UNIVERSAL BENEVOLENCE
I. THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OF THE SYSTEM
[Sidenote: The four great truths]
Four tenets or principles, called the four truths, sum up the
essentials of Buddhism.[267] These are the truth of pain, the origin of
pain, the destruction of pain, and the eightfold way that “leads to the
quieting of pain.”[268]
The first three of these truths form the philosophical basis of
Buddhist ethics, and to a brief exposition of these tenets we shall
devote the immediately following sections. The fourth truth is a
summary of the ethics of Buddhism,[269] and therefore what we shall
have to say about it will appropriately find a place under the next
subdivision of this chapter when we come to speak of the moral ideal of
Buddhism.
[Sidenote: The truth of pain]
The truth of pain, in the language of the sacred scriptures, is this:
“Birth is pain, death is pain, clinging to earthly things is pain.”
This is simply an expression, with added emphasis, of that
world-weariness, of that despair of life, which we have seen pressing
like an incubus upon the spirit of Brahmanic India. Buddhism teaches
that life is an evil, that misery and sorrow and pain are inseparable
from all modes of existence. We shall be able to get the Buddhist’s
point of view if we bear in mind how we ourselves sometimes look upon
this earthly life. In despondent moods we ask, “Is life worth living?”
and make answer ourselves by declaring that if this earthly life is
all, then there is in it nothing worth while. If now we extend this
gloomy view so as to make it embrace the life to come as well as the
life that now is, we shall have the viewpoint of the true Buddhist. To
him life not only in this world but in all other possible worlds is
transitory, illusive, and painful, and in utter despair and weariness
he longs to be through with it all and to lay down forever the
intolerable burden of existence.[270] “As the glow of the Indian sun
causes rest in cool shades to appear to the wearied body the good of
goods, so also with the wearied soul, rest, eternal rest, is the only
thing for which it craves.”[271]
[Sidenote: The origin of pain]
The truth of the origin of pain is this: “It is the thirst for life,
together with lust and desire, which causes birth and rebirth.”
It should be noted here that there are different interpretations given
to this tenet. Some understand by it not that all desires, but simply
evil desires, cause and feed the flame of life; others interpret it as
teaching that desires or longings of every kind whatsoever possess this
sinister potency of recreating life and keeping one entangled in the
meshes of the net of existence.
[Sidenote: The truth of the
destruction of pain]
The truth of the destruction of pain is this: “Pain can be ended only
by the complete extinction of desire.” Desire being the root which
feeds life and causes the round of births, existence can be ended only
by getting rid of desire.
Here again there are different acceptations of the dogma. To most it
means simply the getting rid of all unholy passions and desires, while
to the thoroughgoing Buddhist it means freedom from every desire of
whatsoever kind: “Not a few trees but the whole forest” of desires must
be cut down, together with all “the undergrowth.”[272]
[Sidenote: The doctrine of karma]
Besides these three philosophical principles,--the truth of pain,
the origin of pain, and the extinction of pain,--there are two other
speculative doctrines of orthodox Buddhism, a comprehension of which is
necessary to an understanding of the ethics of the system. The first of
these is the doctrine of karma. This is a denial of the soul theory.
Orthodox Buddhism denies that man has a soul separable from the body.
It teaches that when a person dies there does not go out of his body
a spirit which lives elsewhere a conscious life, a continuation of
the life just ended, but that all that goes out is _karma_, that is,
something which is the net product of all the good and evil acts of
the person in all his various existences--a sort of seed or germ from
which will spring up here on earth or in some heaven or hell another
being.[273] There is no conscious identity, however, between the two
beings. They stand related to each other as father to son.
Some illustrations will help us to seize the thought. The Buddhist
teacher likens the relation of the life going out here to the new life
beginning elsewhere, to the relation of two candle flames, the second
of which has been lighted from the first. Through the transmission of
karma the flame of life is passed on from one being to another; but
all these life flames are different. No abiding self-consciousness
binds them together and makes them one. Again, this succession of lives
is likened to the undulations of a wave in the ocean. The successive
undulations are not the same, yet the first causes the second, the
second the third, and so on.
Notwithstanding the important place this doctrine holds in Buddhist
speculative philosophy and theoretical ethics, it was neither
understood nor adopted by the masses. It was developed in the schools,
but the people in general held to their old Brahmanic belief in the
soul and its transmigrations, so that in most Buddhist lands to-day
belief in a conscious personal existence after death is the prevailing
one.[274]
[Sidenote: Nirvana and the
different senses in which the term
is used]
The other philosophical doctrine of which we have to speak is that
of Nirvana. This term is used with many different meanings. Often it
denotes merely the extinguishment in the soul of lust and hate and
ignorance, and the state of quiet contentment and blissful repose which
results from such self-mastery. Buddha himself, says Rhys Davids, meant
by the term just what Christ meant by the kingdom of God, that kingdom
within the soul of calm and abiding peace.[275]
Again, it is used to express a state of eternal, unchanging, blissful
rest and ineffable peace beyond all the realms--heavens and hells--of
transmigration.
Still again the term is used to denote the absolute extinction of
existence, annihilation. This is the view of Nirvana held to-day by
the Buddhists of Ceylon, Siam, and Burma who claim to hold the ancient
faith in its primitive purity.[276]
II. THE IDEAL
[Sidenote: The truth of the
eightfold path]
The ethics of Buddhism is summed up in the formula of the truth of the
eightfold path.[277] The truth of the eight-membered way is this: the
only path which leads to the quieting of pain is the eightfold holy
path--right belief, right resolve, right speech, right behavior, right
occupation, right effort, right thought, right concentration.[278]
The essence of all this expressed in familiar ethical phrase is that
the demands of morality are right thoughts, right words, and right
deeds. As the eight requirements are interpreted and expounded by
Buddhist teachers, they demand a mind free from all evil passions and
unholy desires (and, according to the thoroughgoing Buddhist, of every
desire whatsoever)[279] and “a heart of love far-reaching, grown great,
and beyond measure.” This is the path leading to deliverance from
transmigration, this the path leading to the quieting of pain, this the
path leading to the sweet rest and peace of Nirvana.
It will be worth our while to note with some attention some of the
special primary duties and virtues which are included in these general
demands of self-conquest and unmeasured love.
[Sidenote: Particular virtues and
duties of the ideal]
One of the primary duties of the true Buddhist is to seek knowledge,
for true knowledge, insight, is the cure for desire. This knowledge
which quenches all craving thirst is best attained, so Buddha taught,
through meditation.[280] One must meditate on the transitoriness of
life, on pain, on death, on truth, on gentleness, on love. It was
through profound meditation under the Bo tree that Gautama became the
Buddha, “The Enlightened.”
Another cardinal virtue of the Buddhist ideal of character is universal
benevolence. By no other ethical system has such stress been laid upon
the duty of gentleness to everything that has life. The animal world
is here brought within the sanctuary of morality and safeguarded by
ethical sentiment. It is of course the doctrine of transmigration,
which Buddhism inherits from Brahmanism, which gives animal ethics the
prominent place it holds in Buddhist morality.[281]
Still a third requirement of the true Buddhist is toleration, which
follows as a corollary from the virtue of universal benevolence. In
the prominent place assigned this virtue in the ideal of character,
Buddhism stands alone among the great world religions.
A fourth cardinal duty of the ideal is to make known to all men the
eightfold way to salvation. Buddha’s command to his disciples was,
“Go ye now and preach the most excellent Law, explaining every point
thereof, unfolding it with diligence and care.” This is a duty which
brings its own reward; for the exercise of compassion and charity
produces that serenity of spirit which is the aim of moral striving;
and hence nothing advances one more rapidly on the way to salvation
than preaching the good tidings and laboring to lessen the sorrows and
lighten the burdens of one’s fellow creatures. The moral requirement
to preach to all the most excellent way made of Buddhism a missionary
religion. In a few centuries after the death of Buddha devoted
missionaries had spread the new faith throughout the Far East.
[Sidenote: The different degrees
of moral attainment]
There are in Buddhism three grades of moral attainment. The lowest is
that which may be reached by any one in the ordinary life. Through
purity of thought and word and deed, through the exercise of universal
kindliness, and by the fulfillment of every duty pertaining to his
station in life, one attains such a degree of moral excellence that he
may at least hope at death to avoid painful rebirth.
The second degree of moral excellence is that attained by the monk
of Gautama’s Order. The idea of the Buddhist here is like that of
the Christian respecting the monastic life. For centuries in the West
the ascetic life was looked upon as more perfect than the ordinary
life, and as the better and surer way to salvation. It is the same
in Buddhist lands. The goal striven after, the extinction of unholy
desires, the Buddhist believes is most quickly and surely reached by
him who has rid himself of the cares and worries of domestic life, and
withdrawn from all the distractions of the world.
The prime duty of the Buddhist monk is meditation, which takes the
place of prayer in the code of the Christian recluse. Through following
faithfully and patiently all the rules of the Order he may hope to
attain such comparative perfection that at his death he will be reborn
in some better state.
The third and highest degree of moral attainment can be reached only
in the Arhatship. The Arhat is what we would call the perfect man.
He is one who, like the Buddha, reaches a state of perfect insight
or mental illumination and of perfect freedom from all desires[282]
save the desire for Nirvana. This state is reached only through
absolute renunciation of the world. He who would be perfect must leave
all earthly pleasures behind, and calling nothing his own, with all
appetites stilled, passionless and desireless, go out from home into
homelessness.[283] In such a one karma becomes extinct, and for him
there are no new births. “The living, moving body of the perfect man is
visible still,” says Rhys Davids in explaining this state, ... “but it
will decay and die and pass away, and as no new body will be formed,
where life was, will be nothing.”[284]
[Sidenote: The genuine altruism of
Buddhist ethics]
It is impossible to conceive a higher altruism than that inculcated
by the higher thoroughgoing Buddhism. Since it denies the existence
of the soul,--nothing save the seed (karma) of another but different
life remaining at death,--when one strives to break the chain of
existence, to make an end of the weary cycle of births, such a one
is seeking good not for himself but for another. In the words of Dr.
Hopkins, “It is to save from sorrow this son of one’s acts that one
should seek to find the end.”[285] Thus orthodox Buddhism alone, of
all the great ethical systems of history, refuses to sully virtue with
promises of reward. Its morality stands absolutely alone, unsupported
by the hope of recompense either in this world or in the world to come.
“Buddhism alone teaches that to live on earth is weariness, that there
is no bliss beyond, and that one should yet be calm, pure, loving, and
wise.”[286]
Another thing especially noteworthy regarding the ethics of Buddhism is
that it is the ethics of naturalism. “For the first time in the history
of the world,” in the words of Rhys Davids, “Buddhism proclaimed a
salvation which each man could gain for himself and by himself in this
world, during this life, without the least reference to God or the
gods, either great or small.” In this respect Buddhism is somewhat like
the present-day socialism of the materialistic school, which ardently
proclaims justice, equity, and universal brotherhood, but says nothing
about God.
III. SOME EXPRESSIONS OF THE ETHICAL SPIRIT OF BUDDHISM
[Sidenote: Introductory]
Buddhism has been called the Christianity of the Orient. Like
Christianity, it has been a great moralizing force in history. Its
ethical ideal has been just such a factor in the moral life of the East
as the ethical ideal of Christianity has been in the moral life of the
West.
To portray even in scantiest outline the influence of this ideal
upon the different peoples who have accepted it as their standard of
goodness, or whose moral codes have felt its modifying effects, would
lead us far beyond the limits of our work. In what follows we shall aim
at nothing more--after having first remarked the ethical kinship of
the Buddhist reform with other contemporary reform movements--than to
note briefly the practical outworkings of the ideal in three or four
departments of the moral domain.
[Sidenote: The ethical
relationships of the Buddhist
reform]
We shall understand best the import for the moral evolution of humanity
of that remarkable revolution in Brahmanic India which resulted in
the establishment of Buddhism throughout the peninsula and in other
countries of the Far East, if we first notice its ethical kinship
with other reform movements which, about the close of the sixth
pre-Christian century, make a dividing line in the inner histories of
so many of the progressive societies and cultures of that age.[287]
In Greece Pythagoreanism was rising. This movement was in its essential
spirit a social and moral reform. It was an attempt to introduce a true
ethics in Greek city life, and to find a basis for morality in the deep
intuitions of the human soul.[288]
In Israel the Isaiah of the Exile was proclaiming the loftiest ethical
doctrines ever taught by Hebrew prophet, and in his interpretation of
the moral government of Yahweh was scattering the seed from which was
to spring up a new ethical life among men.
In Persia the great teacher Zarathustra (Zoroaster), with like vision
of moral things, was declaring to the followers of Ahura Mazda that
what God requires of men is purity of purpose, truthfulness in word and
act, and unceasing warfare against evil within and without.
In China the Master, Confucius, reaffirming the teachings of antiquity,
was inculcating essentially the same truth--that the sum of true
morality is reverence, obedience, and right living.
It probably would be unhistorical to suppose that there was any actual
connection between these several ethical or religious reform movements
in these widely separated lands. They are brought together here merely
that they may be used to interpret one another in terms of ethical
progress, and that they may bear witness to the substantial oneness of
the expressions of the moral faculty of man in response to the same or
similar intellectual and social stimulus.
[Sidenote: The ethical content for
the masses of Buddha’s message]
The question naturally arises, How could Buddha’s dismal doctrine of
annihilation as the ultimate aim and end of moral striving--for this
dogma was undoubtedly one of the fundamental principles of primitive
Buddhism--ever have been received by the multitude as a word of
consolation and hope? What is there of ethical authority or appeal in
such a doctrine to constitute it the motive force in a great popular
moral reform? The answer is that although Buddha himself probably
believed that death for the perfect man meant absolute extinction of
being, nevertheless he lay no emphasis upon this part of his world
philosophy. He knew very well that it would be a hard doctrine for many
to receive, and when questioned about it he was reticent. It was his
other doctrine, the way in which one may escape painful rebirths, upon
which Buddha laid the stress of his teaching. And here his simple word
to the people was this: Be gentle and merciful and just; get rid of all
impure and craving desires, and then at death, instead of suffering
some painful rebirth, you will be reborn into a happier condition here
on earth or in some other world. In a word, he said, Follow after
goodness and it will be well with you.
To be able to understand how this simple word should be received with
such enthusiasm by the multitude, we need to bear in mind how hard the
way of escape from painful rebirths had been made by the Brahmans.
They had taught the people that salvation was possible only through
ritual and ceremony, through costly offerings to the gods, through the
payment of liberal fees to the priests, through penances and ascetic
practices.[289] Thus the way of deliverance had been made so hard that
few could follow it, and so unethical that it left the heart cold and
the conscience unsatisfied.
The situation was like that in Judea when the greatest of the prophets,
in opposition to the teachings of the scribes and Pharisees who
were laying upon men’s shoulders a burden of ritualism too heavy to
be borne, declared that man finds salvation not through ritual or
sacrifice, but through humility, obedience, and love--and the people
heard him gladly and followed him, because his yoke was easy and his
burden light.
So was it in India. Buddha interprets anew to men the divine message
that all which is required of them is purity and justice and tenderness
toward all creatures. The spirit of the heavy-burdened multitude
witnesseth with the spirit of the Prophet that this is indeed a true
and divine Word; and Buddhism, with its ethical enthusiasms and fresh
hopes, marks a new era in the moral evolution of the peoples of the
Eastern world.
[Sidenote: Monasticism as an
ethical expression of Buddhism]
In explaining the different degrees of moral attainment possible to
the Buddhist, we spoke of the monastic ideal of virtue. This part of
Buddhist ethical theory has left a deep impress upon practical morality
in all those lands into which the faith of the Buddha has spread.
Monasticism has been, and is still to-day, just such a dominant factor
in the moral life of all Buddhist communities of eastern Asia as it was
in the moral life of medieval Christian Europe.
The causes that fostered the upgrowth of the system in the East were
essentially the same as those that fostered its development in the
West. Among these causes a prominent place must be assigned that
feeling of world-weariness to which we have already more than once
referred, a feeling evoked by the burden and ache of existence. It was
this predisposition of spirit that caused the doctrine of renunciation
of the world preached by the disciples of Buddha to appeal with such
persuasion to multitudes throughout all the Eastern lands.
We may stop to note but one of various points of difference between
Buddhist and Christian monasticism. The latter, in general, recognized
the ethical value of labor. This feeling found expression in various
forms of activity among the monks, particularly in agricultural labor
and in the work of the scriptorium. It was this which not only helped
to keep life in the Western monasteries morally wholesome for a period,
but which also made the monastic system such an efficient force in
the conquest and redemption of the waste lands of Europe and in the
upbuilding of Western civilization in the early medieval age. Now
Buddhist monasticism never recognized the moral value of work.[290]
Useful labor had no place among the requirements of the monastic ideal.
Here doubtless is to be sought one cause of that lamentable moral
degeneracy into which the monastic communities soon fell in almost all
the lands whither Buddhism was carried by the missionary zeal of its
early converts.
[Sidenote: Practical effects of
the animal ethics of Buddhism]
We have seen that under the Buddhist system the whole animal and insect
world is brought within the domain of ethics. Buddhist morality has
gone to a greater extreme here than any other ethical system, excepting
that of Jainism. The inculcating of this sympathy with all living
creatures has developed one of the most attractive traits of the Hindu
character.[291] But the extreme emphasis laid upon this branch of
ethics by Buddhism, Jainism, and modern Brahmanism or Hinduism has had
practical consequences of a very serious nature. The scruple in regard
to killing animals, even harmful creatures, has cost India millions
of human lives. It has been a contributory cause of the country being
overrun with dangerous animals, such as tigers and venomous snakes,
which destroy many thousands of human beings annually, and has even
fostered the propagation of forms of life which are now known to be
effective agents in the spread of infectious diseases like the bubonic
plague.[292] Nothing is surer than that at this point the ethics of
Buddhism must sooner or later feel the modifying influence of Western
science.
[Sidenote: The Buddhist spirit of
toleration]
As an efficient force in promoting a spirit of the broadest toleration,
Buddhism holds a unique place among the great religious and ethical
systems of the world.[293] An edict of the Buddhist Emperor Asoka,
dating from the third century B.C., inculcates the practice of
toleration in these words: “A man must not do reverence to his own sect
by disparaging that of another man for trivial reasons. Depreciation
should be for adequate reasons only, because the sects of other people
deserve reverence for one reason or another.”
The spirit of this imperial edict has been obeyed wherever the word of
the Buddha has prevailed. “There is no record known to me,” writes Rhys
Davids, “in the whole long history of Buddhism, throughout the many
centuries where its followers have been for such lengthened periods
supreme, of any persecution by the Buddhists of the followers of any
other faith.”[294]
[Sidenote: Disesteem of the
military life]
Like Confucianism, Buddhism in its spirit and its ethical teachings
is, as we have seen, absolutely opposed to the spirit of militarism
in every form. Doubtless it has been a potent force in fostering
among the peoples of eastern Asia an anti-military spirit and in
creating a disesteem for the warlike qualities of character.[295]
From one land--the Tartar land of Thibet--it has banished absolutely
the war spirit and practically war itself.[296] “It has taken all the
fierceness out of the Mongols,” and thus rendered useless the Great
Wall built to check their raids into China.[297]
[Sidenote: Softening effects on
national character of Buddhist
teachings]
Buddhism has been well characterized as the incarnation of sympathy
with suffering. Inculcating a morality of gentleness, instilling
tenderness toward every living thing, it has exercised a softening
influence upon the spirit and temper of every race that has received
its teachings. We have in the preceding chapter noted its humanizing
effects upon Japanese morality.[298] Even in India, where after a
comparatively short period of supremacy it yielded sway again to
Brahmanism, it left significant traces of its brief dominance in the
deepened humanitarianism of the restored creed of the Brahmans, and
in certain of those traits and dispositions of the native races which
render truthfully descriptive the term “gentle Hindu.” “The land of
meekness and gentleness,” were the words used by a native Hindu[299]
at a recent Lake Mohonk Conference to express the ethical character of
India.
[Sidenote: Historical significance
of the ethical unity created by
Buddhism]
There is deep significance for the moral evolution of the human race
in this ethical propaganda of Buddhism. For just as Christianity has
created an ethical unity among the nations of the Western world, so
has Buddhism created a certain ethical unity among the races of the
Eastern world. The historical importance of this lies in the fact that
these two ethical systems, though differing in form and content, are
in spirit essentially the same: both are moralities of universalism;
both teach the brotherhood of man; both exalt the gentle[300] and
self-denying virtues; both enjoin self-conquest; both inculcate the
duty of universal benevolence.
Because of this moral kinship, the ethical conquests of Buddhism--and
there is not a land in the Far East that has not felt its
influence--are in a degree supplemental to those of Christianity in
the West, and are thus an important step in the creation of the ethical
unity of the world. India and Japan are both nearer to us ethically
to-day than they would be, were it not for the modifying influence
of Buddhist teachings upon the ethical spirit and temper of their
peoples.[301]