Buddha--the flower of mankind, is no more in this world, but
the sweet fragrance of His peace message remains forever.
Buddhism is one of the oldest religions still being practised in
the world today. While the names of many other religions which
existed in India have been forgotten today, the teachings of the
Buddha, (better known as the Dhamma) are still relevant to the
needs of today's society. This is because the Buddha has always
considered himself as human religious teacher whose
message was meant to promote the happiness and well-being of other
human beings. The Buddha's primary concern was to help His
followers to live a normal life without either going to the
extremes of self-denial or totally surrendering to sensual desires.
The practical nature of the Buddha's teaching is revealed in the
fact that not everyone is expected to attain exactly the same goal
in one lifetime, since the mental impurities are deeply rooted.
Some people are spiritually more advanced than others and they can
proceed to greater heights according to their state of development.
But every single human being has the ultimate potential to attain
the supreme goal of Buddhahood if he has the determination and will
to do so. Even now does the soft, sweet voice of the Buddha ring in
our ears. And sometimes we perhaps feel a little ashamed because we
do not understand Him fully. Often we only praise His Teaching and
respect Him, but do not try to practise what He preached. The
Buddha's Teaching and message have had their effect on all people
for thousands of years whether they believe in religion or not. His
message is for all.
Though the Buddha, the flower of mankind, is no longer in this
world, the sweet fragrance and exquisite aroma of His Teachings
have spread far and wide. Its balmy, diffusing fragrance has calmed
and soothed millions. Its ambrosial perfume has heartened and
cheered every nation which it has penetrated. The reason that His
Teachings have captured millions of hearts is because they were
spread(not by weapons or political power)but by love and compassion
for humanity. Not a drop of blood stains its pure path. Buddhism
wins by the warm touch of love, not by the cold claws of fear. Fear
of the supernatural and the doctrine of everlasting hell-fire have
no place in Buddhism. During the last 25 centuries since the
appearance of the Buddha, many changes have taken place in this
world. Kingdoms have risen and fallen; nations have prospered and
perished. However, the world today has forgotten many of these past
civilizations. But the name of the Buddha remains alive and fresh
in the minds of millions of people today. The Kingdom of
Righteousness that He built is still strong and steady. Although
many temples, pagodas, images, libraries and other religious
symbols erected in His honor were destroyed, His untainted Noble
Name and the message He gave remain in the minds of cultured
people. The Buddha taught man that the greatest of conquests was
not the subjugation of others but of the self. He taught in the
Dhammapada, 'Even though a man conquers ten thousand men
in battle, he who conquers but himself is the greatest of
conquerors'. Perhaps the best example of how the gentle message of
the Compassionate One could rehabilitate the most savage of men is
the case of the Emperor Asoka. About two hundred years after the
Buddha, this king waged fierce battles across India and caused
great anguish and fear. But when he absorbed the Dhamma, he
regretted the evil that he had done. We remember and honor him
today because after his conversion to the path of peace, he
embarked on another battle: a battle to bring peace to mankind. He
proved without doubt that the Buddha was right when He asserted
that true greatness springs from love, not hatred, from humility,
not pride; from compassion, not cruelty. The Emperor Asoka's
conversion from cruelty to kindness was so complete that he forbade
even the killing of animals in his kingdom. He realized that his
subjects stole because of want and he set out to reduce want in his
kingdom. But above all, he instructed the followers of the Buddha
to remember the Master's teaching never to force their beliefs on
others who were loyal to other religious leaders. In other cases we
have heard of kings who, upon conversion, diverted their thirst for
blood by spreading their new religion by the sword! Only Buddhism
can take pride in a king who has never been equaled in such
greatness before or ever since.
The Buddha's Teachings were introduced in order that societies
could be cultured and civilized and live in peace and harmony. All
of life's most difficult problems can be better understood if we
but try to learn and practise His teachings. The Buddha's approach
to the problems and suffering of mankind is straightforward and
direct. The Buddha was the greatest conqueror the world has ever
seen. He conquered the world with His infallible weapons of love
and truth. His Teaching illuminates the Way for mankind to cross
from a world of darkness, hatred, and suffering, to a new world of
light, love and happiness.
==Miraculous Power ==
If a wicked man can become a pure religious man, this according to
Buddhism, is a practical miracle. In every religion we hear of
miracles being performed by either the founders of these religious
or by some of their disciples. In the case of the Buddha, miracles
occurred from the day of His birth until His passing away into
Nibbana. Many of the psychic powers (so-called miraculous
powers in other religions) of the Buddha were attained through His
long and intense training in meditation. The Buddha meditated and
passed through all the highest stages of contemplation that
culminated in pure self-possession and wisdom. Such attainments
through meditation are considered nothing miraculous but fall
within the power of any trained ascetic. Using meditation on the
night of His Enlightenment, there arose within the Buddha a vision
of His previous births, the many existences with all their details,
He remembered His previous births and how He had made use of these
births to gain His Enlightenment. Then the Buddha had a second and
wider vision in which He saw the whole universe as a system of
Kamma and Rebirth. He saw the universe made up of
beings that were noble and wicked, happy and unhappy. He saw them
all continually 'passing away according to their deed', leaving one
form of existence and taking shape in another. Finally, He
understood the nature of Suffering, the cessation of Suffering and
the Path that leads to the cessation of Suffering. Then a third
vision arose within the Buddha. He realized that He was completely
free from all bondages, human or divine. He realized that He had
done what had to be done. He realized He had no more re-birth to go
through because He was living with His final body. This knowledge
destroyed all ignorance, all darkness, and light arose within Him.
Such is the psychic power and the wisdom that arose within the
Buddha as He sat meditating under the Bodhi tree.
The Buddha had a natural birth; He lived in a normal way. But He
was an extraordinary man, as far as His Enlightenment was
concerned. Those who have not learnt to appreciate His Supreme
Wisdom try to explain His greatness by peeping into His life and
looking for miracles. However, the Buddha's Supreme Enlightenment
is more than enough for us to understand His greatness. There is no
need to show His greatness by introducing any miraculous power. The
Buddha knew of the power that could be developed by training the
human mind. He also knew that His disciples could acquire such
powers through mental development. Thus the Buddha advised them not
to exercise such psychic power in order to convert less intelligent
people. He was referring to the 'miraculous' power to walk on
water, to exorcise spirits, raise the dead and perform the
so-called supernormal practices. He was also referring to the
'miracles of prophesy' such as thought-reading, soothe-saying,
fortune-telling, and so on. When the uneducated believers see the
performance of such powers, their faith deepens. But the nominal
converts who are attracted to a religion because of these powers
embrace a faith, not because they realize the truth, but because
they harbor hallucinations. Besides, some people may pass remarks
that these miracles are due to certain charms. In drawing people to
listen to the Dhamma, the Buddha appealed to their reasoning power.
The following story illustrates the Buddha's attitude towards
miraculous powers. One day the Buddha met an ascetic who sat by the
bank of a river. This ascetic had practised austerities for 25
years. The Buddha asked him what he had received for all his
labour. The ascetic proudly replied that, now at last, he could
cross the river by walking on the water. The Buddha pointed out
that this gain was insignificant for all the years of labour, since
he could cross the river using a ferry for one penny! In certain
religions, a man's miraculous performance can help him to become a
saint. But in Buddhism, miracles can be a hindrance for a person to
attain sainthood, which is a gradual personal attainment and
individual concern. Each person himself must work for his sainthood
through self-purification and no one else can make another person a
saint. The Buddha says that a person can gain miraculous power
without gaining spiritual power. He teaches us that if we first
gain spiritual power, then we automatically receive the miraculous
or psychic powers too. But if we develop miraculous powers without
spiritual development, then we are in danger. We can misuse this
power for worldly gain(Pataligama-Udana). There are many who have
deviated from the right path by using their miraculous powers
without having any spiritual development. Many people who are
supposed to have obtained some miraculous powers succumbed to the
vain glory of obtaining some worldly gain.
Many so-called miracles talked about by people are merely
imaginations and hallucinations created by their own minds due to a
lack of understanding of things as they truly are. All these
miracles remain as miracles as long as people fail to know what
these powers really are. The Buddha also expressly forbade His
disciples to use miracles to prove the superiority of His
teachings. On one occasion He said that the use of miracles to gain
converts was like using dancing girls to tempt people to do
something. Anyone with the proper mental training can perform
miracles because they are simply an expression of mind over matter.
According to the Buddha, the miracle of
realization is a real miracle. When a murderer, thief,
terrorist, drunkard, or adulterer is made to realize that what he
had been doing is wrong and gives up his bad, immoral and harmful
way of life, this change can be regarded as a miracle. The change
for the better arising from an understanding of Dhamma is the
highest miracle that any man can perform.
==The Buddha's Silence ==
When the questioner himself was not in a position to understand the
real significance of the answer to his question and when the
questions posed to Him were wrong, the Buddha remained silent. The
scriptures mention a few occasions when the Buddha remained silent
to questions posed to Him. Some scholars, owing to their
misunderstanding of the Buddha's silence, came to the hasty
conclusion that the Buddha was unable to answer to these questions.
While it is true that on several occasions the Buddha did not
respond to these metaphysical and speculative questions, there are
reasons why the Buddha kept noble silence. When the Buddha knew
that the questioner was not in a position to understand the answer
to the question because of its profundity, of if the questions
themselves were wrongly put in the first place, the Blessed One
remained silent. Some of the questions to which the Buddha remained
silent are as following: <dir>
Is the universe eternal? Is it not eternal? Is the universe
finite? Is it infinite? Is soul the same as the body? Is the soul
one thing and the body another? Does the Tathagata exist after
death? Does He not exist after death? Does He both (at the same
time) exist and not exist after death? Does He both (at the same
time) neither exist nor not exist?
</dir> The Buddha who had truly realized the nature of
these issues observed noble silence. An ordinary person who is
still unenlightened might have a lot to say, but all of it would be
sheer conjecture based on his imagination. The Buddha's silence
regarding these questions is more meaningful than attempting to
deliver thousands of discourses on them. The paucity of our human
vocabulary which is built upon relative experiences cannot hope to
convey the depth and dimensions of Reality which a person has not
himself experienced through Insight. On several occasions, the
Buddha had very patiently explained that human language was too
limited and could not describe the Ultimate Truth. If the Ultimate
Truth is absolute, then it does not have any point of reference for
worldlings with only mundane experiences and relative understanding
to fully comprehend it. When they try to do so with their limited
mental conception, they misunderstand the Truth like the seven
blind men and the elephant. The listener who had not realized the
Truth could not fathom the explanation given, just like a man who
was blind since birth will have no way of truly understanding the
color of the sky.
The Buddha did not attempt to give answers to all the questions
put to Him. He was under no obligation to respond to meaningless
questions which reflected gross misunderstanding on the part of
spiritual development. He was a practical Teacher, full of
compassion and wisdom. He always spoke to people fully
understanding their temperament, capability and capacity to
comprehend. When a person asked questions not with the intention to
learn how to lead a religious life but simply to create an
opportunity for splitting hairs, the Blessed One did not answer
these questions. Questions were answered to help a person towards
self-realization, not as a way of showing His towering wisdom.
According to the Buddha, there are several ways of answering
various types of questions. The first type of question is one that
requires a definite answer, such as a 'yes' or 'no'. For example,
the question, 'Are all conditioned things impermanent?' is answered
with a 'Yes'. The second type of question is one requiring an
analytical answer. Suppose someone says that Angulimala was a
murderer before he became an "Arahant". So is it possible for all
murderers to become Arahants? This question should be analyzed
before you can say 'Yes' or 'No'. Otherwise, it will not be
answered correctly and comprehensively. You need to analyse what
conditions make it possible for a murderer to become a saint within
one lifetime. The third type of question is one where it is
necessary to ask a counter question to help the questioner to think
through. If you ask, "Why is it wrong to kill other living beings?'
the counter question is, 'How does it feel when others try to kill
you?' The fourth kind of question is one that should be dropped. It
means that you should not answer it. These are the questions which
are speculative in nature, and any answer to such questions will
only create ore confusion. An example of such a question is, 'Does
the universe have a beginning or not?' People can discuss such
questions for years without coming to a conclusion. They can only
answer such questions based on their imagination, not on real
understanding. Some answers which the Buddha gave have close
parallels to the kind responses which are given in nuclear science.
According to Robert Oppenheimer, 'If we ask, for instance, whether
the position of the electron remains the same, we must say 'no'; if
we ask whether it is in motion, we must say 'no'. The Buddha has
given such answers when interrogated as to the conditions of a
man's self after his death; but they are not familiar answers in
accordance with the tradition of seventeenth and eighteenth century
science.'
It is important to note however that the Buddha did give answers
to some of these questions to His most intellectually developed
disciples after the questioner had left. And in many cases, His
explanations are contained in other discourses which show us, who
live in an age of greater scientific knowledge, why these questions
were not answered by the Buddha just to satisfy the inquisitive
minds of the questioners. ==The Buddha's Attitude Towards Worldly
Knowledge ==
Worldly knowledge can never help one to lead a pure
religious life for gaining peace and emancipation.
Worldly knowledge is useful for worldly ends. With such
knowledge, mankind learns how to use the earth's resources to
improve the standard of living, grow more food, generate power to
run factories and to light up streets and houses, manage factories
and businesses, cure sickness, build flats and bridges, cook exotic
dishes, and so on. Worldly knowledge can also be used for harmful
purposes such as building missiles with nuclear warheads,
manipulating the stock market, cheating 'legally', and inflaming
political anxiety and hatred. Despite the rapid expansion of
worldly knowledge, especially in the twentieth century, mankind has
been brought no nearer to the solution of his spiritual problems
and pervasive unsatisfactoriness. In all likelihood, it never will
solve mankind's universal problems and bring peace and happiness
because of the premises on which such knowledge, discoveries and
inventions are built. While Buddhism can bring greater
understanding on how to lead a good, worldly life, its main focus
is how to gain spiritual liberation through the development of
wisdom and mental culture. For ordinary human beings, there is no
end to the search for worldly knowledge, but in the final analysis
it does not really matter. For as long as we are ignorant about the
Dhamma, we will forever be trapped in Samsara. According to the
Buddha. 'For a long time, Brothers, have you suffered the death of
a mother; for a long time, the death of a father; for a long time,
the death of a son; for a long time, the death of a daughter; for a
long time, the death of brothers and sisters; for a long time, have
you undergone the loss of your goods; for a long time have you been
afflicted with disease. And because you have experienced the death
of a mother, the death of brothers and sisters, the loss of goods,
the pangs of disease, company of the undesired, you have truly shed
more tears upon this long way -- hastening from birth to death,
from death to birth -- than all the waters that are held in the
four great seas.' (Anguttara Nikaya)Here the Buddha is describing
the Suffering of continuous births and deaths in the world. He was
interested in one simple thing; to show people the Way out of all
this Suffering.
Why did the Buddha speak in this manner to His disciples? And
why did He not make an attempt to solve the problems as to whether
the world is eternal or not, whether it is finite or not? Such
problems might be exciting and stimulating to those who have the
curiosity. But in no way do these problems help a person to
overcome Suffering. That is why He swept these problems aside as
useless, for the knowledge of such things would not tend to one's
well-being. The Buddha, foresaw that to speak on things which were
of no practical value, and which were lying beyond the power of
comprehension, was a waste of time and energy. He foresaw that to
advance hypotheses about such things only served to divert thoughts
from their proper channel, hindering spiritual development. Worldly
knowledge and scientific research should be complemented by
religious and spiritual values. Otherwise such worldly knowledge
does not in any way contribute to one's progress in leading a pure,
religious life. Man has come to the stage where his mind, fed by
the instruments and fruits of technological advancements, has
become obsessed with egoism, craving for power, and greed for
material wealth. Without religious values, worldly knowledge and
technological advancement can lead to man's downfall and
destruction. They will only inflame man's greed which will take on
new and terrifying dimensions. On the other hand, when worldly
knowledge is harnessed for moral ends, it can bring maximum benefit
and happiness for mankind.
==The Last Message of the Buddha ==
'When I am gone, my Teaching shall be your Master and
Guide.'
Three months before His passing away the Buddha addressed His
disciples and said: 'I have delivered sermons to you during these
forty-five years. You must learn them well and treasure them. You
must practise them and teach them to others. This will be of great
use for the welfare of the living and for the welfare of those who
come after you'. 'My years are now full ripe; the life span left is
short. I will soon have to leave you. You must be earnest. O monks,
be mindful and of pure virtue! Whoever untiringly pursues the
Teaching, will go beyond the cycle of birth and death and will man
an end of Suffering.'
When Ananda asked the Buddha what would become of the Order
after He pass away, the Buddha replied, 'What does the Order expect
of me, Ananda? I have preached the Truth without any distinction;
for in regard to the Truth, there is no clenched hand in the
Teachings of the Buddha°‚. It may be, Ananda, that to some among
you, the thought will come 'The Master's words will soon end; soon
we will no longer have a master.' But do not think like this,
Ananda. When I am gone, my Teaching and the disciplinary code shall
be your Master.' The Buddha further explained: 'If there is anyone
who thinks, 'It is I who will lead the brotherhood', or 'The Order
is dependent on me, it is I who should give instructions', the
Buddha does not think that He should lead the order or that the
Order is dependent on Him. I have reached the end of my days. Just
as a worn-out cart can only be made to move with much additional
care, so my body can be kept going only with much additional care.
Therefore, Ananda, be a lamp and refuge unto yourselves. Look for
no other refuge. Let the Truth be your lamp and your refuge. Seek
no refuge elsewhere.' At the age of eighty, on His birthday, He
passed away without showing any worldly supernatural powers. He
showed the real nature of component things even in His own life.
When the Buddha passed away into Nibbana, one of His disciples
remarked, 'All must depart---all beings that have life must shed
their compounded forms. Yes, even a Master such as He, a peerless
being, powerful in Wisdom and Enlightenment, even He must pass
away.' The parting words of the Buddha:
'Appamadena Sampadetha Vaya Dhamma
Sankhara'.
'Work diligently. Component things are
impermanent.'