What is the point of dwelling in the forest, chastising the body, observing various fasts, studying, and maintaining silence (mauna) for the renouncer (shramana) who lacks collectedness (samatâ)?
In the same work, we find this stanza:
If you desire independence (avashyaka), fix your steady thoughts upon the true nature of the Self. In this way, the quality of equanimity (sâmâyika) is fully cultivated in the individual. (147)
There is a certain extremism in some of the ascetic practices recommended in Jainism, like self-starvation, which do not seem to be in keeping with the ethical code of nonharming and which have therefore invited criticism from many quarters. These excesses derive from the Jainas’ attitude toward physical existence, which is experienced as a source of suffering and painful limitation. The human body-mind is constantly to be chastised through fasting and other forms of penance until the human Spirit is freed from all physical bonds. Jainism, more than any other tradition, exemplifies the spirit of austerity (tapas), spoken of at some length in Chapter 3.
This justifiable criticism notwithstanding, Jainism can look back on a long line of noble teachers and valiant aspirants who have demonstrated the supreme value of the yogic art of taking and keeping sacred vows. Both their spiritual resoluteness and their gentleness are an inspiration particularly to modern seekers, who do not always appreciate that spiritual life is an all-demanding transformative ordeal.
SOURCE READING 7
Yoga-Drishti-Samuccaya (Selection)
Translated by Christopher Key Chappie
Haribhadra Sûri’s Yoga-Drishti-Samuccaya (“Compendium of Views on Yoga”), which comprises 228 stanzas, is a very useful introduction to the yogic path from the Jaina perspective.
Desirous of Yoga, having bowed to the highest Jina, the strong one, [teacher of] the Yoga accessible to yogins, I will discourse throughout this composition on the distinctions of the Yoga system. (1)
Here indeed the essential form of the Yogas such as desire and so forth are considered, spoken for the benefit of yogins, out of fondness for Yoga. (2)
For the one who, although knowing the purposes of the scriptures and wanting to do them but is careless and deficient in dharma-yoga, there is what is called icchâ-yoga. (3)
Shâstra-yoga is known when, due to strength of intellect and speech, the powers of having no carelessness and no deficiency of faith arise. (4)
The way of beholding scripture is an excellent abode. However, due to its abundance of power, the especially highest Yoga is called exertion (sâmarthya). (5)
Indeed, there are different causes of the attainment of the steps called perfections; they are not always approached by the yogins from scriptural truths alone. (6)
There are two types of this [Yoga practice]: renunciation of dharmas [i.e., objects] and renunciation of Yoga. [Renunciation of] dharmas is complete annihilation of the desire to be active, and [renunciation of] Yoga is the (giving up of] the karma of the body and so forth. (9)
From having aligned oneself with true faith, one is considered [to hold] an “enlightened view,” striking a blow against untrue [worldly] existence (asat-pravritti) and producing in stages true existence (sat-pravritti). (17)
The proper mind pays homage to the Jinas; purified, it does prostration, etc. This is the highest seed of Yoga. (23)
Endless devotion is to be followed, accompanied with the act of impeding mental activity. It is improper to have as one’s intention the fruits of such action; one thus is indeed endowed with purity. (25)
This [devotion] is to be directed especially to teachers and the like; in such yogins arises a state of purity. Business is to be conducted according to the rules such that one has a particularly pure conscience. (26)
By nature, one’s state of being becomes agitated and is thus maintained by receiving [karmic] substance (dravya). By injunction and by books, etc., one should resort to the final end [i.e., liberation], (27)
When the defiled state is destroyed, a newly born hero arises. The mind is made unmanifest and there is no longer anything of importance to be done. (30)
It is declared that in the last birth of people the marks on their souls are destroyed. (31)
resulting in endless compassion for the afflicted, indifference to changes, and fitness for service, everywhere without distinction. (32)
Yoga, action, and its fruits are said to be the three authenticities (avancaka-traya). Depending on the highests saints is like the action of an arrow aimed at an object. (34)
This homage and so forth to the truths is the cause for firm practice, and it is the highest of causes. Then there is the diminution of impurity within one’s being. (35)
Just as a sprouting seed when placed in salty water is wasted hut in fresh water nourishes, so it is with a person who listens to truth. (61)
From observances people receive auspiciousness completely. One who has become well established in devotion to the guru brings benefit to the two worlds. (63)
Through the power of guru devotion, the vision of the tîrthankaras is seen. Through forms of meditation and so forth, one holds fast to nirvâna [as one’s goal]. (64)
The mark of true [spiritual] endeavor (sad-anushthâna) is joy in exerting oneself, an absence of obstacles, proficiency in scriptures, the desire to know, and homage to the knowledgeable ones. (123)
The highest truth (tattva) of going beyond the world of change (samsâra) is called nirvâna. The wisdom gained from discipline is singular in truth, though heard of in different ways. (129)
That highest truth has no contradictory characteristic, is free from disturbance and disease, as well as activity. By that, one becomes free from birth, etc. (131)
Even the slightest pain to others is to be avoided with great effort. Along with this, one should strive to be helpful at all times. (150)
With faults diminished, omniscient, endowed with the fruits of all that can be accomplished, with things done now only for the sake of others, such a one attains the end of Yoga. (185)
There quickly the blessed one attains the highest nirvâna, from the disjunction (ayoga) that is the best of Yogas, having accomplished the cessation of the ailment of worldly existence. (186)
A person liberated from ailment is still in the world; just so is the [liberated person]. It is not that he is nonexistent and it is not that he is not liberated, nor that he had not been afflicted with ailment. (187)
Existence indeed is the great ailment, comprised of birth, death, and disease; it produces various forms of delusion and causes the sensation of excessive desire, and so forth. (188)
This is the chief [ailment] of the soul: giving birth without beginning to the cause of various karmas. All living beings have an understanding of this experience. (189)
When liberated from this, then one reaches the prime state of liberation. From the cessation of the fault of birth and so forth, one encounters that state of faultlessness. (190)
“Joyous is the appearance of the Buddhas. Joyous is the instruction in the true teaching (dharma). Joyous is the gathering of the Sangha. Joyous is the austerity of those who have gathered.”
—Dhamma-Pâda (14.16)
I. THE BIRTH AND EVOLUTION OF BUDDHISM
Gautama the Buddha
Buddhism is the name given to the complex cultural tradition that has crystallized around the original teaching of Gautama (Gotama) the Buddha, who was probably born in 563 B.C.E. and died at the age of eighty. The sixth century was a time of profound cultural ferment and religious activity, particularly in the powerful kingdom of Mâgadha in southern Bihar, the homeland of early Buddhism. Mâgadha’s ruling class and the population at large apparently were ill at ease with the orthodox post-Vedic priesthood. As the British historian Vincent A. Smith expressed it rather starkly:
At that time the religion favoured by the Brahmans, as depicted in the treatises called Brâhmanas, was of a mechanical, lifeless character, overlaid with cumbrous ceremonial. The formalities of the irksome ritual gal
led many persons, while the cruelty of the numerous bloody sacrifices was repugnant to others. People sought eagerly for some better path to the goal of salvation desired by all.1
Some of these dissenters found a haven in Jainism; others took refuge in the teaching of Gautama the Buddha. Gautama’s life is only somewhat better known than that of Mahâvîra, the founder of Jainism. However, the Buddha’s charismatic and benevolent personality speaks to us across the millennia in his sermons recorded in the Pali scriptures. The Buddha preached in the Mâgadhi dialect, and Pali is like Sanskrit, a sacred language that was first employed by the compilers of the Buddha’s sayings and other early doctrinal works. As Christmas Humphreys, a well-known English Buddhist and popularizer of Buddhism, put it:
His compassion was absolute … His dignity was unshakable, his humour invariable. He was infinitely patient as one who knows the illusion of time.2
Like Mahâvîra, Siddhârtha3 Gautama was of aristocratic birth, born into the Shakya clan of Koshala, a country situated at the southern border of Nepal. After his enlightenment, he became known as the sage of the Shakyas, or Shakyamuni. Gautama grew up in the relative luxury and security of the ruling class of that period. Having become weary of his comfortable existence, he renounced the world at the age of twenty-nine and went in search of wisdom.
His quest brought him to two noted teachers who are mentioned by name in the Pali canon—râda Kâlâpa (Pali: lâro Kâlâmo) of Mâgadha, who had three hundred disciples, and Rudraka Râmaputra (Pali: Uddako Râmaputto) of the city of Vaishâlî, who had seven hundred disciples. The former appears to have taught a form of Upanishadic Yoga, culminating in the experience of the “sphere of no-thing-ness” (âkimcanya-âyatana). Apparently, Gautama had no difficulty entering that state, and consequently râda Kâlâpa generously offered him to share the leadership of his order of ascetics. Gautama, feeling that he had not yet attained the highest possible realization, declined the offer.
Instead, he became a disciple of Rudraka Râmaputra, whose teaching promised further spiritual evolution. Again he easily achieved the state that this sage declared to be the ultimate realization—the experience of the “sphere of neither consciousness nor unconsciousness” (naiva-samjnâ-asamjnâ-âyatana), which may correspond to the Vedântic formless ecstasy (nirvikalpa-samâdhi). Gautama intuited that this exalted state also fell short of true enlightenment. Rudraka Râmaputra also offered to share with Gautama authority over his community, but the future Buddha declined and moved to Urubilvâ (Pali: Uruvelâ) on the Nairanjanâ River.
Here he resolved to practice, seated in the paryanka (“couch”) posture, the deepest meditation for six years, wrestling down the passions of the body with an indomitable mind causing him to sweat profusely even during the cold winter nights. He nearly starved himself to death to assist this powerful meditation. Yet, after six long years of the fiercest self-mortification, Gautama had to admit to himself that this kind of torture, which made his limbs look like “the joints of withered creepers,” was not the route to emancipation. Sensing that there must exist a middle way between uncompromising self-abnegation and the self-indulgent life of a worldling, he resumed begging for food, as had been his custom, and soon his body filled out and regained its strength. According to the mythological account given in the beautiful Lalitâ-Vistara, a well-loved Mahâyâna scripture, as soon as he had taken nourishment into his body, it started to glow in rainbow colors, manifesting the thirty-two marks (lakshana) of a Buddha.4 Now confident of final success and remembering a spontaneous ecstatic experience he had enjoyed in his youth, Gautama surrendered himself to the spontaneous process of meditation.
In a single night of uninterrupted meditation, Gautama finally obtained the desired result—he became an awakened one (buddha). Tradition has it that he attained enlightenment on a full-moon day in May while seated under a fig tree—known as the bodhi or “enlightenment” tree-near the town of Uruvelâ (Bodhgayâ) in Mâgadha (Bihar). The Theravâda school of Sri Lankâ recognized the full-moon day of May 1956 as the 2,500th anniversary of the Buddha’s enlightenment.
For seven days Gautama the Buddha sat beneath the fig tree and applied his superb intelligence, now freed from all egoic desires and misconceptions, to understanding the mechanism of spiritual ignorance and bondage and the path to liberation. These deliberations were the foundation of his later teaching. After another seven days of silent contemplation and a short inner struggle, the Buddha resolved not to keep the newly acquired wisdom to himself but to impart it to others, to “beat the drum of the Immortal in the darkness of the world.” Unfortunately, his two teachers had recently died, and so he could not share with them his great discovery. He immediately, however, sought out the five ascetics who, for a long time, had been his traveling companions but who had left him when he abandoned his severe asceticism in favor of a meditation practice of his own design. He addressed his first sermon to them in the Deer Park of Sarnâth near modern Benares—an event remembered as the “turning of the wheel of the teaching” (dharma-cakra-pravartana). He spoke of his approach as the “middle way” (madhya- mârga), lying between the extremes of sensualism and asceticism, between world affirmation and world denial. He also disclosed the four noble truths of the omnipresence of suffering, desire as the cause of suffering, the removal of that cause, and the noble eightfold path (ârya-ashta-anga-mârga, written âryâshtângamârga).
The Buddha’s teaching activity met with such rapid success that some people thought he was using magical means. Before long he was able to found monasteries from the generous funds of the royal court of King Bimbisara of Râjagriha (modern Rajgir) and the rich merchant class, which welcomed a tolerant religion that disregarded the caste restrictions upheld by the brahmanical priesthood. For forty-five years, the Buddha wandered throughout northern India, teaching freely to anyone who came to listen to him. On one of his many tours he fell victim to dysentery. His final words, recorded in the Pali Mahâ-Parinibbâna-Sutta (Sanskrit: Mahâ-Parinirvâna-Sûtra), were:
Listen, O monks, I admonish you by saying: Composite things are impermanent. Exert yourselves with diligence! (61)
The Spreading of the Buddha’s Teaching
After the Buddha’s death at Kushinâgara (Pali: Kusinârâ) in what is now Nepal, both the monastic order and the Buddhist lay community continued to prosper. The order included nuns as well, though it appears that the Buddha had been somewhat reluctant to ordain women. Then, in the third century B.C.E, during the reign of the famous emperor Ashoka of the Maurya dynasty, Buddhism was transformed from a local sect into a state religion.
The earliest record of the Buddha’s teaching is the Pali canon, compiled and edited by three successive councils of the Buddhist order. The first council, which is of doubtful historicity, was convened in Râjagriha immediately after the death of the founder; the second was held in Vaishâlî about a hundred years later; and the third and most important was convened again in Râjagriha during Ashoka’s reign. Soon afterward, Buddhism split into the two well-known traditions of Hînayâna (“Small Vehicle”) and Mahâyâna (“Large Vehicle”), both claiming to possess the true original meaning of the Buddha’s teaching. The former relied exclusively on the scriptures written in the sacred Pali language, and the latter based itself primarily on the scriptures composed in the sacred Sanskrit language. The differences between these two “vehicles” (yâna) increased as both schools evolved into distinct traditions.
The Hînayâna tradition, which survives today in the form of the Theravâda school of Sri Lankâ, was individual oriented in so far as it placed the goal of the complete extinction (nirvâna) of desire above everything else. By contrast, the various Mahâyâna schools came to regard this approach as relatively barren and selfish and tried to replace it with a more holistic outlook. This included a revision of the value of the emotive and social aspects of human life and of the nature of the Buddhist goal itself. In keeping with this reorientation, nirvâna was no longer conceived as a goal “out t
here” but as the ever-present substratum underlying phenomenal existence: The famous Mahâyâna formula is nirvâna equals samsâra that is, the immutable transcendental Reality is identical with the world of impermanence, and vice versa. What this means is that the realm of changeable forms is inherently empty (shûnya) and that nirvâna must not be sought outside samsâra. This fundamental proposition was first elaborated in the Prajnâ- Pâramitâ-Sûtras of about 200 B.C.E. and was philosophically consolidated in the fourth century C.E. by the Vijnânavâda and Yogâcâra schools, which will be discussed shortly. The best known Prajnâ-Pâramitâ-Sûtra is the Hridaya-Sûtra (“Heart Sûtra”), a rendering of which is given below as Source Reading 8. It emphasizes the central Mahâyâna doctrine of emptiness, or voidness.
In the fifth century C.E., Buddhism experienced a dramatic setback through the Hun invasions, during which much of its ancient heritage was destroyed. After a short period of recovery under the last native Indian emperor, Harsha, in the seventh century, a gradual decline set in. By the time of the Muslim usurpation of the kingdoms in the north of India, Buddhism had lost most of its force in India, not least because of the powerful missionary work of the Vedânta teacher Shankara, whose nondualist philosophy shows a great similarity with Mahâyâna Buddhism.
However, Buddhism fared better abroad—in Sri Lankâ (Ceylon), Indonesia, China, and Japan. Already at the time of Ashoka, Buddhist monks had settled in the Far East, and in the first century C.E. Buddhism entered China, where it was destined to have a glorious future. From there the torch of Buddhist wisdom was carried to Japan in 550 C.E. Two hundred years later, Buddhism conquered Tibet and then, in the eighth century, Afghanistan.
Knowledge of Buddhism in Europe dates back to the time of Ashoka and Alexander the Great. Later, with the growing trade between India and the Mediterranean, Buddhism and also Hinduism became more influential among the European intelligentsia. Some historians have suggested, for instance, that Basilides of Alexandria owed much to Buddhist teachings. The influence of Buddhism on Christianity is perhaps best illustrated in the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat, as told by St. John of Damascus (eighth century C.E.). The legend is of Indian origin and reached the Church fathers through the circuitous route of translations into Pahlevi, Greek, and Latin. The Barlaam of the story is none other than the Buddha, and Josaphat stems from the Sanskrit word bodhisattva (distorted by the Arabs into bodasaph and, then, by the Greeks into ioasaph). In 1585, Barlaam was canonized, which makes the Buddha a Christian saint!
The Yoga Tradition Page 33