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Death seizes the doting manThe doting man with mind-set on
children and herds, death seizes and carries away, as a great flood
sweeps away a slumbering village.
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They find the Buddhist view more acceptable because it seemed that we could do something to help ourselves.
From a scientific viewpoint, an emotion has three aspects: physiological, feeling, and behavioural. Brain activity and hormonal changes are physiological, and aggressive or passive actions are behavioural.
In Buddhism, emotions refer to the mental state. Little is said of the physiological changes, probably because the scientific instruments for measuring them were not available in ancient India.
Buddhism also distinguishes between the emotion of anger and the physical or verbal action of being assertive, which may or may not be motivated by anger. Similarly, someone may be patient inside, but have either assertive or passive behaviour, depending on the situation.
Buddhists and scientists also differ on what is considered a destructive emotion. For example, scientists say that sadness, disgust, and fear are negative emotions in the sense that they are unpleasant to experience.
However, from a Buddhism viewpoint, two types of sadness, disgust, and fear are discussed. One is based on distortion, interferes with liberation, and is to be abandoned, for example, sadness at the break-up of a romantic relationship and fear of losing our job.
Another type of sadness helps us on the path. For example, when the prospect of having one rebirth after another in samsara makes us sad and even fills us with disgust and fear, they are positive because they prompt us to generate the determination to be free from cyclic existence and attain liberation.
Such sadness, disgust, and fear are positive because they are based on wisdom and stimulate us to practice and gain realizations of the path.
Science says all emotions are natural and that emotions become destructive only when they are expressed in an inappropriate way or time or to an inappropriate person or degree.
For example, it is normal to experience sadness when someone dies, but a depressed person is sad in an inappropriate situation or to an inappropriate degree. Inappropriate physical and verbal displays of emotions need to be changed, but emotional reactions, such as anger, are not bad in themselves.
Therapy is aimed more at changing the external expression of the emotions than the internal experience of them. Buddhism, on the other hand, believes that destructive emotions themselves are obstacles and need to be eliminated to have happiness.
Many scientists believe that from the viewpoint of evolutionary biology, anger enables human beings to destroy their foes, and thus stay alive and reproduce.
Another type is associated with a constructive impulse to remove an obstacle.
For example, if one faces a situation where he cannot get what he wants, his anger makes him think how to get it. It is being called "positive" on basis of its effect - the person getting what he wants - not its being virtuous.
In addition, such anger does not always lead to a solution of the problem. For example, frustration and anger due to our inability to concentrate when meditating rather than help us attain calm abiding, block our practice.
Buddhism does not agree that there is a positive form of anger. Although in a secular way, anger at someone who is harming himself or others could be called "positive," arahats are free of this.
Thus, righteous anger is a defilement to be eliminated to attain nirvana. We can have compassion for the person and still try to stop his harmful behaviour. Thus, while the West values moral outrage as an emotion, from a Buddhist viewpoint, it is skilful means, a behaviour motivated by compassion.
Most of us when things are going well would much rather focus on happiness than dwell on the sufferings of the world.
But reality has a nasty habit of intruding. Love turns to heartbreak, wealth to poverty, health to sickness, peace to war, life to death. We are shocked and hurt to discover that things that once seemed so real and solid turn out to have been mere illusions.
It may be a personal tragedy that brings us to this realisation, or a national or global disaster. We feel helpless and confused, at a loss as to how to deal with our own and others' suffering. It is then that we seek answers.
Why did this happen? Was it my fault? Can I prevent it happening again? By addressing such questions, Buddhism offers an explanation for how our sufferings arise and a path by which we may transcend them.
Buddhists view the world we perceive as an illusion, in which everything is subject to change, growth and decay in accordance with the law of cause and effect, or karma.
Buddhists depict the workings of this cyclical existence as a wheel showing the chain of events leading from thought to action and its consequences.
At the hub, three "creatures" represent greed, anger and ignorance, the driving forces that keep the wheel in motion, condemning us to an endless cycle of suffering.
If we can eliminate these forces by applying the antidotes of compassion and wisdom, the cycle is broken.
Theory is all very well, but can this model help us come to terms with the sufferings we encounter individually or as a society? It can certainly serve as a tool to remind us that since we are the creators of our own suffering, we also hold the potential for our deliverance.
An anthology of discourses from the Pali Canon reflecting the edifice of the Buddha's teachings
IN the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon. Edited and introduced by Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2005. 485 pages. Price (at BPS, Kandy): Rs. 875.00.
An anthology: In the Buddha's Words is a landmark anthology of discourses of the Buddha by Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi. It brings together selected discourses from the Pali Canon in order to reflect the overall structure of the teachings of the Buddha by way of a clear scheme.
Translations from a wide variety of discourses-164 in all-culled from all over the Pali Canon have been arranged into 10 chapters for this purpose.
Ven. Bodhi mostly uses his own translations from the Pali, but he also used some translations of other translators, modifying them in order to fit his general scheme of translation.
Ven. Bodhi realized the urgent need for a structured anthology of discourses from the Pali Canon when he was teaching a course on the Majjhima Nikaya in his monastery in the USA.
According to Venerable Bodhi, the volume is intended for two types of readers: "The first are those not yet acquainted with the Buddha's discourses who feel the need for a systematic introduction. For such readers, any of the Nik yas is bound to appear opaque.
All four of them, viewed at once, may seem like a jungle-entangling and bewildering, full of unknown beasts-or like a great ocean-vast tumultuous, and forbidding... The second type of readers for whom this book is meant are those already acquainted with the suttas, who still cannot see how they fit together into an intelligible whole.
For such readers, individual suttas may be comprehensible in themselves, but the texts in their totality appear like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle."
Ven. Bodhi hopes that (1) this volume will serve the newcomers to early Buddhist literature as a map to help them wend their way through the jungle of the suttas or as a sturdy ship to carry them across the ocean of the Dhamma whetting their appetite for more and encouraging them to plunge into the full Nik yas and (2) the volume will assist the experienced readers of the Nik yas to obtain a better understanding of the material with which they are already familiar.
Since the discourses in the Pali Canon are not arranged either in any chronological or subject-based sequence, and there is no single discourse in which the Buddha draws together all the elements of his teaching and assigns them a place within an comprehensive scheme, one cannot obtain a overall view of the structure of the Buddha's teachings just by reading and studying a few discourses.
Even for those who have the capacity to study the discourses in detail, it can sometimes be difficult without a scheme to figure out where a specific discourse or discourses fits in the extensive framework of the Buddha's teachings.
It is therefore a praiseworthy endeavor on the part of Bhikkhu Bodhi to have developed such a comprehensive yet accessible scheme that reflects the overall architecture of Buddha's teachings.
Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi mentions that his scheme may be original, but it is not sheer innovation as it is based upon a threefold distinction that the Pali Commentaries make, indicating the types of benefits to which the practice of Dhamma leads.
These benefits are (1) welfare and happiness visible in this present life; (2) welfare and happiness pertaining to future lives; and (3) the ultimate good, Nibbana (Skt. Nirv na).
Three preliminary chapters-the first one on the basic human condition of suffering in samsara, the second on the Buddha's appearance into this world, and the third on the special pragmatic and non esoteric features of the Buddha's teaching-lead up to the seven chapters embodying the three benefits scheme.
These start with a chapter revealing the Buddha's ample teachings on social harmony and peace-the welfare and happiness visible in the present life-that comes from living in accordance with ethical norms in one's relationships, livelihood, and communal activities.
The fifth chapter is on how one can attain happiness in the next life through the accumulation of merit based on generosity (dana), virtue (sla), and meditation (bhavana).
The next chapter is showing that, though the Dhamma leads to happiness in this life and the next, even a pleasant life is dependent on impermanent conditions and will finally end in death.
The Buddha's teaching is therefore concerned with leading one beyond conditioned and impermanent mundane happiness to the supreme happiness of the Unconditioned, Nibbana-the ultimate type of benefit.
The final four chapters give a general overview of the Path to the Unconditioned, the gradual mastering of the mind through calm and insight meditation, the development of higher wisdom with the aim of attaining the Unconditioned, and the stages of realization transforming the individual from an ignorant worlding into a Liberated One who has fully realized the Unconditioned.
The anthology aptly concludes with a few suttas on the supreme qualities of the Buddha and his great power of illuminating the dark world of ignorance.
The value of his anthology is greatly enhanced by the general introduction and by the introductions at the beginning of each chapter.
These introductions provide the mortar required to build the edifice of the Buddha's teachings, presenting a careful analysis of the teachings and helping the reader to fit the components of "the jigsaw puzzle" into their appropriate places.
The Dalai Lama's foreword shows how much the different schools of Buddhism fundamentally have in common.
In the Buddha's Words bears evidence again of Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi's penetrative and analytical understanding of the Dhamma and his great ability in explaining Buddhist philosophical issues to modern readers.
Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, born in New York City in 1944, needs no introduction in the Buddhist world. His excellent translations of Buddhist discourses and his profound and illuminating expositions of Dhamma are in constant use across the world.
Moreover, he is the editor of many books on Theravada Buddhism published by the Buddhist Publication Society in Kandy, of which he is the president.
It is well known that theistic religions have lost their hold in the minds of many educated persons in the modern world and that this has created a deep spiritual vacuum that needs to be filled.
Therefore, compiling an anthology of discourses from the Pali Canon that provides a comprehensive and schematic representation of the Buddha's teachings is quite relevant.
Following the footsteps of Ven. Nyanaponika Thera, the main teacher of Ven. Bodhi, who played an important role in shaping the expression of Theravada Buddhism in the latter half of the twentieth century, Ven. Bodhi continues the important mission of shaping the expression of Theravada Buddhism in the first half of the twenty-first century.
Readers in Sri Lanka can obtain this important work from the Buddhist Publication Society in Kandy (http://www.bps.lk) at less than half the U.S.A. sales price.
Love is lost in lust
LOVE: There are some individuals who say that "Love is not Lust" and others have to come out to say that love and lust are two different things and love is a sweet relationship between two individuals. Amor vincit omnia is another version we are familiar with.
All these misconceptions or misinterpretation are due to either misuse of words or being unaware of using the right word to give light to the envisaged point of expression.
In this instance what the Buddha preached is useful and relevant to the layman who is making an effort to understand the nature and meaning of love.
The Buddha says Pematho Jayathi Soko (love begets sorrow). Whatever form love takes whether maternal, paternal, fraternal or patriotism, it eventually ends in sorrow.
So, any sweet feelings of love towards each other is impregnated with reciprocity, and certainly that ends in sorrow after passing through various stages of hatred, jealousy, enmity and uncertainty.
On the contrary, what is not so is Meththa (loving kindness) and Karuna (compassion), two principal tenets in Buddhism.
Meththa is show of loving kindness to living beings as a whole, and karuna means compassion extended to everyone as individuals.
In both these instances, the receiver as well as the giver are spiritually and materially enriched and that never ends in sorrow or involves hatred whatsoever at the beginning or at the end. So, what we need today is not really love; we have plenty of it, but meththa and karuna.
So, leaving aside the question whether love is lustful or amorous, whether one is a believer or not, an atheist or a free-thinker, what we all should practise is meththa and karuna.
Then this world will be free of hatred and jealously and all the people will begin to live with true mutual brotherly feelings, wherever they live or whatever they believe in.
When the Bamyan Buddha Statues were destroyed, the Buddhists in general showed sympathy to those ignorant men who destroyed those spiritual and cultural master pieces.
Similarly, when cartoon pictures of the Prophet were published, we must show sympathy for such narrow-minded people because their intention is to arouse anger in the followers. If they succeed they have won.
Howevermuch one tries to insult the Buddha or the Prophet, nothing will happen to their images as long as the followers or the adherents are convinced what was preached or revealed is true and guides them for a better life.
The Buddha once said that there is not a single person who had not been insulted during his lifetime or after. That is the truth the Buddha found. It covers everyone and everything like all components are subjected to change
(Sabbe sankhara anicca).
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