Buddhism: What is It?
by Franz Metcalf
Don't worry, I won't give you a history of Buddhism. There are many
dull accounts of this history and a few not-so-dull ones — check out the
books and web sites I recommend [on my website].
For now, let's get right to the living center of Buddhism: what the
Buddha saw, felt, and taught to his disciples.
We'll also look at the
continued growth of Buddhist ideas beyond what the Buddha himself
taught, for wisdom didn't stop when the Buddha passed into final
nirvana. Not at all. When humans really get something and then really
strive to teach it, sometimes the student goes beyond the
teacher. As a teacher, I know this happens all the time. There's a Zen
saying that any teacher whose students don't surpass him is a failure.
The Buddha was not a failure. As we'll see, his teachings have grown
and deepened — and are still doing so.
He set out to make an end to the pain,
frustration, disappointment, and suffering of life. Buddhism teaches
that he finally did make an end to those things, but not in the obvious
way of ending the worldly causes of these troubles. No one can put an
end to them, not even a Buddha, not even a god. They are inseparable
from the things that cause pleasure and joy; they are woven into the
fabric of the universe. There is no life without death, no love without
loss. As a "take-no-prisoners" Buddhist text puts it:
Everything together falls apart.
Everything rising up collapses.
Every meeting ends in parting.
Every life ends in death.
-- U DANAVARGA
Any person who cares about the world and other people tries to put
things together, to build up what is collapsing, to postpone parting,
and to avoid death. These efforts make life meaningful and beautiful.
But every person who has a brain knows no amount of trying will ever
finally prevent things from falling apart, collapsing, parting, and
dying. We're all subject to the laws of physics, including the second
law of thermodynamics that says that energy tends to flow from
concentration to diffusion. As the Buddha put it, "All component things
decay." In other words, over time, any complex system, such as our
complex bodies, created from millions of energy transfers, will break
down, come apart, and fall to ruin. There's no stopping it.
Buddhism teaches a terrible truth. Whatever we cherish, we shall
lose, and there's simply nothing we can do about it. This may sound
profoundly depressing at first, but it's not. It's simply the truth.
It's what we all know already but don't always want to examine. It's
what the Buddha saw when he left the palace. It's reality. The question
is: What do we do about it?
The need to act now is the central insight for those of us who
aren't sure what to believe about the afterlife or our eternal souls
(if we have them). It is perhaps the most important thing that can be
written in this or any book: Whatever we believe about the great issues
of life and death, we have to act now, in this very moment.
The immense cosmos comes down to right here. The whole history of time comes down to right now.
Terrible endings will come, yes, but that makes no difference at all
right now. What matters right now still matters, right now. Think,
feel, and act in this moment, responding honestly to each experience.
This is life and what we make of it.
You can use up a lot of energy trying to break the second law of
thermodynamics, but that's not going to get the job done. You can't
break the laws of physics.
Okay, then ... what can we do? Just lay down and die right now? No,
very few people try that. The Buddha certainly didn't. In spite of
everything, we find life sweet and want more of it. There's a trick
almost all of us use: we pretend that we can break the law, stop time and decay, keep things just right all our lives, and live forever.
We know this is a lie but we love to do it anyway. Amazingly,
we somehow manage to ignore the feebleness of this pretense almost all
the time. We lull ourselves into dreams of amusement and hope. When
people are successful at pretending, they sometimes become happy, but
of course it can never last. When times of real decay and loss come,
pretending fails and they have to face reality without preparation or
practice. You've probably witnessed examples of this; they are obvious
and painful. It's pretty clear that, over the long run, this trick just
doesn't work.
But not everyone resorts to tricks. Not everyone needs to pretend.
When he realized the whole world around him was pretending, Siddhartha
left home to find something real. Other spiritual seekers have done
this since the beginning of humanity and still do it today. After they
discover life beyond dreaming, some return and invite us to wake up,
too. Siddhartha was not the first Buddha. There have been many and
there will be more to come. Buddhism has always taught this.
The Buddha found a way to end trouble by waking up to what really
causes it. He saw a third option that would keep working even while
everything falls apart. Not impossible efforts to stop the process. Not
doomed efforts to deny it. Instead, he saw before him the liberating
path of accepting it. He recognized the truth of impermanence and made
it the cornerstone of Buddhism.
Impermanence is all around. As one teen wrote,
"I've got this huge feeling of sadness that everything I have
will go one day. I was looking at all the things in my room and
thinking that one day I won't have this room and the things in it. I
was also looking at photos in my album and feeling sad because I know
my whole family will change. People will die, we'll move on, and it
won't be the same. I end up thinking it would be better for me not to
have so much stuff because the pain of losing it will be so great. I guess
this is exactly what the Buddha was talking about: attachment. This is
dukkha, so I must focus on non-attachment. Then I might be able to
accept the impermanence of things...
The Buddha accepted impermanence openly. He could do this
because he saw what it really meant. And this brings us to the
astounding truth at the core of awakening.
The Buddha's truth is astounding not because it's complex or
brilliant. It's astounding because it's so unsuspected, yet follows so
directly from the idea of impermanence we've just been talking about.
Here it is:
There's no enduring self that suffers.
That's it. Simple. Astounding. Maybe we should pause here. Yes, stop
reading for just a minute and sit with that idea. Shut your eyes and
breathe in and out, slowly, easily, for just a minute as you let it
sink into you. Go on, mark the page and set the book down. Experience
how you feel with that idea. I'll wait.
Okay, welcome back. How did that feel? This is one strange idea,
isn't it? We'll get back to it in a moment, but right now let me tell
you that you just meditated. Ha! You thought you were just sitting? The
great Japanese Zen teacher Dogen Zenji says that "just sitting" is the
highest form of meditation. Congratulations. Nothing to it. (In several
ways.)
This article was excerpted from:
Buddha In Your Backpack
by Franz Metcalf.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Ulysses Press. ©2003. www.ulyssespress.com
Info/Order this book.
About the Author
Franz Metcalf did his Masters work at
the Graduate Theological Union, and received his doctorate from the
University of Chicago with a dissertation on the question, "Why Do
Americans Practice Zen Buddhism?" He currently works with the Forge
Institute for Spirituality and Social Change, co-chairs the steering
committee of the Person, Culture, and Religion Group of the American
Academy of Religion, and teaches college in Los Angeles. He has
contributed reviews and chapters to various scholarly publications and
is review editor of the Journal of Global Buddhism. He's the author of
What Would Buddha Do? and co-author of What Would Buddha Do at Work?
If you want to learn more about Franz (and other Buddhist things),
visit his web site at:
www.mind2mind.net
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