a categorical mistake: the truths of the Noble Ones are methodological rather than doctrinal. This is evidenced in Sariputta's discourse, the Sammadiṭṭhi Sutta. In this sutta the content of the first Truth is shown to be unfixed. Suffering can be replaced by food, birth and death, name and form, or ignorance. The doctrinal principle is dependent arising. The truths of the Noble Ones are an application of that doctrine to the problem of suffering. Suffering is a good starting place, Sangharakshita tells us, because as an experience it is ubiquitous. Also being a experience it is not so susceptible to being intellectualised. Meditating on a concept is far less efficacious than meditating on an experience.

The matter is made quite clear in the saṃyutta nikāya in a sutta addressed to a layman called Mahāli (S 22.60 = S iii.68ff). Mahāli has been talking with another spiritual teacher who claims that there is no cause and effect, no reason for "defilement" (saṃkilesa), and therefore, by implication, no reason for the problem of suffering. Shit happens. The Buddha tells Mahāli that there is indeed a cause for suffering.

Forms are neither exclusively unpleasant (dukkha) nor are they exclusive pleasurable (sukha). The same is true of feelings, perceptions, volitions and consciousness - ie the five khandhas (Sanskrit skandha). If everything was suffering then beings would not become attracted to anything. But because experience has a pleasurable aspect we do become attracted to it; and being attracted we do become captivated by pleasure; and being captivated by pleasure we are defiled, which is it say we suffer. There is good sense here. If everything was suffering then how would be become trapped in desire for experience since no one, ultimately not even the masochist, desires suffering? The charge of nihilism was never sensible, but it should obvious from this sutta that the claim that "everything is suffering" is also not sensible.

The Buddha tells Mahāli that the converse is also important. Because if everything was pleasurable then there would be no way for us to become disillusioned with experience, and to seek a way beyond birth and death. It is only by withdrawing from obsession with sensual experience that liberation becomes possible.

It's all too easy to get caught up in various kinds of literalism. This is an aspect of what the Buddha is telling Mahāli. Ideas are attractive, we become captivated by them, and we start thinking that ideas, or opinions about things are real, or true (the same word, sacca, is used for both in Pāli). Any kind of absolutism is likely to be a fallacy. In fact any kind of strongly held opinion is likely to be a fallacy, or based on one. This is why focusing on experience, as the Buddha so frequently does, is so useful. Suffering is not generally a matter of opinion. It would be nice to think that having pointed out an error, the error will be eliminated, but this is all too unlikely given our intoxication and obsession with sensual experience. Hopefully the Mahāli Sutta will at least stimulate some reflection.


There is a translation of the Mahāli Sutta on Access to Insight. In Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation: p.903f (single vol. ed.)


* The great philologist K.R. Norman has shown that "Noble Truths" is unlikely to be the correct translation of ariyasacca, and that truths of the Noble Ones is far more likely. I have therefore adopted this as my standard translation.

You say you want a revolution?

The environment is going belly up. Wars, violent insurgencies, armed conflicts are the norm; kids with guns turn up at school and shoot their classmates, or shoot each other in the streets. The list goes on. What the world needs now, more than anything, a Buddhist might say, is the Dharma, even a Dharma Revolution.

Buddhism has always been, along with Islam and Christianity, a missionary religion. Right from the beginning the Buddha set out to convince people that his Awakening was accessible to all, to convert them. In the past Buddhism has been a great force for good in Asia - spreading education, literacy, and positive values, promoting stable societies. Buddhist states, contrary to popular opinion, have not always been at peace with themselves, or with the neighbours. But I do see Buddhist teachings and practices as a practical solution to life's problems, large and small. There's a vocal minority who are antithetical to spreading the Dharma. In the UK, for instance, those organisations which have been most active in going out to people with the Dharma, that have spread the Buddhavācā most effectively are frequently attacked for "empire building" - almost as though spreading the Dharma was a bad thing! The more people who take on Buddhist precepts the better as far as I'm concerned.

In the 1960's and 70's the hippies took to the Dharma like ducks to water. They were ready willing and able to start practising and to take it all seriously enough to be transformed by it. Many of the current leaders of various Western Buddhist movements came out of that counter-cultural undercurrent. However the 1980's followed: I could sum the the Zeitgeist of my era as "a loss of idealism". The result was nihilism and hedonism. The hippies were hopelessly naive, and the X generation knew it. The result is that Western Buddhism is largely still drawing converts from the hippy generation. Sanghas across all divides are getting older on average. We are not attracting young people to Buddhism.

Creating a "Dhamma revolution" will not be easy in the West. I actually see more potential in India with its massive under-classes who are enthusiastically embracing Buddhism. If we are going to do it, then I believe that Malcolm Gladwell has much to tell us on the subject of spreading our message. Its a while since I read his book "The Tipping Point" so this isn't a formal review, but a paraphrasing based on memory. I do think that any revolutionary manifesto must take into account what Gladwell says - he draws his examples from the most successful revolutions, mega-trends, and plagues in history.

The successful revolutionary committee comprises three basic skills: the Maven, the Networker, and the Persuader. The Maven knows stuff. It is the Maven who will see what needs to happen, what people really need or want. They see the trends in society - in which case Gladwell himself is a Maven. In a Buddhist context we don't need to worry too much about this. The Buddha was our Maven. He discovered what we should do about suffering.

However knowing what to do is not enough. One has to get other people on board. Other people must be persuaded that what the Maven says is correct. Ironically, perhaps, the Maven is often not a good persuader. Persuaders are able to get the message across. Someone has to sell the message. I think the Dalai Lama is probably the best example of this. Bookshops are full of his books - they have crowded other authors out in many cases. He gets amazing press coverage as well, and is as far as I know, always portrayed positively in the West. It's not enough to have the Dharma for ourselves. I would count us as having been successful, for instance, when the whole creation/evolution debate broadens out to include a Buddhist perspective.

However even the ability to know what to say, and how to say it, is insufficient. One must know who to say it to. And this is the skill brought to the mix by the networker. They know everyone, and they know who does what. They know who, if persuaded, will make all the difference. For instance the Dalai Lama meeting George Bush is not going to create a Dhamma Revolution because Bush is on his way out, he a fundamentalist Christian. Those meetings may well help to secure the safety of the Tibetan refugees in exile - an admirable goal - but they won't make much difference on a larger scale. Elected leaders have a problem that the emperors of China and Japan did not have - they were not subject to the will of the people. In Asia it was often the adoption of Buddhism by the aristocracy that made the difference in its survival - just as the adoption of Christianity by Roman Emperors resulted in a Christian Europe. And yet its clear that royal patronage is fickle. The question then is who do we reach in order to make a difference? I'm not sure that we know the answer to that yet, but I suspect that "ageing hippies" is not going to be it.

Propagating the ideas of Buddhism - such as personal responsibility for actions, and the revolutionary transformative power of kindness and generosity - in the West will be difficult. People are on the whole wealthy, governments are popularist, personal responsibility is no valued, individualism is the rule. But if we are going to do it then I think Gladwell is offering us a blueprint. Working out the details will be interesting.

image: Malcolm Gladwell, from PomeRantz

An Experience of Awakening?

A friend sent me this today, and I was so struck by it that I thought I'd make it the basis of my rave today. It's billed as "what it feels like to have a stroke", which it does describe. Because of her ability to observe and articulate her observations (the benefits of a scientific training!) we get an incredibly detailed account of the progress of Jill's stroke. She notices a lot more than the average person might, and her neuroscience training gives her a vocabulary and a conceptual framework to understand and communicate her experience. However it goes well beyond the what happens when parts of her brain start shutting down. Perhaps it is best to watch the video clip and then read my comments.

I'll just summarise what Jill says about the hemispheres.

Left: linear/methodical, interested in past and future, interested in details. The left hemisphere categorises, associates, and makes projections and predictions about the future. It thinks in language and is responsible for our internal chatter. Source of the though "I am" - separate individual.

Right: interested in here and now. Thinks in pictures and kinesthetics. Information as a flow of energy, experiences as a collage. Interested in how here and now looks, sounds, smells etc. Knows that we are all one, perfect, whole and beautiful.

Once Jill's stroke is underway it suppresses the activity in her left hemisphere. She describes the experience in terms of losing a sense of the distinction between the atoms of her arm and the atoms of the wall, and not being able to define the boundaries of her body. There is just energy and she is captivated by this. At the same time her "internal brain chatter" falls silent. She has an expansive feeling, and feels "at one with all the energy" and "it's beautiful there". When her recollection of her past falls away it is a profound relief - imagine losing 37 years of emotional baggage! It was euphoric. All job stress was gone, all stress of any kind was gone, and there was an experience of profound peacefulness.

What Jill is using a language that anyone familiar with Buddhism should be acquainted with. She talks about losing a sense of being a limited and isolated self, of losing the "I am" (ahaṇkāra). The immersion in right-brain consciousness gave her a sense of unboundedness (aparimāna) associated with euphoria (sukha, pamojja, piti), and sense of unbounded love for and solidarity with everyone (mettañca sabbalokasmiṃ mānasam bhāvaye aparimānaṃ - Metta Sutta). She repeats the word "peace" (śanti). She gestures and describes a sense of liberation (vimutti). The falling silent of internal chatter sounds very much like entering the second dhyana. However she does not describe things in terms of dependent arising, and I can't help wondering what she would make of the teaching on this.

Jill is describing a classic mystical experience which is familiar to those described in many religious traditions. What is interesting is how closely her explanation follows the conceptual landscape of Buddhism. She doesn't say whether she follows any particular tradition.There ar of course resonances with other traditions. At times she appears to be describing the insight that is summarised as "I am brahman" in the Upaniṣads, for instance. Interestingly Jill does not meet God, or interpret her experience in theistic terms. What makes Jills story profound is that she retains the ability to experience that kind of consciousness, more or less at will (is what she implies anyway). This resonates very powerfully with my own spiritual aspirations.

It seems very likely that Jill's stroke affected that part of her brain that has been dubbed the "God Spot". More recent research has shown that it is more of a network of a dozen or so regions than a spot, but the name is evocative. Stimulation of the brain, whether by epileptic seizure or electrodes applied to the scalp, has been able to reproduce the kinds of feelings that mystics and Jill are talking about. Atheists have taken this as proof of the non-existence of God, but that is to suggest that they understand the effect which is claiming too much. How could, for instance mediation - intense samādhi - produce a vision or an experience of unboundedness? No one knows. No one really understands the relationship between the brain and consciousness except to say that we do know there is one.

Of course what is missing from Jill's presentation is any kind of method. Jill says that anyone can choose what kind of consciousness they dwell in from moment to moment. But we can't follow Jill because she achieved this Awakening via a life threatening (random?) blood clot. And actually although it sounds it, in practice changing our level of consciousness is not that easy. Fortunately the Buddha has described a method which is reported to produce just these kinds of experiences, especially the experience of blissful unbounded consciousness which sees things in terms of energy (ie process) and which makes no distinction between self and other.

Dr Jill Bolte Taylor also has a book out called My Stroke of Insight, and an interesting website.

Unicode : its time has come.

Downloads from visiblemantra.org

Times Ext Roman
Self installing Windows font, just double click.

Jayarava's Indic Keyboard Map
zipped archive with map files, and some documentation on installation.

I'm fairly sure that these files are virus free but do your own scan.

They work for me but may not work for you

I've started to use Unicode a lot more in this and other places. In fact you will need to use Unicode to read this post. What is it, and why use it? Unicode is a standard for the encoding of letters and other written characters. In the old days the Americans (bless 'em) created a standard way of encoding English which is known by it's acronym: ASCII. Each letter was a assigned a number and this made encoding text much easier for computers. ASCII used one byte (8 bits) which gave it a limit of 256 characters. This just about does it for English, but of course many other languages are in use in the world, and some of them don't stick to the plain Roman characters familiar to English language speakers. Unicode solves this problem by using two bytes giving 256 x 256 = 65536 possibilities. Even this places limits, but it does mean that encoding non-Roman scripts is a possibility, and it also allows us to use a full range of diacritic marks - which is where it gets interesting for me.

I falteringly read Pāli, and I use a lot of Pāli and Sanskrit terms in my writing. Diacritics do matter in the writing of Indic languages. For instance the retroflex unvoiced stop ( ṭ ) is different from the dental unvoiced stop ( t ). Compare them in Devanāgarī for instance: ट and त are not at all alike, and are clearly distinguished in pronunciation. However in the early days of popular writing about Buddhism, publishers, who did not have readily available fonts to cope with the diacritics, nor proof readers who knew what they meant, just decided to do without them. Unfortunately this became the fashion. Scholars used them of course and this became a bit of a dividing line - serious Buddhist writing uses diacritics, but popular Buddhism does not. There is no good reason to continue this, but it's become a habit.

Until quite recently the internet reinforced this bad habit. HTML simply could not cope with anything other than ASCII (and it's one byte descendants). Several ASCII based encoding systems were invented. Let's say I want to write paṭicca-samuppāda. Two of the common methods of doing it in text look like this:

velthuis: pa.ticca-samuppaada
ITRANS: paTicca-samuppAda

Neither is very easy to read compared to properly printed text. Real problems emerge for nasals ṅ, ñ, and ṇ, and the sibilants ṣ and ś. One way around the problem was to create a special font that had to be installed before pages could be read. This works OK, but these home-made fonts use parts of the ascii scheme that are seldom used in English, and they do it idiosyncratically so that they are not interchangeable. If I use the Vipassana Research Institute font that comes with their CD of the Pāli Canon I get this if I change fonts:

VriRoman Pali: paµicca-samupp±da

Unicode solves this problem, and it is getting easier to use. On my visiblemantra.org website I used to hand code all of the extra characters. So for example ṭ = &#7789 and ā = &#257. This is time consuming, taxes the memory, and makes the source code difficult to read, but it results in a full set of Indic letters. And what's more the will display correctly in any Unicode font.

Unicode has not completely superseded the old style ASCII fonts. Since the sequence that contains the numbers and upper and lower case Roman letters are the same, for most people there is no incentive to change. We have our favourite fonts and we don't want to change. And actually there are still not many Unicode fonts to choose from. Windows and Mac both ship with a couple of Unicode fonts (For Windows Arial Unicode MS and Lucinda Sans Unicode) but not a version of Times Roman. Some fonts only implement a subset of the Unicode character set - so Times New Roman does have some extra characters, but not all the ones we need for Sanskrit.

When I set up visiblemantra.org I made the decision to use diacritics throughout the site. I believe that it is important to accurately represent the mantras. So you can't really read the site without setting a Unicode font in your browser options. I'm an early adopter and this will mean that some of the 200 or so visitors each day cannot read some of the text, but I hope I am making it more sensible for everyone to start using Unicode. Its a bit like DVDs or any of those new technologies. Some people hold out for as long as they can, but there comes a time when it just makes more sense to go with the new. I believe the time has come. I have used the occasion diacritic on this site before, but fudged it at times by leaving them off. From now on I plan to use diacritics all the time - which is to say that I intend to spell Sanskrit and Pāli words as they should be (taking into account my appalling spelling of course).

Two things have made the difference for me. Firstly I managed to get hold of a copy of the Windows Unicode font Times Ext Roman which has all the diacritics I need, and looks good both on screen and printed. Secondly I discovered how easy it is to make a keyboard map so I can type them whatever application I am using. I'm making both the font and the keyboard map available on visiblemantra.org, and I'd encourage everyone who reads this to go ahead and make the jump. I also have both a rough, and a detailed, guide to how to pronounce the letters of Sanskrit on visiblemantra.org.

Here's the Sanskrit alphabet in all its glory:

a ā i ī u ū e ai o au aṃ aḥ ṛ ṝ ḷ ḹ ka kha ga gha ṅa ca cha ja jha ña ṭa ṭha ḍa ḍha ṇa ta tha da dha na pa pha ba bha ma ya ra la va śa ṣa sa ha kṣa

See what you've been missing? (Hint: if not set your browser font to Unicode!)

A selection of fabulous Resources which rely on Unicode can be found at the following locations:

• Visible Mantra
  
• Tipiṭaka (Burmese Ed.)
• Pāli Canon Online Database (Thai Ed.)
• PTS Pāli English Dictionary
• Digital Sanskrit Buddhist Canon
• Göttingen Register of Electronic Texts in Indian Languages

Violence and the Media

Memory Alpha

I've always loved reading science fiction, and enjoy science fiction movies and TV shows. My friends and I club together to buy seasons of Star Trek. Lately I've also seen some of the remade Battlestar Galactica and a new series called Heros. In these more recent shows there has definitely been a change in the way violence is depicted. It is more graphic, the obvious intent is to make it seem more real. It is more frequent. It is also more violent. Season three of Star Trek Next Generation, which I am watching at present, seems quite innocent by comparison.

Since my ordination retreat I have become a lot more sensitised to violence in the media. I find now that I cannot bear to watch much on the screen. The emotional response is too strong. I've also become aware of how violence is hyped in other media. Even the much vaunted BBC news focusses in on the most violent and shocking news. Perhaps their coverage is a little more sophisticated than a tabloid, but the tendency is to highlight stories which are violent - wars, disasters with many dead, mass murder, violent crime. These stories get the lead, and they are lingered over.

It is my firm conviction that the purpose of the media is to entertain. Fullstop. I no longer believe that "the news" is an exception to this. Stories are chosen on their potential for stimulating an emotional response, and written in such a way as to get the maximum emotion response from the target audience. It's all about creatingwhat physiologists call "arousal" . Violent images, whether intended as entertainment, or as "news", do have an affect on us even if the effect is below the threshold of consciousness.

Constant stimulation is not good for us. One only has to consider that in the UK mental health problems have replaced back-pain as the the no.1 cause of time off work sick, and of people on incapacity benefits. The thing about a fast pace of life is that our bodies cannot get back to their optimum resting state. My current understanding of depression is that it results from over-stimulation and an inability to process the physical effects of that stimulation. I recall an experiment we did in the 6th form on earthworms. Poke a worm and it writhes about vigorously in something analogous to our fight or flight response - it is making itself difficult to catch and eat. Wait till it stops and poke it again and it will respond with less vigour. Repeat this and the worm gives less response until after only 3 or 4 times it is unable to response to being poked. The lesson here is that constantly provoking a fight or flight response wears you out. I believe this is why depressed people avoid contact and anything stimulating - at worst they lie in bed in darkened rooms not moving.

Whether you realise it or not seeing violent images produces arousal in the body. This is generally short of the fully fledged fight or flight response. It can be sustained over longer periods and with more repetition. But it's clear that for many people it is happening too much, too often.

The knee jerk Buddhist reaction is to say that violence is a breach of the first precept, and violent images are in the same category. I think there is some truth to this, but it seems to me that it is more helpful to take a different tack. The Buddha liked to point out that the unenlightened are obsessed with, intoxicated by, totally caught up in sensual experiences - including the mind-sense. The Enlightened still have sensory experiences, but they have unhooked themselves emotionally from these. They are no longer caught up in the show, they no longer suspend disbelief. If everyday experience is intoxicating, then the media is like amphetamines, and media violence like crack cocaine.

Like any addict we do get a "hit", some kind of pay off, from the drug. Thanks to Will Buckingham of thinkbuddha.org I recently read Cordelia Fine's little book A Mind of it's Own. In it she makes the point that physiologically speaking it virtually impossible to tell the difference between emotions: her example focuses on fear and anger which are physically indistinguishable. The only difference is in your thoughts apparently. Emotion, she says, is arousal + emotional thoughts. What seems to be happening in the West is that we are seeking out more and more stimulating experiences, at the same time as substituting virtual contact via the internet, email, and virtual reality games, for real human contact. The media reflects this desire for more intense and more frequent stimulation. However this is a characteristic of addictive substances also - the addict needs more frequent, and higher strength doses, in order to get the same effect. Overdose is not uncommon because of this.

The Buddha's advice for those unable to disentangle themselves from sensory experience was to apply appamāda (vigilance*), and guard the gates of the sense; or as my teacher Sangharakshita says: reduce input. I decline to watch violence violent images in the media these days as I can tell that they have a lasting deleterious effect on my mental health.

Live long, and prosper.

~~oOo~~

* appamāda can be translated more literally as not blind drunk on the objects of the senses. I expand on this a bit in my essay on the Buddha's last words.

More on Confession

I've been following up my research into confession in Early Buddhism. It is clear from the Pali texts that no one short of Awakening is expected to be able to act ethically at all times. So there are procedures for monastics which deal with confession in quit some detail. As I mentioned in my earlier blog post on the confession of Ajatasattu, there are also some paradigms for confession which are not specifically for monastics. A model is put forward in a sutta in the Anguttara Nikaya (A i.103).

The first step is to realises that you have done something wrong. Often Buddhists will insist that there is no right and wrong, that actions are skilful or unskilful. Right and wrong create a too rigid dichotomy. The texts do however talk about "faults" and "transgressions". Transgression is quite a good word because it reminds us that we measure our behaviour against the scale of the ethical precepts that we take on as Buddhists. The Pali word is accayo which literally means "going on, or beyond". There are boundaries to behaviour. Until we have Awakened it may no come naturally to act in ways that cause no harm, either to ourselves or others. The metaphor in Pali, as it is in English, is that we "see" that we have transgressed. We see it for ourselves through reflection and introspection. We may not always be very good at recognising transgressions, but practising awareness heightens ethical sensitivity as well. Often it is a matter of, as Sangharakshita says, an imaginative identification with the other person.

It is important to recall here that what the Buddha meant by kamma was cetana - intention or volition (A vi.13). Karma was originally the ritual actions carried out by Brahmins to restore them to ritual purity. The Buddha turned the notion of "purity" on its head and said that it consisted in pure conduct - not breaking the ethical precepts. The vinaya talks quite explicitly about the purity/impurity of monastics in these terms (Vin i.124). Confession, in this way of thinking consists in two aspects. Firstly having seen one's transgression as a transgression, one reveals this to another person. Secondly one resolves to be restrained in the future.

The Ratana Sutta emphasise that one should waste no time in confessing (Sn 232 and SnA i.278). One should not conceal a transgression for even a moment. I think the reason for this relates back to the idea equating action with intention. The intention to hide a transgression is not a skilful intention. As I said in my earlier blog post it can be difficult to feel motivated to reveal a transgression with the threat of punishment hanging over you. However it is better to get it out! The Vinaya says that having transgressed and wishing to be pure again, should confess because revealing makes him comfortable (Vin i.103). With regards to who we should confess to, the Ratana commentary suggests a teacher; a wise person; or a fellow practitioner. The point of confession in very many of the passages I have been studying is "restraint in the future". Confession - experiencing remorse, revealing a transgression, and making a resolution not to transgress again, helps us to keep the precepts in future. In case it is not clear we do this in order to minimise harmful effects on ourselves and others.

Having returned ourself to purity we are in a position to hear, to accept in the Pali terminology, the confessions of others. This necessity for prior purity is emphaised in the Vinaya which sets out procedures for monastics to follow if, for instance, everyone in a particular monastery has "fallen into a fault". One monk must go and seek out others to whom he can confess and return to accept the confessions of their fellows (Vin i.126). This quid pro quo is quite important for the functioning of a spiritual community, although I do not think that strict ritual purity is necessary for non-monastics (see my rant on superstition and ritual purity). If we have taken on precepts, however, then we do need to have someone sympathetic with whom to talk over our practice of them. Accepting a confession need not be an empty ritual. In the Majjhima Nikaya 140 the Buddha does not immediately accept Bhaddhali's confession. It is clear that the Buddha knows Bhaddali quite well, and knows that he is a bit half-hearted and inattentive at times. Bhaddali must request acceptance three times and endure quite a severe reprimand in order to convince the Buddha of his contrition: at one point the Buddha says to him "weren't you, Bhaddali, at that time an empty, vain, failure?" (M i.440). Ouch!

One last thing which caught my eye this week is that the Vinaya does not allow for collective confession. Over the years I have seen a number of discussions of so-called "collective karma" - does it exist or not. In one story in the Vinaya however a monk who mentions that he is not the only one to have fallen into a particular fault, but that everyone in the monastery has also. But the message is clear: it is no business of yours whether another has or has not fallen into a fault: take care of your own faults! (Vin i.127) So, even if there is such a thing as collective karma, you are still responsible for your own actions.


image: www.ordinarymind.net

Recollecting the Buddha

I have been doing a lot of reading around the practice of recollecting the Buddha and making the links between this practice and the development of Buddhist mantra. The practice generally revolves around the Buddha Vandana - the list of epithets for the Buddha - which occurs in many places throughout the Pali Canon and is explained in detail by Buddhaghosa in his Visuddhimagga. The verses containing the epithets are also known as the "iti pi so gatha". My usual experience with the Visuddhimagga is that I find it turgid and confusing, however in summing up the benefits of practising the recollection of the Buddha, Buddhaghosa says:

And his body [sarīrampi], when the recollection of the Buddha’s special qualities [Buddhaguṇānussatiyā] dwells in it [ajjhāvutthañcassa], becomes [hoti] worthy of veneration [pūjārahaṃ] as a shrine room [cetiyagharamiva] - Vism VII,67.

I've been reading the scholarly literature on this subject and surprisingly none of the writers have made much of this passage. It is only one sentence but this seems to have enormous ramifications. It seems a rather remarkable thing for the usually dusty Commentator to say.

By cetiyaghara, translated as “shrine room” by Ñanamoli, we should probably understand a meditation hall with a stupa at one end, rather like the Caitya-hall at the Bhājā caves in Maharasthra. Although the dictionary definition of cetiya (Sanskrit: caitya) is "a sacred mound, cairn or monument", the term is virtuously synonymous with stupa. Allow me to labour the point here: the body of the one who is recollecting the Buddha can be treated as though it were stupa, or monument worthy of worship. The subjective imagined presence of the Buddha is worthy of the respect which was traditionally paid to stupas and relics of the Buddha. The stupa cult continues to this day and has even been transplanted in the West. It relies on the ability to imaginatively connect with the Buddha - to see the abstract shape of the monument in stone or concrete as something more than it's material form.

Even before the death of the Buddha his presence was invoked. The classic description of this comes at the end of the Sutta Nipatta where the new disciple Pingiya sings the Buddha's praises. He says:

“You see, Sir, said Pingiya, with constant and careful vigilance it is possible for me to see him with my mind as clearly as with my eyes, in night as well as day. And since I spend my nights revering him, there is not, to my mind, a single moment spent away from him" - Suttanipātta 1142

The practice of recollecting the Buddha must have been formalised quite quickly as it's representation in the Canon is rather formulaic, ie it always uses the verses from the Buddha Vandana. But in "Pingiya praises" we get a sense of the spirit behind the formulas. Once the Buddha died these kinds of practices would have taken on a new significance, the more so when everyone who had met him has also died. Within 50 or 60 years probably there would have been no one alive who had met the Buddha in person. So the person who could maintain the kind of imaginative contact with the Buddha that Pingiya could may well have been considered worthy of veneration. Some have argued that without direct contact with a Buddha that no Awakening would have been possible, but the canon itself shows that many people were liberated without having met the Blessed One. The texts I've been looking at show why this is so - given the inspiration and the method anyone can make progress in the Dhamma and be freed. Pingiya is freed by faith (saddha-vimutta) as are several of his companions.

We clearly see here the roots of the Pure Land traditions, and of Buddhist visualisation meditations. In Mahayana texts recollection of the Buddha continues to be important - Śantideva devotes a chapter of his Compendium or Śikṣasamuccaya to it. However the hearing or recollection of the name of the Buddha (or a Buddha) starts to emerge - in the Sukhavativyūha Sūtras for instance. A key moment in the history of mantra comes in the Saddharmapuṇḍarikā Sūtra or White Lotus Sutra (the earliest reference I have found) when the practice of recollecting the name of the Buddha, is supplemented by calling the name (of Avalokiteśvara in this case). Of course the easiest way to hear a name is to say it yourself. Then a few centuries later in the Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra the chanting of the mantra of Avalokiteśvara is equated with recollection of his name, thus setting the scene for the Tantric revolution.

If we want to experience the presence of the Buddha in these difficult and testing times, we can. Like Pingiya there is no need for you to ever feel out of contact with the Buddha - simply bring him (or even her) to mind. There is a whole vast corpus of Buddhist art which has the precise function of helping us to make imaginative contact with the Buddha. In doing so you find your meeting, and according to Buddhaghosa you become like a holy shrine in the process and perhaps will inspire other people.

References:

Ñaṇamoli. 1997. The path of purification. Visuddhimagga. (Singapore Buddhist Meditation Centre) p.230. (=Vism VII,67.). The Pali reads: Buddhaguṇānussatiyā ajjhāvutthañcassa sarīrampi cetiyagharamiva pūjārahaṃ hoti

Suttanipātta 1142. trans. Saddhatissa 1985. The Sutta-Nipāta. (Surrey : Curzon Press), p.132.

image: votive stupa in the windhorse : evolution warehouse.

Confession in Buddhism

Confession in Buddhism is somewhat different than in Catholicism as we can see in the story of the fruits of the homeless life. (Sāmaññaphala Sutta - DN 2 *). In this story the conscience of King Ajāttasattu is pricking him - after all he has killed his mother and father and usurped the crown! He decides that a visit to a holy man might help him sleep better at night. After quizzing his courtiers on who to visit he decides to go to see the Buddha. As they approach they must abandon their transport and go on foot into the jungle. Since the Buddha is staying with a great company of monks, the King thinks he should be able to hear them, but all is silent - the murderer is worried about being assassinated himself! However they come into the presence of the Buddha and after a long talk Ajāttasattu goes for refuge to the Buddha as a lay follower, and then confesses his murderous actions. The Buddha's response, to the king in the first place, and to the bhikkhus after he has gone, highlight the two very important aspects of confession in Buddhism.

The Buddha says to the king:

"Indeed, King, transgression [accayo] overcame you when you deprived your father, that good and just king, of his life. But since you have acknowledged the transgression and confessed is as is right, we will accept it. For he who acknowledges his transgression as such and confesses it for betterment in future, will grow in the noble discipline."

The word accayo literally means "going on, or beyond", and in the moral sphere, means acting outside the established norms - so transgression is quite a good translation.

However once the king departs, the Buddha says to the bhikkhus:

"The king is done for, his fate is sealed, bhikkhus. If the king had not killed his father... then as he sat there the pure and spotless dhamma-eye would have arisen in him."

The King leaves feeling much relieved, having unburdened himself, having experienced remorse, and resolved to do better in the future. This is the benefit of confessing. It brings the unskilful act to consciousness and helps us to see the consequences of the action, and by reflecting like this we are less likely to act unskilfully in the future. The King is actually better off that he was. On the other side the Buddha was able to just hear his confession. Perhaps not everyone would be able to hear about someone killing their parents and maintain their equanimity, but the Buddha can. He is able to see that despite the crime, that the King is genuinely remorseful, and that it is important to witness that and encourage it. The past is gone, we can't change it, but we can change now and experience liberation in the future.

However notice that Buddha does not absolve the King. He does not because he cannot. The fruits of the action cannot be neutralised. Indeed if he had not committed the heinous act (patricide was considered a very horrible crime in ancient India) he would have experienced Insight (the opening of the dhamma-eye) after listening to the Buddha.

Equally the Buddha does not rub it in. He does not tell him, "OK you confessed, but you're still going to suffer". The Buddha is not cruel, he acknowledges a small goodness for what it is, and lets the King depart without much comment. However he does not let the opportunity pass to reinforce his message for the bhikkhus. He did not want them to think they could simply confess and get away with things. As a King, Ajāttasattu had a lot of responsibilities, and it is clear that he placed these above self-knowledge or liberation. He wanted to be the king so badly that he murdered his parents. The bhikkhus, however, have ostensibly abandoned worldly concerns and are supposed to be devoting themselves to attaining liberation. They cannot afford to be casual about the consequences of their actions. So the Buddha drives home the message by pointing out that the King is "done for" - the implication is that the consequences of his actions are going to be severe, that even a face to face meeting with the Buddha cannot save him from a great deal of suffering in the future. Most likely he is repeatedly reborn in hell realms.

There is another important point here. At the beginning of the story the king is restless, tormented by his conscience, and even a little paranoid. Unconfessed unskilfulness weighs on our conscience. We feel guilty and we fear punishment. The Buddha knows there is no need to punish Ajāttasattu as he is suffering in the present, and will continue to suffer in the future. This is a very difficult idea for Westerners. We are inculcated with the idea that guilt demands punishment. Society demands that someone who transgresses must have some harm inflicted upon them. We do not believe in an ethical universe in which everyone must live with the consequences of their actions, and in which evil definitely results in pain for the evil doer. This is not enough. We want to see justice (ie punishment) in the here and now. Christians also abrogate the notion that judgement for sins is God's prerogative. In fact the threat of punishment makes confession, makes taking full responsibility for our actions, all the more difficult. It is only when the threat of punishment is removed that we can fully confess our actions, experience remorse, and take the necessary actions to make amends or to prevent a repetition. Given that so few people wholeheartedly take on Buddhist ethical precepts, it may mean that we have limited opportunities for confession in the Buddhist sense. We may also have to exercise patience with those who seek to inflict harm on us as punishment. There is a lot more that could be said on the issue of culpability and justice from a Buddhist point of view but it must wait.

To sum up: in Buddhism one is encouraged to confess to someone who is able to receive the confession, this is important. Our confessor should at a minimum understand the ethical precepts we follow, and ideally should have some experience in following them. The point of confession is to experience remorse, to reflect on the consequences of our actions, with the hope that it helps us to restrain ourselves in future. In practice this results in a sense of relief. Confession does not, and cannot absolve us from responsibility for our actions, the consequences of which will still manifest. If we take Buddhist practice seriously then we try to behave ethically. An important aspect of this is to acknowledge our failures and to learn from them. Confession is indispensable in this process.


*translations are from Walsh, M. The Long Discourses of the Buddha. (Boston : Wisdom, 1995) p.91ff. There are some problems with the translation that I will regale you with in a separate essay. They don't affect my conclusions.

image: a king who got his crown illegitimately meets a holy man... from Daily Mail

The Anger Eating Yakkha

Browsing through the Pali Canon one often stumbles upon wonderful little oddities. This story from the Samyutta Nikaya leapt out at me while I was looking for something else. It is a story told by the Buddha to the bhikkhus while staying in the Jeta Grove...

Once an ugly yakkha sat himself down on the throne of Sakka, Lord of the Devas (also known as Indra in Vedic mythology). The various devas were appalled by this gauche behaviour and started to grumble and complain. But the more they grumbled and complained the more the yakkha became handsome and comely, more and more graceful. Confused the devas go and find Sakka and tell him what has happened. And Sakka said to them: "that must be an anger eating yakkha! ".

Sakka goes to the now handsome and good looking yakkha, arranges his robe over one shoulder, kneels down on his right knee and with his hands raised in greeting. Then three times he repeats: "I dear sir, am Sakka, Lord of the Devas." As he spoke thus, the yakkha became smaller, and more ugly. He got more and more ugly, and more deformed until he disappeared completely! Sakka then gives voice to these verses:

I am not one afflicted in mind,
Nor easily drawn by anger's whirl.
I never become angry for long,
Nor does anger persist in me.

When I'm angry I don't speak harshly
And I don't praise my virtues.
I keep myself well restrained
Out of regard for my own good.

Isn't this wonderful? The sutta is not much longer than my summary, and most of that is repetition. The structure of this sutta is much like an Udana - a prose story followed by two pithy gathas with a simple message. The moral is simple and straightforward - it echoes many other texts which advise on how to deal with anger. One thinks for instance of the lines from the Metta Sutta which enjoin us never to wish suffering on another even though we are angry. As far as I know this is the only occasion when an "anger eating yakkha" is mentioned in the Canon.

It brings to mind the Dhammapada verse (v.5) :

Anger never ceases through anger
Anger only ceases through love
This is an eternal law.

We could see the anger eating yakkha story as a parable illustrating this principle. The way to diffuse anger is not to meet it with anger, but to see that anger feeds on anger. If we meet an angry person with anger we escalate the situation. It's hard to be around an angry person and feel safe though - angry people can be unpredictable and even dangerous. I find I just want to get some distance between me and an angry person. If I'm responding to anger with anger then this is perhaps the best strategy. Words said in anger are often regrettable. Sakka proclaims that he keeps himself well restrained, that even if he does become angry he does not allow anger to persist.

In Tantric Buddhism emotions like anger are considered to be part of the path. Anger is related to Wisdom, is transformed into Wisdom through practice. The advantage of this approach is that it recognises the energy involved in anger, and how it can be harnessed in pursuit of our spiritual goals. However I think one needs to be very careful with this approach. One might attempt to justify unskilful behaviour on the basis that anger is "just energy" for instance. If we go around acting out anger then that is not going to help anyone, and indeed will hurt other people and ourselves. In early Buddhism anger is seen as aversion to some experience which one does not want to have. It is better to allow the experience to happen and cultivate equanimity towards it. I prefer to err on the side of caution in the case of anger and find the early Buddhist approach more helpful.

Reference.

SN 11.22. Bikkhu Bodhi. 2000. The connected discourses of the Buddha : a translation of the Samyutta Nikaya. [1 vol. ed.] Boston : Wisdom. p.338-9. [= PTS S i.237f.]

image: blogs.cisco.com (tweaked)

Meditating on Arapacana

In Nov 2007 I led an evening on the Arapacana Alphabet at the Cambridge Buddhist Centre which involved a led meditation and a talk which looked at the recent research on Arapacana, especially the work of Dr Richard Salomon. In order to lead the meditation I took the text of the verses associated with the Arapacana in the Large Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, and attempted to put them into an idiom which conveyed what I perceived to be the intention in a way that would be familiar to an FWBO audience.

For the purposes of this exercise I decided to use "experience" as a translation of "dharma" - that is dharma in its aspect as phenomena or element, and in particular mental phenomena or element. I also made the caveat that in a meditation one often makes categorical statements which are not meant to literally describe Reality, but simply to be the subject of reflection. Finally I had to admit that this is simply my reading of a text, and that as far as I know there is no living tradition of meditating in this way.

We began with some samatha meditation focussing on the body and breath. Then having calmed down and become concentrated to some extent we reflected on each of the letters (or more accurately syllables) in turn, although only the first five: a ra pa ca na. As you may know each letter is the initial letter of a word in Sanskrit, which fits into a sentence that provides a reflection on the nature of experience. My method will become more clear as we look at the examples.

The letter A (the short vowel sound in the English word cut), according to the text, is a door to the insight that all dharmas are unproduced from the very beginning (adyanutpannatvat). I take this to mean that even though we undeniable have experiences, no 'thing' - no ontologically solid and lasting entity - arises as a result. So rather than thinking, for instance, there is "the in-breath" and "the out-breath", we can reflect that there is no 'thing' called breath, there is just the experience, the physical sensation of breathing. Instead of thinking in terms of "this feeling is in my body", try to think in terms of "there is a physical feeling". Using verbs rather than nouns helps this I think. Focus on the experience, that is the flow of sensations and perhaps mental activity, rather than extrapolating from the experience to something solid.

RA is a door to the insight that all dharmas are without dirt (rajas). In this stage of the meditation we reflect that although we have experiences which are either pleasant or unpleasant or neutral, the feeling tone is not intrinsic to the experience. Something done once might be pleasant, but done a dozen times may be unpleasant; one day it might thrill us, the next it might bore us. Experience is just experience, and therefore it is "pure". We tend to be attracted to pleasant, and repulsed by the unpleasant. We want to hold onto what attracts us, and to push away what is unpleasant. It is these attempts at holding and pushing away which cause us to suffer, not the bare experience of pleasant or unpleasant. Ultimately experience is just experience.

PA is a door to the insight that all dharmas have been expounded in the ultimate sense (paramārtha). This aspect took me a little time to understand. What I think it means is that when you reach out to determine what underlies experience, or what lies behind it, you can only have another experience. So for instance although I feel embodied I might want to confirm that I have a body. I might reach out my hand and touch myself - this is simply a touch sensation; or I might look down at my body, and this is simply a sight sensation. It's as if we look behind the mirror to see if we can find the object in the mirror, only to find another mirror. This is the true nature of things, the ultimate (paramartha) explanation - we are immersed in experience, and there is nothing beyond this.

CA is a door to the insight that the decrease (cyavana) or rebirth of any dharma cannot be apprehended, because all dharmas do not decrease, nor are they reborn. Because we now know that no 'thing' arises, then we should see that the corollary is that no 'thing' ever ceases. The best we can say is there is experience. Once we start trying to talk about this experience, or that experience; my experience or your experience we are already dividing things up (vijñana) and attributing thingness to them. If there is just experience, then what is it that arises, what that dies?

NA is a door to the insight that the Names [i.e. nāma] of all dharmas have vanished; the essential nature behind names cannot be gained or lost. Since all we can be aware of is a ceaseless flow of experience, changing from moment to moment, how could any name apply to anything. By the time we have though of a name, the experience has passed and been replaced by another. The very act of conceiving a name is simply a mental experience.

There are of course another 39* letters in the Arapacana alphabet and each was associated with an aspect of experience and meditated on in turn. At the end however the text makes it clear that one is to contemplate how each letter is merely a facet of a larger truth, that each letter is in the long run identical in meaning to all the others. All experiences are impersonal and impermanent. And they are all we have.

One thing I did not mention in my talk was the way in which this meditation practice developed after the Large Perfection of Wisdom text. In the Mahavairocana Tantra the meditation begins in the same way (although substituting the Sanskrit consonants for the Gandhari ones), but then one imaginatively places the letters around the body while visualising oneself as the Buddha. The Sarvatathagatatattvasamgraha Tantra pares the whole thing down to just meditating on the letter a. It is this latter meditation which became important in Shingon, and other Vajrayana lineages - the whole shebang boiled down to contemplating that no things arise.

A recording of my talk and the led meditation are available on the Cambridge Buddhist Centre website. See also other things I've written on the Arapacana Alphabet.

15/3/08. I've just added a page to visblemantra.org which pulls out the bits of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Sūtra related to the Wisdom Alphabet meditation, with a few added comments.


*Various versions of the alphabet differ. There are 44 in the Large Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, although the same text when discussing the meditation practice talks about the 42 letters! Other texts have 43 letters. The variation is likely to be related to difficulties representing the sounds of Gandhari from a Sanskrit perspective.

image: alphabet by Kukai from visiblemantra.org

Ritual Purity or Rank Superstition?

Many Indian ideas about ritual purity, especially with respect to the body, have made their way into contemporary Buddhism. I want to look at a few examples of this. An examination of the origins of these ideas in Brahminical thought may be cause to re-assess the relevance in contemporary Buddhism.

Feet
A couple of years ago I was showing a friend of a friend (a follower of Tibetan Buddhism) some of my thangka paintings. One of these hung at the foot of my bed so I could see it first/last thing. "You don't sleep with your feet pointed at that do you?" - there was a note of shock in the question. "It's very bad karma" she said. I pondered this for some time before coming to any understanding of it. I knew already that Buddhists were not supposed to point their feet at shrines. But why? Because in India the feet are considered ritual impure. But again why? The feet are ritually impure partly because they are in contact with the earth, and the dirt and shit that cover it. But again why the ritual impurity? I think it goes back to the famous Purisa hymn in the Rig Veda. In this cosmogonic myth the four social groups - Brahmins, Ksatreyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras - are born from the various parts of Brahma's body. It later versions it is Prajapati's body. The Shudras, serfs, are born from Brahma's feet. The Shudras are not the lowest rung on the Hindu scale, but they are the lowest rung of the people who are not considered outcasts or untouchable. Shudras are not permitted to enter temples, nor to hear the sacred mantras. This is so much a part of Indian culture - one touches the feat of a respected elder in greeting for instance - that even the new Buddhists honour it though they are frequently from backgrounds which high caste Hindus consider beyond the pale, so ritually polluting that their touch requires elaborate purification rituals involving ironically cow shit and piss. When in 1923 Dr Ambedkar drank from a tank in a Brahmin village, they tipped a load of cow shit into it to "purify" it!

But feet are not ritually polluting in Western cultures. Although foot odour is universally considered uncool at best, it is the odour not the foot itself that offends. The foot is by contrast sometimes even an object of desire in the west! Where I come from it is de-rigour, and completely natural, to go about in bare feet in summer. So why am I adopting this Brahminical value into my practice of Buddhism, which if anything denies the validity of notions of ritual purity?


Right shoulder to stupa
In the centre of the warehouse I worked in two years ago is a 7m high stupa which is both beautiful and impressive. Buddhists traditionally keep a stupa, or any revered object or person, to their right-hand side. Some people who work in the warehouse go to elaborate lengths to go around the stupa clockwise, to keep right shoulder to the stupa. Some go about it quietly, while others are (at times) vocally critical of people who dare to go anti-clockwise, showing their left-side to the stupa. But why I asked? What is the point? Because, I was told, it is traditional. I am not superstition person and I found this puzzling. Again I think this goes back to Brahminical ideas of ritual purity. Even today in India the left hand is impure because it is used for cleaning the anus after taking a dump. The Indians use water and not toilet paper for this. So the left hand is unclean, often quite literally, and one eats with the right. Hence if you revere someone you keep your left hand away from them. Additionally the outcastes were required to dress with their left shoulder uncovered, while the higher castes uncovered their right shoulder - this uncovering the right shoulder is a constant, if entirely incidental, theme of the Pali Canon.

Now I'm right handed and I wipe my arse with my right hand. So by the logic of ancient India my right side is impure and I should either go clockwise around the stupa, but walk backwards; or go the other way. But after I wipe my bum I wash my hands and consider them clean at that point. No literal or ritual pollution! My own belief that it is the quality of awareness of the significance of the stupa which is important - and I can go any way around the thing if I have the right attitude.

Tantra and ritual impurity.
My other example emerges out of the antinomian practices of the Tantra. Antinomian means "released from moral obligations". It originates in a Christian context, but with reference to Indian religion it relates to actions which are ritually impure. So the tantric yogin chooses a consort from the untouchable castes, frequents a cremations ground and messes about with bones and skulls, and consumes meat, alcohol and sexual fluids. These are some of the most polluting things a caste Hindu could do. The point is that the Buddha does not make distinctions like pure/impure . So the yogin experiences these intensely polluting activities with a view to maintaining their equanimity in the face of very strong provocation, to overcome their cultural conditioning around the notion of pollution. For the first time there is a sense of cross-over with western culture. We too have taboos around death that mean human remains are disposed of very purposefully, and according to laws and special customs. However contact with death is not ritually polluting as it is for the Brahmin - it does not require lengthy ritual cleansing for instance. Meat eating, drinking liquour, and even the odd mouthful of sexual fluid, are not particularly taboo in western society. Having sex with a low class person might be seen as tacky in some circles, but again not ritually polluting in a way that requires ritual cleansing.

So it would seem that adopting Indian antinomian practices which are entirely "nomian" (if there is such a word) in the west is a bit pointless. And yet the shrines of Westerners, and Westerners themselves, are adorned with skulls, and bones, and other reminders of death - although I think the significance is lost on most people who simply see them as reminders of impermanence. We make a big deal about the "left handed" tantra, which once again invokes the Indian left-hand-bum-wiping thing and involves acting out polluting actions, and contrast it with right-handed tantra in which one only imagines doing the dirty thing. But to us those things aren't dirty, we aren't ritually polluted by them. Some things we may find unethical, and in that case we may feel remorse if we eat meat or drink liquor, it is not the same thing as ritual pollution.

I doubt that traditional Buddhists reading this are going to want to change the tradition. Some of these things go very deep - are embedded in our canons of scripture for instance. But the Buddha was quite critical of superstition (mangalikā) and we can read for instance the Mangala Sutta as a critique of superstition and a call to just practice the Dharma - i.e. to make yourself pure by good behaviour, not through rituals; have good fortune (also mangala) through reaping the benefits of good behaviour, not through omens, divination, or other superstitions and/or rituals. Let us not turn back the clock on the age of reason in adopting this ancient religion, let us investigate the origins of superstitions and decide whether they are still relevant, and move on if they are not.


image: www.clear-vision.org

Locating Tantra in Historical Narratives

Scholars are still at odds with each other, and with traditional Buddhist narratives, on the issue of when tantric Buddhism came into being. This essay is an overview of an emerging narrative which relocates Tantra in history, away from representing it as the death throes of Buddhism, but without accepting traditional stories which trace Tantra back to the time of the Buddha in 5th century BCE Indian.

From probably the 2nd century sutras began to appear which contained and were focussed upon a form of protective magic. These "dharani sutras" were to prove very popular in China. A little later, perhaps the 4th century, dharani style mantras began to be interpolated into well known Mahayana Sutras, particularly the Lotus, Lankavatara, and Golden Light Sutras. The Golden Light Sutra contains an obvious predecessor of the five Buddha mandala. Indeed there is an alternative version of the Golden Light, which was translated into Chinese earlier than the version which formed the basis of the English translation by Emmerick, and in that alternate and possibly older version, it is clear that a visualisation meditation is intended. By the early 5th century a more or less clear version of a tantric initiation appears in the Karandavyuha Sutra, and mantras were aimed at gaining rebirth in the Pure Land. However scholars agree that a fully formed Tantra definitely can be found in the mid 7th century - this being marked especially by the composition of the first systematic tantric text the Mahavairocana Abhisambodhi Tantra in which mantras are properly a tool for Awakening for the first time.

The early presence of various elements, such as mandalas and mantras (of a sort) which were later adopted by tantric Buddhists, has given rise to the misleading nomenclature "proto-tantra". If for instance the use of mantras constitutes "proto-tantra" then the entire Vedic tradition is proto-tantric. The term is meaningless. It makes more sense to just say that the mantra is Vedic. Similarly Tantra incorporated aspects of Shaiva practice - which is not proto-tantric, it is Shaivite. Ronald Davidson argues in his book Indian Esoteric Buddhism that despite the presence of some elements of tantric Buddhism in earlier periods, that a fully formed tantric movement came into being, quite suddenly, in the mid 7th century. This, he argues, was a response of Buddhism to the political and social chaos resulting from the destruction by the invading Huns of the Gupta Empire with it's extensive trade networks and many wealthy lay merchants.

Early Western scholars struggled to understand the history of Buddhism in India and came to some conclusions, that in retrospect look quite suspect. Some contemporary scholars have argued that this is because those 19th and early 20th century people were applying ready made historical narratives to India rather than observing what was there. The argument is that protestant critiques of the Catholic Church, which were in turn based on the understanding of the story of the Roman Empire were in operation. English and German scholars especially were expecting to find a three act narrative: an original Buddhism based on the founders own words and preserved in a canon of texts; a mature period of consolidation and missionary activity; and a period of decline and descent into idolatry and moral turpitude. Theravada Buddhism was shoe-horned into the first category largely, perhaps, because they had an intact canon and celibate clergy. Mahayana Buddhism was seen as a degeneration, for introducing elements of devotion, but did at least coincide with the spread of Buddhism to Central and East Asia. Tantra however was not even Buddhism, it was a distortion of the rational message of the Buddha, and the "pure" conduct of the Theravada monks.

However as research has filled in the gaps in history, and as methods especially in anthropology have become more sophisticated another picture emerges. There have been streams of Theravada Buddhism which have remained vital, and these fortunately have flourished in the west. However generally speaking the Buddhism of traditional Theravadin countries is moribund: the bhikkhus do not seek Awakening or even meditate; and when not lost in the abstruse categories of abhidhamma they are meddling in politics. This is not to say that early Buddhist methods (don't mention the 'H' word) were not effective if practised, only that the keepers of the texts ended up preferring to chant them as protective spells rather than put the contents into practice (a tendency that can be seen in every type of Buddhism in every county). Where they are practised the most ancient methods are as effective as any that came later, and some of the most inspiring Buddhists in contemporary times have roots in Theravadin reform movements.

The Mahayana is said to have emerged in part as a response to the formalism of early schools of Buddhism which emphasised scholasticism and had drifted into thinking of dhammas as actually existing (a subtle form of eternalism). A closer look tells us that there were many often competing Mahayanas. Arguments continue on exactly when and where Mahayana ideas began to emerge, but Gandhara with influences from Greek, Persian and Central Asian invaders must be at the top of the list of contenders - Indian writing kicked off here, as did making images of the Buddha, both of which had enormous effect on the Mahayana. Many Mahayana ideas - especially regards the Perfection of Wisdom - display links with this part of the world. Ironically some scholars have begun to refer to early, non-Mahayana, Buddhism as "mainstream", when that name more properly belongs to the Mahayana as it was amongst these communities that the Buddha's message was kept alive and constantly renewed, whilst conservative early schools preserved their canon, they did nothing with it.

Finally, and in full contrast to the Western view of it, tantric Buddhism was a reinvigoration of a waning Indian Buddhism which was reeling from incursions from the Huns - whose cousins were heading west to wreck Rome. Trade networks broke down and with it large scale support for monasteries where Buddhism was centred. Social chaos meant a change in priorities and required something new from the religious communities of India. The result was a brilliant synthesis of many existing elements providing both an invigorated search for Awakening, and a powerful protective magic - the two essential elements of (Indian) religion, which despite rationalist views had been present in Buddhism right from the beginning (to judge by our scriptures anyway). Buddhism, let alone Tantric Buddhism, did not survive the subsequent invasion of the Islamic Arabs and Turks that followed the collapse of the Guptas, and when Nalanda was sacked in the 12th century Indian Buddhism was already dead on it's feet. But Buddhism continues to thrive in adjoining areas such as Ladak, Bhutan, and Tibet right down to the present. The Chinese eventually ousted Tantric Buddhism, but it did survive in Japan in part by syncretising with Pure Land Buddhism and creating a strong power base in the laity.

Contra the views of scholars in the 19th and early 20th centuries then, a new view is emerging which looks at Buddhist history in a different light. Theravada far from being pure "original" Buddhism is a quiet, stagnant backwater; Mahayana carried the spiritual impetus of Buddhism forward and out of India into Central and Eastern Asia, and west as far as Persia as well! However it foundered in the breakdown of post Gupta Indian society. Tantra in this view, far from being a degeneration, was a vitally needed renewal in times of maximum upheaval and uncertainty - a positive revitalising response to changing times, rather than a fall into decay. While Buddhism in for example Sri Lanka mouldered (and the ordination lineage died out twice!), Buddhism in Tibet churned out saints and seers by the dozen.

The "original" spirit, the living heart of Buddhism was never situated in formalised rituals and preserved texts, though this view exists in Buddhism and helped to reinforce Protestant presumptions: it was and is in the hearts and minds of Buddhist practitioners striving for Awakening. Some of that spirit has been transplanted into "Western" soils now and we will see whether it can continue to grow.

Sir Edmund Hillary -- 1919-2008.

I grew up in small town New Zealand. Although I had my trials and tribulations, Taupo in the 60's and 70's was a great place to grow up. There was a more or less constant skirmish going on in our neighbourhood between the Pakeha kids and the Maori kids - which I look back on as being more to do with social conditions than race. We were the targets for their anger. But apart from that you could wander the streets without fear. If child abuse, rape, and murder were happening then as kids we were blissfully unaware of it. We walked to school and played in the street - something that no one seems to do anymore, at least in England.

Out the back of Taupo is a lump of a mountain, partially covered in forest. Tauhara hovers at the edges, a shy presence that looks over the town, but does not loom even though the foot hills are only a few minutes drive away. In those days one could climb it - the walk being difficult but rewarding. These days local Maori prefer people not to walk on the mountain, which is a shame. From the top one can see for many miles in every direction. At the far end of the lake, perhaps 100 kilometres away are the triplet of volcanoes, two of which - Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu - have erupted in my lifetime. The third, Tongariro, like Tauhara, is dormant. Maori legend has it that they are were a tribe of mountain beings who lived and loved in the area long before humans arrived. Standing on the lake front, the view to the west is obscured by high hills. To the east one can catch a glimpse of the Kaimanawa ranges - often with snow on their peaks in winter. We knew that our lake - 26 miles across - was, and is, in the caldera of a much larger volcano which last erupted around the time of Christ devastating much of the North Island along the way.

Later I moved to Auckland which is a city of a million plus people sprawling over a huge area. To navigate one triangulates using one or more of the many small volcanic hills scattered around. Most of the 63 volcanic vents in the area are just holes in the ground, some filled with water, but several rise high enough to be features of the landscape, and to offer spectacular 360 degree views of the city.

One other mountain looms large in my childhood memories: Everest. This is because in 1953 - 13 years before I was born - a great ox of a man called Ed finally reached the summit of the highest mountain in the world. Ed was a Kiwi, of course. There aren't many real heros in New Zealand history, and in those days we would not have considered Maori heros like Te Whiti o Rongomai one of ours. Ed was our hero. A genuine world class hero. In those days nothing much local was world class, and we probably still suffer from an inferiority complex. But Ed. He was our man. Tenzin Norgey was always acknowledged as having been with him , but in our minds it was Ed who did it, Tenzin kind of helped him along. (I think now that we didn't really give Tenzin enough credit and that a kind of naive racism was at work). To the rest of the world Ed became "Sir Edmund". But that was much too grand for us, and for him, and so he was always just Ed Hillary - nothing much needed to be said because this guy was the first to climb Everest, and after that... well we don't (or didn't) like to to get too carried away with praise and celebration. But everyone knew, and we were proud as can be of Ed. Ed was the fulfilment of the myth of the New Zealand Man, perhaps another reason why we tended to overlook Tenzin. Although most New Zealanders won't have read a book called "Man Alone" by John Mulgan, it somehow came to define a romantic ideal which all of our fore-fathers aspired to. It was about one man pitted against society, and then pitted against nature. He was rugged, self-reliant, and not bound by social conventions. Our version of the Hollywood cowboy I suppose only a lot less glamorous! Ed on Everest was the apotheosis of the "man alone" myth - although obviously he was never alone. Myths are funny like that.

Ed was renowned for his modesty - a true humility which meant that he was uncomfortable of people making a fuss about his achievements. This quality is highly admired in the New Zealand man. And so we loved him all the more. Returning to base camp he reported said, laconically "well... we finally knocked the bastard off". In truth Ed was neither the best climber on the team, nor the first choice for the ascent. But when the first team turned back, Ed got his chance. My image of him is an a large and very strong man, with a huge heart. He was never going to give up, was absolutely driven. He just ploughed straight up there. Of course this is a romantic view. But he was big and strong and determined. I think this almost caused a disaster in Antarctica where he drove his team to a dangerous exhaustion - it was difficult to keep up with Ed.

Much of what I know is the kind of thing that one absorbs from popular culture, from primary school projects, and from watching TV. Ed was often on TV. After Everest he carried on climbing and lead some expeditions, but it was his work with the Sherpas that maintained his profile. After all having climbed the biggest mountain, there isn't much kudos in climbing a smaller one. However Ed began to go out to Nepal and started trying to raise the quality of life for the Sherpas. He built schools and hospitals, often with his own hands. And it was for this also that we loved him. New Zealanders love the under-dog, I suppose because of that old inferiority thing. And then best way to sort anything out is to get stuck in and build something, eh. Someone said on the radio this morning, that he went to Nepal 120 times! In 1985 the government acknowledged his defacto role and appointed him High Commissioner to India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. He was active in New Zealand as well. Always helping people.

There is a Maori proverb that goes something like:

If you are going to bow down;
Let it be to a mighty mountain.

Ed was a mountain of a man. I never met him or anything, but in New Zealand anyone famous is one of your mates, even one of the family. Ed was not just one of us, but the best of us. He embodied all the virtues a New Zealand man should have, and as far as I know none of the vices. The rest of the world will probably remember him as the first man to reach the summit of Everest - if the news coverage of his death here in England is anything to go by - but back home he will always be more than that. He was an icon. There are very few people who are so virtuous that you naturally admire them, want to follow them, be like them. Ed was like that. He was good in the down-home sense of the word. Honourable, generous, kind, humble. These are the virtues I pursue as a Buddhist of course. Ed was my first exemplar of these virtues. I know that high up in the Himalayas - the abode of snows - that the Buddhist Sherpas will be chanting mantras, doing puja, and praying for his fortunate rebirth. For one who has lived so well, I think there need be no anxiety about his future; if I am anxious at all it is because one of the great spirits of our age has left the world, and for all the good he did, the world seems a darker place than ever and we need men like him all the more.

Kia ora, kia kaha, Ed. Haera ra. Farewell. We'll miss you.

image of Ed by Graeme Mulholland via Wikipedia.

Religion in India and the West

In studying Buddhism and its interactions with other religions I have been repeated struck by how different the Indian situation was and is from the West. I'm going at attempt to characterise the two situations by looking at two businesses. The Indian religious milieu is to my mind like the micro-computer market in the 1970's and 80's. Whereas Western Religion is like the telecommunications market. Both of these are dominated by an large monopolistic corporation, but the models are quite different.

Christianity has towered over the religious landscape of Europe and it's colonies for centuries now. For many years it was not only the local state sanctioned monopoly, but a Europe wide monopoly so powerful that it could dictate to kings. Heterodoxy was not tolerated. It strikes me that a similar situation existed in the US for most of the 20th century. The Bell System (aka AT&T) company's domination of the telecommunications market was near total. They owned the infrastructure for the entire telephone network, and entry into the market was virtually impossible except for a few very small niches. Bell used it's monopoly position, even used illegal practices, to stifle competition - resulting in a lawsuit by the Department of Justice. The Catholic Church too was concerned to stifle competition. We know that they used terror, torture, and murder to maintain their dominant position. The crusades were as much about making a profit as liberating the Holy Land.

If we follow this image then he break up of the Bell Company in the mid 1980's due to it's misuse of monopoly powers is matched in European Christianity by the reformation and the advent of competition in the form of Protestantism. Luther was protesting in particular about the selling of indulgences - the church offering to do the job of God (i.e. forgiveness of sins) and for a pay-off. Bell was attempting to use its enormous power to get a grip related technologies such as the fledgling computer industry. In both cases the upshot was a limitation on the power of the monopoly and the making of room for dissent/competition. Like Bell, the Church continued to be powerful. Like the Church, Bell continued to seek ways to expand their power by moving offshore and finding new markets in developing countries.

Taking this one step further I see the cellphone as equivalent to the rising popularity of both fundamentalism and non-aligned Christianity. The new technology was slow to start because it was expensive, but with the major infrastructure investment paid off, it is now cheap to offer cellphone services, and because these are closely linked to the aspirations and desires of the people, the uptake is massive. One can choose to subscribe, or to "pay as you go". Not only has the technology changed, but the market is open to competition, so that there are many cell-phone companies (which shops everywhere!). Fundamentalism was initially less popular for different reasons, but the popularity is similar to the cell-phone market now. They focus on a simple message (c.f. text messages) and focus on personal connections (with god and each other) and community. (I've previously argued that cell-phones are all about community.) Land-lines are still popular but will continue to decline in the face of increasingly personalised services, and evolving technology. Religion in the West is increasingly individualistic.

In India the story is very different. The Brahmins are still the arbiters of orthodoxy in India and this is because of an accident of history. The original inspired utterances of the sages came to be codified in a language which only Brahmins understood which helped to create and sustain their hegemony. Compare this with the beginnings of Microsoft. Bill Gates was already in business when he bought the operating system that would become known as MS-DOS, and then in a coup forged an agreement with IBM to have it installed on all of IBM's computers. The phenomenal success of IBM micro-computers made Gates a fortune. Microsoft has never been considered the best operating system by anyone involved in computers, but it is the most widely used, and dominates the market. Non-industrial software that does not work on Microsoft is destined for a small niche market.

This original success showed the way. Microsoft frequently expands by buying products from a successful start-up, re-branding it, and putting a lot of effort into marketing. The biggest example of this is Internet Explorer - now the most widely used Web-browser software. IE started life as a modified and re-branded version of the early web-browser Mosaic (now defunct). This is also the strategy of the Brahmins. The assimilation of Shiva is an example of this, but the cult of Vishnu is even more striking. Each of the 10 Avatars of Vishnu is a god from a smaller cult, incorporated into the Brahminical pantheon - including the 9th, Gautama Buddha, whose message is summed up by Vaishnavites as "be kind to animals". Microsoft also prospered by hiring successful programmers from other companies. So Charles Simonyi the designer of the early Xerox word processor "Bravo" joined MS in 1983 to create MS-Word which offered many of the same features. The Brahmins used this strategy as well. When they assimilated another cult they made the priests honorary Brahmins.

For many years Microsoft maintained it's dominance because it's software could run on any computer which used the MS operating system, and this was, because of licensing deals, any computer made by IBM, or later any computer which worked in the same way (what we used to call IBM clones). Equally the Brahmins made sure that every ritual, ceremony, and rite of passage in India required the chanting of Vedic mantras, and only they knew them.

While both religious hegemonies have maintained their dominance in the face of competition the fundamental strategies have differed. We humans, I observe, have two basic strategies when confronted with "the other" - that is with strangers, with people who are different. We of course prefer not to be confronted, but when we are we have these two basic responses which are exemplified by Christianity and Brahmanism. The Christian church on the whole has reacted by stamping out heresy. This has softened somewhat but the attitude is still entrenched. A high profile example of recent times is the Anglican/Episcopal Church's response to homosexual Bishops. The homosexual is defined as other, and while there have been many accommodations this seems to be the line beyond which some Christians are not willing to go. In the Catholic church woman are the other. We can attribute this to biblical fundamentalism, but this is to miss the essentially human response I think. After all many of the Bibles strictures are regularly overlooked - the prohibitions against usury for instance, or the setting up of market places in churches for instance (every cathedral in the UK has a shop in it!).

In India the response is quite different. The other is not destroyed if some kind of arrangement can be reached. More often than not the other is assimilated. Various cults that were distinctly non-Vedic, have quietly been welcomed to the fold - "all is one, god is good". Perhaps it is the advantage of having a pantheon rather than a monotheon, but again this is a basic human response to otherness - try to make the other one of us by conversion. If they are willing to become "us" then that's OK. Witness the concerns about immigration in the UK today - the word assimilation is heard on a daily basis in the news - the concern is "will they become English, or will they make us change?" It is worth noting that neither Islam nor Christianity have yet been assimilated in India. Is this because they do not follow the same response to otherness?

Buddhism follows the general Indian pattern. Many of the forms and conventions of Vedic India were co-opted by Buddhists in the early days. There is also a perceptible Jain influence. Later puranic Hinduism was a source. Sometimes this influence was a reaction against something by Buddhists and an attempt to create a distinction, but other times some chunk of Indian culture is lifted bodily out of it's context and "converted". Many of the Vedic/Hindu gods appear in Buddhist scripture for instance as converts to Buddhism. Indra continues to have an important role in Buddhist texts long after he has waned in the Hindu world! On the other hand this assimilation has lead to problems for Buddhists down to the present. Buddhists have had to waste a lot of energy in India arguing that Gautama is not an avatar of Vishnu. Buddhism has at times succumbed to the take over attempts - the two are equally mixed in Nepal for instance; and in front of the main temple in Wat Po, Bangkok is a Shiva lingam covered in fresh gold leaf offerings. Present day Indian Buddhists also face hostility to their conversion from Hindu Nationalists on top of assimilation attempts - paradoxical as that sounds. Buddhists marriages were recognised in Maharashtra only in 2007.

Of course both of these comparisons are over simplifications but I think they give the flavour of the differences in the religious cultures of Europe and India.