Buddhist Spectrum

Guidelines for the modern moderate lifestyle:

Virtue and moral practice

Ven Sumedha Thera

Sri Lanka is a beautiful island with a colourful mixture of religious cultures, races and geography – the topical meeting place of old and new remains a true paradise on the earth. The great kings Ravana, Dutugamunu, Parakrmabahu have all served the country.

Recorded history in Sri Lanka began when Buddhism gave birth to a cultural revolution more 2000 years ago. And in the wake of this Cultural Revolution came an era of unsurpassed achievement. It fashioned lifestyles, fostered the arts and inspired the creation of dagabas, temples, monasteries, statues, vast man-made reservoirs and irrigation system which even today defy engineering interpretation. Now the peace lovers of the Island are striving to develop the Island country.

In India it is difficult to get food (alms), clothes and shelter for some people. Every underdeveloped country has its own problems in building just and peaceful society. It seems to me nationally and internationally we need to practise the teachings of the Buddha for that matter. The 2,600th Sambuddhatva Jayanthi is an auspicious sign for both of us to start work. Buddhism regards the law as an instrument for achieving certain ends, which are held to be socially and spiritually desirable. What these ends are or should be, are a matter for ethics. A system of ethics, in turn, becomes significant only on the background of a certain theory of reality. An ethic, for example, which asserts that a person ought to become perfect, would be meaningless either if man is an automaton or man’s personality terminates with death. A theory of reality, again, derives its validity from a theory of knowledge and both these, as we shall see, can have a bearing on the conception of law. Buddhism, while distinguishing these branches of study, doesn’t fail to note their interrelations.

Nowadays we need good knowledge to deal such and such social, political and economical problems. For that matter, Buddhism is a religion with a philosophy. It recommends a way of life, which flows from its view of life; which is justified on the basis of the philosophy of Buddhism. The moral that is generally drawn is that law-abiding behavior must result eventually from charity, love and understating and not from a fear of the sanctions of the law. The welfare is primarily the spiritual welfare and secondly the material welfare. Buddhism recommends the importance of a critical, impartial outlook in the quest for truth.

Ancient tradition

India and Sri Lanka are recently decided to tread on the moral path using its ancient tradition and culture. Buddhism has solutions to the present day worldly problems like non-violence, greed etc. When Nagarjuna, the great third-century Indian Buddhist scholar, was asked to summarize the Buddha’s teaching, he replied ‘nonviolence’. Nonviolence is the most basic teaching of the Buddha. There is, however, a misconception that nonviolence is equivalent to inaction. The Sambuddhatva Jayanthi celebrations gave us an opportunity to expose ourselves to get co-operation from the nations in the world for our future plans in combating violence while practising Buddha Dhamma. All the Buddhist countries in the world should exchange their future plans in order to get cooperation based on right understanding on the eve of the Sambuddhatva Jayanthi.

The Singalovada Sutta outlines the reciprocal duties of parents and children, teachers and pupils, husbands and wives, friends and acquaintances, employers and employees, religious teachers and their followers are outlines. While their content would need to be modified in changed social circumstances, the basic values they embody still remain valid. This can be practiced not only by the Muslims and Christians with Buddhists but also all walks of the people in the world.

While the notion of contract runs through the mutual relationships, the basic obligation of each person to attain Nirvana requires the cultivation of selflessness, love and understanding and all these duties including the duties of the state should ultimately be performed in such a spirit of service (caga), love (metta) and understanding (panna).

Recently the President of India has condemned the materialism and asked the people of India to practice the ancient moral path of India in her message on the eve of Independence Day. She also said the corruption must be condemned. The Presidential steering committee of the Sambuddhatva Jayanti celebrations also decided to develop the five-precept practice in the island.

The fallowing points are my observations and research which I mentioned below. I hope this will bring peace and joy to one and all.

The hackers and beggars should not be allowed in buses. They are unclean. The security is also a concern. Sanctity and Serenity are very important in our traditional society. Consuming Alcohol while working is a bad custom. Auto drivers are addicted to this habit. This causes accidents. Consumer of alcohol loses health and his family will become poor. So this bad habit must be stopped immediately. Being Buddhists we must follow five precepts to overcome problems.

Respectable relationship

In Sri Lanka the relationship between clergy and lay followers is respectable. But the practice should not be a ritual which is based on the blind faith. It must be based on proper knowledge. If it is knowledge based then the result of the act or merit will be good in future. This is the same in the case of Myanmar. The lay followers in Myanmar collect money, articles, requisites etc and will donate it to monasteries. In India there is no such tradition as it is 0.7 percent of Buddhists.

The farmers and householders should know how to make compost fertilizers out of the waste from monasteries and the farms. This will be very useful to achieve economical goals. In India depends on possibility everybody will try to make compost fertilizers.

Every inch land in the island must be cultivated. Only a few countries in Asia use civil army to cultivate wastelands. In Myanmar the civil army is taking the responsibility of cultivating wastelands. In India we have state and central policies to cultivate all lands available in India. In India by construction of dams and lakes the barren lands are now under cultivation.

Agricultural land should not be converted into house plots and industrial areas. In India many farmers convert their lands into housing plots and industrial areas. This kind of approach will bring problems in producing agricultural products. The barren lands will be increased so we will run short of fertile lands and lands which have irrigation facilities.

Taking a bath in the lakes is our custom when we visit temples. But one must also follow the rules of the health. I observed that while taking bath one must not wash clothes in the lake. And also one must not use the soap. However the soaps which are made with the chemicals contaminate the water. When people are taking bath continuously there won’t be change of water. One after one must take bath in the same water. This causes allergy, dermatitis like skin diseases.

Some parks in the island are very unclean. They are situated close to drainages. Sanitary condition must be changed. One example is Anuradhapura Natural Park.

Pornography, advertisements etc should be avoided and should not be encouraged. The Indian and Sri Lankan governments and NGOs can work on this matter jointly. Because of insecurity and poverty innocent and poor are exploited in both countries. They should be shown the proper spiritual path.

The temples are not only places of worship only but also learning centres. People should be educated in the matters like sanitation, first aid and other social matters.

Bhikkhu universities must adopt the ancient way of teaching to train the young novices according to the needs of the future generation. The first duty of the students should be not to treat their period of study as one of the opportunities for indulgence in intellectual luxury, but for preparing themselves for final dedication in the service.

Community service for university students should cover several aspects like adoption of villages for intensive development work, carrying out the medico-social surveys, setting up of medical centres, programmes of mass immunization, sanitation drives, adult education programmes for the weaker sections of the community, blood donation, helping patients in hospitals, helping inmates of orphanages and the physically handicapped. Student volunteers should learn to do relief work during natural calamities/emergencies such as cyclones, floods, famine, earthquake, etc. from time to time all over the country. The students should work in organizing campaigns for eradication of social evils, and popularization of the nationally accepted objectives like nationalism, democracy, secularism, social harmony and development of scientific temper.

These changes are possible by following the Socially Engaged Buddhism. The Engaged Buddhism teaches the art of living based on the teachings of the Buddha. To build peaceful and harmonious society one must work hard and everybody must understand each other to go together to achieve goals of whole community.

Women in Buddhism

Padma Edirisinghe

Weep not for such is the life of Man
Unasked he came and unbidden he went
Ask yourself again whence your child
To live on earth this little life came
By one way come and by another gone
It is human to die and pass to other births

(From Elders Verses)

The damsel came running to the well to stop the saffron robed one from drinking the well water. She was carrying a message from her aged mother resting in the verandah of their humble abode.

“Noble One,” the girl gasps, “my mother says that it is not fit that you drink this water.”

“Why?” Asks the monk, “is it impure?”

“No. It is that we of low birth are impure. So this water is polluted and not fit for high-borns like you. That is what my mother says.”

The monk laughs and drags the filled bucket of water from the well and fills his vessel.

“Sister. Go, tell your mother that we are Buddhaputras and respect no caste or class distinctions. Every human, to us, is equal”

The monk sent for the water by the Buddha himself is no other than Ananda Thera. The Buddha’s retinue had been traveling to the city of Rajagaha from Savath when they were subject to a severe drought. All waterways by their path had run dry. All the water they had brought was over. Throats were parched.

Even the water in the damsel’s house was very little. So Ananda Thera was careful not to draw too much water. The story would have ended there if not for the fact that the damsel fell in love with the young handsome Thera.

She began mooning over him, refusing to eat or drink. Finally she raced the retinue to Rajagaha and proclaimed her love to the utter consternation of the unsuspecting Ananda Thera. It needed the Buddha’s mediation to send her back in her senses to her humble abode where eventually she would have married some youth and settled down. That part of the story is uneventful. It is the first part that is eventful and beautiful.

Some, usually of a cynical turn of mind, contend that to compose a beautiful story you need woman, the beautiful the better. Anyone who follows the stuff that goes to make our films will not disagree with that. Did these tales from Buddhist India too veer towards beautiful women? Maybe, in some that deal with characters like the Nagarashobinis. But the major focus is on women who suffered immensely.

Compassionate

Religious leaders are generally very compassionate towards women and focus on them. The Buddha was attentive mostly to women who suffered. Especially due to their children’s woes. In fact one could generalise that infants’ deaths enriched Indian Buddhist literature. One could surmise that mortality of infants’ deaths was rather high in those distant times of communication gaps and limited medical knowledge.

But no father would run on the streets with the corpse of the dead child. It is always the mother. And of course they would all run to the Buddha. And many of them enter the Sangha Sasana due to the sorrow engendered. I may here quote a Wheel Publication Society of Kandy authored by one Susan E Jootla who opines that a mother-child relationship is always stronger than a father-child relationship.

No explanation is necessary. The bond starts from the time of conception (here we ignore the modern day mother who worshipping Mammon does not hesitate to get rid of the new born by throwing the child into a lavatory pit or selling the hapless one to a stranger).

That book includes a rare statement on the sufferings of women by Buddha (Kindred sayings Vol 15).

“Buddha himself pointed out the five kinds of suffering unique to women. Three are physiological: menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth. The other two are social.”

Strangely they are said to include leaving her own family for a stranger’s and having to ‘wait upon a man’. That reminds me of a warning, “do not accept every printed word as Gospel truth”.

Anyway how does all this get connected to Buddhist philosophy? The suffering women, a majority of them. Take to robes and turn philosophical, the intense suffering has served the engineering force to relinquish the mind of its misconceptions and desires. Now they utilize these bitter experiences to perceive the universality and omnipresence of suffering to condition themselves to let go of everything in the conditioned realm.

We now come to the Kisa Gotami story, so well-known almost to be stale but never losing its freshness of approach. Buddha tells her to bring mustard seeds from a house where nobody has died. In those days of extended and joint family systems where the aged live along with the young such families were rare though they could be found now with the new generation in the city and the senior citizens in the village either refusing to leave or just spurned.

So Kisa Gothami carries the baby corpse and does some rounds and comes away disappointed. But richer mentally. She has come face to face with the reality and frequency of death. Now cognizant of impermanence, the basic feature of all existence she recites these lines.

“No village law is this, no city law
No law for this clan or that alone
For the whole world and for the Gods too
This is the law: All is impermanent.”
What beauty in those lines!

Patachara

Have you ever wondered on the character of that Indian dame Patachara? She had the good fortune to live in Buddha’s time i e the 6th Century BC. She comes alive every Vesak season on our pandals in different poses, now coiled in her lover’s embrace, then running away from her mansion with him (a mere menial servant), giving birth to her child in dismal circumstances, wading across the river to save her first born, shooing away the eagle carrying away the infant so on and so on. Crowds gather around emitting Aahs and Oohs. They all feel sorry for her. But she is a woman who has fallen from grace.

At one time she had defied all good norms of decent living. She disobeyed her parents, rejecting the man they had chosen for her and carrying on a clandestine affair. She lived in a city where her father held the foremost position and one can imagine the utter disgrace she brought on her family.

But it is a story that is illustrative of the concept of forgiveness in Buddhism. All her misdeeds are forgotten, the fact that three deaths, one her husband’s, the other two her children’s are caused by her stubborn ways are forgotten. As if jutting out of a miracle she emerges one of the most revered figures in Buddhist history. Subsequent to a torrent of incredible calamities she becomes a great teacher to a group of 500 such grief stricken mothers.

Misery

The scene in which she runs to the Great One, utterly mad in her unbounded grief and nearly naked, people around throwing clothes on her yet Buddha saying: “Sister, come to me,” is one of the most poignant tales painted in the endless human canvas.

Other than conveying of these ideas as earlier mentioned the Patachara story is illustrative of the concept of forgiveness too, illustrated equally by the character of Angulimala “on the male side”. I focus on this fact mostly due to the misconceptions in the west regarding Buddhism as demonstrated in the case of Tiger Woods, the celebrated golf player.

The fate that fell manya man of fame and fortune if he is not careful fell on him too. He became extremely rich and remained attractive enough for romance and illicit liaisons. And he was a globetrotter. You cannot expect him to carry his whole family around along with the golf balls. So like the sailor who found a female companion in every port he found woman to keep him company wherever he went.

Tiger Woods, I forgot to mention, was a Buddhist having got this legacy from his mother, some say a Thai. A viewer who knew of this appealed to him to give up Buddhism.

There is no forgiveness in Buddhism unlike in Christianity he argued. Though left unsaid, he was portraying Buddhism as a vengeful primitive cult that never pardoned a sinner.

He had never heard of Patachara called ‘sister’ by the Buddha nor heard of Angulimala who earned his sobriquet of a name, ‘The necklace of fingers’ via his crimes. He had once been a mass murderer who collected the fingers of those he murdered and then woven a necklace out of them. Initially he had been driven to this crime by his own teacher who wished for his downfall. Jealous colleagues had set the teacher against the bright student concocting a tale that he had flirtatious relationship with the master’s wife.

The master thereupon gave him an assignment i e to collect a thousand human fingers of a thousand victims if he was to become a full fledged pupil.

Fortunately he lived in Buddha’s time that in his vast wisdom saw his background that led him to the life of a criminal.

Women! Half of the population of the universe! They garnered enough attention of the Thathagatha.

(Writer is a former Director of Education)

Essential stories of Ajahn Brahm

At least 10 stories of Opening the Door of Your Heart by Ven Ajahn Brahmavamso Mahathera will be discussed at Sri Lanka Press Council (close to Mel Medura and Lanka Sumithrayo), Horton Place, on May 27 at 4 pm.

The stories have been translated into Sinhala by Professor Sunanda Mahendra. Dr Praneeth Abhayasundara and Daya Disanayake will steer the discussion panel. The event, held to coincide with the 2600th Sambuddhatva Jayanthi, is a project of Sri Lanka Press Council.

Moments of insight, love and compassion flow through Ajahn Brahm’s stories like rivers of hope. They are modern tales of hope and love, forgiveness, freedom from fear, and overcoming pain which cleverly relate the timeless wisdom of the Buddha’s teachings and the path to true happiness. Entrance is free of charge for the discussion.