The greatest and
most unexpected event in a Buddhist follower’s life that can move the
feelings of various beings mystically in different spheres of the universe
takes place by the time he solemnly declares that he has made up his mind
to become a Buddha and taken a vow of remaining at the threshold of
nirvāṇa for the happiness and salvation of the world.
For a Buddhist, to
become a Buddha is to attain the Enlightenment the Buddhas have realized;
that is, to cease submitting oneself to the deception of the phenomenal
world (māyā)
upon gaining an insight into its real nature. The phenomenal world is the
world of names (nāma) and forms (rūpa) which changes
ceaselessly in the endless series of births, durations, and destructions,
in which the Buddhist, who has been bound and controlled and deceived for
ages by the force of its mutual relations, is an eternal slave so far as
he fails to see the world truly as it is (yathābhūtam). And to
remain at the threshold of nirvāṇa is to refuse what is conventionally
regarded as the greatest bliss and, for this reason, to attain the
absolute freedom, which would leave no trace and shadow in the phenomenal
world and with which one would be able to perform perfectly the mission of
saving the world. It is a mission that has no match in any religion of the
world and is believed to have ever shaken the whole universe; for it
always receives the praise of the Buddhas in the ten directions, wins the
applause of the deities, brings hope and joy for suffering beings, and
makes the devils tremble with fear upon learning about it.
In most cases such a
vital decision is made when the Buddhist realizes that his nature is not
different from the Buddhas’, that he is in essence a potential Buddha,
that he is possessed of sufficient faith (śraddhā) and other
powerful mental faculties to become enlightened if he courageously
abandons all the false views (mithyādṛṣṭi) that have deceived him
so far in order to go on the way the Buddha teaches. It is undoubtedly due
to his unshakable faith in the historical Buddha’s assertion concerning it
and the Buddhas’ great compassion in the ten directions of the universe
that the Buddhist decides to follow Buddhism and declares his decision
through the sacred formula:
buddhaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi.
dharmaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi.
saṃghaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi.
The formula
expressed above in the most sacred language of human beings consists of
three sequential statements, but its essential significance seems to be
quite obviously conveyed in the first one. Religiously considered, it is
the most sacred, mystical and influential statement that the Buddhist, for
the first time of his life, can hear and recite devoutly in his extremely
pure and serene state of mind through a calm, benevolent and compassionate
image of the Buddha in his mind, the invaluable encouragement of the
Saṃgha and the enthusiastic support of other Buddhist follwers surrounding
him; nevertheless, from a practical point of view, the statement itself
may be considered to be a skillful means he is given for his initial
efforts at transforming the inherent working of his whole existence—a
means the effects of which may be involuntarily decreased if it is
conventionally declared in other speeches as “I take refuge in the Buddha”
in English, “Je cherche refuge aupres du Bouddha” in French, or “Tzu kuei
i fu” in Chinese, ect.
In the sacred
statement above gacchāmi is derived from the verbal root gam
(go) and conjugated in the singular first person of the present tense, in
which the doer of the action (I) is not separated from but identical with
the action of going. The idea that there is an agent existing
independent from an action is considered in Buddhism to be an illusion
proceeding from our long-standing attachment to the unreal existence of a
self in the whole structure of an individual. Within each of us this
attachment has become a natural force, controlling and determining all the
activities, mental and physical, of our living. It has, for innumerable
lives in the past, led us on the endless route of the circle of
life-and-death and caused us the misconception of a self as the builder of
our existence (gahakāraka).
But the most serious matter is that it has solidly produced right in our
innermost mind a fear that were we successful in uprooting it, we would be
destroying our existence by ourselves. It is under the powerful control of
this permeating attachment that it is really difficult for us to get rid
of the misconception of self by means of our own intellectual efforts,
which are all based on the plane of dualistic perceptions. Even though we
attempt a thousand times to think or to shout that “my Self is
non-existent”, we cannot shake the root of it. Our attempts are all in
vain since what we are using to destroy it has been originally produced by
the attachment itself. So far as we are still bound by the very
self-attachment together with all that arises from it, we cannot find any
possible means of our own to bring about a thorough transformation at the
primary root of our existence. Just as our eyes cannot see themselves, it
must be admitted that we can never give up our selfishness by ourselves;
therefore, the most relevant decision we can make at the beginning of our
journey towards the ultimate goal of Buddhism is to rely on the Buddhas’
great compassion and great vow of saving the world as a skillful means for
our first efforts at transforming the whole structure established by our
self-attachment from the very no-beginning. In this period making such a
decision is generally regarded as a right conduct since the action of
denying or refusing a help, a protection from the Buddhas is certainly one
of innumerable products of our self-attachment. Without the Buddhas’ vows
of saving suffering beings we can do nothing at all within the current
working of our mental and physical structure. And here gacchāmi
with all of its far-reaching implications is the primary mystical sound
skillfully applied to attack the abiding attachment within ourselves; it
is the first stroke aiming at paralyzing every self-centered conception
arising from every plane of our consciousness, which is the greatest of
countless hindrances that the Buddhist must break through with all his
mental and physical energy on the way of realizing the enlightenment.
buddham
and śaraṇam
are derived from the nouns buddha (the Enlightened One) and
śaraṇa (refuge or protection) respectively; and both are used in the
accusative case. In this noun phrase the word buddha is not used in
the genitive case (buddhānām) nor in the locative (buddhe)
but in the accusative; thus the sentence buddhaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi
should not be analyzed in the ordinary usage by separating buddhaṃ
from the expression śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi (I take refuge); instead, it
should be understood as “I go to the Buddha, my protection”, in which
śaraṇam is in apposition to buddham; that is, buddham is
identical with śaraṇam, or rather, buddham is śaraṇam.
This is another important structure of language that is used as a guiding
thought throughout the Buddhist’s way of studying and practicing Buddhism
and it helps to explain the reason why he has vowed not to enter nirvāṇa
for the benefit of sentient beings; for a Buddha who is not a śaraṇa
is no longer a Buddha.
Apart from the
ordinary usage of a conventional language the statement buddhaṃ śaraṇaṃ
gacchāmi, here and now, is not an implement of reason but a mystical
implement to transform reason into realization; it is the inherent source
of living energy that the Buddhist can arouse unconciously from the
innermost part of his existence as he is focusing all his mind on the
utterance of the sacred formula. Within himself the seeds of wisdom and
compassion are gradually to be stripped of countless layers of defilement
aggregated for long aeons so that they can become the boundless light and
the boundless living energy leading him on the way the Buddhas and the
Patriarchs have gone. Without the perfect wisdom (prajñāpāramitā)
he can never gain an insight into the real nature of the phenomenal world;
and without the great compassion (mahākaruṇa) he can never wander
freely throughout the world for the inexhaustible salvation of suffering
beings.
Buddhaṃ-Śaraṇaṃ
In the Buddha’s
lifetime merely the first statement of the threefold formula was
sufficient for his immediate disciples as in their eyes all that they had
made great efforts to seek for hopelessly in their many years’ wandering
in the land of India was eventually manifested perfectly in the Buddha
himself. He was then the embodiment of the absolute truth, the perfect
goodness of personality, and the incomparable beauty of a holy life right
in the midst of the world. He was the living example of transcendental
qualities of a transcendental being who had transcended the world but not
abandoned the world. At that time, buddhaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi was the
singing of Kāśyapa in Uruvelā upon discovering a new horizon of freedom;
it was the sound of the hurried footsteps of Śāriputra, Maudgalyāyana,
ect. on their way towards Rājagṛha; it was their farewell to the six
contemporary classic systems of philosophy and their gurus;
it was their joyous greeting in their first union with a great personality
they decided to take as the final refuge of their life.
After the Buddha’s
parinirvāṇa the threefold formula has been preserved by all the
Buddhist communities as the first indispensible condition for those who
want to go on the way of liberation. In our age though there is no
appearance of any Buddha in the world, the essential meaning of the
statement buddhaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi remains the eternal value for
the Buddhist’s religious life. He makes up his mind to take the Buddha as
a refuge not due to his experience of what the Buddha has attained but
merely due to his faith in Him.
Indeed it is thanks
to our faith that we are capable of making up our mind to take Buddhism as
a refuge, starting our long journey towards the ultimate goal and keeping
ourselves safe from countless dangers all the way. Quite different from
the ordinary sense of the term in Western theology and psychology, faith (śraddhā)
is not the momentary arising of our normal consciousness (vijñāna)
but a state of mind (caitta) that has grown up into a powerful
mental faculty (indriya); and, in the Buddha’s teachings, not only
is it one of the five basic mental faculties that helps differentiate a
Buddhist who is on his way towards the ultimate goal (āryapudgala)
from a person who has destroyed his good faculties (pṛthagjana),
but it is also the single essential impetus to a Buddhist’s vow of being
reborn in a Buddha’s realm.
In the Abhidharma literature
,
śraddhā, which is fundamentally a caitta, is termed good
indriya, for it is one of the five faculties which establish the
support (āśraya, pratiṣṭhā) of nirvµnïa and by the force of which
the passions (kleśa) are destroyed and the Buddhist is led to the
goal; together with four other faculties they constitue a new faculty
termed anājñātamājñāsyāmīndriya for a Buddhist who is being in the
period called ‘the way of view’ (darśanamārga) when nirvāṇa appears
for the first time, another termed ājñendriya in his period of ‘the
way of meditation of the Truths’ (bhāvanāmārga), and the last
termed ājñātāvīndriya for his ‘way of Arhat’ (aśaikṣamārga).
As a good caitta and indriya, śraddhā is both the
effect, which has been impressed, nourished, grown up by various kinds of
good karma in the past, and the cause of the Buddhist’s decision to
follow Buddhism and his efforts on the way to attain Buddhahood in the
present. It has become a good ‘seed’ (bīja), a potential force
which exists so deeply in the innermost part of our mind (ālayavijñāna)
that it is completely out of the reach of our normal consciousness, which
can recognize its trace just through the demonstration of such good
virtues of a human being as confidence, devotion, consistency, patience,
determination, courage, volition, ect. Within an ordinary Buddhist who has
just made up his mind to take Buddhism as a refuge, śraddhā, though
it is not completely in a state of being pure (sāsrava), remains a
pivotal element, a decisive quality, an active impetus, a firm foundation
for his mental efforts to perform the good; and in the course of his
studying and practicing Buddhism it is gradually purified until it becomes
one of the conditions for his attainment of the ultimate goal.
Thus, śraddhā
is an indispensible quality not only at the beginning of a Buddhist’s new
way of living as many people have misunderstood but also throughout his
way towards Buddhahood. It is in essence a good faculty; therefore, it
should not be mistaken for the word faith in the ordinary sense of
the term. The normal manners of speech by attaching such attributes of bad
quality as “blind”, “false”, ect. to the word faith (śraddhā)
are not reasonable in Buddhism and sometimes they may be regarded as the
corruption of human speech in the modern age as in, for instance, “backward
culture”, “dishonest priest”, “immoral teacher”. When we say
“our false faith in the permanent existence of self has ended”, we must
understand that our statement is conventionally exact but not right in the
Buddhist speech. The meaning of “the permanent existence of self” is, in
fact, not the object of our faith but of our perception since a faith is
not a perception (vijñāna) but a moral faculty, nor is it a
substratum for such a false perception. When we have not realized that the
self is unreal, we have formed in our mind an idea that it is real; and
when realizing that it is unreal, we form a new idea that our former idea
is false. Thus the state of being false belongs to our perception
but not to our faith; and the statement should be corrected as “our false
perception of the permanent existence of self has ended”. In Buddhism a
false perception is termed mithyādṛṣṭi, (false view) as opposed to
samyagdṛṣṭi
(right view). It is due to their misunderstanding of the moral function of
śraddhā and their mistaking of dṛṣṭi for śraddhā that
many Buddhist followers have been unable to apply what śraddhā
could have assisted them to their practice of Buddhist teachings and have
been hindered from experiencing what the Buddha has taught in many other
teachings.
Thus, from the view
of a faithful Buddhist the Buddha’s physical body has gone but the “body”
of an Enlightened One’s transcendental qualities remains indestructible
forever. It has gone beyond all the bounds of the phenomenal world and
transcended all of our limited conceptions of existence and non-existence,
being and non-being. This is one of the very important notions for a
Buddhist in both his first steps on the way of liberation and his entire
process of studying and practicing Buddhism.
The ultimate goal of
Buddhism is the experience of liberation, which is generally designated as
saṃbodhi or nirvāṇa, and the way leading to the goal is
based on experience, too; that is to say, both the goal and the way can be
realized merely by experience. Nevertheless, in order to help human
beings start their long journey towards the goal the Buddha had to depend
on no other means than what human beings are possessed of, that is, speech
and intellect. This reveals a fact that most of Buddhist followers who
have made up their mind to follow Buddhism cannot help thinking so much
about what they are attempting to attain. In reality it is a normal case
in any other religions; but in Buddhism it is considered to be unnecessary
and sometimes unpersuaded. As an ultimate experience, the enlightenment
cannot be found in any of the Buddha’s teachings, which are declared by
the Buddha merely as a raft for conveying the Buddhist to the other shore
of the ocean of life-and-death.
This obviously implies that the absolute truth cannot be expressed in
words but must be personally experienced. It is on account of the Buddha’s
formulation about this fact that so many different interpretations of
Buddhist teachings have been found in the different Buddhist communities
after his parinirvāṇa. There are some things in Buddhism that can
be understood by our way of normal reasoning; but there are some that can
be realized merely by our personal experience. The Four Noble Truths, for
example, may be considered to be the most fundamental of Buddhist
teachings; and a Buddhist, depending on his own capacity of normal
reasoning as well as his common experience in the worldly life, can easily
acquire a rather clear knowledge of the First Truth (duḥkha) and
the Second Truth (samudaya); nevertheless, as far as the Third (nirodha)
and the Fourth (mārga) are concerned, they are beyond the range of
our intellection. None of us can offer an absolutely exact description of
what would be achieved of the Third Truth until they themselves experience
it; and no one can assert that all that they have experienced in each
stage of their process of practicing Buddhist teachings is exactly in
accordance with what the Buddha has experienced. Such extremely abstract
subjects as nirvāṇa, prajñāpāramitā, saṃbodhi, ect.
and even such apparently concrete subjects as the existence of heavenly
beings in arūpadhātu, rūpadhātu, kāmadhātu, the first
stage of dhyāna, the second stage of dhyāna, ect. are all
those which cannot be proved to be true through scientific information as
we have in the present. Here a problem is certainly to be aroused by the
Buddhist: Should we believe in what we cannot justify its existence
concretely? Is it true that only what we can justify on the conventionally
accepted grounds of logical reasoning is really existent? If a negative
answer to the first question and an affirmative to the second were made,
Buddhism would no longer be a way of liberation for those who do not
appreciate the values of personal experience. Therefore, the most decisive
thing to most of Buddhist followers who want to set foot on the way of
liberation of Buddhism is that let’s believe in Buddhism first and then
experience it. And this has become a guiding principle not only for
Buddhist followers in the present-day Buddhist communities but also for
the Buddha’s immediate disciples in the original community; for none of
them became an Arhat before going to the Buddha, their refuge.
Being born in an age
when no Buddha appears to teach us directly, we are, of course, not so
happy as the Buddha’s immediate disciples, who had the Buddha as their
firm support on their way of practicing his teachings. From one point of
view, however, we may find ourselves to be much happier. For when we are
not limited by any personal witnessing of the destruction of the
historical Buddha’s physical body, we can find it easier to accept the
eternal existence of the body of a Buddha’s transcendental qualities
beyond all the limits of time and space. And when the historical Buddha
has become a Buddha of the past, the refuge the present Buddhist decides
to take is not only the symbol of a historical Buddha’s physical body but
also an Enlightened One’s transcendental qualities. That is to say, he
takes refuge not only in the Buddhas of the past but also in the Buddhas
of the present and the future, relying not only on a Buddha but also on
all the Buddhas in the ten directions of the universe; for the image of an
Enlightened One in the Buddhist’s mind has then become the most sacred
immortal body of supreme qualities, of the absolute truth that the
Buddhist chooses as all that he is making great efforts to penetrate.
That may be a
surprise for those non-Buddhist and even some Buddhist who generally
regard Buddhism as a doctrine rather than experience, a fixed object of
intellectual analysis rather than an organism with all of its living
energy in the whole structure of mankind’s individual and social life. But
for those who have taken Buddhism as an irreplaceable source of their
living, that they are frequently practicing Buddhist teachings in the
light and with the help of not only the Buddhas but also the Patriarchs is
a very natural fact, which can be experienced right in their daily living
as pious Buddhist followers. When the refuge they decide to take is not
the body of a living Buddha but that of the Absolute Truth (dharmakāya)
and when the sphere they are attempting to penetrate is not any paradise
made up by the phenomenal world but that of the Ultimate Reality (Buddhakṣetra),
the mutual relation between them and the sphere is certainly to be
established on the basis of the mystical force of their śraddhā and
the Buddhas’ Great Vow; and the greater efforts they make to cleanse their
nature of abiding defilement (kleśa) by their devoted practice of
the Buddha’s teaching, the more powerful force they can receive from the
Buddhas since all of them are of the same nature (buddhasvabhāva).
Of course this is such a highly subtle problem that were it required of
some justification as to whether there is really the experience of such a
mutual relation or not, it would be a failure for both affirmation and
negation since the object of either affirmation or negation is completely
not the experience itself. Every reasonsing, reflection, speculation,
which all proceed from the intellect, will then become nonsense. The
Buddhist realizes that everything in Buddhism is to manifest itself in the
course of practice. So long as he is still found on the way, he will be
able to see. The real values of Buddhist teachings can be found in the
living only; but the living of the Buddhist is such a continuous flow that
every attempt of the intellect fails to grasp it. Therefore, to stop it
for any intellectual analysis or any doctrinal evaluation is to kill it;
and then it will no longer be the mysterious working of an organism but an
irrelevant subject for some academic research by those who prefer to study
Buddhism rather than experience it.
Dharmaṃ-Śaraṇaṃ
As a human being in
any community, the Buddhist must have a support, both material and
spiritual, for himself. It is a natural need of a human being since, in
most cases, it is the principal factor boosting his development, helping
him lead an increasingly better life. Without a mental support he cannot
determine the appropriate direction of developments in his individual life
as well as in society. This explains why there have been various doctrines
created by human beings in the East and in the West concerning every
aspect of man and society. And a doctrine, whether it is evaluated to
be excellent or not, has some definite influence on a number of people
in some period; that is, it can meet any of their mental or material needs
whether they are really helpful to their own living and the community or
not. Generally considering, a doctrine is one of the most precious
creations of human mentality that may help human beings go beyond the
instinctive bonds of a normal creature; but it can be a disaster for them
if it loses its original meanings and becomes more important than human
beings. When a man determines on selecting a certain doctrine as a frame
of his living and voluntarily orientates himself within all the principles
clearly defined by the doctrine itself, it means that he is separating
himself from those whose living is not limited in the same principles as
his. The doctrine will then become no longer a necessary source of living
for him but only a kind of invisible weapons annihilating both his life
and the world around him; for, in his extreme disappointment of attempting
to protect and prove the doctrine to be predominant, he is ready to do
anything possible, even destroying other beings.
It is from such a
view of what is generally claimed to be the mankind’s “progressive
creativity” that the Buddhist has decided to take Buddhism as a refuge all
his life; for the Buddhist teaching is not a doctrine in whatsoever
definitions of the term. The Buddha’s teachings are neither a system of
fixed conceptions proceeding from an individual’s dualistic perception
that its followers are insistently urged to apply to their living in the
present nor his illusive speculations upon an unreal prospect of the human
kind. Whether the Buddha appears in our world or not, all that was
declared in his teachings still exists as the eternal truths of our living
and the world around us. The Buddha did not create them but he revealed
them to the deluded world.
As being a member of
human society, the Buddhist, in spite of having decided to lead a holy
life towards the perfect liberation, cannot renounce the world altogether;
on the contrary, he must perform his way right in the midst of life. And
as a result, the fact that a Buddhist has decided to take Buddhism as his
refuge also connotes that he has agreed to reestablish his living on the
basis of Buddhist teachings, accept them as the best solutions to every
problem in individual and social life and, at the same time, hardly avoid
reevaluating the doctrines that have influenced human living and society
so far. From his own experience of the truths declared in the Buddhist
teachings, the Buddhist realizes that the founder of a system of religion,
of philosophy, ect. whose doctrine is not based on his own experience and
not produced from his perfect wisdom and his great compassion is not
worthy of his confidence but he should be considered no more than a
suffering sentient being who is sinking in the mud of life-and-death and
needs to be saved; a doctrine which does not aim at liberating human
beings from the bondage of passions (kleśa)
and ignorance (avidyā), leading human beings to the enlightenment (bodhi)
is not worth application to improving human life and society but only a
false view which is making the world more and more suffering; a member of
a community whose living is frequently nourished by desires, hatred, and
ignorance is not a leader the Buddhist must obey, not a teacher he must
follow, not a friend he must approach but considered to be a suffering
human being who needs to be instructed to have a better life. Such
reevaluations are very necessary to the Buddhist in his beginning of
leading a new life and throughout his way towards the ultimate goal. His
process of studying and practicing Buddhism is that of detachment which is
carried out ceaselessly and diligently so that he can gradually destroy
various kinds of obstacles on his way to approach the new values of
Buddhism; and the detachment cannot be successfully achieved unless the
Buddhist courageously faces every obstacle and sees into its nature
thoroughly. His reevaluation, therefore, is not criticism but abandonment
of all that has been deceiving and binding him in the phenomenal world,
and hindering him on his way to the absolute freedom. That is a necessary
but not easy deed for the Buddhist. He cannot overcome all of the
obstacles, both abstract and concrete, if he does not have a complete view
of them or reach a certain level of knowledge that can be the primary
foundation of his realization; therefore, he must do his best to study and
practice Buddhist teachings. His theoretical knowledge can help him grasp
some conceptions of the values of Buddhism and of the hindrances he
encounters in life; but, in order to turn it into his own experience, he
must apply it to his daily living. Buddhism, as it has been said before,
is not a doctrine but experience of living; therefore, after determining
the new values for his life, the Buddhist must rely on Buddhist teachings
(dharma) as an indispensible means to attain them. Without this
means, he cannot know how he should direct his way correctly even though
he has already taken the Buddha as his first refuge.
For a Buddhist
follower the term dharma denotes both the absolute truth (paramārthatattva)
and the relative truth (saṃvṛtitattva); the former is what the
Buddha has achieved; and the latter is his teachings for Buddhist
followers to attain the absolute truth. With such a rather simple
defenition, all the Buddhist texts could be understood as only a means to
attain the absolue truth but not the absolute truth itself since the
absolute truth is attained only by experience; it is beyond the range of
conventional language and intellection of a human being; and, as a result,
it is indescribable, unthinkable, and unmeasurable for a beginner of
Buddhism until he is actually enlightened.
Such general
conceptions of dharma are given here not as the essential meaning
of the term, but only as the preliminary ideas for the Buddhist at the
beginning of his studying Buddhist teachings and not exceeding the main
ideas of the statement dharmaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi.
After selecting the
Buddha’s qualities as his ultimate goal, the Buddhist decides to rely on
his teachings as the final support to his life, as the neccessary
instructions for his disciplinary practice, and as a ferryboat to convey
him to the other shore of the ocean of life-and-death. Whether learning
directly from his masters or from the fundamental texts, any Buddhist can
acquire a general knowledge of the Buddha’s qualities and achievements
such as the Perfect Wisdom, the Great Compassion, the Enlightenment,
Nirvāṇa. The goal he directs his way towards has thus been clearly
determined right on the plane of his normal conciousness; but he must
remember that to determine a goal does not mean to achieve it, or rather,
to experience it since all that he could think, or speak, or write about
it does not have any shadow of its nature at all but it is only his own
false imagination arising and vanishing within the inexhaustible operation
of the phenomenal world.
Therefore the first truth, which can help the Buddhist avoid any
undesirable projection of intellectual defilement on his normal
conciousness throughout his way to the final goal, is that one cannot
understand what one has not experienced.
According to
Buddhism, there are two kinds of hindrances for a Buddhist on his way of
liberation: one caused by his passions and the other his conventional
knowledge. Both of them exist in various forms but proceed from the same
source termed avidyā in Buddism. The reason why the Buddhas appear
in the world is to help us destroy these hindrances; however, it is not an
easy matter. All that the Buddhas have experienced arises from their
enlightenment which is undoubtedly all beyond the reach of our normal
consciousness, which is one of the attributes of an unenlightened one; and
in order to help us approach what they have experienced, the Buddhas have
no other way than depending on what we are composed of as the
starting-point of their teaching. Thus the first idea the Buddhist forms
in his mind after taking the Dharma as his refuge is that he cannot start
his way on any other point than his present entire existence and that the
Buddha’s teaching is his final support until he can experience what has
been experienced by the Buddha. Nevertheless, what are we possessed of
right in our present existence in the world? We must not forget that we
are existing in the phenomenal world which is composed of names and forms
and of which each of us is a member because we are made up by names and
forms, too. Our entire existence, therefore, is exclusively an aggregate
of names and forms changing ceaselessly in a world which is also changing
ceaselessly. Life after life we have found ourselves to be exactly similar
to a toy in the mirage of the phenomenal world and no matter how hard we
atempt to escape it, we can never get rid of it. All of our so-called
mental and physical efforts have been made day by day in the endless
circle of life-and-death; but, through our own experience we see that we
can never liberate ourselves from the bounds of the phenomenal world
unless we are no longer ignorant of it; or, in other words, we can see it
truly as it is. For this reason, a human being who decides to follow
Buddhism is the one who wants to destroy completely every kind of bondage,
get rid of the bounds of human fate, and cease the control of the
phenomenal world; and he knows he can do so since the Buddha has started
the same deed as a human being; and the point of time when he realizes
that he is incapable of doing this by himself is the most suitable
opportunity for him to receive the Buddha’s teachings; for his whole
existence has then become “empty”. What is conventionally called
knowledge, intelligence, self-conceit, self-glorification, self-exertion,
ect. has become nonsense in the embrace of the phenomenal world. On the
endless route of human fate, they have deceived him rather than
enlightened him; they have brought about an illusion that he could make
his life happier and happier with all of his volition and energy; but at
last he recognizes that it is his illusion of what he is possessed of in
his present existence that has made him sink more and more deeply in the
suffering. This is the first meaning he experiences of what is called
śūnyatā in Buddhism. He realizes that he can never receive the
Buddha’s teachings if he does not abandon all that has been binding him so
far. And at the same time, he also realizes that the two kinds of
hindrances which the Buddha has declared are in fact only one; that is,
avidyā. The passions and the illusions that have tormented him have
all taken root in his ignorance. All that has been happening to his life
is nothing but a dream; for were his defilement of self-nature, he could
never hope to abandon them. Thus the appearance of his defilement and
false views together with their binding impact on his life are considered
to be “real” only when he is still in his dream. Once he is awakened,
everything will certainly be looked at in another view.
Thus the remaining
problem for the Buddhist once he has set his first foot on the way of
Buddhism is that he does not need to choose all the Buddha’s qualities as
his goal any longer but only to focus all of his efforts, which have been
produced by the force of his śraddhā and other mental faculties, on
attaining the Perfect Wisdom (prajñāpāramitā). Without the Perfect
Wisdom he cannot destroy all the obstacles; and if he cannot destroy all
the obstacles, he cannot attain nirvana. From such a view, all of the
so-called blissful realms that the Buddha implies in the Buddhist texts
for those Buddhist who have not been enlightened yet must be understood as
only the temporary “repose” for those who are feeling “rather tired” on
the long journey towards the enlightenment. From one point of view, it may
be said that such midway repose can become a very dangerous “hindrance” if
it is ignorantly accepted as the final emancipation; for the Buddhist can
then unintentionally spoil the seed and obliterate the sprouts of his mind
of enlightenment (boddhicitta).
Thus the journey
towards Buddhahood is so long and full of hindrances as well as dangers
that all of us must be extremely deliberate. The arising within our mind
of such realization of the mirage of the world is rare and momentary;
whereas the force of our passions still exists as an eternal hindrance and
ceaselessly troubles us. We must always remember that we are being
deceived all the time and in every aspect by the phenomenal world. So far
as we cannot gain an insight into the real nature of it, we must rely on
the Buddha’s teachings. We can leave the raft only when we have reached
the other shore of the immense ocean. And who can know then whether the
long journey we have tried all of our best to achieve would be the same as
a dream and the Other Shore we have reached would also be This Shore but
with everything being transformed in our new view? The way toward the
final goal is really long but what we can achieve from our practice of
Buddhism is not too insufficient; and we, Buddhist followers, will never
feel solitary in the present journey; for, besides the unthinkable
assistance from the Buddhas’ Great Compassion, the forceful support from
the Dharma, we are further supplied with the inexhaustible encouragement
and invaluable instruction from the Samgha, our final protection in the
midst of the dangerous and deceptive world.
Saṃghaṃ-Śaraṇaṃ
Saṃgha
is the strongest impression made on the Buddhist’s mind during his
declaration of taking Buddhism as a refuge all his life. Not only is it a
beautiful image of an absolutely free way of living right in the midst of
the world but also a great support to him at his first foot-steps on the
long journey towards the enlightenment. Without the samgha the Buddhist
certainly will find it difficult to start and continue his way properly
and favorably. The values of the Buddhist teaching are found only in their
application to the daily living; and, in order to experience them
effectively, the Buddhist must rely on the samgha. From the Dharma, he is
taught that his existence cannot be separated from the others; and the
saṃgha is the first meaning that takes shape in his mind of what is termed
pratītya-samutpāda (dependence on others) in Buddhism. The idea of
an individual emancipation from the world is still one of the products of
his ego-centered attachment, which has clung to him from the very
no-beginning; therefore, the Buddhist’s decision to take the samgha as a
refuge is, too, one of his declarations of struggling against the control
of his very self-attachment.
In the Buddha’s
lifetime the saṃgha is the original community of Buddhist followers who
made up their mind to renounce their family life for a holy one under the
direction of the Buddha. It is therefore the first center of studying,
practicing, and propagating Buddhist teachings in the history of Buddhism
in our world. After the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa the saṃgha has been preserved
with all of its essential original meanings; but, naturally, its form has
somewhat changed in the course of development of Buddhism beyond the
borders of India. Nowadays there is not only one community but many
different communities in many different countries, in which the Buddhist
can freely participate as an official member (Bhikṣu/ bhikṣunī) or
only as an adherent (upāsaka /upāsikā); that is to say, when the
Buddhist decides to take Buddhism as his refuge, he can study and practice
Buddhist teachings as a monk or as a layman. Buddhism is the way of
liberation for every being and it has sufficient information for anyone
who wants to go on the way. From the Buddhist texts, we can find out
numerous cases in which Buddhist teachings have been successfully realized
by both monks and laymen. It is due to the multiplicity of its teachings
that Buddhism has been developing ceaselessly throughout the history of
mankind, in which the communities of the Buddha’s messengers always remain
the principal factor. They are the ones who directly preserve Buddhist
teachings, propagate them in the Buhhist and non-Buddhist communities, and
most essentially, prove themselves to be a spiritual protection for
Buddhist lay people. Without the existence of the saṃgha Buddhism would
become nothing other than a showcase in the museum of mankind’s culture.
It has been spread and preserved not in such modern, convenient and
favorable conditions as we have seen today but by the blood, the sweat,
the tears and even the lives of many Buddhists in many different countries
for centuries.
Buddhism, as we have
said before, is an organism with a very powerful living energy though its
message sent to the world is eternally that of wisdom and compassion.
Wherever it is introduced, it will gradually be incorporated into the
local culture and becomes a source of living for the masses there. The
history of many countries in the East has justified this, but it does not
mean that Buddhism has always found its favorable position in any place it
was introduced to and in any class of society it joined. In the history of
its development Buddhism has ever existed in the glorious periods but it
has also spent the darkest ones when its monasteries were destroyed, its
sacred texts were burned, the samgha was broken up violently, its monks
were killed or forced to return to the worldly life. If a country was led
by a Buddhist ruler or even a non-Buddhist ruler who respected humanity
and humane doctrines, Buddhism was then to be one of the fundamental
factors of the country’s prosperity; on the contrary, if the ruler
considered power to be more important than humanity, and the masses to be
nothing but an implement to serve the ruling class, Buddhism was then
regarded as a great obstacle. The most prosperous dynasties in India,
China, Vietnam, Japan, ect. were the periods when their leaders
appreciated the practical values of Buddhism and actually applied them to
the development of their countries successfully. And the most decadent
dynasties were the periods when Buddhism was regarded as a dangerous
obstacle owing to its strong impact on the masses’ demand for the ruling
class to respect the eternal values of mankind. This is only a historical
fact in the past but it discloses the truth that the existence of the
samgha cannot be separated from the prosperity and the decadence of the
country in which it has been established. For those who have not yet had
much opportunity to study Buddhism as a whole may be very surprised at
this fact since in their own opinion Buddhism is a religion insisting on
abandoning all desires and thence it is apt to renounce the world for an
ascetic way of living. In reality such a conclusion is logical but not
true. To abandon all desires is not to escape from the world but to make
the world better. In the same way as poisonous food must be eliminated
from our meal to keep ourselves uninjured, desire that is one of the most
harmful nourishment produced by our self-attachment must be abandoned to
make our living better. Generally speaking, Buddhist teachings aim at
helping us abandon our ignorance (avidyā)
of ourselves and the world around us so that we can live in
accordance with the community and nature. It is because of ignorance that
we misunderstand that our existence is naturally separated from other
beings’ in the world and thence has arisen in our mind the self-attachment
from which are born all kinds of such harmful defilement as false view,
desire, hatred, doubt, selfishness, ect. which constantly make our life
and the world around us more and more suffering. If ignorance is
abandoned, everything that has been produced by it will be abandoned, too;
and, in order to abandon ignorance, we must destroy all that hinders us
from destroying it by using our intellect. But our intellect is also a
product of ignorance. The more we use intellect to abandon ignorance, the
more ignorance clings to us because it has been further nourished by
intellect. With intellect we cannnot abandon ignorance; but without it we
also cannot abandon ignorance since we have no other means than it. And
this is the reason why the Buddha appeared on earth. From his experience,
we do not need to abandon ignorance since in our present situation it is
our desire to abandon ignorance that is nourishing it; but we will convert
our intellect into wisdom, which is not the wisdom as usually understood
by our intellect but the Perfect Wisdom (prajñāpāramitā); in other
words, we cannot abandon the dark of ignorance unless we have the light of
wisdom. In order to attain such perfect wisdom, the Buddha sets forth the
practice of śīla-samādhi-prajñā. This is the one way that was
declared by the Buddha in his lifetime and has been practiced by all the
Buddhist communities in the world so far. In addition, to help us travel
on the way more easily, the Buddha teaches many different means that will
be freely chosen by us and flexibly applied to our own situations.
The outline given
above of the way of liberation in Buddhism is quite theoretical and not
the main purpose of the present writing; nevertheless, in some measures,
it may be necessary for the Buddhist to get a certain view of the final
refuge he has decided to take. For in Buddhism the existence of the samgha
itself is forever determined by the Buddhist teaching; and each member of
the samgha must be awake at each of his footsteps along the way. The
Buddhist must not forget that he is being on the way to the Perfect
Wisdom; that is to say, as he has not yet attained the Perfect Wisdom, any
action of his own can nourish either ignorance or the Perfect Wisdom. To
do one’s best to practice Buddhist teachings to seek a happy life for
one’s own or to destroy other beings to protect Buddhism is to nourish
ignorance; on the contrary, if the Buddhist practices Buddhism to help
other beings have a better life or sacrifices his own life to protect
Buddhism, he is nourishing the Perfect Wisdom; and so on. From his
realization of a failure of his own that can take place at any time during
his footsteps on the long way, the Buddhist has been driven to select the
best of innumerable means the Buddha has set forth; that is, offering all
that he is possessed of, even his life, to every being in the world. It is
only with this action that he can hope to break up the last den of
ignorance. Thus, the process of practicing Buddhism, which has just been
interpreted as the accumulation of various merits for the final goal, now
becomes that of absolute abandonment. The Buddhist has nothing of his own
to be cared, protected, praised, blamed, loved, hated, ect. Even Nirvāna,
which is originally the greatest bliss he has ever hoped to attain, is no
longer a desire of his own, much less the other inferior desires. Then the
only reason for his existence in the samgha is that the samgha is the best
support to him in his mission of saving the world. The samgha is where he
is disciplined to develop his insight into life and the world and prepare
himself for the mission later. That is a way of living called
renouncing the world but not abandoning the world; and in order to
develop this way of living at its best the Bhiksu is usually found to
practice constantly the Six Pāramitās: (1) dāna, giving everything
he is possessed of to every being; (2) kṣānti, regarding himself as
nothing, (3) śīla, applying every necessary principles to his daily
living as a Buddhist, (4) vīrya, making ceaseless efforts to study,
practice Buddhist teachings and help other beings, (5) samādhi,
cutting off every source of nourishing ignorance, (6) prajñā,
seeing into the real nature of everything. They are also called six
“skillful means” in Buddhism, without which any Buddhist will find it
difficult to preserve and develop his way until he can attain the Perfect
Wisdom.
With such a view of
the saṃgha and its members’ way of living, the Buddhist can now understand
why there have been so many misundestandings about Buddhism not only in
the present day but even in the Buddha’s lifetime. As being the absolute
truth, Buddhism transcends every conflict of all kinds of doctrines of the
world; but on the plane of conventional truth, it cannot avoid
encountering various possible oppositions from those doctines the goal of
which is not the true emancipation of sentient beings from every form of
enslavement. When the Buddhist is aware of this, he will not easily accept
any mistaking what is really necessary to life and what is harmful to it;
and this is also his only choice when he decides to take Buddhism as his
refuge since there will never be anything called the “compromise” between
the dark and the light, at least on the plane of relative truth. For this
reason, the samgha in the past ever accepted to be broken up instead of
existing uselessly under the control of the powers of desire, hatred and
ignorance, its monks to be killed instead of making friends with the
“devils”, its monasteries to be destroyed instead of becoming an
institution of training slaves for inhuman secular powers. The samgha sees
clearly that to protect Buddhism is not to preserve it as a doctrine
opposed to the others but to preserve the eternal values of mankind; and
its existence remains to be meaningful so long as it is the protection for
those who do not want to live forever in ignorance and enslavement. In his
lifetime in the eyes of those who refuted the truths he had declared, the
Buddha was ever called “the life-destroyer” (bhunahuno)
only because he was destroying such harmful nourishment of life as selfish
desire, hatred, ignorance, ect. Thus it is not so difficult for a Buddhist
to understand that if the samgha in some community is called “ social
trouble-makers” or “dangerous political opponents”, it means that the
eternal values of mankind are being destroyed there by some inhuman power
of the world and the samgha is the main force of the masses in struggling
against what is making human beings implements for serving those who are
being noursidhed by harmful things. “Setting forth for the benefit of
sentient beings”
is the Buddha’s eternal exhortation for his early disciples in the past;
and it has become the raison d’être of the saṃgha on earth. Not any
power in the world can change the meaning of its way of living. So far as
there still remains a suffering being in the world, the samgha will have
to exist in any form it can. In its course of development, Buddhism has
become a potential force not only in the samgha but also in the Buddhist
laity. The historical facts prove that one can destroy various forms of
Buddhism but one can never obliterate its living energy among the masses.
Even in our modern age when human beings’ intellection, but not wisdom,
has been so highly developed that it has all kinds of crafty maneuvers to
deceive everybody, it is not so difficult for a Buddhist follower to
recognize whatever deceptions practiced on his religion since Buddhism is
fundamentally a complete view of life and the world. With such a highly
developed level of politics any inhuman ruler of course will not be so
stupid as to carry out a policy of persecuting Buddism as usually seen in
the past as publicly killing Buddhist monks, burning Buddhist texts, or
destroying Buddhist monasteries; but he will be much more cunning in his
manners of deceiving everybody in the world by innumerable statements of
his alleged respect for Buddhism. Naturally the samgha is no stranger to
all of this since its eternal mission is to convert sentient beings of
every class whether it is respected or not. Therefore, the most important
matter for the samgha as well as all the Buddhist laity is what and how
they can do to preserve the living energy of Buddhism and survive the
darkest period they are encountering in a community where Budhism is
encouraged to preserve its monastery as a beautiful spot for tourism
rather than an institution for disciplining the samgha, to build a museum
for displaying Buddhist antique things instead of a hall for expounding
Buddhist teachings to the public, to select a Bhiksu as an official to
implement the worldly policy of a state rather than a consultant for the
state’s policy, to employ the media for announcing Buddhist contributions
to consolidating the state’s power rather than introducing Buddhism as a
moral foundation of social development, ect.
The nightmare that
is thought to have been buried deeply in the past is unexpectedly arising
again not only with its dreadful figments but also with its various
attractive forms of enchantment in the same way as the graceful appearance
of the Māras’ daughters around the Buddha by the time he attained the
Enlightenment under the Bo tree in India. And the tears that would have
been left merely for sentient beings are rolling down right on the fate of
those who have abandoned everything of their own for the happiness of the
world. So far as the power of ignorance remains a disaster for the human
kind, the saṃgha in Buddhist followers’ mind will forever be the final
refuge for suffering beings on earth even though its alms-bowl be found
mixed with blood or tears:
My ration in the
prison let me offer
To the Buddha, the
Dharma, and the Order;
With the alms-bowl
are no words but tears
For the bloody
enmity of the world for years.
--- o0o ---
|Mục
Lục Tập San 5
|
---
o0o
---
Trình
bày:
Nhị
Tường
Cập
nhật
ngày: 01-02-2003
