THE WAY OF EMANCIPATION.
BUDDHISM
I. The Way of the Common Life.
II. The Way of the Saint.
“The instant of harmony is the instant when the Buddha in us and the pure truth become one. This is enlightenment. Literally we become Buddha by the correspondence of our wisdom with the universal truth. The aim is to reach this plane.”
I. The Way of the Common Life.
The three sacred truths discover the situation of humanity in relation to the universe, and the ideal remedy for its misery. End the self-life and thus end the misery.
But the full teaching of the denial of Self cannot be received by all. The Self-life and the world-life are pleasant, and many will accept the misery which may come, rather than forego present joy.
For such, a simple, natural, human life, hedged and moralized by the law, is provided.
♦ The ten Sins ♦ The ten sins must be conquered. They are:—
Three Sins of the Body.
The taking of life.
Theft.
Unlawful sexual intercourse.
Four Sins of the Tongue.
Lying.
Slander.
Swearing.
Vain conversation.
Three Sins of the Mind.
Covetousness.
Malice.
Unbelief.
♦ The Moral Law ♦ For aid in the conquest of the sins, there is a short inclusive moral law:—
“Thou shalt not kill, nor cause to be killed, any living thing.”
“Thou shalt abstain from anything in any place, that has not been given thee.”
“Thou shalt avoid an unchaste life as a burning heap of coals.”
“Thou shalt not bear false witness against another.”
“Thou shalt not drink the Soma juice.”
(This command is not
only a command of total abstinence from
intoxicants, but a law of separation from the whole sacrificial system
of Brahmanism.)
♦ The Ideal ♦ The ideal is of a life lived in the world, adding to Karma as little as may be; solemnized by the thought of the future re-buildings of the being; a life of kindness, honesty, purity and temperance; a life of self-discipline, which shall aim at lessening the evil around as far as may be, and shall add none to the future. In particular, the human brotherhood, reverence for age, and for every living thing, and peacefulness of spirit, are the virtues to be practised.
♦ Some Precepts ♦ “Do not ask about descent, but ask about conduct.”
“Watching his speech, well restrained in mind, let a man never commit any wrong with his body. Let a man but keep these three roads of action clear, and he will achieve the way that is taught by the wise.”
“He who holds back rising anger like a rolling chariot, him I call a real driver, other people are but holding the reins.”
“He who by causing pain to others wishes to obtain pleasure for himself, he, entangled in the bonds of hatred, will never be free from hatred.”
“If a man find no prudent companion who walks with him, is wise, and lives soberly, let him walk alone, like a king who has left his conquered country behind, like an elephant in the forest.”
“Let a man overcome anger by love, let him overcome evil by good, let him overcome the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth.”
♦ No Nirvana ♦ But in the common life, how well soever it may be lived, there is no Nirvana.
Christ has in His teaching no counterpart to this path for the weak; even as there is small encouragement in the Buddha’s message for those who choose to walk in it.
“Narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few be they that find it.”
II. The Way of the Saint.
“Noisy go the small waters, silent goes the vast ocean.”
♦ Character of the Path ♦ For him who will receive it there is another way revealed in the fourth sacred truth. It tells of the Eightfold Sacred Path which may lead within his own lifetime to the extinction of the Self-life.
It is called by the Buddha “the middle path,” for it is neither the path of the common life on the one hand, nor of asceticism (the Brahman path) on the other.
It is a path of understanding, and of release from all illusions about the harvest of Desire.
It is not a path of ease. Self-desire must be rigorously denied. The fetters which bind to the self-life must be broken.
The Path leads past sorrow and pain, past the illusions concerning the world and its pleasures, past future separate conscious existences, safely to the desired end, the repose of Nirvana.