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April 18 - May 19, 2021
The Buddha is like the last physician. He is the wise and scientific doctor for the ills of the world (Bhisakka or Bhaisajya-guru).
‘whatever is impermanent is dukkha’ (yad aniccam taṃ dukkha ṃ).
ideas and thoughts are not independent of the world experienced by these five physical sense faculties. In fact they depend on, and are conditioned by, physical experiences.
Ideas and thoughts which form a part of the world are thus produced and conditioned by physical experiences and are conceived by the mind. Hence mind (manas) is considered a sense faculty or organ (indriya), like the eye or the ear.
it is volition (cetanā) that I call karma. Having willed, one acts through body, speech and mind.’3 Volition is ‘mental construction, mental activity.
Sensations and perceptions are not volitional actions. They do not produce karmic effects. It is only volitional actions—such as attention (manasikāra), will (chanda), determination (adhimokkha), confidence (saddhā), concentration (samādhi), wisdom (paññā), energy (viriya), desire (rāga), repugnance or hate (paṭigha) ignorance (avijjā), conceit (māna), idea of self (sakkāya-diṭṭhi) etc.—that can produce karmic effects.
It should be clearly understood that consciousness does not recognize an object. It is only a sort of awareness—awareness of the presence of an object. When the eye comes in contact with a colour, for instance blue, visual consciousness arises which simply is awareness of the presence of a colour; but it does not recognize that it is blue. There is no recognition at this stage. It is perception (the third Aggregate discussed above) that recognizes that it is blue.
It must be repeated here that according to Buddhist philosophy there is no permanent, unchanging spirit which can be considered ‘Self’, or ‘Soul’, or ‘Ego’, as opposed to matter, and that consciousness (viññāṇa) should not be taken as ‘spirit’ in opposition to matter. This point has to be particularly emphasized, because a wrong notion that consciousness is a sort of Self or Soul that continues as a permanent substance through life, has persisted from the earliest time to the present day.
The Buddha declared in unequivocal terms that consciousness depends on matter, sensation, perception and mental formations, and that it cannot exist independently of them.
this cycle of continuity (saṃsāra) is without a visible end, and the first beginning of beings wandering and running round, enveloped in ignorance (avijjā) and bound down by the fetters of thirst (desire, taṇhā) is not to be perceived.’
Buddhist art and architecture, Buddhist temples never give the impression of gloom or sorrow, but produce an atmosphere of calm and serene joy.
Although there is suffering in life, a Buddhist should not be gloomy over it, should not be angry or impatient at it. One of the principal evils in life, according to Buddhism, is ‘repugnance’ or hatred.
it is wrong to be impatient at suffering. Being impatient or angry at suffering does not remove it. On the contrary, it adds a little more to one’s troubles, and aggravates and exacerbates a situation already disagreeable.
It is this ‘thirst’, desire, greed, craving, manifesting itself in various ways, that gives rise to all forms of suffering and the continuity of beings. But it should not be taken as the first cause, for there is no first cause possible as, according to Buddhism, everything is relative and inter-dependent. Even this ‘thirst’, taṇhā, which is considered as the cause
or origin of dukkha,
Here the term ‘thirst’ includes not only desire for, and attachment to, sense-pleasures, wealth and power, but also desire for, and attachment to, ideas and ideals, views, opinions, theories, conceptions and beliefs (dhamma-taṇhā).
Every one will admit that all the evils in the world are produced by selfish desire. This is not difficult to understand.
There are four Nutriments (āhāra) in the sense of ‘cause’ or ‘condition’ necessary for the existence and continuity of beings: (1) ordinary material food (kabalinkārāhāra), (2) contact of our sense-organs (including mind) with the external world (phassābāra), (3) consciousness (viññaṇāhara) and (4) mental volition or will (manosañcetanāhāra).4
volition is karma,
the terms ‘thirst’, ‘volition’, ‘mental volition’ and ‘karma’ all denote the same thing: they denote the desire, the will to be, to exist, to re-exist, to become more and more, to grow more and more, to accumulate more and more.
A being, a thing, or a system, if it has within itself the nature of arising, the nature of coming into being, has also within itself the nature, the germ, of its own cessation and destruction.
in the Buddhist theory of karma it has a specific meaning: it means only ‘volitional action’, not all action. Nor does it mean the result of
karma as many people wrongly and loosely use it. In Buddhist terminology karma never means its effect; its effect is known as the ‘fruit’ or the ‘result’ of karma (kamma-phala or kamma-vipāka).
The theory of karma should not be confused with so-called ‘moral justice’ or ‘reward and punishment’.
The theory of karma is the theory of cause and effect, of action and reaction; it is a natural law,
which has nothing to do with the idea of justice or reward and punishment.
according to the karma theory, the effects of a volitional action may continue to manifest themselves even in a life after death.
What we call death is the total non-functioning of the physical body. Do all these forces and energies stop altogether with the non-functioning of the body? Buddhism says ‘No’. Will, volition, desire, thirst to exist, to continue, to become more and more, is a tremendous force that moves whole lives, whole existences, that even moves the whole world. This is the greatest force, the greatest energy in the world. According to Buddhism, this force does not stop with the non-functioning of the body, which is death; but it continues manifesting itself in another form, producing re-existence which
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What we call life, as we have so often repeated, is the combination of the Five Aggregates, a combination of physical and mental energies.
If we can understand that in this life we can continue without a permanent, unchanging substance like Self or Soul, why can’t we understand that those forces themselves can continue without a Self or a Soul behind them after the non-functioning of the body?
When this physical body is no more capable of functioning, energies do not die with it, but continue to take some other shape or form, which we call another life.
a person who dies here and is reborn elsewhere is neither the same person, nor another (na ca so na ca añño). It is the continuity of the same series. The difference between death and birth is only a thought-moment: the last thought-moment in this life conditions the first thought-moment in the so-called next life, which, in fact, is the continuity of the same series.
As long as there is this ‘thirst’ to be and to become, the cycle
of continuity (saṃsāra) goes on. It can stop only when its driving force, this ‘thirst’, is cut off through wisdom which sees Reality, Truth, Nirvāṇa.
human language is too poor to express the real nature of the Absolute Truth or Ultimate Reality which is Nirvāṇa.
Words are symbols representing things and ideas known to us; and these symbols do not and cannot convey the true nature of even ordinary things. Language is considered deceptive and misleading in the matter of understanding of the Truth. So the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra says that ignorant people get stuck in words like an elephant in the mud.1
‘The abandoning and destruction of desire and craving for these Five Aggregates of Attachment: that is the cessation of dukkha.’4
It is incorrect to say that Nirvāṇa is negative or positive. The ideas of ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ are relative, and are within the realm of duality. These terms cannot be applied to Nirvāṇa, Absolute Truth, which is beyond duality and relativity.
A negative word need not necessarily indicate a negative state.
Nirvāṇa, Mutti or Vimutti, the Absolute Freedom, is freedom from all evil, freedom from craving, hatred and ignorance, freedom from all terms of duality, relativity, time and space.
As he does not construct or does not will continuity and becoming or annihilation, he does not cling to anything in the world; as he does not cling, he is not anxious; as he is not anxious, he is completely calmed within (fully blown out within paccattaṃyeva parinibbāyati). And he knows: ‘Finished is birth, lived is pure life, what should be done is done, nothing more is left to be done.’2
a person so endowed is endowed with the absolute wisdom, for the knowledge of the extinction of all dukkha is the absolute noble wisdom.
Nirvāṇa is neither cause nor effect. It is beyond cause and effect. Truth is not a result nor an effect. It is not produced like a mystic, spiritual, mental state, such as dhyāna or samādhi. TRUTH IS. NIRVĀNA IS. The only thing you can do is to see it, to realize it. There is a path leading to the realization of Nirvāṇa. But Nirvāṇa is not the result of this path.
One lives the holy life with Nirvāṇa as its final plunge (into the Absolute Truth), as its goal, as its ultimate end.’
no words in our vocabulary could express what happens to an Arahant after his death.
Dukkha arises because of ‘thirst’ (taṇhā), and it ceases because of wisdom
there is no external power that produces the arising and the cessation of dukkha.
When wisdom is developed and cultivated according to the Fourth Noble Truth (the next to be taken up), it sees the secret of life, the reality of things as they are. When the secret is discovered, when the Truth is seen, all the forces which feverishly produce the continuity of saṃsār in illusion become calm and incapable of producing any more karma-formations, because there is no more illusion, no more ‘thirst’ for continuity.
In almost all religions the summum bonum can be attained only after death. But Nirvāṇa can be realized in this very life; it is not necessary to wait till you die to ‘attain’ it.
He who has realized the Truth, Nirvāṇa, is the happiest being in the world. He is free from all ‘complexes’ and obsessions, the worries and troubles that torment others. His mental health is perfect. He does not repent the past, nor does he brood over the future. He lives fully in the present.
