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General
Buddhism |
Namo Dharmaya !
Hail to the Teachings
THE DHARMA
CONTENTS
Introduction
What is Buddhism?
Kalama Discourse
Advice to Westerners on Choosing a Spiritual Path
Faith
Scriptures
Treatment of the Scriptures
Dharma is a Sanskrit word with many meanings, but in this case, we will mainly
use it in the meaning of the "Buddha-Dharma" or the teachings of the Buddha.
Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical teacher has given many teachings during his
life, and it is not very simple to condense these all into a small, comprehensive
package.
Moreover, during 2,500 years, various different traditions have developed in
Buddhism (see history).
The Buddha gave some remarkably modern-sounding advice on how to approach the teachings, the so-called four reliances:
- Rely on the message, not on the personality of the teacher.
- Rely on the meaning, not just the words.
- Rely on the real meaning, not just the provisional meaning.
- Rely on your wisdom and insight, not just on your ordinary, judgmental mind.
As my main teachers are from the Tibetan Gelug lineage, the explanation in these pages is based on the Lam Rim (Tib.) tradition, which means "Graduated Path to Enlightenment" or Lam Rim in Tibetan. However, to make the philosophy easier to digest for people unfamiliar to Eastern thought, I have taken the liberty of changing the order of the traditional teachings somewhat and explaining the teachings in a personal way.
This question is easier asked than answered. Lama Anagorika Govinda expressed it as follows in 'A Living Buddhism for the West':
"Thus we could say that the Buddha's Dharma is,
as experience and as a way to practical realisation, a religion;
as the intellectual formulation of this experience, a philosophy;
and as a result of self-observation and analysis, a psychology.
Whoever treads this path acquires a norm of behaviour that is not dictated from without, but is the result of an inner process of maturation and that we - regarding it from without - can call morality."
To introduce the attitude of the Buddha himself to spiritual teachings, first a brief explanation of the "Kalama Discourse", which is not part of the Lam Rim teachings, but is preserved in the Theravada tradition.
One time, when the Buddha passed through the city of Kalama, people asked him:
"So many gurus were here and all of them gave us excellent teachings,
but they contradict each other. What should we do?" The Buddha then gave the
so-called Kalama Discourse and expounded on ten aspects that one should consider
when listening to spiritual teachings.
He said:
"Do not believe a spiritual teaching because:
1. it is repeatedly recited,
2. it is written in a scripture,
3. it was handed from guru to disciple,
4. it is believed by everyone around you,
5. it has supernatural qualities,
6. it fits my beliefs anyway,
7. it sounds rational to me,
8. it is taught by a respectable person,
9. it was said to be the truth by the teacher,
10. one must defend it or fight for it.
However, only when it agrees with your experience and reason, and when it is conducive to the good and gain of oneself and all others, then one should accept the teachings, and live up to them."
Or, as the Buddha taught:
"My teaching is not a philosophy. It is the result of direct experience...
My teaching is a means of practice, not something to hold onto or worship.
My teaching is like a raft used to cross the river.
Only a fool would carry the raft around after he had already reached the other shore of liberation."
(From: Old Path, White Clouds by Thich Nath Hahn)
To his favourite disciple, Ananda, the Buddha once said:
"If you were to follow the Dharma purely out of love for me or because you respect me, I would not accept you as disciple. But if you follow the Dharma because you have yourself experienced its truth, because you understand and act accordingly - only under these conditions have you the right to call yourself a disciple of the Exalted One".
The following advice comes from Sogyal Rinpoche's: Tibetan Book of Living and Dying:
"The most important thing is not to get trapped in what I see everywhere in the West, a "shopping mentality": shopping around from master to master, teaching to teaching, without any continuity or real, sustained dedication to any one discipline. Nearly all the great spiritual masters of all traditions agree that the essential thing is to master one way, one path to the truth, by following one tradition with all your heart and mind to the end of the spiritual journey, while remaining open and respectful towards the insights of all others. ... The modern faddish idea that we can always keep all our options open and so never need commit ourselves to anything is one of the greatest and most dangerous delusions of our culture, and one of the ego's most effective ways of sabotaging our spiritual search."
Buddhism appears to put less emphasis on faith than many other religions, but the very first words of Shakyamuni Buddha as a teacher were:
"Opened are the gates of immortality, ye that have ears to hear, release your faith."
The teachings of the Buddha are written down in the traditional scriptures. The oldest collection of these were written in the Pali and Sinhalese language, and form the basis of the current Theravada tradition. The teachings of the Mahayana school were written in Sanskrit. (For a brief explanation of these schools, see The Three Vehicles.)
The following text is mainly derived from the Asian Studies website of the Australian National University.
The early Buddhist canon is traditionally referred to as the "Three Baskets"
(tripitaka; Pali: tipitaka), consisting of:
(1) Vinaya: rules of conduct, which are mainly concerned with the regulation
of the monastic order;
(2) Sutras: discourses purportedly spoken by the Buddha, and sometimes
by his immediate disciples;
(3) Abhidharma, which includes scholastic treatises that codify and interpret
the teachings attributed to the Buddha.
According to Buddhist tradition, this division was instituted at the first council. This canon was written in a language called Pali, which is believed to have been derived from a dialect used in the region of Magadha. A second council introduced some modifications to the rules of monastic discipline, and later councils added other texts to the canon. Initially, the canon was transmitted orally, but after a time of political and social turmoil King Vattagamani of Sri Lanka ordered that it be committed to writing. This was accomplished between 35 and 32 BCE The Sutras and Vinaya were written in Pali, but some of the commentaries were in Sinhala. The Sinhala texts were translated into Pali in the fifth century CE
The Vinaya section of the Pali canon consists of rules of conduct, most of which are aimed at monks and nuns. Many of these are derived from specific cases in which the Buddha was asked for a ruling on the conduct of particular members of the order, and the general rules he promulgated still serve as the basis for monastic conduct.
The Sutra (Pali: Sutta) section of the Pali canon is traditionally divided
into five "groupings" (nikaya):
(1) the "long" (digha) discourses;
(2) the "medium length" (majjhima) discourses;
(3) the "grouped" (samyutta) discourses;
(4) the "enumerated" (anguttara) discourses, which are arranged according to
the enumerations of their topics; and
(5) the "minor" (khuddaka) discourses, which comprise the largest section of
the canon and the one that contains the widest variety of materials. It includes
stories of the Buddha's former births (Jataka), which report how he gradually
perfected the exalted qualities of a Buddha; accounts of the lives of the great
disciples (apadana); didactic verses (gatha); an influential work entitled the
Path of Truth (Dhammapada); and a number of other important texts.
The Abhidharma (Pali: abhidhamma) section includes seven treatises, which organise the doctrines of particular classes of Buddha's discourses. The Abhidharma writers attempted to systematise the profusion of teachings attributed to Buddha into a coherent philosophy. Their texts classify experience in terms of impermanent groupings of factors referred to as dharma (Pali: dhamma), which in aggregations are the focus of the doctrine (dharma) taught by Buddha
The Theravada countries of Southeast Asia follow the Pali canon and generally consider the texts of Mahayana to be heterodox. (See also the Three Vehicles.)
Other schools developed their own distinctive canons, many of which have very different collections of texts, although the doctrines and practices they contain are similar. Some schools, such as the Sarvastivadins, used Sanskrit for their canons, but today only fragments of these collections exist, mostly in Chinese translations. Although Mahayana schools developed an impressive literature, there does not seem to have been an attempt to create a Mahayana canon in India. The surviving Mahayana canons were all compiled in other countries. Canons compiled in Mahayana countries contain much of the material of the Pali canon, but they also include Mahayana sutras and other texts not found in the Pali canon. The Tibetan canon, for example, contains a wealth of Mahayana sutras translated from Sanskrit, treatises (shastra) by important Indian Buddhist thinkers, tantras and tantric commentaries, and miscellaneous writings that were deemed important enough to include in the canon. The Chinese canon also contains Mahayana sutras, Indian philosophical treatises, and a variety of other texts, but its compilation was much less systematic than that of the Tibetan canon. The Tibetan translators had access to a much wider range of literature, due to the fact that the canon was collected in Tibet many centuries after the Chinese one. The transmission of Buddhist texts to China occurred over the course of several centuries, and during this time the tradition in India was developing and creating new schools and doctrines. The Chinese canon was transmitted to Korea and Japan. Tibet and Mongolia both follow the Tibetan canon, which according to tradition was redacted and codified by Pudön (1290-1364). In addition to this canonical literature, each school of Buddhism has created literature that it considers to be authoritative. (See also the section on history and traditions.)
Because the scriptures represent the Buddha's teachings, and are regarded the
true source of happiness for all sentient beings, anything containing Dharma
teachings or names of your teachers should be treated with the greatest respect.
These texts should not be placed on the floor or under other objects, one should
not step over or sit on them, or leave them where they might become damaged
or stained by food or drink. Ideally, they should be kept at a high and clean
place, separate from worldly writings and wrapped in cloth when being carried
around.
Although this may seem strange to people who are not used to this tradition,
treating Dharma texts with disrespect may create the karma
of not meeting the Dharma in the future.
Should you need to get rid of Dharma materials, they should not be thrown in
the rubbish, but burnt in a special way. Briefly described: do not incinerate
such materials with other trash, but separately, and as they burn, recite the
mantra OM AH HUM. As the smoke rises, visualise that it pervades all
of space, carrying the Dharma to all sentient beings, purifying their minds,
alleviating their suffering, and bringing them all to happiness, up to and including
enlightenment. Some people may find this practice a bit unusual, but it is given
according to tradition, and it forms an interesting practice of mindfulness.
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Last updated: February 28, 2001.
