When is man wise? by Venerable Dr. Walpola Rahula The aim of life according to Buddhism is the attainment of panna which is generally translated as wisdom. But the Pali term panna (Sanskrit : prajna) connotes a deeper and wider sense than the English word wisdom. Panna or wisdom, according to Buddhism, is not only the ability to see things objectively as they are, not only perceiving the truth, but also attaining complete freedom from selfish desire, hatred and violence, and the unlimited capacity to love all living beings without discrimination. This wisdom should not be confused with practical common sense, or with the accumulation of factual knowledge, or with whatever can be measured by intelligence tests. The Buddhist discipline aims at producing not a lop-sided man, but a well-balanced full man, at developing the whole man. Apart from the physical well-being, which is an axiomatic basic requisite, man has two other things which he must cultivate and develop equally and simultaneously in order that he may become a full being. These two are the heart and the brain. I use these two terms symbolically, the heart to represent love, compassion, sympathy, charity, and such noble qualities on the emotional side or qualities of the heart, and the brain to represent the intellectual side, such as the reason, judgement, and imagination, or the qualities of the mind. If one develops only the emotional side neglecting the intellectual, one may become a good-hearted fool. Or if one develops only the intellectual side ignoring the emotional, one may turn out to be a hard-hearted savant, egoistic, dry, without feeling for his fellow beings. Therefore, to be a well- balanced, complete man, one has to develop both sides equally and simultaneously. That is the aim of the Buddhist panna, in it the equalities of the heart and the brain are inseparably linked and blended together. The prevailing system of public education, throughout the world in general, aims at producing men and women with certain intellectual discipline for professions either general or highly specialised. While this system lays great emphasis on intellectual discipline and efficiency it too frequently ignores one half of man, that is the moral and spiritual qualities of the heart and thus it produces lop- sided and unbalanced half persons, who are either without equilibrium and harmony, always in conflict with themselves and with society, or else who are uncritically content with themselves as they are and with the status quo of society. To think that the development of the other half of man belongs to religions and not to the system of general education is a grievous fault. The word religion is unpalatable to most people today and this for good reasons, one of which is religion is identified with outmoded, parochial practices and traditions. The noble teachings of Gotama or Jesus are not the monopoly of any particular religion, but they belong to humanity as their common cultural heritage. Modern science and technology have produced wonderful machines which can work many times more efficiently and more accurately than human beings, but they are machines without wisdom. One wonders whether our system of education also is not producing human machines, but less efficient and less accurate. It is mostly these human machines without wisdom that are managing the affairs of the world. I said the Buddhist aim of life is the attainment of wisdom. Now, what is this wisdom? It consists of two elements, one is Right Understanding, the other is Right Thought. Right understanding is fourfold: The first is to understand the problem of our life as it is, to understand our sorrows and joys, pleasures and pains, to recognise our existence as imperfect, unsatisfactory, full of conflicts, always in need of improvement. The second is to understand that the cause of these problems and conflicts in our life is our own selfish desire due to our false idea of self, and the expansion of this self-centredness to every dimension of our life. The third is to realise that it is possible to attain peace, freedom, liberation from these painful conflicts and problems of our existence. We are not hopelessly trapped in an eternal torment from which there is no exit. The fourth is to understand that there is a way to attain that peace, freedom, liberation from present conflict, and that this way consists of courageous moral, spiritual and intellectual discipline and development. These are called the Four Noble Truths. The scheme of Four Noble Truths may be applied to any problem or conflict in our daily life. First of all we must clearly understand the problem or the conflict, and then seek to discover its cause or origin. Thirdly, we must see whether freedom from this conflict is possible, and finally if it is possible, then we must persevere to find the way to realise that end. Now, what is Right Thought, the second element of wisdom? It consists of the thought of freedom from selfish desires, the thought of self-abnegation or selflessness, thoughts of non- violence, love and compassion for all living beings without discrimination. Here the idea of self disappears, and in true love there is no place for self. Even from this extremely brief description of an enormous subject, one may see that wisdom, as conceived by the Buddha, comprises not only insight into Truth, but also selfless and unlimited love and compassion for all beings. It is free from all thoughts of self, hatred and violence. Thus the Pali word panna with its complete connotation might be translated as wisdom-love. Any thought of selfish desire, ill-will, hatred and violence is the result of a lack of this wisdom-love in all spheres of life, whether individual, social or political. One characteristic of this wisdom is freedom of thought, freedom from all prejudices - religious, national, racial, social or political - not to be a slave to any system or any tradition even and especially not to an intellectual one. Intellectual slavery is difficult to recognise and hard to get rid of much more than any other form of slavery. This slavery is perpetuated today not only in the minds of ordinary men, but also in the minds of so-called intellectuals, through mass propaganda by the press, the radio, the television, the cinema and even by some books. Men’s minds can be systematically and regularly indoctrinated and enslaved by these mass media. The freedom of thought, free inquiry without fanaticism, bigotry and dogmatism advocated by the Buddha is unheard of elsewhere in the history of religions. Once a group of people, called Kalamas, who were in doubt about a certain matter went to see the Buddha. The Buddha told them: It is proper for you, Kalamas, to doubt, to be uncertain; uncertainty has arisen in you about a thing that is doubtful. Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing, nor upon tradition, nor upon rumour nor upon what is in a scripture, nor upon surmise, nor upon an axiom, nor upon specious reasoning, nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over, nor upon another’s seeming ability or authority, not upon the consideration: ‘This is our teacher’. But, Kalamas, when you know for yourselves that certain things are unwholesome, bad and wrong, then give them up.......... And when you know for yourselves that certain things are wholesome and good, then accept them and follow them. The Buddha told his disciples that they should examine even the Tathagata (the Buddha) himself, so that they might be fully convinced of the true value of the master whom they followed. The Buddha’s teaching is described as ehipassika, inviting you to come and see but not to come and believe, which means his is a teaching of free inquiry and investigation leading to wisdom without dogmatism. The mind of a seeker after wisdom must be free from attachment to all fixed views and theories. The Buddha said, To be attached to one thing (or to a certain view) and to look down upon all other things (or views) as inferior - this the wise men call a strong bondage. Once the mind is fettered to any dogmatism, whether religious, scientific, social or political, it cannot move; it stagnates and rots there. One of the signs of wisdom is unfettered freedom and openness. Once the Buddha told a group of Brahmins: It is not proper for a wise man who respects truth to come to the conclusion : ‘This alone is truth, and everything else is false. He further explained that a man might have a faith or believe in something. He might say that it is his faith or belief. So far he respects the truth. But if he proceed to the conclusion that what he believes is alone the truth, and everything else is false, then he has no respect for truth. As a corollary to this freedom of thought, the spirit of tolerance and understanding is regarded to be one of the most cherished ideals of Buddhist culture. Though some Buddhist countries have gone to war for political or other reasons, there is not a single example of religious persecution or the shedding of blood in converting people to Buddhism, or in its propagation during its long history of 2500 years. It spread peacefully all over the continent of Asia without violence. In the 3rd century B.C., the great Buddhist Emperor Asoka of India, following this noble example of tolerance and understanding, honoured and supported all other religions in his vast empire and declared in one of his Edicts: One should not honour only one’s own religion and condemn the religions of others but one should honour others’ religions for this or that reason. So doing one helps one’s own religion to grow and renders service to the religions of others too. Let all listen, and be willing to listen, to the doctrines professed by others. This spirit of freedom of thought, tolerance and sympathetic understanding based on wisdom-love may be considered as the most important lesson that the world today can learn from Buddhism. It is necessary for us today, more than ever before to listen to, and understand wisely not only religious doctrines, but also social, economic, and political doctrines professed and practised by others. Another essential quality of wisdom is the realisation of the universal laws of change and impermanence, conditionality and relativity. According to Buddhist philosophy, there is nothing permanent, ever-lasting, unchanging, absolute in this world. Everything in this world including our life is conditioned, relative, interdependent, impermanent and is in a flux of continual change. In the ancient Buddhist texts, it is quite often mentioned that when one comprehends the truth, when one attains wisdom, one realises that: Whatever has the nature of arising (of coming into being) all that has the nature of cessation (destruction ). ( yam kinci samudayadhammam sabbam tam nirodha dhammam). This means that whatever it may be, whether a thing, or a concept, or a system, or an organisation, or even the universe, if it has the nature of coming into being, the nature of being produced, it has also the nature of its own decay and destruction. The Marxist dictum that the Capitalist society is born with the germ of its own destruction is only partially true. According to Buddhist philosophy not only the Capitalist society, but any society including Communist society, is born with the germ of its own destruction. That is to say, that with the change of man, with man’s evolution, the social system which he had created in the past, also must now change, yielding place to a new system which man again produces in keeping with his own change and evolution. No social, political, or economic system, whether Capitalist, or Communist, can remain as final and ideal forever. It must continually undergo change and transformation. This is what one may rightly call the permanent revolution. No power can stop this change. People who do not understand this truth, this universal law of change, lament, grieve, become desperate, when they see that values they cherish, whether personal, social or political, are changing and disappearing. Throughout history people lamented and cried in this manner, but they could not stop the change. The wise man understands this universal truth, the law of change and impermanence and does not lament but acts and advances forward with vision and understanding. The part of wisdom is to co-operate with the inevitable. Once the Buddha was asked the following question: There is tangle (confusion, conflict) inside and tangle outside. People are entangled in confusion. Who can disentangle this tangle (or who can settle this conflict)? The Buddha answered: He who is established in ethical conduct, he who develops mental discipline and wisdom, that energetic wise man can settle this conflict. It is only fully developed, right-thinking men, endowed with wisdom-love, who can disentangle this tangle.There is no light equal to wisdom (natthi pannasama abha ). (The Maha Bodhi, Aug-Oct. 1978) Buddhist Principles by Christmas Humphreys The world is filled with suffering; its cause is desire, selfishness, the power of the illusory self. To remove an unwanted effect it is comm
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 01:32:38 +0000
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