Instrumentos

The story of the life of the Buddha has become enshrined in all forms of myths and legends, as in the case of many religious teachers of the past.

Distinguishing historical facts from myths and legends is not only a diffi­

cult task but one that is generally resisted by the overenthusiastic devo­

tee. Such resistance can seem justified if the interpreter of the myths tends to assume that they are mere imaginations of the faithful disciple. Yet a more sober and careful analysis reveals that these myths symbolize important emotional or psychological events connected with the person­

alities involved or with actual historical incidents that called for dramatic explanations.

In recent times the reconstruction of the life of the historical Buddha, the sage of the Sakya clan (Sakyamuni), has been attempted by many scholars. One classic is E. J . Thomas’ The Life o f Buddha as Legend and History (1927). A second work of rare scholarship is by Bhikkhu Nyana- moli. His The Life o f the Buddha (1972) consists of translations of selec­

tions from the Pali canon and commentaries carefully sorted out and identified by their authors, such as reports by A nanda or Upali, who were the Buddha’s immediate disciples, or explanations by traditional commentators. Working with scanty references to historical events, another way of reconstructing the life of the Buddha is to pay serious attention to the philosophical ideas he expounded and see how far these are reflected in his life and conduct. Such an attempt was made in The Way o f Siddhartha: A Life o f the Buddha (1982). The present work being an outline of the philosophical teachings of the Buddha, it seems appro­

priate to preface it with a chapter summarizing the contents of that work.

Buddha, meaning “the enlightened one,” is a term by which Siddhartha Gautama came to be known after his attainment of enlightenment. Sid- dhartha’s father, Suddhodana, was the ruler of a small kingdom, called the country of the Sakyans, at the foothills of the Himalayas. It was a city-kingdom with Kapilavastu as its center. Siddhartha’s mother, Maya, is said to have died immediately after his birth. Pajapati Gotaml, Maya’s younger sister, nursed Siddhartha in his childhood. Brought up in com­

fortable surroundings, enjoying privileges not available to the vast majority of children in a caste-ridden social structure, Siddhartha was well educated in the traditional academic disciplines, martial arts, and other fields of study appropriate for a prospective ruler. However, early in life he seems to have come into conflict with his father, who wanted him to be the heir to the throne rather than a philosopher or religious leader who would challenge traditional ideas and values. These conflicts are symbolized in some of the myths about his early life, especially those of the prognostications of the sage Asita Kaladevala and of his father pre­

venting him from witnessing birth, illness, old age, and death. Tradi­

tional learning included study o f the Vedas as well as the six ancillary sci­

ences: phonetics (siksa), ritual (kalpa), grammar (vyakarana), etymology (nirukti), metrics (cbandas), and astronomy (jyotis).1 The Buddha’s insightful criticisms o f the Vedas, knowledge of the meaning and gradual evolution of the rites and rituals, critical evaluation of current social and political structures, detailed analysis of moral conventions, and illumi­

nating thoughts about the nature and function of language, all of which can be clearly seen in the discourses attributed to him, could not have been the result merely of a sudden enlightenment, much less of omni­

science, which he openly disclaimed. Instead, his enlightenment can be considered the combination of a mature response to the traditional learn­

ing that he received as a student and a penetrating understanding of human life and the nature o f existence.

Doubts have been raised about whether the Buddha was married and had a family because there are no specific references to these matters in the early discourses. Yet his own statements regarding the luxuries his father provided in order to keep him tied to a household life do not rule out the possibility of his having married (a woman named Yasodhara) and fathered a son (Rahula).

An extremely critical mind like Siddhartha’s, exposed to learning that considered the Vedas to be revealed texts and the Upanisads to be the cul­

mination of human knowledge and understanding, could naturally revolt. Ascetics and brahmans like Ajita Kesakambali, Makkhali Gosala, Pakudha Kaccayana, Purana Kassapa, Sanjaya Bellatthiputta, and M a­

havira had already reacted against such traditional dogmas. Siddhartha was to be the last of these major thinkers of the heterodoxy.

M ost of the six so-called heretical teachers were ascetics who had experimented with both reason and experience in order to understand the nature of human life and the world. With his critical attitude, Sid­

dhartha could not simply depend on the authority either of the tradi­

tionalists or of the heretics. Thus he was compelled to adopt the life of an ascetic against the will of his parents,2 who wanted him to remain a householder and be the next ruler of the Sakyans. No mention of his wife’s objections to his renunciation is made in the early sources. Being a

faithful wife in a traditional family, Yasodhara no doubt realized the need to support her husband’s ideology, and thus remained a docile part­

ner in Siddhartha’s quest for answers to the riddle of existence. The leg­

end about Siddhartha’s leaving home while his wife and new born baby were asleep, while highlighting the emotional stress in his renunciation, also symbolizes Yasodhara’s acceptance of her husband’s decision. Any other interpretation of his renunciation would do violence to the charac­

ter of a person who propounded an extremely enlightened form of love and compassion for oneself as well as others.

Wandering ascetics had criticized the Brahmanical tradition for several centuries before Siddhartha began to realize its weaknesses and its unfor­

tunate impact on morality and social harmony. However, Siddhartha was not as negative as the Materialists and Ajlvikas were toward morals as well as spirituality. Hence, immediately after leaving home and coun­

try, he moved south into Magadha, in Central India, where he joined two leading contemplatives, Ajara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, both representatives of the Upanisadic tradition. Under their guidance Sid­

dhartha learned meditation techniques specifically directed at the ap­

peasement o f mind rather than the development of insight. Dissatisfied with their spiritual attainments, he is said to have left them and joined a band o f ascetics who were practicing self-mortification. In the company of Kondanna, Bhaddiya, Vappa, Mahanama, and Assaji, Siddhartha practiced severe forms of self-mortification in the hope of gaining knowl­

edge and freedom. Even his friends were surprised at the extreme levels to which he carried such practices. His fasting reduced his body to a mere skeleton, and at one stage he is said to have been on the verge of death.

Six long years of mortification of the flesh made him realize the futility and meaninglessness of such deprivation, and he abandoned this way of life. At this point his five friends, who had been helping and watching him with great anticipation left him in disgust. After regaining his strength, Siddhartha moved to a quiet place on the banks of the Neran- jara River near Gaya. The opposite bank was a hub of ritual activities where ascetics and brahmans performed fire sacrifices and the like.

Seated under a ficus tree, which subsequently became famous as the bodbi tree or “tree of enlightenment,” Siddhartha decided to revert to the meditational practices he had cultivated under the tutelage of Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta. These yogic exercises, as mentioned earlier, were intended to appease the mind. Continuing with these exer­

cises rather vigorously, he was able to move onto a stage beyond what he had experienced earlier. This was a state in which all perceptions and what had been experienced (sahhavedayita) came to an end or cessation (nirodba).

Where his predecessors had assumed that the higher states o f medita­

tion provided a glimpse into the nature of ultimate reality, Siddhartha,

through his ability to stop all perceptions and experience, realized the non-cognitive nature of that state. Therefore, he emerged from that state and devoted most of his time to a cognitive understanding of existence.

The process of meditation that led to the cessation of perception also involved excessive concentration and flexibility of mind. Equipped with these, he spent much time reflecting on his own past (= retrocognition or pubbenivasanussati). Looking at the information provided by such reflection, without adopting too many presuppositions, such as the exis­

tence of a permanent and eternal substance, Siddhartha understood how his life had been conditioned by various factors. Developing the cognitive capacity called clairvoyance (dibbacakkhu), he perceived how the lives of other human beings are conditioned in the same way. He realized that, in addition to factors such as one’s parents and environment, one’s own behavior (kamma) contributes to the manner in which human life evolves. He was probably aware of the physicalistic explanation of behavior presented by Mahavira. Siddhartha was looking for an expla­

nation, not the neatness or clearness associated with it. He was not ready to push things under the rug because they stood in the way o f formulat­

ing absolute laws. This involved him in a massive psychological enter­

prise. Even though he understood that human life is often conditioned by factors for which one is not fully responsible, examining the psychologi­

cal springs of human behavior, he came to realize that there is a ray of hope for freedom. It was this realization that prompted him to analyze the psychological springs of action, or motivation, and distinguish behavior on the basis of its intentionality or non-intentionality. The rest o f his investigations thus focused on discovering the motives that domi­

nate human action and lead to unfortunate and evil consequences. Greed (lobha) and hatred (dosa) headed the list.

While this realization may not appear to be startling, the difficulty lay in eliminating such negative motives without adopting a totally negative attitude toward human emotions. In other words, Siddhartha wanted to discard passion and be dispassionate without simultaneously losing the capacity for compassion. The method he finally adopted was to appease his dispositional tendencies without either allowing them to grow into states of greed, lust, or attachment or actually annihilating them, which was tantamount to suicide. This psychological struggle continued until he emerged from it claiming that he had appeased or calmed his disposi­

tions (sabbasankbarasam atba) and attained the cessation of lust (raga) and hatred (dosa).

The elimination of lust and hatred and appeasement of the disposi­

tions enabled him to adopt a restrained attitude about the view he had adopted of the world. Without running after ultimate objectivity or abandoning all perspectives—that is, without looking for any form of absolute or permanent existence, or of nihilistic non-existence— he

examined the nature of human conception. Appeasement of the disposi­

tions enabled him to look at conception itself as possessing pragmatic value rather than absolutistic implications. This eliminated the last of the hurdles or obstacles, namely, confusion (moha).

The elimination of lust, hatred, and confusion (ragakkhaya, dosak- khaya, and m obakkbaya) constituted his enlightenment and freedom, and this final knowledge and insight is referred to as “knowledge of the waning of influxes” (asavakkhaya-hana). It represents a transformation of his whole personality, cognitive, conative, and emotive. With that transformation, Siddhartha was able to perceive the world paying atten­

tion to the human predicament and the way out of it, which he summa­

rized in the four noble truths (ariya-sacca).

In the context in which he lived, where the search for ultimate objec­

tivity reigned supreme, his non-absolutist and non-substantialist view of the world and human life would have been received with little enthusi­

asm. Therefore, he was hesitant to preach what he had discovered. Yet his moral concern, symbolized by an invitation from Brahma, prompted him to go out into the world and propound his ideas for the sake of the few who were prepared to listen to him. Thus was initiated a missionary career that was to last for the next forty-five years.

By this time, his two instructors in the methods of yogic contempla­

tion, Alara and Uddaka, had passed away. Therefore, he went in search of the five friends in whose company he had practiced severe self-mortifi­

cation, who were living in Baranasi. At first they received him with suspi­

cion and uncertainty, but they soon began to notice the transformation of his personality. Respect and admiration followed. They were willing to listen to him, and thus an audience was instantly created. Since these ascetics were enamored with self-mortification, the Buddha may have felt the need to explain the futility of such a life. Therefore, his first discourse to the world pertained to the practical middle path that avoids the two extremes o f self-indulgence and self-mortification.3 It was an exposition of the noble eightfold path and the fruits of life to be reaped, by oneself as well as others, by following it. It did not involve a discussion of the philosophical middle standpoint, which was the raison d ’etre of the moral life. The philosophical middle path was the topic on which he later discoursed to Kaccayana, whose concerns were more epistemological and theoretical than practical.4

The first of the five ascetics who realized the significance of the Bud­

dha’s doctrine was Kondanna. Abandoning the self-mortification they had practiced for years, the five ascetics applied themselves to the teach­

ings of the Buddha and soon attained enlightenment and freedom. The rapid progress they made should not be surprising, for they were men of great earnestness and spiritual maturity. The same can be said of many others, like Sariputta and Moggallana. In pre-Buddhist India, religious

or spiritual pursuits were confined mostly to men, female participation being extremely rare. For this reason those who joined the Order during the early stages were mostly men. However, the Buddha’s teachings injected a spirit of tolerance and critical reflection into Indian life, result­

ing in an erosion of the social, political, and religious conventions of the Brahmanical tradition.

The first of the Brahmanical conventions that fell into disrepute was social discrimination based on the age-old caste system. In the early dis­

courses, the caste system remains the second most criticized theory, next to the doctrine of atman. Not only did the Buddha provide innumerable arguments against this conception of caste, he also practiced what he preached by opening the doors of Order to any person who came to him looking for moral and spiritual guidance.

For a variety of pragmatic reasons, the Buddha seems to have adopted a more restrained attitude toward the Brahmanical system that dis­

criminated against females. The rather cautious steps he took before admitting females into the congregation can be appreciated only against the background o f the significant social, political, and religious revolu­

tion that was gradually taking place in India. Already thousands of males had renounced the household life and were living in congregations at var­

ious monasteries donated by lay disciples. This, as mentioned earlier, was a historical accident or situation created by the Brahmanical tradi­

tion. The sudden influx of females into such congregations could have created innumerable difficulties for monastic life and discipline. Further­

more, the Buddha was being criticized for eroding the family life of the Indians. He was denounced not only for destroying the so-called family dharma (caste system) but also for his unrestricted acceptance of renunci­

ation by men who carried heavy family responsibilities.5 The Buddha seems to have taken this latter criticism more seriously than the former.

For this reason, he had to be more cautious in the most important ven­

ture of admitting women to the Order, and when he realized that the time was ripe, he did take that step. Even a superficial reading of the Therlga- tha6 provides a clear view of the Buddha’s attitude toward women and of the exalted status they enjoyed in the Buddhist Order. Indeed, Buddhism was the first religious tradition to recognize women’s ability to attain the highest spiritual status attainable by any man, including the Buddha him­

self, and thus one in which they actually did so.

The second Brahmanical convention that the Buddha disrupted was the political one. Many formidable rulers of Magadha and the surround­

ing kingdoms were attracted to the teachings o f the Buddha. Bimbisara and Pasenadi became ardent followers and often sought the Buddha’s advice on matters pertaining to political thought. The conception of a

“universal monarch” (cakkavatti) whose authority depended on popular consensus and moral integrity rather than divine ordination was often

emphasized by the Buddha. Punitive measures were replaced by moral rehabilitation. The story of Angulimala’s7 attainment of moral perfection and spiritual freedom after spending most of his adult life as a murderer clearly exhibits the Buddha’s way of dealing with problems of crime and punishment. His political philosophy was to leave a lasting impression not only on the Indian conception of monarchy, faithfully followed by Emperor Asoka, but also on those of the South and Southeast Asian countries.

In the area o f religious practices, the Buddha rejected only those ritual­

istic elements that contained no perceivable psychological and moral sig­

nificance. As a result the brahman class lost the opportunity to practice its meaningless sacrifices and was deprived of its privileged position of intermediary between humanity and divinity. Although not every Brah­

manical religious teacher or philosopher was willing to renounce his practices and ideas, some leaders, such as the Kassapa brothers,8 were converted along with their large retinues.

Recognizing the futility of attempting to bring about a total revolution in human society and institutions, and assuming that “small is beautiful,”

the Buddha proceeded to organize the Order of monks and nuns in a manner that reflected his own philosophy. The ultimate goal of the reli­

gious life, as will be explained later, is the absence of constraints (vimutti, nibbana, etc.). Thus a life o f ultimate purity is also a life where possessive individualism should be renounced. This idea had to be reflected in the monastic life. Monks and nuns were to have no private property except the bowl and three robes. A monastery was a place of residence for all members of the Order, whether they came from north or south, east or west.

Virtues (slla) recommended by the Buddha and conforming to the moral principles (dhamma) he formulated were adhered to as rules of dis­

cipline (vinaya) until more elaborate ones were adopted as occasions demanded. As the monastic institutions expanded and multiplied, the need for more and more specific rules gradually gave rise to an extensive

cipline (vinaya) until more elaborate ones were adopted as occasions demanded. As the monastic institutions expanded and multiplied, the need for more and more specific rules gradually gave rise to an extensive