A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF KARMA, PURITY, AND NONVIOLENCE
The concept of karma, the undeniable trademark of Buddhism, also
falls within these four truths. When causes and conditions come
together and there are no obstacles, consequences arise.
Consequence is karma. This karma is gathered by consciousness— the
mind, or the self. If this self acts out of greed or aggression,
negative karma is generated. If a thought or action is motivated by
love, tolerance, and a wish for others to be happy, positive karma
is generated.
Yet motivation, action, and the resulting karma are inherently like
a dream, an illusion. Transcending karma, both good and bad, is
nirvana. Any so-called good action that is not based on these four
views is merely righteousness; it is not ultimately Siddhartha’s
path. Even if you were to feed all the hungry beings in the world,
if you acted in complete absence of these four views, then it would
be merely a good deed, not the path to enlightenment. In fact it
might be a righteous act designed to feed and support the
ego.
It is because of these four truths that Buddhists can practice
purification. If one thinks that one is stained by negative karma
or is weak or “sinful,” and is frustrated, thinking that these
obstacles are always getting in the way of realization, then one
can take comfort in knowing that they are compounded and therefore
impermanent and thus purifiable. On the other hand, if one feels
lacking in ability or merit, one can take comfort knowing that
merit can be accumulated through performing good deeds, because the
lack of merit is impermanent and therefore changeable.
The Buddhist practice of nonviolence is not merely submissiveness
with a smile or meek thoughtfulness. The fundamental cause of
violence is when one is fixated on an extreme idea, such as justice
or morality. This fixation usually stems from a habit of buying
into dualistic views, such as bad and good, ugly and beautiful,
moral and immoral. One’s inflexible self-righteousness takes up all
the space that would allow empathy for others. Sanity is lost.
Understanding that all these views or values are compounded and
impermanent, as is the person who holds them, violence is averted.
When you have no ego, no clinging to the self, there is never a
reason to be violent. When one understands that one’s enemies are
held under a powerful influence of their own ignorance and
aggression, that they are trapped by their habits, it is easier to
forgive them for their irritating behavior and actions. Similarly,
if someone from the insane asylum insults you, there is no point in
getting angry. When we transcend believing in the extremes of
dualistic phenomena, we have transcended the causes of
violence.
THE FOUR SEALS : A PACKAGE DEAL
In Buddhism, any action that establishes or enhances the four views
is a rightful path. Even seemingly ritualistic practices, such as
lighting incense or practicing esoteric meditations and mantras,
are designed to help focus our attention on one or all of the
truths.
Anything that contradicts the four views, including some action
that may seem loving and compassionate, is not part of the path.
Even emptiness meditation becomes pure negation, nothing but a
nihilistic path, if it is not in compliance with the four
truths.
For the sake of communication we can say that these four views are
the spine of Buddhism. We call them “truths” because they are
simply facts. They are not manufactured; they are not a mystical
revelation of the Buddha. They did not become valid only after the
Buddha began to teach. Living by these principles is not a ritual
or a technique.
They don’t qualify as morals or ethics, and they can’t be
trademarked or owned. There is no such thing as an “infidel” or a
“blasphemer” in Buddhism because there is no one to be faithful to,
to insult, or to doubt. However, those who are not aware of or do
not believe in these four facts are considered by Buddhists to be
ignorant. Such ignorance is not cause for moral judgment. If
someone doesn’t believe that humans have landed on the moon, or
thinks that the world is flat, a scientist wouldn’t call him a
blasphemer, just ignorant. Likewise, if he doesn’t believe in these
four seals, he is not an infidel. In fact, if someone were to
produce proof that the logic of the four seals is faulty, that
clinging to the self is actually not pain, or that some element
defies impermanence, then Buddhists should willingly follow that
path instead. Because what we seek is enlightenment, and
enlightenment means realization of the truth. So far, though, in
all these centuries no proof has arisen to invalidate the four
seals.
If you ignore the four seals but insist on considering yourself a
Buddhist merely out of a love affair with the traditions, then that
is superficial devotion. The Buddhist masters believe that however
you choose to label yourself, unless you have faith in these
truths, you will continue to live in an illusory world, believing
it to be solid and real. Although such belief temporarily provides
the bliss of ignorance, ultimately it always leads to some form of
anxiety. You then spend all your time solving problems and trying
to get rid of the anxiety. Your constant need to solve problems
becomes like an addiction. How many problems have you solved only
to watch others arise? If you are happy with this cycle, then you
have no reason to complain.
But when you see that you will never come to the end of problem
solving, that is the beginning of the search for inner truth. While
Buddhism is not the answer to all the world’s temporal problems and
social injustices, if you happen to be searching and if you happen
to have chemistry with Siddhartha, then you may find these truths
agreeable. If that is the case, you should consider following him
seriously.
RICHNESS WITHIN RENUNCIATION
As a follower of Siddhartha, you don’t necessarily have to emulate
his every action—you don’t have to sneak out while your wife is
sleeping. Many people think that Buddhism is synonymous with
renunciation, leaving home, family, and job behind, and following
the path of an ascetic. This image of austerity is partly due to
the fact that a great number of Buddhists revere the mendicants in
the Buddhist texts and teachings, just as the Christians admire
Saint Francis of Assisi. We can’t help being struck by the image of
the Buddha walking barefoot in Magadha with his begging bowl, or
Milarepa in his cave subsisting on nettle soup. The serenity of a
simple Burmese monk accepting alms captivates our
imagination.
But there is also an entirely different variety of follower of the
Buddha: King Ashoka, for example, who dismounted from his royal
chariot, adorned with pearls and gold, and proclaimed his wish to
spread the buddhadharma throughout the world. He knelt down, seized
a fistful of sand, and proclaimed that he would build as many
stupas as there were grains of sand in his hand. And in fact he
kept his promise. So one can be a king, a merchant, a prostitute, a
junkie, or a chief executive officer and still accept the four
seals. Fundamentally it is not the act of leaving behind the
material world that Buddhists cherish but the ability to see the
habitual clinging to this world
and ourselves and to renounce the clinging.
As we begin to understand the four views, we don’t necessarily
discard things; we begin instead to change our attitude toward
them, thereby changing their value. Just because you have less than
someone else doesn’t mean that you are more morally pure or
virtuous. In fact, humility itself can be a form of
hypocrisy.
When we understand the essencelessness and impermanence of the
material world, renunciation is no longer a form of
self-flagellation. It doesn’t mean that we’re hard on
ourselves.
The word sacrifice takes on a different meaning. Equipped with this
understanding, everything becomes about as significant as the
saliva we spit on the ground. We don’t feel sentimental about
saliva. Losing such sentimentality is a path of bliss, sugata. When
renunciation is understood as bliss, the stories of many other
Indian princesses, princes, and warlords who once upon a time
renounced their palace life become less outlandish.
This love of truth and veneration for the seekers of truth is an
ancient tradition in countries like India. Even today, instead of
looking down on renunciants, Indian society venerates them just as
respectfully as we venerate professors at Harvard and Yale.
Although the tradition is fading in this age when corporate culture
reigns, you can still find naked, ash-clad sadhus who have given up
successful law practices to become wandering mendicants. It gives
me goose bumps to see how Indian society respects these people
instead of shooing them away as disgraceful beggars or pests. I
can’t help but imagine them at the Marriott Hotel in Hong Kong. How
would the nouveauriche Chinese, desperately trying to copy Western
ways, feel about these ash-clad sadhus? Would the doorman open the
door for them? For that matter, how would the concierge at the
Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles react? Instead of worshipping the
truth and venerating sadhus, this is an age that worships
billboards and venerates liposuction.
ADOPTING WISDOM, DROPPING DISTORTED MORALITIES
As you read this, you may be thinking, I’m generous and I don’t
have that much attachment to my things. It may be true that you
aren’t tightfisted, but in the midst of your generous activities,
if someone walks off with your favorite pencil, you may get so
angry that you want to bite his ear off. Or you may become
completely disheartened if someone says, “Is that all you can
give?” When we give, we are caught up in the notion of
“generosity.”
We cling to the result—if not a good rebirth, at least recognition
in this life, or maybe just a plaque on the wall. I have also met
many people who think they are generous simply because they have
given money to a certain museum, or even to their own children,
from whom they expect a lifetime of allegiance.
If it is not accompanied by the four views, morality can be
similarly distorted. Morality feeds the ego, leading us to become
puritanical and to judge others whose morality is different from
ours.
Fixated on our version of morality, we look down on other people
and try to impose our ethics on them, even if it means taking away
their freedom. The great Indian scholar and saint Shantideva,
himself a prince who renounced his kingdom, taught that it is
impossible for us to avoid encountering anything and everything
unwholesome, but if we can apply just one of these four views, we
are protected from all non-virtue.
If you think the entire West is somehow satanic or immoral, it will
be impossible to conquer and rehabilitate it, but if you have
tolerance within yourself, this is equal to conquering. You can’t
smooth out the entire earth to make it easier to walk on with your
bare feet, but by wearing shoes you protect yourself from rough,
unpleasant surfaces.
If we can understand the four views not only intellectually but
also experientially, we begin to free ourselves from fixating on
things that are illusory. This freedom is what we call
wisdom.
Buddhists venerate wisdom above all else. Wisdom surpasses
morality, love, common sense, tolerance, and vegetarianism.
Wisdom is not a divine spirit that we seek from somewhere outside
of ourselves. We invoke it by first hearing the teachings on the
four seals—not accepting them at face value, but rather analyzing
and contemplating them. If you are convinced that this path will
clear some of your confusion and bring some relief, then you can
actually put wisdom into practice.
In one of the oldest Buddhist teaching methods, the master gives
his disciples a bone and instructs them to contemplate its origin.
Through this contemplation, the disciples eventually see the bone
as the end result of birth, birth as the end result of karmic
formation, karmic formation as the end result of craving, and so
on. Thoroughly convinced by the logic of cause, condition, and
effect, they begin to apply awareness to every situation and every
moment. This is what we call meditation.
People who can bring us this kind of information and understanding
are venerated as masters because, even though they have profound
realization and could happily live in the forest, they are willing
to stick around to explain the view to those who are still in the
dark. Because this information liberates us from all kinds of
unnecessary hiccups, we have an automatic appreciation for the
explainer. So we Buddhists pay homage to the teacher.
Once you have intellectually accepted the view, you can apply any
method that deepens your understanding and realization. In other
words, you can use whatever techniques or practices help you to
transform your habit of thinking that things are solid into the
habit of seeing them as compounded, interdependent, and
impermanent. This is true Buddhist meditation and practice, not
just sitting still as if you were a paperweight.
Even though we know intellectually that we are going to die, this
knowledge can be eclipsed by something as small as a casual
compliment. Someone comments on how graceful our knuckles look, and
the next thing we know we are trying to find ways to preserve these
knuckles. Suddenly we feel that we have something to lose. These
days we are constantly bombarded by so many new things to lose and
so many things to gain. More than ever we need methods that remind
us and help us get accustomed to the view, maybe even hanging a
human bone from the rearview mirror, if not shaving your head and
retreating to a cave. Combined with these methods, ethics and
morality become useful. Ethics and morality may be secondary in
Buddhism, but they are important when they bring us closer to the
truth. But even if some action appears wholesome and positive, if
it takes us away from the four truths, Siddhartha himself cautioned
us to leave it be.
THE TEA & THE TEACUP : WI SDOM WITHIN CULTURE
The four seals are like tea, while all other means to actualize
these truths—practices, rituals, traditions, and cultural
trappings—are like a cup. The skills and methods are observable and
tangible, but the truth is not. The challenge is not to get carried
away by the cup. People are more inclined to sit straight in a
quiet place on a meditation cushion than to contemplate which will
come first, tomorrow or the next life. Outward practices are
perceivable,
so the mind is quick to label them as “Buddhism,” whereas the
concept “all compounded things are impermanent” is not tangible and
is difficult to label. It is ironic that evidence of impermanence
is all around us, yet is not obvious to us.
The essence of Buddhism is beyond culture, but it is practiced by
many different cultures, which use their traditions as the cup that
holds the teachings. If the elements of these cultural trappings
help other beings without causing harm, and if they don’t
contradict the four truths, then Siddhartha would encourage such
practices.
Throughout the centuries so many brands and styles of cups have
been produced, but however good the intention behind them, and
however well they may work, they become a hindrance if we forget
the tea inside. Even though their purpose is to hold the truth, we
tend to focus on the means rather than the outcome. So people walk
around with empty cups, or they forget to drink their tea. We human
beings can become enchanted, or at least distracted, by the
ceremony and color of Buddhist cultural practices. Incense and
candles are exotic and attractive; impermanence and selflessness
are not. Siddhartha himself said that the best way to worship is by
simply remembering the principle of impermanence, the suffering of
emotions, that phenomena have no inherent existence, and that
nirvana is beyond concepts.
Now that Buddhism is flourishing in the West, I have heard of
people altering Buddhist teachings to fit the modern way of
thinking. If there is anything to be adapted, it would be the
rituals and symbols, not the truth itself. Buddha himself said that
his discipline and methods should be adapted appropriately to time
and place. But the four truths don’t need to be updated or
modified, and it’s impossible to do so anyway. You can change the
cup, but the tea remains pure. After surviving 2,500 years and
traveling 40,781,035 feet from the Bodhi tree in central India to
Times Square in New York City, the concept “all compounded things
are impermanent” still applies. Impermanence is still impermanence
in Times Square. You cannot bend these four rules; there are no
social or cultural exceptions.
PRACTICING HARMONY
Profound truths aside, these days even the most practical and
obvious truths are ignored. We are like monkeys who dwell in the
forest and shit on the very branches from which we hang. Every day
we hear people talking about the state of the economy, not
recognizing the connection between recession and greed. Because of
greed, jealousy, and pride, the economy will never become strong
enough to ensure that every person has access to the basic
necessities of life. Our dwelling place, the Earth, becomes more
and more polluted. I have met people who condemn ancient rulers and
emperors and ancient religions as the source of all conflict. But
the secular and modern world has not done any better; if anything,
it has done worse. What is it that the modern world has made
better? One of the main effects of science and technology has been
to destroy the world more quickly. Many scientists believe that all
living systems and all life-support systems on Earth are in
decline.
It’s time for modern people like ourselves to give some thought to
spiritual matters, even if we have no time to sit on a cushion,
even if we are put off by those who wear rosaries around their
necks, and even if we are embarrassed to exhibit our religious
leanings to our secular friends. Contemplating the impermanent
nature of everything that we experience and the painful effect of
clinging to the self brings peace and harmony—if not to the entire
world, at least within our own sphere.
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