THEOLOGICAL STUDIES

Buddhism

LIFE OF BUDDHA

Siddhartha Gautama was born in Lumbini (a Himalayan town situated in modern Nepal near the Indian border). Gautama's father was a chieftain, and Gautama was born a prince, destined to a life of luxury. It is said that, before being born, Gautama visited his mother during a vision in the form of a white elephant. During the birth celebrations, a seer announced that this baby would either become a great king or a great holy man. His father, wishing for Gautama to be a great king, shielded his son from religious teachings or knowledge of human suffering.

As the boy came to marrying age, his father arranged a marriage to a young woman, Yashodhara, and she gave birth to a son, Rahula. Although Gautama had everything he could want, he was dissatisfied.

At the age 29, Gautama was escorted by his attendant Channa on one of his rare visits outside of the palace. There, he came across the "four sights": an old crippled man, a diseased man, a decaying corpse, and finally an ascetic. Gautama realized then the harsh truth of life -- that death, disease, age, and pain were inescapable. Thus inspired, Gautama left his home and his family and chose to become a monk.

Abandoning his inheritance, he dedicated his life to learning how to overcome suffering. He pursued the path of Yogic meditation with two Brahmin hermits, and although he achieved high levels of meditative consciousness, he was not satisfied with this path.

Gautama then chose the robes of a mendicant monk and headed to southeastern India. He began training in the ascetic life and practicing vigorous austere practices. After 6 years, and at the brink of death, he found that the severe ascetic practices did not lead to greater understanding. Once discarding them and concentrating on meditation, he discovered the middle way, a path of moderation away from the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification. Under a fig tree, now know as the Bodhi tree, he vowed never to leave the position until he found Truth. At the age of 35, he attained Enlightenment under the full moon in May. He was then known as Gautama Buddha, or simply "The Buddha", which means "the Enlightened one".

The Buddha claimed he had realized complete Enlightenment and insight into the nature and cause of human suffering, along with the steps necessary to eliminate it. This understanding manifested itself in the Four Noble Truths. This supreme Awakening, possible to any being, is called the state of Bodhi, and at that moment, he achieved Nirvana.

At this point, the Buddha had to choose whether to be content in his own salvation, or whether to teach his new understanding to all people. He considered that the world may not have been ready for such a deep teaching, but he decided in the end to travel to Sarnath and give his first sermon in the Deer Park. This sermon described the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path.

The Buddha emphasized that he was not a God but that the position of Buddhahood is reserved for the human, in whom possesses the greatest potential for Enlightenment. Explained by Gautama Buddha, he also stated that there is no intermediary between mankind and the divine; distant gods and God are subjected to karma (sorrow, suffering, angst) themselves in decaying heavens. The Buddha is solely a guide and teacher for those sentient beings who must tread the path themselves, attain spiritual awakening, and see truth and reality as it is. The Buddhist system of insight, thought and meditation practice was not divinely-revealed, but rather, the understanding of the true nature of the human mind which could be discovered by anyone for themselves.

For the remaining 45 years of his life, he traveled the Gangetic Plain of central India (region of the Ganges/Ganga river and its tributaries), teaching his doctrine and discipline to an extremely diverse range of people, from nobles, street sweepers, outcastes, and including many adherents of rival philosophies and religions. He founded the community of Buddhist monks and nuns (the Sangha) to continue the dispensation after his Paranirvana or complete Nirvana.

At the age of 80, Gautama Buddha realised that his bodily end was fast approaching. He told his disciple Ananda to prepare a bed between two Sal trees in Kushinagar. His last meal was a mushroom or truffles delicacy which he had received as an offering from a blacksmith. Just before his passing, a 120 year-old mendicant monk named Subhadra, walked by. Being earlier turned away by Ananda, Buddha overheard this and called the Brahmin to his side. He was admitted to the Sangha (Buddhist order) and immediately after, Gautama passed away on that full moon day in May. The Buddha's final words were, "All things must pass away. Strive for your own salvation with diligence".

MAJOR TENETS OF BUDDHISM

• THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS basically teach us about the nature of life itself. It basically claims that life as we know it is one of suffering : that suffering is an inherent part of existence; that suffering is caused by craving; that craving can be ceased; and that following the Eightfold Path will lead to the cessation of craving (and suffering).
• THE EIGHTFOLD PATH is the list of instructions which informs you how to eliminate suffering from your life: proper understanding, proper thought, proper speech, proper action, proper livelihood, proper effort, proper mindfulness, and proper concentration.
• THE LAW OF DEPENDENT CAUSATION: that events are not predestined, nor are they random, but that events are caused by the actions that preceded them. Rejection of the infallibility of accepted scripture: teachings should not be accepted unless they are borne out by our experiences.
• ANICCA, that is, life is in constant flux and change: That all things are impermanent.
• ANATTA: That there is no eternal soul, and that the perception of a constant "self" is an illusion. (This is atheism.) Why does Buddha reject belief in God? Because of suffering. He could not reconcile the fact of suffering with the belief in God. He claimed that if a good God existed, then He would not have permitted suffering. For Buddha the fact that there is suffering in the world proves that God does not exist. Why then do modern-day Buddhists believe that Buddha is God since Buddha himself was an atheist? When Buddhism came into contact with the western religions (Judaism and C0hristianity) which promote a belief in a personal God, Buddhism changed. From that point on they believed not only in God but that Buddha himself was God.

A CHRISTIAN RESPONSE

From the Christian perspective there are several elements of truth in Buddhism. First, desire in most cases is the root cause of suffering in the world. "What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is it not your pleasures which wage war in your members?" (James 4:1). "The love of money is the root of all sorts of evil" (1 Tim. .......).

Jesus has a remedy for these desires: "If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me" (Luke 9:23). Jesus knows that the basic problem is man himself.

As we saw in Mere Christianity Buddhism is intellectually flawed. Buddha said that God did not exist because of evil in the world. The only problem is that he cannot say there is evil if he does not have an idea of good. Where does that idea come from? Not from the world to which Buddha would agree. It comes from outside the box, from outside the world, that is, from a higher and better power than exists in this world. That higher and perfect power is God. Buddha is basically like C. S. Lewis before he became a Christian; he rejected God because of suffering and evil. Christianity is really the only religion which adequately explains these phenomena.

SELECTED READINGS ABOUT BUDDHISM AND ATHEISM

Religion without God in Indian philosophy by Shlomo Biderman.

The most prominent religious picture in which God does not figure at all is, of course, the Buddhist religion. This religion can be characterized not only as non-theistic but more so as atheistic; that is to say, not only does the Buddhist religion discard the notion of God as a religious term, but it vehemently rejects any use of this notion as meaningless. Buddhism is, therefore, a religion without God.

23 Henry Clarke Warren, Buddhism in translation (Harvard University Press 1922) p 122 (Majjhima Nikaya 63) - in John B. Noss, Man's religions (Macmillan: NY 1956) p 166

Buddha also rejected religious devotion (bhakti) as a way of salvation. His position was the sort of atheism we have already noted in Mahavira. He believed that the universe abounded in gods, goddesses, demons, and other nonhuman powers and agencies; but all were without exception finite, subject to death and rebirth. In the absence, then, of some transcendent, eternal Being, older than the Creation, and the Maker of heaven and earth, who could direct men's destinies and hear and grant human wishes, prayer, to Buddha, was of no avail; he at least did not resort to it.. For similar reasons he did not put any reliance on the Vedas, or on practice of their nature worship, or on the performance of their rituals as a way of redemption; now would he countenance going to the Brahmins as priests.