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Why not seek immortality?

Buddhist mirror by A.G.S.Kariyawasam

All through human history various teachers and philosophers, in both the orient and the occident, have felt the necessity of and the probability of some type of everlasting existence and searched for same.

While they have offered varying explanations to this problem and the condition of immorfality and how it could be attained, these deliberations of theirs occupy a significant place in the history of human thought. The main difference between Buddhism and these other systems of thinking regarding this problem lies mainly in the Buddha's denial of a permanent soul, an aatma.

Out of these indefatigable seekers of this condition, Gautama Buddha ranks as one of the foremost thinkers who has discovered a highly practical solution to the problem of human suffering. His teaching is free from blind faith in any higher being on whom we have to depend for our freedom. According to him man is his own ultimate master while the Buddhas are, as opposed to saviours, the path-finders, the teachers who show the way to ultimate freedom.

Travelling along the path indicated is the responsibility of the individual who is expected to develop unshakeable confidence (saddhaa) in the Buddha and his teaching and put forth the necessary effort according to his directions.

The Buddha did not force his teaching on anyone. His advice is that here is this solution he has discovered for the problem of our suffering and those who yearn for their ultimate freedom from it can recognize it with confidence and follow the path shown by him. Our inextricable bondage to a basically unsatisfactory existence has no other solution.

All the pleasures and comforts we supposedly "enjoy" belong to the mundane domain and as such are ephemeral and therefore end in unhappiness and frustration. No worldly possession can provide ultimate satisfaction. Yet we live subject to this delusion while in reality suffering the torments of Tantalus in the process. Thus, in the ultimate sense, human life is a process of suffering which is explained in detail in the Buddha's first sermon and elsewhere.

Yet, even in such a depressive backdrop, man mainly seeks wealth, power, fame and such other mundane objectives although they, in addition to being ephemeral, keep on adding more problems and further suffering to the already saturated load with which we are born here. In the ensuing rat race many wars are fought and crimes are committed.

In this delusive process called human life, which Buddhaghosa divides into ten decades (Visuddhimagga) and Shakespeare into seven ages (As you like it), it would be a welcome re-orientation of attitude for the Buddhists if they seek immortality (amata) instead of Nirvana. In the sense of the end of Samsara there is no difference at all between the two terms because in the Buddhist soteriological sense both terms express only two aspects of the state of ultimate freedom taught in Buddhism.

They are hence identical. We make this suggestion because 'Immortality' as an ultimate objective in life has a better appeal to the ordinary human mind in contrast to the term Nirvana, which presently has come to mean just an abrupt end to our existence in all aspects to the average Buddhist. The term has become so hackneyed that its beauty and appeal as a concept has almost totally disappeared to the extent that the average Buddhist has ceased to wish for it honestly.

The concept of immortality or deathlessness, as representing the Nirvanic condition or even in general, has a universal appeal as it has been a concept men have been wishing for and conceiving in divergent ways to attain.

This has been so from the beginning of human civilization, both in the orient and the occident. It originally meant "the continuity of man's spiritual existence after the destruction of his physical body." Allied to this concept is the belief in a future life, a concept which was quite widespread in primitive cultures, but with the vital missing link that they were ignorant as to the exact-nature of such an existence, which therefore had been conceived in many different ways.

These primitive thinkers seem to have had a vogue inkling of a heaven and a hell based on the idea of rewards and punishments for good and evil committed during one's earthly life.

It was in relation to this idea that the belief in immortality had its early beginnings and developed subsequently into a full-pledged philosophical concept. Naturally, these developments in thinking were continuously subjected to intelligent reflection although none could come to a definite and an acceptable conclusion.

As most of these philosophers believed in a soul, its immortality was accepted by believing that it survived physical death. Nothing could destroy it in its passage in time as has been well-stated in the Katha upanished as unborn, eternal and everlasting without getting slain when the body is being slain - na hanyate hanyamone sharire: Katha up. I. 2, 18). Here it is noteworthy that this was the Western view also at the time as taught by Plato.

However, in the great drama of man's life on this earth, the search for immortality developed into varied explanations and theories until the Buddha furnished a definite conclusion through his unique discovery of the unconditioned state of Immortality as opposed to the conditioned mundane world.

The personal realization of this changeless condition is to be achieved not through a mystic type of method but by following a certain way of moral living in one's day-to-day life here and now (dittheva dhamme), without procrastinating it into a future date, as it has become now the customs of the Buddhists, who invariably wish to realize it on same future date while following the accustomed irreligious way of life here and now.

This is highly un-Buddhistic as it violates the Buddha's constant advice of diligence - appamada.

Here a word of explanation becomes necessary as per the term amata or amruta as an epithet of Nirvana. We Buddhists are familiar with the usual definition of Nirvana the references to Nirvana as it represents its special characteristic of Immortality. Due to some reason or other the term Nirvana has come to stay as the standard term designating the state of ultimate freedom in Buddhist soteriological discussions, although as the available records clergy show that the Buddha's first preference to denote this term was the term amata - immortal.

For instance, just after Enlightenment, following his paean of joy beginning with anekajatisamsaram....., the Buddha's next utterance was "Opened are the doors of Immortality amatassa dvara. Thus, is this very first utterance as a Teacher (Sattha), the word he used to denote the supra-mundane condition he discovered was amata - immortality. Then again, in his address to Upaka on his way to Benares to preach the first Sermon he said that he was going there "to beat the drum of deathlessness - amata-dundubhi. Thus Nirvana as the state of immortality had been foremost in the Buddha's thinking.

The point that we are attempting to drive in here is that as search for immortality is a natural human tendency and as the Buddha discovered it and presented it to humanity for their edification and final freedom, it would be beneficial for us to look at the Buddhist doctrine of deliverance from that angle so that we introduce a re-orientation in our outlook in Buddhist practice.

The threadbare term 'Nivana' today has become in the minds of the majority of Buddhists, on "end to life" beyond which it is total darkness sans everything in this world. We have to give commentaries to convince its true meaning.

The concept of Amata-immortality, meaning the same condition, on the other hand has a popular appeal in the idea itself. As such let the Buddhist re-orient their attitude to Nirvana as the state of immortality and follow this innate human proclivity to reach the goal of final freedom - through amata.

Here let us not forget the fact that the Buddha was one of the most practical of religious teachers because he took the reality of the world as the basis for his journey of freedom for which man himself has to make the travelling. Therefore working towards this goal need and should be achieved "here and now" (dittheva dhamme). Unless the Buddhists today adopt this attitude in their daily practice of religion, this valuable teaching will remain a dead letter, as it has come to be today.

The aim of the Buddhist moral life is the attainment of this ultimate state of immortality. What is it like?

Its best definition would be that it is the unconditioned state - asankhata - which is the state beyond all the laws of causality and as such transcending time and space, the unchangeable condition free from birth and death as well as from individual embodiment any more.

It is permanent peace and happiness in the supra-mundane sense. Its unindividualistic nature is quite significant because it transcends individuality as well thereby becoming immersed or one with the state of immortality (amatogadha).

As this goal of Immortality has to be achieved out of the mundane world, out of samsara, it involves a vast transformation of the mundane becoming the supra-mundane.

The negative attitude to the mundane becomes a positive one towards the Immortal state of the supra-mundane. Thus it is not a case of negative thinking only as misunderstood by many a Buddhist today.

The individual lives in the world but thinking and acting with a view to the achievement of immortality uppermost in the mind at all times. Thus it is not a life-denying teaching as charged by some thinkers. Here the practiser follows an ideal in society, as a result of which he becomes a philanthropic type of leader in society to the less-enlightened. Therefore let us wish and hope that those who call themselves Buddhists try to lead such lives.

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