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What
Is Buddhism ? Introduction |
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| Twenty-six-hundred years ago, Prince Siddhattha of the small Sakiyan Kingdom of Northern India, repelled by the suffering he saw around him, left his wife and son and set out on a lonely quest to find the end of suffering. Following the goal of the Hindu ascetics of that day he sought Amatta - or Deathlessness. Practicing with one teacher he reached the 7th jhana (there are 8 jhanas in jhana-practice: 4 rupa and 4 arupa ). Then with another teacher he reached the 8th jhana. But he soon saw that these were temporary states, which could not truly end suffering. He then began to practice self-mortification, which involved fasting to purify the soul and thereby achieve freedom from pain. He did this until his body nearly wasted away. Then he broke his ascetic fast with a meal of hot milk and rice, offered to him by a dairy maid, named Sujata. He had come to the conclusion that the extremes of sense pleasure and self-mortification were not the answer: the answer. lay in the Middle Way (Majjhima Patpada) . That night, in meditation, he discovered the Four Noble Truths and became enlightened. He was, in the familiar chant of the Buddhist monks, Sammasambuddhasa - or, "enlightened by his own efforts." | ||||||||
| Today, all over the world, growing numbers of men and women, experiencing ever-increasing standards of living and affluence, but feeling nevertheless dissatisfied, are turning toward the remedies of the Noble Truths and Eight-Fold Path. Gautama Buddha steadfastly held through forty-five years of teaching that he taught only one thing: "Suffering, and the end of suffering." He did not care to speculate as to whether the universe is eternal or not eternal, of similar enigmas that vex philosophers - though he did posit a universe that was matter, containing living things that are mind and matter (nama and rupa, or the Five Khandas). No permanent self or soul in god or man could he find, or fit into his scheme of things. Indeed the practice of Buddhism can be defined simply as the observation (awareness) of body and mind, as constantly changing things. As a result of this over two-thousand years of observing the mind and body process, a vast lore of information has been acquired. (Even some of the recent discoveries in dream research in the Western world, were known to Buddhists thousands of years ago). | ||||||||
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| The real Buddhism is not temples, or statues of the Buddha, or giving alms, or ceremonies. While these are all worthwhile, they do not answer the question, What is the real Buddhism? If we say that the real Buddhism is the practice of meditation using mindfulness and clear comprehension to realize wisdom - and thus erase all defilement, and end suffering - we are getting closer. But we still are not there. | ||||||||
| If we say that the real Buddhism is matter (rupa) and mind (nama) - then we are getting a little more close; but even this is not entirely satisfactory. The word “nama” might still convey the notion of a mind that is compact, all of one piece, doing all these different mental functions. In order to give a truer picture of the mind, nama must be expressed as mental states (cittas), each arising separately, and each different from the other: the mental state that sees is not the same as the mental state that hears, the mental state that is wandering mind is different from the mental state that observes body (rupa) in practice, etc. "We" , our entire existence, at any given time is simply the arising of one of these mental states. Which is quickly replaced by another. | ||||||||
| But mental state (citta) is still not enough. Mental states (cittas) are actually made up of 52 different mental properties, called cetasikas. (For example, contact, feeling, perception, etc. are cetasikas.) So now, our true definition of nama becomes citta-cetasika. We may now add rupa to our definition of Buddhist reality, and so we get citta-cetasika and rupa. But citta-cetasika-rupa is still not the whole "picture." If we practice successfully (realize rupa and nama are not "us") we still reach a state where a brief path moment has nibbana as an object, and this nibbana is also a part of Buddhist reality. | ||||||||
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| Thus our final definition of Buddhist reality now becomes mind-body and enlightenment - or to state it in Pali, the language of Buddhism: citta-cetasika-rupa, and nibbana. These four things, in Buddhism, are ultimate reality. This means they are those things in the universe that are "real" - that is, they do not require concepts to understand. So, every living thing in the universe is made up of the first three of these - citta-cetasika and rupa. Nibbana - which is the object of the path moment that erases defilement in each of the four stages of enlightenment - is the fourth part of ultimate reality: citta-cetasika, rupa, and nibbana. (It is important to know that nibbana is just an object of the mind at a certain stage of wisdom. It actually appears a very brief moment of peace and stillness - and its nature is no defilement.) | ||||||||
The purpose in Buddhism of the first three (citta-cetasika-rupa ) is to demonstrate that "you" are really made up of many parts (rapidly-changing mental states and rapidly-changing matter), and since none of these parts are "you", the parts together are not "you" either. The science in Buddhism that divides body and mind into smaller and smaller parts is called Abhidhamma: this science helps to better see that 'we' are not man, not woman, not-self,etc. Our first definition of Buddhism, then, is that this ultimate reality (citta-cetasika-rupa,&nibbana) is Buddhism - real Buddhism. |
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| Every living thing in the world answers to this mind-matter definition (citta-cetasika-rupa). Non-living things are just matter, rupa. Even though people do not know this definition, may never have even heard of Buddhism, they are still citta-cetasika-rupa, and nibbana still exists as a state that the mind (citta-cetasika ) can reach when the mind has absolute purity. Now having read this simple explanation of the real Buddhism, you can, it is hoped, progress with a little more confidence to our teacher's more technical discussion of this important subject, which is described in the following paragraphs. | ||||||||
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