Miss Buddha (119 page)

Conflict and New Groupings

In the early years following the death of
the Buddha, many conflicting interpretations of the master’s
teachings appeared, which resulted in the traditional 18 schools of
Buddhist thought.

As a group, these schools eventually came to
be seen as too conservative and literal minded in their attachment
to the master’s message. Among them, Theravada was accused of being
too individualistic and insufficiently concerned with the needs of
the laity.

Such discontent led a liberal wing of the
sangha to break away from the rest of the monks at the second
council in 383 BCE.

While the more conservative monks continued
to honor the Buddha as a perfectly enlightened human teacher, the
liberal Mahasanghikas developed a new concept: Deciding that the
Buddha, rather than a man, was, in fact, an eternal, omnipresent,
transcendental being; they speculated that the human Buddha was but
an apparition of the transcendental Buddha, created for the benefit
of humankind.

This Mahasanghika concept came to inform
Mahayana.

Mahayana

The actual origins of
Mahayana are obscure. The names of its founders are unknown, and
scholars disagree about whether it originated in southern or in
northwestern India. They do agree, however, that its formative
years fall between the 2
^nd
century BCE and the
1
^st
century CE.

Speculation about the eternal Buddha (Buddha
Nature) that had begun by the Second Major Council continued well
after the beginning of the Christian era and culminated in the
Mahayana doctrine of his threefold nature, or triple “body”
(trikaya).

The three aspects are: the body of essence,
the body of communal bliss, and the body of transformation.

According to the Mahayana
tradition, the
body of essence
represents the ultimate nature of the Buddha:
beyond form, it is the unchanging absolute and is spoken of as
consciousness or the void.

This basic and essential Buddha nature does,
however, manifest itself, taking on a heavenly form as the body of
communal bliss. Here, the Buddha sits in godlike splendor,
preaching in the heavens.

In the third nature, the Buddha now and then
appears on earth in human form to convert humankind as the body of
transformation. It is said that the Buddha has taken on such an
appearance countless times. Thus, Mahayana considers the historical
Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, only one specimen of the body of
transformation.

These new Mahayana concept of the Buddha
paved the way for concepts such as divine grace and ongoing
revelation that are nowhere to be found in Theravada.

In fact, this belief in the
Buddha’s heavenly manifestations led to the development of
a significant devotional strand
in Mahayana that some scholars have described the
“Hinduization” of Buddhism.

—
Bodhisattva

An important new concept in Mahayana was
that of the bodhisattva, or enlightenment being, as the ideal
toward which the good Buddhist should aspire.

A bodhisattva is defined as
an individual who has
attained perfect
enlightenment
but voluntarily delays entry
into final Nirvana in order to make possible the salvation of all
other sentient beings.

In order to affect this
salvation, the bodhisattva, whose key attributes are compassion and
loving-kindness,
transfers merit
built up over many lifetimes to less fortunate
creatures; something, so Mahayana maintains, the selfish arahant of
Theravada would never do.

Some beg to differ.

Theravada

The Theravada school, the more conservative
of the two current sister schools (the other being Mahayana) traces
its descent from the original sangha, or monastic community, that
first followed the Buddha.

Its canon of scripture consists of the
Tipitaka, the first great compendium of Buddhist writings, composed
in the Pali language, also known as the Pali Canon.

Theravada tends toward doctrinal
conservatism, exemplified in a cautious interpretation of its
canon. Because of this, it has been given the pejorative name
Hinayana (Sanskrit for “Lesser Vehicle”) by its rivals, who call
their own tradition Mahayana (“Greater Vehicle”).

The goal of the Theravadin is to become an
arahant, a sage who has achieved Nirvana and will never be reborn.
As mentioned above, Mahayana traditionally prefers the figure of
the bodhisattva—who, out of compassion, helps others toward
salvation—to the arahant, who (according to the Mahayana devotee)
is concerned chiefly with his own salvation.

Some trace the origins of Theravada to the
events following the second great council of Buddhism at Vaishali,
India, in 383 BCE, in which novel interpretations of doctrine were
condemned by conservatives—the Theras (Elders)—who thereby became
the originators of Theravada orthodoxy.

The reformers, in turn, accused the
conservatives of being too self-absorbed and dogmatic. This
ideological split was confirmed at the third council, convened by
King Ashoka at Pataliputra (now Patna, India) in about 250 BCE.
After that, Theravada is said to have been carried to Sri Lanka by
Ashoka’s son, the monk Mahinda, where it eventually became a
national creed, centered at the great monastery of Mahavihara and
closely associated with the Sri Lankan monarchy.

Ashoka’s missionaries also
spread Theravada Buddhism to Myanmar and Thailand. For much of the
1
^st
millennium CE, Theravada existed alongside Mahayana in all
these areas.

While other early sects
died out or were absorbed into Mahayana Buddhism, Theravada
retained its identity. Similarly, when Buddhism died out in India
after the 12
^th
century CE, Theravada kept its hold in Sri Lanka
and Southeast Asia. In about the 10
^th
century, a Theravada reform
movement began in Sri Lanka that consolidated the kingdom as a
Theravada monarchy.

This reform movement later spread to Burma
and Thailand, where it revitalized the Theravada tradition and
ensured its supremacy over other Buddhist sects. Reformers also
carried the creed into Cambodia and Laos, where the geographical
limits of Theravada predominance were reached.

However, despite some Theravada followers in
Vietnam and elsewhere, Mahayana Buddhism became the dominant
tradition in the rest of the Buddhist world.

Recently, Theravada has found a new home in
India by the mass conversion to Theravada Buddhism of Harijans (the
so-called Untouchables, who fall outside the traditional class
divisions of Hindu society), who are attracted by Buddhism’s
indifference to Hindu concepts of caste.

Theravada also has a notable tradition of
forest-dwelling hermits who exist outside the monastic
organizations. In contrast to Mahayana Buddhism, since about 500
CE, Theravada has had no orders of Buddhist nuns. There is limited
participation in the sangha by women and lay people, who generally
wear white robes and take up asceticism (self-denial) without
entering a monastic order.

—
Doctrine

Theravadins abide by the original teachings
of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, and their doctrine
reveres the Buddha as a single, supremely gifted, yet mortal
teacher—in contrast to the succession of transcendent beings
postulated by Mahayana.

The Dharma, or teachings, of the historical
Buddha are usually regarded as being contained in the Tipitaka, and
unlike Mahayana, which has generated a vast number of additional
Sutras—consisting, one must assume, not only of assimilation of
local lore and mysticism, but also of a host of opinions and
“improvements” upon the Buddha’s teachings—Theravada confines
itself to this core Dharma (the Pali Canon).

Lamaism

Tibetan Buddhism is the predominant religion
of Tibet and Mongolia, and is also referred to as Lamaism. It is
essentially of the Mahayana school, with elements of modified Hindu
Shaivism and native ritualistic shamanism.

As history tells it, in 747 CE, a Buddhist
monk and scholar named Padmasambhava (Sanskrit for “born of the
lotus flower”) journeyed from northern India to Tibet, where he
established the first order of lamas, or monks. From there Buddhism
spread throughout the rest of the country.

Tibetan Buddhist practice consists mainly of
reciting prayers and sacred texts and of chanting hymns to the
accompaniment of horns, trumpets, and drums. For this worship,
which takes place three times a day, the clergy are summoned by the
tolling of a small bell and are seated in rows according to their
rank.

The scriptures of Tibetan Buddhism are
divided into two great collections: the canon—the sacred books, and
the exegetical commentary.

The canon, consisting of counsels and
injunctions of the Buddha rendered from Indian and Chinese texts,
contains more than 1000 works, which in some editions fill more
than 100 volumes of approximately 1000 pages each.

The commentary is likewise voluminous, but
does not have the canonical authority of the canon.

Since 1950, in the wake of Chinese invasion
and repression, many Tibetans have emigrated. Tibetan refugees in
India and Nepal continue the traditional practice of their
religion. In both Europe and North America, a number of Tibetan
lamas have emerged as influential religious teachers.

Zen

Zen or Chan is Buddhist blend of Mahayana and
Taoism. This school developed in China and later in Japan as the
result of this fusion.

According to tradition, Zen was introduced
into China in 520 CE by the Indian Buddhist monk BodhiDhamma.

Zen
and
Chan
are,
respectively, the Japanese and Chinese ways of pronouncing the
Sanskrit term
dhyana
(Pali
jhana
),
which means contemplation or meditation.

In fact, Jhana is the eighth step of the
Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path: Right Concentration, and designates
the state of consciousness of a Buddha, of one whose mind has lost
the conviction that the apparent individuality of oneself and other
things is real.

All schools of Buddhism hold that separate
things exist only in relation to one another and that nature cannot
be grasped by any system of fixed definition or classification; in
other words, one cannot reason oneself to the final answer: it has
to be experienced—through Jhana.

Doctrines and Practices

Reality is the “suchness” of nature, “just
as it is” apart from any specific thoughts about it. Opinions and
interpretations will not add to or detract from that suchness.

Zen, then, is the peculiarly Chinese
(Japanese) way of accomplishing the Buddhist goal of seeing the
world just as it is; that is, with a mind that has no grasping
thoughts or feelings. This attitude is called “no-mind,” a state of
consciousness wherein thoughts move without leaving any trace—if
they indeed move, or appear, at all.

Unlike other forms of Buddhism, Zen holds
that such freedom of mind cannot be attained by gradual practice
but must come through direct and immediate insight. Thus, Zen
abandons both theorizing and systems of spiritual exercise and
communicates its vision of truth by a method known as direct
pointing.

Its exponents answer all philosophic or
religious questions by non-symbolic words or actions; the answer is
the action just as it is, and not what it represents. Typical is
the reply of the Zen master Yao-shan, who, on being asked “What is
the Way of Zen?” answered, “A cloud in the sky and water in the
jug!”

Zen students prepare themselves to be
receptive to such answers by sitting in meditation (Japanese zazen)
while they simply observe, without mental comment, whatever may be
happening.

Sects

The two main sects of Zen are Rinzai Zen and
Soto Zen.

Soto Zen puts more emphasis
on the discipline of zazen, while Rinzai Zen makes use of
meditation problems, or
koans
, based on the dialogues between
the old masters and their students.

Students are expected to present their
understanding of an incident to the teacher in some nonverbal
direct form, say, by pointing, in a private interview called in
Japanese sanzen.

Influence on Arts and Crafts

Zen is studied ordinarily in semimonastic
communities to which laymen are admitted for limited periods.
However, the Zen monastery is more strictly a training school
combining meditation with a considerable amount of manual
labor.

The students in such schools give special
attention to the arts and crafts, notably painting, calligraphy,
gardening, architecture, and ceremonial tea drinking. In Japan the
arts of fencing, archery, and jujutsu are also pursued.

Zen has had a strong influence upon Far
Eastern arts and crafts because its point of view is connected with
action rather than theory and with direct vision of nature rather
than interpretation.

According to Zen the mind serves properly as
a window glass rather than as a reflector, that is, the mind should
give an immediate view instead of an interpretation of the
world.

All theories of nature and reality are
considered to interfere with this direct vision. Zen thereby shows
its continuity with the original idea of the Buddha: that suffering
is the result of grasping desire, for it holds that the mind and
feelings frustrate their own proper functioning when they cling
deliberately to the world of experience.