I find the precept on right speech the hardest to follow. I am an extrovert and by nature a very garrulous person. In school, when we studied it, I found it difficult - unfortunately, it is the same now. With friends, even good friends I find that to maintain a level of comfort and warmth, one ends up chatting idly. A few of us tried to get round that by having a book club where we would discuss subjects of spiritual interest. I studied laughter therapy and have found that light-hearted chatting, joking in conjunction with the above are really needed for a person like me. Where does one draw a line, how does one discern what is ok and what is idle. Sometimes one feels the need to talk about a friend who has hurt one, without meaning to gossip about her - what does one do then, turn within ? Can we explore this a little more?

 

 

The precepts are about changing our behaviour so that we have the optimum opportunity to develop spiritually. I suppose how seriously we choose to apply the individual precepts is a measure of the urgency with which we are striving towards the goal of this path. Idle chatter is not productive; although it may be entertaining in the short term. Being entertained, though, does not have anything to do with our development - while it can be pleasurable, it leaves us where we are. This is one of the tensions that lay people have: we have chosen to live in a situation where there is endless distraction and the opportunity for avoidance of important work. The Five Precepts (and the Eight Uposatha Precepts) are designed to counter this trap. If we place them at the centre of our life we still have the potential for excellent progress. If we choose not to, then any advancement will be slower. It is a straightforward choice that we need to make. As with all volitional actions of mind, speech and body we will face the outcome of our choice.

 

For many of us, Right Speech is the hardest of the precepts. We spend most of each day interacting with people and it is certainly difficult to ensure that dhammic principles are maintained. Just as in our formal meditation practice, this is an exercise in mindfulness. Speech is just as important as any other action; what we choose to voice matters. It can be beneficial or destructive. Skilful speech entails consideration for the people who will hear what we say as well as care that our own standards are maintained. Right speech need not be worthy and dull: it is well-chosen, improving and an expression of lovingkindness for the hearer.

 

Gossiping about a friend behind his or her back cannot ever be considered skilful. There are usually much more productive ways of dealing with hurt - for example, by addressing the friend directly, so that the situation may be amicably resolved, or by accepting what has happened and choosing to move on. There is nothing to stop us seeking the advice of a third party about an incident that has happened but this need never slip over into back-biting.

 

[The Buddha speaks to his son, Rahula:] "Whenever you want to perform a verbal act, you should reflect on it: 'This verbal act I want to perform -- would it lead to self-affliction, to the affliction of others, or to both? Is it an unskillful verbal act, with painful consequences, painful results?' If, on reflection, you know that it would lead to self-affliction, to the affliction of others, or to both; it would be an unskillful verbal act with painful consequences, painful results, then any verbal act of that sort is absolutely unfit for you to do. But if on reflection you know that it would not cause affliction... it would be a skillful verbal action with happy consequences, happy results, then any verbal act of that sort is fit for you to do.

 

While you are performing a verbal act, you should reflect on it: 'This verbal act I am doing -- is it leading to self-affliction, to the affliction of others, or to both? Is it an unskillful verbal act, with painful consequences, painful results?' If, on reflection, you know that it is leading to self-affliction, to the affliction of others, or to both... you should give it up. But if on reflection you know that it is not... you may continue with it.

 

Having performed a verbal act, you should reflect on it... If, on reflection, you know that it led to self-affliction, to the affliction of others, or to both; it was an unskillful verbal act with painful consequences, painful results, then you should confess it, reveal it, lay it open to the Teacher or to a knowledgeable companion in the holy life. Having confessed it... you should exercise restraint in the future. But if on reflection you know that it did not lead to affliction... it was a skillful verbal action with happy consequences, happy results, then you should stay mentally refreshed and joyful, training day and night in skillful mental qualities."

 

- Majjhima Nikaya 61

With metta

 

Andrew

 

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Suppose, bretheren, a man in need of sound timber, in quest of sound timber, going about searching for sound timber, should come upon a mighty tree, upstanding, all sound timber, and pass it by; but should cut away the outer wood and bark and take that along with him, thinking it to be sound timber.

 

Then a discerning man might say thus: "This fellow surely cannot tell the difference between sound timber and outer wood and bark, branchwood and twigs: but being in need of sound timber ... he passes it by and goes off with the outer wood and bark, thinking it to be sound timber. Now such a way of dealing with sound timber will never serve his need."

 

Thus, bretheren, the essentials of the holy life do not consist in the profits of gain, honour, and good name; nor yet in the profits of observing moral rules; nor yet in the profits of knowledge and insight; but the sure heart's release, bretheren - that, bretheren, is the meaning, that is the essence, that is the goal of living the holy life.

 

- The Buddha, Majjhima Nikaya, i. 194.

 

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In the coming months, this Newsletter will be exploring a little of the history of Early Buddhism. We continue our series with an overview of the religious setting in which Buddhism arose.

 

 

CHAPTER 2

 

CONDITION OF RELIGION IN INDIA AT THE TIME OF THE RISE OF BUDDHISM

 

It will be necessary, in order to explain the views put forward by the Buddha, to give a summary of the views previously current among the communities in whose territories he taught.

 

Vedic Beliefs. - And firstly, the views then current were not the views we find enunciated or implied in the thousand and odd Vedic hymns. As, through the centuries, the Aryans had pushed on into the land, their language, through the inevitable laws of the growth, or decay, of a living language, had so altered that they understood the hymns no longer. The hymns were still known only in the schools of the sacrificing priests, and were there split up into texts to be used as charms (mantras) in the sacrifice. Beyond the circles of those connected with the schools they were disregarded and unknown. When originally composed in the Panjab, the hymns had included only a portion of the beliefs of the people; and with each generation, with each change of domicile, the gap between the actual beliefs and those recorded in the hymns grew wider and wider.

 

Death of the Gods. - Such a process is just as inevitable as the change in a living language, or in a living structure. We should never forget in what degree all these their gods were real. They had no objective existence; but they were real enough, for a moment, as ideas in men's minds. At any given time the gods of a nation seem to the onlooker eternal, unchangeable. As a matter of fact they are always slightly changing. No two men, even though brought up in the same surroundings, when they are thinking on the same day of the same god have quite the same mental image. Nor can the proportionate importance of the image be the same to each of them ; for that could only be the case if all their other ideas were exactly the same, which, of course, they never are. Just as a man's visible frame, though no change is at any moment perceptible, is never really the same for two consecutive moments, and the result of constant minute variations becomes visible after a lapse of time ; so the ideas summed up by the name of a god become changed by the gradual accretion of minute variations. This change, after a lapse of time (it may be generations, it may be centuries), becomes so clear that a new name arises, and gradually, very gradually, ousts the older one. Then the older god is dead. As the Buddhist poet puts it: 'The flowers of the garlands he wore are withered, his robes of majesty have waxed old and faded, he falls from his high estate, and is reborn into a new life.' He lives again, as we might say, in the very result of his former life, in the new god, that is, who under the new name reigns in men's hearts.

 

The Gods in the Buddha's Time. - We are able to estimate how far this was true in the Buddha's time of the Vedic gods from the statements in two very interesting poems, included by a fortunate chance in the Buddhist canon.[They are in the Digha Nikiya, and have been translated by Gogerly. A new edition of Gogerly's works is now being published in Ceylon.] These give lists of gods supposed to be friendly to the new teaching. Remarkable as works of art, these lists are of great value as evidence of what the actual deities were whose worshippers the new teaching desired to conciliate. It is most improbable that the unknown poets would have omitted any deity with a large or influential following. First come the spirits of Mother Earth and of the Great Mountains. Then the Four Great Kings, the lords of the spirits supposed to dwell in all the four quarters of the world, north and south, east and west. These are in the east the Gandharvas, heavenly musicians, supposed to preside over child-birth, and to be helpful in many ways to mortals. In the south are the hungry ghosts, supposed to be full of dire influences, but open to be appeased by the proper means. The west is the special home of the Nagas, the Siren-serpents, whose worship played so great a part in the folk-lore of the people, and who are so often represented on the monuments. Cobras in the ordinary shape, they were supposed to live, like mermen and mermaids, beneath the waters, in great luxury, especially of gems, or to haunt the giant trees of the forest. They could at will, and often did, adopt the human form ; and though terrible if angered, were kindly and mild by nature. To the north, in the mysterious heights of the Himalayas, were assigned the Yakshas, under their king, Kuvera Vessavana, the god of wealth and prosperity. After these comes in both lists a miscellaneous company - the souls or spirits supposed to animate the moon and the sun (the moon is always mentioned first), the winds, the clouds, the summer heat ; then follows a curious assortment of impersonations of various mental qualities; and lastly, the gods who dwell in the highest heavens (that is, are the outcome of the highest speculation), like Brahma himself, and Paramatta, and Sanang Kumara.

 

Without going into any detailed analysis, it is sufficient to state that we find ourselves here, in this description of the religion of the peoples among whom Buddhism arose, face to face with a conception quite different from that recorded in the Vedas, and not even derived from it. Of the hundred or so deities enumerated, barely half-a-dozen are Vedic.

 

Animism. - The above are the higher gods revered by the people at the time we are considering. The lower forms of animistic delusion popular among them are set forth in another very ancient document entitled 'On Conduct.' [In Pali,  'The Silas,' a tract translated in my Dialogues of the Buddha, vol. i. pp. 3-25.] It is a list of practices disapproved by the early Buddhists. In the middle of this tract it states that some people are tricksters, droners out of holy words for pay, diviners, exorcists, or earning their living by low arts ; and there then follows a list of such low arts. We are told of palmistry, divination of various sorts, auguries drawn from eclipses, prognostications based on dreams, auguries drawn from marks on cloth gnawed by mice, sacrifices to the god of fire, oblations of various kinds to gods, determining lucky sites, laying ghosts, working charms on snakes or beasts or birds, astrology, interpreting signs on the bodies of children, consulting gods by means of a mirror or through a girl possessed ; and so on. Some of these undoubtedly refer to practices enjoined in the priestly books. Others cannot be traced there. And the whole list is proof, if such were needed, that then, in the valley of the Ganges, as elsewhere, all kinds of the animism that had preceded the book religion had also survived in sufficient degree to continue to afford, to those who would condescend to take advantage of it, opportunity for gain.

 

The Soul Theory. - Further than that the evidence does not, I think, take us. It is a matter of degree. There was, one would be inclined to think, an almost universal and unquestioned belief in the existence, round and about, of an infinite number of non-human beings. These the people took as a matter of course, just as they took the existence of souls
inside their own bodies as a matter of course. It was by these souls, within them and without, that they explained to themselves the mysteries of death and trance and dreams, of motion and of life. Handed down from an immemorial antiquity, this hypothesis or theory of souls was current at that time in India, just as it has been current before and since among civilised and uncivilised races throughout the world.

 

Endless were the applications of this theory, the methods of explanation for which it was used. To enumerate and explain them all (for the applications of it often need a good deal of explanation) would fill volumes. A man falls in a faint, and then comes to again. It is clear that it is his soul that has gone away for a time, and then come back to him. The majestic sun passing in his daily path across the firmament, so resplendent a centre of life and heat and motion, must be alive. It is animated as men are by a soul, only that its soul is more glorious, more powerful, than theirs. The giant monarch of the forest, stretching its weird arms through the dusk, contains a soul, a Naga, a tree-fairy, whose thought and action explain all the mysteries of the tree. And so on, through the long list of those objects that appeared to man's senses as fearsome, bounteous, mysterious, inspiring awe.

 

The Forms of Worship. - All these souls were supposed to have human passions, human nature, even human form. They were amenable, like humans, to flattery and presents ; and could be compelled by charms to do, or to refrain from doing, what the workers of the charm desired. The Vedic sacrifices, as performed by brahmins at this period, were almost exclusively of this magical character. For these there were no temples. One of the main sources of emolument to the priests was the building, accompanied by the use of many charms, of a new altar for each sacrifice. The altar was put up on private ground, and the sacrifice was a private ceremonial designed to secure personal advantages to the person at whose cost the sacrifice was carried out. There were no images of the gods. These sacrifices being long and very costly were also therefore rare, and could only be carried out by the wealthy. That was perhaps an additional reason why the mass of the people, at the period and in the districts we are considering, followed other gods. Of their cults we unfortunately know very little, and that only as yet from incidental references in the Buddhist books. We are told of chetiyas or shrines, and their names and approximate situations are known. Some are supposed to have been burial mounds, and others sacred trees. But we know as yet next to nothing as to what was done there. No pre-Buddhistic shrine in India has, so far, been excavated ; and the incidental references to them in the books have not been collected and studied. So also we hear of Samajjas, clan meetings on sacred heights, with dances sacred and secular, and other accompaniments of what in modern times we might expect to find at a fair. But the references to these meetings presuppose in their readers a knowledge of all that went on, and of what it really meant. And that is precisely what we should like to know.

 

Speculation. - On the other hand we have fairly detailed and intelligible accounts of what, as compared with the local cults, may be called the higher speculation. In records older than the Buddhist we see the monistic mysticism, which reached its highest expression in the theosophic poetry of the Upanishads, gradually taking shape. And in the earliest Buddhist books we not only have the names of various sects or groups, either of Wanderers or Hermits, but elaborate classifications of a large number of the theories held by them. The names are suggestive : The Unfettered, the Followers of the Shaveling, the Men of braided hair (these are brahmin hermits), the Bearers of the triple staff, the Friends, the Worshippers of the god (we are not told which), the Men of pure livelihood, and so on. The theories are given, in the first of the Dialogues, in a list that is too long to reproduce. There are thirty-six different views as to the state, after the death of the body it inhabited, of the soul ; and one theory that the soul dies when the body dies. Curiously enough the theory of the transmigration of souls is not referred to; and the theory of the absorption of the individual soul into the supreme soul is not mentioned. There are a number of divergent views as to whether all the gods, or only some, or only one should be considered eternal ; and as to how far the world and individual souls are eternal. And there are discussions as to ethics, and as to the various means of salvation in this life.

 

Summary of Beliefs. - We have, then, in India in the valley of the Ganges at the time when Buddhism arose, a maze of interacting ideas which may be divided, for clearness in exposition, under the following heads:-

 

Firstly, the very wide and varied group of ideas about souls supposed to dwell within the bodies of men and animals, and to animate moving objects in nature (trees and plants, rivers, planets, and so on). These may be summed under the convenient modern term of Animism .

 

Secondly, we have later and more advanced ideas about the souls supposed to animate the greater phenomena of nature. These may be summed up under the convenient modern term of Polytheism .

 

Thirdly, we have the still later idea of a unity lying behind all these phenomena, both of the first and of the second class, the hypothesis of a one first cause on which the whole universe in its varied forms depends, in which it lives and moves, and which is the only reality. This may be summed up in the convenient modern term of Monism .

 

Fourthly, we have the opposite view. In this the first cause has either not been reached in thought, or has been considered and deliberately rejected : but otherwise the whole soul-theory has been retained and amplified, and the hypothesis of the eternity of matter is held at the same time. This may be summed up under the convenient modern name of Dualism .

 

These modern Western terms, though useful for classification, never exactly fit the ancient Eastern thought. And we must never forget that the clear-cut distinctions we now use were then perceptible to only quite a few of the clearest thinkers. Most of the people held a strange jumble of many of the notions current around them. The enumeration here made is merely intended to show that, when Buddhism arose, the country was seething, very much as the Western world was at the same period, with a multitude of more or less opposing theories on all sorts of questions, ethical, philosophical, and religious. There was much superstition, no doubt, and no little sophistry. But owing partly to the easy economic conditions of those times, partly also to the mutual courtesy and intellectual alertness of the people, there was a very large proportion of them who were earnestly occupied in more or less successful attempts to solve the highest problems of thought and conduct.

 

(To be continued)

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