CHAPTER XXVII

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THE BUDDHIST BIBLE, THE “THREE BASKETS,” AND ITS TEACHINGS.

There is that in Buddhism, intelligible to the poor and the suffering, which has endeared Buddhism to the hearts of millions not the silly, metaphysical phantasmagorias of worlds of gods and worlds of Brahma, or final dissolution of the soul in Nirvāna. No, the beautiful, the tender, the humanly true, which, like pure gold, lies buried in all religions, even in the sand of the Buddhist canon.--F. MAX MÜLLER.

Gautama had himself thoroughly worked out his system of religion. With regard to his teachings, we have more reliable information than in regard to his life. During his fifty years of teaching he had ample time to repeat over and over again to his disciples the principles of his faith. In the interval between Buddha’s death and the reign of the Buddhist king, Asoka (in 307 B.C.), legends and stories of miraculous deeds multiplied about the narrative of Buddha’s life. Gautama Buddha’s teachings were committed to writing and commentaries were written upon these. To determine what were the genuine Buddhist sacred books, and what were apocryphal, a council was called by King Asoka. This king was to the Buddhists what Constantine the Great was to the early Christian Church. King Asoka said to the assembled priests, “what has been said by Buddha, that alone is well said.” The canon of sacred books, as declared by this council, include the collection called the Tripitaka, or “Three Baskets.” These are to Buddhism what the New Testament is to Christianity; in these we find the orthodox belief. The first of these baskets is called the Vinaya, and contains all of Buddha’s teachings that refer to morality; the second is called the Sutras, containing the sermons of Buddha; the third is called the Abhidharma, containing all that treats of philosophy and metaphysics. The general name, Dharma, or “law,” is applied to the second and third Pitakas, or baskets. The first and second baskets each contain five separate works, and the third basket seven. In addition to these books the Buddhists look upon the commentaries and parables of the famous Buddhist missionary, Buddhaghosha, as of nearly equal value. These were written about 430 A.D. Still further, we have the work called the Dharma Pada, or “Footsteps of the Law.” This is a book of Buddhist’s morals, and Spence Hardy, one of the best writers on Buddhism, says that a collection of precepts might be made from this work, which in purity of morals could hardly be equaled by any heathen author. We now give a summary of Buddha’s teachings on the more important topics as found in the Tripitakas.

THE BUDDHIST WAY OF SALVATION.

The method of salvation which was wrought out by Buddha has been admirably summarized by Rhys-David as follows: “So long as man is bound up by bodily existence with the material world he is liable to sorrow, decay and death. So long as he allows unholy desires to reign within him, there will be unsatisfied longings, useless weariness and care. To attempt to purify himself by oppressing his body would be only wasted effort; it is the moral evil of a man’s heart which keeps him chained down in the degraded state of bodily life--of union with the material world. It is of little avail to add virtue to his badness, for so long as there is evil, his goodness will only insure him for a time, and in another birth, a higher form of material life; only the complete _eradication of all evil_ will set him free from the chains of existence and carry him to the ‘other side,’ where he will be no longer tossed about on the waves of the ocean of transmigration. But Christian ideas must not be put into these Buddhist expressions. Of any immaterial existence, Buddhism knows nothing. The foundations of its creed have been summed up in the very ancient formula probably invented by its founder, which is called _the Four Great Truths_. These are: 1. That misery always accompanies existence. 2. That all modes of existence (of men or animals, in earth and heaven) result from passion or desire (tantra). 3. That there is no escape from existence except by destruction of desire. 4. That this may be had by following the fourfold way to Nirvāna.

“Of these four prescribed stages called ‘_the Paths_,’ the first is an awakening of the heart. There are few that do not acknowledge that no man can be really called happy, and that men are born to trouble as the sparks fly upward, but the majority glide through life filling up their time with business or with pleasure, buoyed up with ever-changing hopes in their mad pursuit of some fancied good. When the scales fall from their eyes, when they begin to realize the great mystery of _sorrow_, that pain is inseparable from existence, and that all earthly good leads to vexation of spirit, when they turn for comfort and for guidance to the Enlightened One, then they may be said to be awake, and to have entered the _first stage_ of the Buddhist way of salvation. When the awakened believer has gone further, and got rid, first, of all _impure desires_, and then of all _revengeful feelings_, he has reached the second stage; in the third he successively becomes free (1) from _all evil desires_, (2) from _ignorance_, (3) from _doubt_, (4) from _heresy_, and (5) from _unkindliness and vexation_. ‘As even at the risk of her own life a mother watches over her child, her only child, so let him (the Buddhist saint) exert good-will without measure toward all beings.’”

The order here observed is very remarkable. The way to be freed from doubt and heresy lies through freedom from impurity and revenge, and evil longings of all kinds; or, in other words, if a man awakened to a deep sense of the mystery of sorrow wishes to understand the real facts of existence, wishes to believe not the false or the partly false, but the true altogether, Buddha tells him not to set to work and study, not to torture himself with asceticism or privation, but to purify his mind from all unholy desires and passions: right actions spring from a pure mind, and to the pure in heart all things are open. Again, the first enemy which the awakened believer has to fight against is sensuality, and the last is unkindliness. It is impossible to build anything on a foundation of mire; and the topstone of all that one can build, the highest point he can reach, the point above purity, above justice, above even faith, is, according to Buddha, _universal charity_. Till he has gained that, the believer is still bound; he is not free; his mind is still dark. True enlightenment, true freedom, are complete only in love.

The believer who has gone thus far has reached the last stage; he has cut the meshes of ignorance, passion and sin, and has thus escaped from the net of transmigration; Nirvāna is already within his grasp; he has risen above the laws of material existence; the secrets of the future and the past lie open before him; and when this one short life is over, he will be free forever from birth with its inevitable consequences, decay and death. No Buddhist now hopes to reach this stage on earth; but he who has once entered the “paths” cannot leave them; the final perseverance of the saints is sure; and sooner or later, under easier conditions in some less material world, he will win the great prize, and, entering Nirvāna, be at rest forever with other triumphant victors.

WHAT IS NIRVĀNA?

The central doctrine of Buddhism, the goal of all its hopes, the end of all its struggles, is Nirvāna or Nigban. But what does this mean? Some learned men say, absorption or swallowing up into the Deity; others, that it means a perfect annihilation, a ceasing to be or exist; while still others say that it simply means reaching a state of perfect inward rest. Nirvāna means, literally, “a blowing out,” as of a candle. We cannot conceive it possible that any one could teach the hopeless, despairing doctrine of annihilation, and cannot help believing that the last interpretation is the true one--that Nirvāna means a perfect, inward peace. Certain it is that Buddha’s followers of to-day believe in a definitely located Paradise, a place of perfect enjoyment. Nirvāna is an extinction, but of what? Of the life of the soul? or of the passions, of selfishness, desire and sin? and of the unrest produced by these? Nirvāna is called the highest happiness. As Max Müller says, “It represented the entrance of the soul into rest, a subduing of all wishes and desires, indifference to joy and pain, to good and evil, an absorption of the soul in itself, and a freedom from the circles of existences from birth to death, and from death to a new birth. This is still the meaning which educated people attach to it, whilst to the minds of the larger masses, Nirvāna suggests rather the idea of a Mohammedan Paradise or of blissful Elysian fields.” Buddha, himself, once said: “Those only who have arrived at Nirvāna are at rest.” Closely associated with Nirvāna is the idea of the transmigration of the soul; that the soul after death passes from one body to another; sometimes the body in which the soul is born again is that of an animal, sometimes of a man. The Buddhists kill no animals, for fear of annoying the soul of a dead man, which may be living in the animal. For this reason they also take great care of wounded and sick animals. In Bombay is a hospital for animals, carried on very successfully by the Jains, a Buddhist sect.

BUDDHIST MORALS.

The wonderfully pure and exalted teachings of Buddha have been gathered together in the Dharma Pada, or “Footsteps of the Law.” Many of them greatly resemble the teachings of our Holy Scriptures, others are absurdly ridiculous, while still others are metaphysical abstractions, and are wholly meaningless. The great majority are, however, full of wondrous wisdom. The following selections are translations from the Pali language:

SOME OF THE “FOOTSTEPS OF THE LAW.”

There is no fire like passion; there is no shark like hatred; there is no snare like folly; there is no torrent like greed.

A man is not learned because he talks much.

A man is not an elder because his head is gray; his age may be ripe, but he is called “Old-in-vain.”

For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time; hatred ceases by love. This is an old rule.

He who lives looking for pleasure only, his senses uncontrolled, immoderate in his enjoyments, idle and weak, Mâra (the tempter) will certainly overcome him, as the wind throws down a weak tree.

He who lives without looking for pleasures, his senses well controlled, in his enjoyments moderate, faithful and strong, Mâra will certainly not overcome him, any more than the wind throws down a rocky mountain.

As rain breaks through an ill-thatched house, passion will break through an unreflecting mind.

The evil-doer suffers in this world, and he suffers in the next; he suffers in both. He suffers when he thinks of the evil he has done; he suffers more when going on the evil path.

The virtuous man is happy in this world, and he is happy in the next; he is happy in both. He is happy when he thinks of the good he has done; he is still more happy when going on the good path.

The scent of flowers does not travel against the wind, nor (that of) sandal-wood, or of a bottle of Tagara oil; but the odor of good people travels even against the wind; a good man pervades every place.

As on a heap of rubbish cast upon the highway the lily will grow full of sweet perfume and delightful, thus the disciple of the truly enlightened Buddha shines forth by his knowledge among those who are like rubbish, among the people that walk in darkness.

The fool who knows his foolishness, is wise at least so far. But a fool who thinks himself wise, he is called a fool indeed.

The gods even envy him whose senses have been subdued, like horses well broken in by the driver, who is free from pride, and free from frailty.

Even though a speech be a thousand (of words) but made up of senseless words, one word of sense is better, which if a man hears, he becomes quiet.

If one man conquer in battle a thousand times thousand men, and if another conquer himself, he is the greatest of conquerors.

Let no man think lightly of evil, saying in his heart, It will not come near unto me. Even by the falling of water-drops a water-pot is filled. The fool becomes full of evil, even if he gathers it little by little.

Let no one forget his own duty for the sake of another’s, however great. Let a man, after he has discerned his own duty, be always attentive to his duty.

The wise who control their body, who control their tongue, the wise who control their mind, are indeed well controlled.

And the man who gives himself to drinking intoxicating liquors, he, even in this world, digs up his own root.

Akin to these are the following blessings of Buddha:

BUDDHIST BEATITUDES.

One of the gods says to Gautama:

1. Many angels and men Have held various things blessings, When they were yearning for happiness. Do thou declare to us the chief good.

Gautama answers:

2. Not to serve the foolish, But to serve the wise; To honor those worthy of honor: This is the greatest blessing.

3. To dwell in a pleasant land, Good works done in a former birth, Right desires in the heart: This is the greatest blessing.

4. Much insight and education, Self control and pleasant speech, And whatever word be well-spoken: This is the greatest blessing.

5. To support father and mother, To cherish wife and child, To follow a peaceful calling: This is the greatest blessing.

6. To bestow alms and live righteously, To give help to kindred, Deeds which cannot be blamed: These are the greatest blessings.

7. To abhor and cease from sin, Abstinence from strong drink, Not to be weary in well-doing: These are the greatest blessings.

8. Reverence and lowliness, Contentment and gratitude, The hearing of the Law at due seasons: This is the greatest blessing.

9. To be long-suffering and meek, To associate with the tranquil (_i. e._, Buddhist monks), Religious talk at due seasons: This is the greatest blessing.

10. Self-restraint and purity, The knowledge of the Noble Truths, The realization of Nirvāna: This is the greatest blessing.

11. Beneath the stroke of life’s changes, The mind that shaketh not; Without grief or passion, and secure: This is the greatest blessing.

12. On every side are invincible They who do acts like these, On every side they walk in safety, And theirs is the greatest blessing.

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