Basic Buddhism

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by Benjamin         Buddhism Page         August, 2001 (subject to revision)



The Buddha    Buddhism was founded by the Buddha ('Awakened One'), born Siddhartha Gautama around 600 BC (exact date not certain). According to tradition, he was a prince of the Sakya clan in Northern India (present-day Nepal) who was raised in luxury and isolated from the evils of the world. Nevertheless, at the age of 29, he discovered the distress of those less fortunate than himself, and compassion motivated him to abandon everything and search for the wisdom that might allow freedom from suffering. He tried the severe asceticism advocated by many of the Yogis (wise men) as a means to release the spirit from the body, but rejected this for a 'Middle Way' between hedonism and asceticism, centered on deep meditation. He achieved enlightenment while gazing at the morning star, after meditating under the Bodhi (Wisdom) Tree for 40 days and nights. The Buddha's enlightenment is supposed to be the supreme experience of consciousness — a kind of infinite ecstasy.

With all the 'spiritual masters' running around today calling themselves 'enlightened', I think it would be wise to avoid spiritual hyperbole and consider the word 'infinite' with a grain of salt when applied to any human, even major historical figures such as Gautama or Jesus. This is not to deny that they achieved very high states of consciousness, but 'infinity' is just that, infinity. Is not a high level of bliss sufficient?

With this enlightenment came deep insight and wisdom into the human spirit and condition, which in turn provided the path to happiness. From the beginning, Buddhism was a quasi-scientific psychology rather than a revealed dogma. However, metaphysics and mythology did creep into later (Mahayana) Buddhism, despite the alleged silence of the Buddha regarding abstruse discussions that are of little relevance to relieving man of suffering.

In particular, I believe that the Mahayana does believe in the equivalent of God — a notion that some Buddhists might consider heterodox or unacceptable. Of course, when discussing God, it is essential to be clear about what we mean, and I will return to this. Suffice it to say for now that at the highest levels, Buddhism (and Hinduism) have an understanding of 'God' (or 'Reality' or the 'Absolute') that transcends any kind of anthropomorphic conception. In my opinion, the mainstream Judaeo-Christian tradition still maintains a refined anthropomorphism, since God is still considered to be some kind of discrete being or personality separate from us. The Indo-Asian tradition, by contrast, tends towards the view that God (or the equivalent of God such as 'Buddha Nature') is to be found in some kind of 'Universal Consciousness' underlying our own finite consciousness. This will be discussed at length on this website.

At any rate, it is important not to allow intellectual discussions of 'God' to obstruct spiritual development. If you simply cannot believe in this concept, then I feel quite sure that the Buddha (and perhaps even Jesus) would advise you as follows: Appreciate the wonder of your consciousness and purify it as much as possible during the remainder of your life, through wisdom, meditation, self-control, love, compassion and proper behavior. Connect with others and consider their happiness and spiritual development as important as yours. Forget about what happens after death, and let whatever happens happen. If you spend your life purifying your consciousness (mind and heart), then your life here will be happier and you will be prepared for a better life after death, which may come as a pleasant surprise. I cannot believe that there is any 'litmus test' which says that atheists (or agnostics) automatically experience eternal hell (or even temporary unpleasantness) simply because they could not honestly believe in certain ideas. In fact, their honesty will probably count to their credit, if there is anything resembling a judgment day. However, I do not believe in a judgment day. Rather, our present thinking and intentions determine the future development of our spirit. It is a never ending process, and we create our own future, according to the laws of nature and spirit.

At a deeper level, purifying one's consciousness and 'approaching' God are the same thing, according to my philosophy. This will become quite clear. God, consciousness, and reality are all different names for the same thing. By connecting with the deeper reality in our minds and in our world, without preconceptions, delusions or egoistic motives, we are connecting with God, especially if we can feel some joy, happiness and love. All that remains is the label 'God'. A label is nothing but a convenient device to facilitate discussion. Really, the only thing that my concept of God adds is the notion of infinitude to the actuality of 'his' consciousness and to the potentiality of ours. But as our consciousness develops, this potentiality manifests itself in our life and in our mind, and we in effect become more and more like God (or Buddha — same thing). At that point, discussions of God's existence become truly academic.

Finally, I must confess to some qualms about the use of the word 'God'. To someone raised in a Western tradition, it is loaded with all kinds of connotations. However, the alternatives, such as 'Absolute', seem abstract and cold to me. I will just have to rely on you to realize that I am using the word God in a philosophical sense. Indeed, I do want a slight overtone of 'personality' to intrude. For example, I do believe that God (or Buddha) is 'infinitely conscious', 'infinitely intelligent' and 'intends' for us to become enlightened as soon as possible and experience supreme happiness. The Mahayana cannot disagree with this. However, we must not suppose that God has merely human emotions, such as dislike, aversion, hatred, anger, jealousy (of other Gods), and so on. He does feel some kind of 'love', but of an infinitely pure kind, with no trace of sentimentality or preference.

He (the Buddha) then spent the rest of his long life preaching the means to escape suffering and to achieve enlightenment. He wrote nothing, and the tradition was oral for several centuries, before being written down in Sutras or scriptures containing parables and doctrines allegedly from the mouth of the Buddha himself. Various Buddhist traditions arose depending on which scriptures were considered authentic. The Hinayana or Small Vehicle school is the earliest and is more sober and conservative, concentrating on meditation and morality as a means to personal salvation. Today it flourishes in South-East Asia (Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam...). The Mahayana or Large Vehicle school came several centuries later and is found in Northern Asia (China, Japan, Korea, Tibet...). It is characterized by subtle and sophisticated metaphysics (especially the doctrine of 'emptiness') and by an evangelical zeal to bring enlightenment to all people. There is also a later Varajana or Esoteric tradition, which developed many advanced psycho-physical techniques to achieve higher states of consciousness and which sometimes borders on the Occult.

However, as the highly regarded Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh emphasizes in his beautifully-written book Old Path, White Clouds: Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha, all of the expansive ideas of the Mahayana can be found, at least in embryonic form, in the Hinayana, and the sharp distinction often drawn between the two has more to do with the scholar's love of categories than with actual reality. The term Hinayana is now considered pejorative by many Buddhists, who prefer to refer to this branch of Buddhism as Theravada, after the sole surviving school.

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Basic Doctrine    The Buddha's basic doctrine is that suffering (or at least mental suffering) arises from the ego, that is, from our sense of self and from the desires, attachments and habits of mind and action that are produced by this sense of self. Happiness is achieved by abandoning the ego and seeking some kind of harmonious and self-effacing unity with the universe. (This does not mean asceticism or self-crucifixion.) There is also great emphasis on the impermanence of life and on the interdependence of all things. Awareness of impermanence prevents us from grasping at the transitory, which can only lead to frustration and disappointment. Realization of interdependence fosters compassion for others, and the Buddhist emphasis on compassion is reminiscent of Christianity. A final key notion is that of karma, shared with Hinduism, which says that we lead a succession of lives, each of which is conditioned by the spiritual development achieved in the previous life.

One might wonder whether mere abandonment of the ego will alleviate physical suffering such as disease, injury, starvation and so forth. Actually, Buddhism does seem to say that sufficient years of dedicated meditation will lead to a detachment from the body such that most if not all pain no longer affects us, at least not to the point of causing mental distress. I hope this is true. However, if we are honest, then we will admit that most of us are free from such horrors for most of our lives. How unfortunate that we often misuse this freedom from physical suffering by indulging ourselves in selfishness, vanity, arrogance, anger, aggression, cruelty, envy, frustration, resentment, pettiness, sloth, stupidity, and the mindless pursuit of pleasures that merely satisfy appetites without providing inspiration and other beautiful and compassionate thoughts and feelings.

Hopefully, this doesn't sound too sanctimonious! I can at least dream of a kind and gentle world. I hope we all make it there some day. In fact, I believe that we are destined to, since the purpose of life is spiritual education and development. That is what karma is all about. Some have criticized karma as justifying indifference to suffering, but even a cursory examination of Buddhism reveals that this is unfounded. I do not know whether every victim of man's inhumanity to man (or every victim of natural disaster) was only 'getting what he deserved' based on a previous life. However, I do believe that in some broad sense we make spiritual progress over many lifetimes depending on the sincerity and dedication of our effort, and this spiritual progress results in increased happiness. I cannot believe that this present life is our one and only chance to go to either heaven or hell forever, as sometimes maintained by Christianity. No reasonable Christian could possibly believe this!

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Penetrating Psychology    At a basic level, virtues such as kindness, generosity, altruism, self-restraint and wisdom are advocated, just as in other religions. However, the Buddhist notion goes deeper than this and is based on a penetrating psychology. Whereas the West has tended to childishly glorify individualism (starting with Homer), the East has shown far more wisdom regarding our true nature. For instance, it has long realized how dangerous desire can be to our mental equilibrium, whereas it seems to me that Western psychology has tended to pamper us and reassure us that we are not to blame if we allow unsatisfied desires to produce intense frustration. This is not to say that all pleasure should be avoided; only we must not allow the lack of pleasure or satisfaction to create hell in our minds, as we often do. (What could be more reasonable?) Furthermore, we must not allow the enjoyment of pleasure to stupefy our spirit and cause excessive clinging to that pleasure. Enlightenment is an expansion of the spirit to embrace the universe, rather than an implosion of the spirit on some object of addiction.

And in a psychological vein, one might give a positive rather than a negative interpretation to the Buddhist emphasis on impermanence. At first, it may seem like an attitude of, 'Woe is me,' and 'Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.' But a more edifying view is that it frees up the mind. If we learn to 'go with the flow', live spontaneously in the present moment, and abandon attachment to vain fantasies, then at the least we are making the best of what life gives us. Furthermore, we are avoiding frustration in the mind, which tends to form a feedback loop and build up over time, producing mental anguish. Also, I believe that abandonment to spontaneity and the present moment can lead to an increase in sensitivity, which in turn enables us to see the beauty in everyday life. Conversely, I believe that unrestrained frustration is not only unpleasant in itself, but it also dulls the mind, so that life seems bleak and unbearable, which only contributes further to the aforementioned feedback loop. I believe that this nurturing of sensitivity through spontaneity and detachment is one of the main motivations behind Zen Buddhist meditation and 'mindfulness' in general.

But the idea that our sense of self should be abandoned goes much deeper than the practical benefit to our mental hygiene. Ultimately, it has to do with achieving a much more pure, blissful and beautiful state of consciousness than is provided by our ordinary ego-centered self, a state in which complete peace and happiness arise from the inmost nature of the mind itself and not from external objects. All mystical traditions strive for this elevated state of consciousness, some identifying it as union with God and others refraining from theological interpretation.

Personally, I believe that there is a Universal Consciousness underlying our own 'finite' consciousness, that this Universal Consciousness is in some sense One (so that the multiplicity of form and shape that we see is somehow an 'illusion'), and that both God and the Universe are ultimately identical with this Universal Consciousness. This makes me Idealistic, Monistic and Pantheistic in the best Eastern tradition and apparently quite scary to much of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, not to mention ridiculous to hard-boiled 'scientists'. You can read more about these ideas on my Philosophy Page; a briefer exposition is found here.

(Don't worry if my ideas sound a bit grandiose. I realize that I have a long way to go to achieve the goal of Supreme Enlightenment. I am quite aware that I am in the same boat as everyone else regarding personal limitations. My mind is still like a monkey and sometimes like a demon. And I have not learned to rise above frustration under all circumstances, although what little meditation I have done has produced a definite beneficial effect. I recommend it. Enough said.)

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The Question of Self    It is well known that Buddhism allegedly denies that there is anything corresponding to our notion of 'self'. This goes beyond the mere admonition to cease being selfish; there is simply nothing corresponding to a 'self', according to this interpretation. This may be a major stumbling block for many people, which prevents them from accepting Buddhism, since it seems to fly in the face of 'common sense'. I think that this confusion is unfounded.

Clearly, the Buddha realized that there is something corresponding to our consciousness, otherwise enlightenment makes no sense. At a more basic level, no one can deny consciousness without resorting to insanity. Furthermore, by accepting karma and reincarnation, the Buddha clearly believed in something corresponding to a personal identity, to a continuous stream of consciousness where future moments are determined by past moments, in particular, by past thoughts, intentions, and behavior.

What the Buddha was trying to eliminate, in my opinion, is our deep-rooted tendency to grasp at our body, at our thoughts, and at our feelings, and identify them as the 'self'. Indeed, it is a most elementary fact, which we constantly forget, that body, thoughts and feelings are utterly transitory. They are nothing but a stream of consciousness, in which each successive moment arises and vanishes in an instant, like a flash. Only the 'seer' is permanent, to use Vedantic terminology, but this seer must never be identified with anything seen.

Actually, this line of reasoning does lead me into subtleties and difficulties, since my philosophy states that only a single 'unity' called 'consciousness' exists, so that the distinction between 'subject' and 'object' is not real but is only an illusory discrimination of the intellectual mind. Therefore, it is a bit inconsistent to say that we must not identify with the 'objects' of consciousness, since there is no real distinction between subject and object.

The resolution to this paradox is to appreciate the psychology of our normal unenlightened mind. When we are in our usual state, we do believe that there are objects such as body and mind, and we do identify with them. As a description of psychological processes, this is undeniable. We are not philosophers when we are in our 'normal' condition, so that questions of ultimate truth are not immediately relevant to changing our defective everyday psychology.

It is only after we have healed our consciousness from the disease of identifying with our misconceptions that we may then entertain more refined questions concerning ultimate reality, as part of our spiritual development. Of course, we can discuss such questions beforehand, in a purely intellectual way, as we indulge our interest in 'armchair philosophy', but we must never forget that Buddhism is more concerned with psychology and spiritual development. Philosophy is only incidental to this higher aim.

So the Buddhist denial of self is primarily intended to dissolve our deeply ingrained tendency to identify with our body and with our mind, which is the basis for all kinds of delusions and feelings that in turn generate conflict and obstruct the enlightened state of consciousness. We constantly view the world as revolving around our 'self', or rather, around a mental construction which we are pleased to consider our self, namely, a transitory bundle of perceptions called the 'body' and an insubstantial foam of internal thoughts and feelings, most of which are ignited by desire and vanity. Our desperate clinging to this bundle of fleeting illusions generates all kinds of poisonous feelings, and locks us into certain patterns of thought, which rob us of our spiritual freedom.

The most obvious consequence of clinging to the self is conflict, both within our mind and in our relations to the external world. But at a more subtle level, the prison of the self precludes the emergence of a higher state of consciousness, called enlightenment, in which we find our deepest and truest happiness. After all, happiness, love and beauty are all in the mind; external objects are only the triggers for happiness in the mind, and unreliable ones at that. Enlightenment enables us to circumvent the need for artificial triggers, and the happiness obtained is much more 'pure' and imperishable, and ultimately much more satisfying. Unfortunately, we can only fully realize this once we are enlightened. It takes an element of wisdom and faith to set out on this path in the first place, and we cannot expect immediate results.

Anyhow, 'self' is just a word. When applied to certain undesirable psychological tendencies, then it is something to be overcome. But if by 'self' we mean a purified consciousness that embraces the entire universe, and all 'sentient beings' within it, without preconceptions, prejudices, desires or attachments, then I doubt that the Buddha would have any problem with this definition of self. Such a definition would correspond to the Vedantic 'Self' (with a capital 'S'). However, according to my idealistic philosophy, it remains important not to identify this kind of self with any object 'external' to consciousness, since there are no objects external to consciousness. Sometimes the mere word 'self' can fool us into thinking in this way; we may unconsciously assume that there is some 'object' corresponding to the word 'self'. I believe that Buddhism agrees with this 'idealistic' view of reality, in spirit if not always in word, and I hope to demonstrate this as my pages develop.

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Non-Judgmental and Non-Dogmatic    One of the most appealing aspects of Buddhism is that it avoids judging people as 'good' or 'evil' and it avoids dogmatic proclamations — in marked contrast to the Judaeo-Christian (and Islamic) tradition. Instead, the emphasis is placed on 'ignorance' and 'delusion' (which, incidentally, is reminiscent of Platonism). Of course, Buddhists are as moral as other people, and indeed they have a reputation for gentleness and self-restraint. In fact, their tradition of tolerance and relative peacefulness seems to compare rather well with the religious wars of Christianity and Islam (not to mention the harshness towards Gentiles found in the Old Testament).

Digression on the Human Condition

I am no historian, but this does seem to be the case, more or less. One exception that comes to mind is pre-war Japan, when Buddhism unfortunately accommodated itself to militarism, even in monasteries. Also, Buddhism evidently was not sufficiently rooted in Cambodian society to prevent genocide under the Khmer Rouge. Nevertheless, Asia does seem by and large to have avoided religious wars, which can hardly be said of Europe and the Mideast. You might consider the Communist Revolution in China, with its tens of millions of dead, to have been a 'religious' war, in the sense that it was motivated at least in part by ideology. But note that the ideology was imported from Europe. Marx and Lenin were no friends of the Christian religion, but they shared the same tendency to divide the world into good and evil.

It is indeed a paradox that the moral impulse that leads many conscientious people to draw a sharp distinction between good and evil can also exacerbate conflicts. After all, what warring nation ever failed to demonize its adversary and consider its own cause perfectly just? The Judaeo-Christian emphasis on sin is supposed to make us humble before God, but humans have found it all too easy to see themselves as the righteous ones. This is particularly true in mass movements of society, such as wars, when individuality and conscience are abandoned to a general public sentiment in which the lowest common denominator tends to prevail. Wouldn't it be better to view bad behavior as arising from ignorance, so that we might try to cure it by understanding ourselves and our adversaries, just as a doctor cures disease by understanding the body? Did not Jesus say, 'Judge not, that you be not judged?' An impassioned insistence on good vs. evil leads to blind condemnation more often than to a sympathetic understanding and respect for our adversary's point of view.

Of course, life isn't quite so simple, evil governments do exist, terrorism is serious challenge to civilization and decency, and I am not one to advocate suddenly releasing violent criminals from jail. But there is no doubt that dogmatic and uncompromising moralism exacerbates many problems. At the same time, only a fool fails to realize the need for law and order, not to mention an adequate national self-defense. Such issues are extremely difficult and are full of ambiguity. I tend to place my faith in a secular democracy based on human rights, but let us not digress too much on politics.

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Buddha Nature    The essential optimism and positive attitude of Buddhism (notwithstanding the seemingly gloomy obsession with suffering) can be found in the doctrine of Buddha Nature. This doctrine is from the Mahayana and is said to have started with the Lotus Sutra, so we are jumping ahead a bit. Nevertheless, I believe that this uplifting doctrine is characteristic of Buddhism in general. The doctrine stresses that enlightenment is nothing other than recovering the Buddha Nature that we all have within us. The only thing separating us from this Buddha Nature is ignorance and delusion. Notice the sharp contrast with the Christian doctrine of original sin, whereby man is essentially perverted and can only be saved by God's grace. Instead, Buddhism tells us that we already have a hidden treasure within us and we only need enough sense to seek it through wisdom and meditation.

Hinduism — at least in the form of Advaita Vedanta — goes even further and says that we are ultimately one with God. Again, the only thing separating us is ignorance. However, I will later argue that Buddha Nature and the 'God within' must be essentially the same, and this is the basic reason that I consider Mahayana and Vedanta to be equivalent. Furthermore, there is ultimately no distinction between 'inside' and 'outside'. There is only one Universal Consciousness, containing within itself both 'internal' thoughts and feelings as well as vivid perceptions which we mistake for an 'external' world. This Universal Consciousness is God (or Buddha Nature), although we may not realize it due to ignorance.

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Dhammapada Excerpts    The early Buddhist scripture called the 'Dhammapada' (Path of Truth) provides a good sampling of the original Buddhism, during its Theravada (or Hinayana) phase, before the development of Mahayana notions such as Emptiness and the universality of Buddha Nature. Written at least as early as the 3rd century BC, the language is Pali rather than the Sanskrit of the Mahayana. This text supposedly reports the actual sayings of the historical Shakyamuni Buddha. It expresses a spirit that is lucid, sober and decent, with an emphasis on ethics, control of the mind, and meditation. The wisdom, gentleness and non-judgmental compassion of the Buddha show through.

Indeed, most Buddhist scriptures claim to report the actual words of the Buddha, but we can take this with a grain of salt when we come to some of the later Mahayana scriptures. I am, however, quite willing to agree that the latter represent the true spirit of Buddhism, if not the spoken word of the Buddha, perhaps elaborating on a vision that was implicit in the original Buddhism, like seeds waiting for the right time to germinate.

Although the Dhammapada, like other Theravada texts, tends to avoid some of the more expansive metaphysical notions of the Mahayana, one must not mistake it for a purely 'ethical' religion. At some key places, the Buddha describes a blissful state of Nirvana, obtained through meditation, which sounds 'mystical' and 'transcendental' to me. For example, in the Udana of the Khuddaka-nikaya (tr. Stephan Beyer), we read:

Monks, there is that sphere in which there is neither earth nor water, fire nor air: it is not the infinity of space, nor the infinity of perception; it is not nothingness, nor is it neither idea nor non-idea; it is neither this world nor the next, nor is it both; it is neither the sun nor the moon.

Monks, I declare that it neither comes nor goes, it neither abides nor passes away; it is not caused, established, begun, supported: it is the end of suffering.

What I call the selfless is hard to see, for it is not easy to see the truth. But he who knows it penetrates his craving; and for him who sees it, there is nothing there.

Monks, there is an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned. Monks, if there were not an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, then we could not here know any escape from the born, become, made, conditioned....

In fact, this 'Hinayana' passage sounds rather 'Mahayana' to me, with similarities to the Prajnaparamita Scriptures that will be examined on my Emptiness Page. (There are also similarities to the Upanishads.) Anyhow, the mere fact that all Buddhism believes in reincarnation and karma ensures that it is more than a merely ethical religion. What could be more 'metaphysical' than the afterlife?

The following excerpts from the Dhammapada are from the translation by Eknath Easwaran, Nilgiri Press, 1985.

Chapter 1: Twin Verses

Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draw it.

Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.

"He was angry with me, he attacked me, he defeated me, he robbed me" — those who dwell on such thoughts will never be free from hatred.

"He was angry with me, he attacked me, he defeated me, he robbed me" — those who do not dwell on such thoughts will surely become free from hatred.

For hatred can never put an end to hatred; love alone can. This is an unalterable law. People forget that their lives will end soon. For those who remember, quarrels come to an end.

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As rain seeps through an ill-thatched hut, passion will seep through an untrained mind. As rain cannot seep through a well-thatched hut, passion cannot seep through a well-trained mind.

Notice the emphasis placed on mind. This is consistent with the Buddhist (and Hindu) tendency to locate the source of man's troubles in ignorance rather than sin, as in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. It is better to introspect, analyze and correct our mind and behavior than to wallow in guilt and self-flagellation.

Indeed, all of Buddhism (and Hinduism) emphasizes the important of spiritual training, through meditation and self-control, in order to achieve liberation. Mahayana will, however, place more emphasis on 'compassion' for others. The earlier Buddhism seems aimed more at monks, the 'athletes' of the spiritual world, whereas Mahayana has more of an evangelic zeal for every sentient being to realize the Buddha Nature within.

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Chapter 2: Vigilance

Be vigilant and go beyond death. If you lack vigilance, you cannot escape death. Those who strive earnestly will go beyond death; those who do not can never come to life. The wise understand this, and rejoice in the wisdom of the noble ones. Meditating earnestly and striving for Nirvana, they attain the highest joy and freedom.

If you meditate earnestly, pure in mind and kind in deeds, leading a disciplined life in harmony with the dharma [spiritual law], you will grow in glory. If you meditate earnestly, through spiritual disciplines you can make an island for yourself that no flood can overwhelm.

The words 'can never come to life' are significant. It is not so much that we die and go to hell as punishment if we are bad. It is that we never even come to life in this world if our mind is disturbed and our behavior unethical. Actually, Jesus expressed a similar idea: 'Whosoever drinketh of this [ordinary] water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.' (John 4:14). We are not even spiritually self-sufficient in this life; we cannot truly live through our own devices. We must be tuned to the Source of Life within. The Buddhist Nirvana, achieved through meditation and ethical behavior, is also like a well of living water, springing from deep within our heart, that quenches our spiritual thirst. It also provides a refuge against life's troubles, if our faith is deep enough. (Yes, I know life can sometimes be unbearable, but that is when we most need faith and the resulting inner peace and energy as an antidote to despair.)

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Chapter 3: Thought

As an archer aims his arrow, the wise aim their restless thoughts, hard to aim, hard to restrain.

As a fish hooked and left on the sand thrashes about in agony, the mind being trained in meditation trembles all over, desperate to escape the hand of Mara [the temptress].

Hard it is to train the mind, which goes where it likes and does what it wants. But a trained mind brings health and happiness. The wise can direct their thoughts, subtle and elusive, wherever they choose: a trained mind brings health and happiness.

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Chapter 4: Flowers

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Remembering that this body is like froth, of the nature of a mirage, break the flower-tipped arrows of Mara. Never again will death touch you.

As a flood sleeps away a slumbering village, death sweeps away those who spend their lives gathering flowers. Death sweeps them away while they are still gathering, caught in the pursuit of pleasure. But the wise lives without injuring nature, as the bee drinks honey without harming the flower.

Observe the similarity of the words 'like froth, of the nature of a mirage' to the final poetic lines closing the Diamond Sutra, a key Mahayana scripture on emptiness. It is a mistake to see the Mahayana as a sharp break with the earlier Hinayana. Rather, the Mahayana developed certain ideas that were at least implicit, and often explicit but not emphasized, in the spirit of the original Buddhism.

Simply put, the earlier Buddhism observes the transience and suffering of the 'material' or 'phenomenal' world (Samsara) and strives to rise above it through mental discipline and detachment. It discovers a 'quiescence' (freedom from suffering) and a Nirvana. The Mahayana then re-embraces the phenomenal world from this 'transcendental' vantage point, explicitly declaring Nirvana and Samsara to be the same. Nothing is lost by sacrificing the transient, or rather, our attachment to it. By dwelling within our 'inner essence', which the Hindus would call 'Atman', we discover a realm of peace and illumination, from which we can interact in freedom with the phenomenal world, which was not possible as long as we clung to it. Our 'inner essence' is like the eye of a storm. This is emptiness.

It may seem paradoxical and improbable that we can dwell in inner peace while interacting freely with a disturbed world. We should therefore have faith in thousands of sages wiser than we are, who trod this path and achieved liberation. The reason this is possible is because the fundamental reality is mind and not the 'solid' world, as we usually think.

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Chapter 7: The Saint

He has completed his voyage; he has gone beyond sorrow. The fetters of life have fallen from him, and he lives in full freedom.

The thoughtful strive always. they have no fixed abode, but leave home like swans from a lake.

Like the flight of birds in the sky, it is hard to follow the path of the selfless. They have no possessions, but live on alms in a world of freedom. Like the flight of birds in the sky, it is hard to follow their path. With their senses under control, temperate in eating, they know the meaning of freedom.

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A final word on the apparently pleasure-denying tendencies of the early Buddhism (and indeed of some later Buddhism). Consider the mountain climber, who abandons the comfort and safety of home to freeze and put his life in danger. Why does he do this? For the sense of ecstasy and exaltation that he feels when he reaches the top. Likewise the true aspirant is not foolishly choosing to make his life bleak. Rather, he responds to a spiritual aspiration in the depths of his heart. What we all really want is peace, bliss and spiritual freedom. This requires ethical (honest, compassionate) behavior and the control of the mind. The message of Buddhism is entirely positive. Better relations with others come as a further bonus.

Chapter 10: Punishment

Everyone fears punishment; everyone fears death, just as you do. Therefore do not kill or cause to kill. Everyone fears punishment; everyone loves life, as you do. Therefore do not kill or cause to kill.

If, hoping to be happy, you strike at others who also seek happiness, you will be happy neither here nor hereafter. If, hoping to be happy, you do not strike at others who are also seeking happiness, you will be happy here and hereafter.

Speak quietly to everyone, and they too will be gentle in their speech. Harsh words hurt, and come back to the speaker. If your mind is still, like a broken gong, you have entered nirvana, leaving all quarrels behind you.

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