After paying a visit to the Sitting Buddha, you now set your sight at the Standing Buddha, which towers over Wat Intharaviharn in the northern part of Old Bangkok. You have already acquired a Metta blessing from Phra Sri Sakayamuni, the historical Buddha. You can't rest until you proceed to visit Phra Sri Ariyamaitreya, the Buddha of the Future. The Standing Buddha has been waiting for his turn and an appropriate timing to take over the great legacy of the Sitting Buddha.
This gigantic Standing Buddha statue represents a virtue of Karuna or compassion of the Four Brahmaviharas. When you have Metta or loving-kindess in your heart, you also need to have the accompanying Karuna. Metta and Karuna are the two brotherly virtues that co-exist like your tongue and your teeth. Hence, after praying to Phra Sri Sakayamuni, it is necessary to move on to pay homage to Phra Sri Ariyamaitreya to experience the Sublime and the Divine.
The Buddha of the Future will come to create another Buddhist Era.
From Wat Suthat to Wat Intharaviharn, the distance is only a few kilometres away. By way of a tuk-tuk, which sprints its noisy way through the narrow Dinso Road, you arrive at the broader Rachadamnoen Klang Road, where the Democracy Monument serves as a landmark. You go half way around the monument and take the connected Prachathipatai (Democracy) Road before crossing a bridge over Khlong Banglamphoo, a canal that forms a borderline of the Ratanakosin Island in the inner Old Bangkok. Then you arrive at an intersection cut across by the Wisut Kasat (Pure Monarch) Road. Not many Thais are aware of this Prachathipatai Road, which starts obscurely from the Democracy Monument. After all, it is a strange meet between Prachathipatai and Wisut Kasat.
Along the way, there are long lines of old shop houses, which appear to disconnect themselves from the modern business. You make a left turn at the intersection to enter the Wisut Kasat Road, above which is the Rama XIII Bridge. Soon you will be approaching another old area of Old Bangkok, called the Bangkhunphrom sub-district. You're still in the Phra Nakhon District, or the District of the Great Capital. On your right side before reaching Samsen Road, you will find Wat Intharaviharn, which looks as if it would like to conceal itself from the modern world. Many foreign tourists find this temple as one of their main attractions.
Wat Intharaviharn
At 32 metres in height and 11 metres in width, Phra Sri Ariyamaitreya is the world's largest standing Buddha statue with alms-bowl in hands. Both of the hands of the Standing Buddha are almost entirely concealed under the yellow saffron. You can see only the fingers of the left hand sneaking out of the yellow saffron to hold the black alms-bowl. As you stand in front of the Standing Buddha, you are overwhelmed by its imposing and gigantic structure and radiating compassion barami (accumulated power and dignity).
The huge Standing Buddha has a solemn look, with a facial feature of a Thai. Unlike the more surreal Phra Sri Sakayamuni, Phra Sri Ariyamaitreya gives you a sense of realism in spite of its dominating size. Artistically, however, it no match to the Sitting Buddha because it was built in the later Rattanakosin period. But the two statues communicate to each other in a subtle way.
Phra Sri Ariyamaitreya strikes a sharp contrast with Phra Srisakayamuni when it comes to posture. After sitting, your next natural posture is to stand. Standing gives you another chance to think through with samadhi (concentration) before you start your day by walking. If you have already formed Metta in your heart from your sitting posture, you should begin to develop Karuna as you rise from your bed to stand. Embracing the Metta and Karuna virtues will lead you half way to the realm of Brahma.
You can feel that the statue looks almost like a living monk holding the alms-bowl and waiting to take delivery of the food from a merit-maker. But you also can look upon this Standing Buddha statue as waiting for his turn to arrive to this world and achieve the complete enlightenment before leading all of us to salvation. On the other hand, Phra Sri Ariyamaitreya also comes to represent the Triple Gem. For this standing Buddha image can be seen as a representation of the Buddha of the Future, the Dharma from his attaining the enlightenment and a monk in the Sangha, all of which are at once manifest.
In 1867, during the reign of King Mongkut, Somdej Phra Buddhachan (To Phromarangsri of Wat Rakhang Kositharam) started the construction of the statue of the Standing Buddha, commonly called as "Luang Pho To". Then Somdej To (1788-1872) was 80 years old. Phra Sri Sakayamuni also has the same common name of Luang Pho To. The statue was built by crossing the logs alternating with structural steel. Unfortunately, Somdej Phra Buddhachan died in 1872 before he could see the completion of the statue. It was not until the reign of King Prajadhipok in 1927 that the Standing Buddha was completed.
Somdej To, the Greatest Monk of the
Rattanakosin Period.
Although he lived through the five reigns from King Rama I to King Rama V, Somdej To attained the height of his fame during the time of King Rama IV. Somdej To was one of the greatest and most revered monks of the Rattanakosin period. Well-versed in the Buddhist texts and brilliant in his sermons, he commissioned the creation of Phra Somdej, which is now recognised as the crown jewel of Buddha amulets in the Kingdom. Each Phra Somdej -- the authentic one -- is now worth several million baht.
Wat Intharavihan was built during the end of Ayutthaya period. Formerly, it was called "Wat Rai Phrik" (Temple of the Chili Garden). Then the Chinese were growing vegetable or chili gardens in that area. During the reign of King Yodfa, many members of the royal family of Laos, principally Chao Inthawong, and their entourage settled down in this Bangkhumphorm area. They were brought to Bangkok after King Yodfa's army subdued a rebellion in Vientiane. The area was then called Ban Laos. Chao Inthawong was the faithful Buddhist. He had Wat Rai Phrik rennovated and renamed it as "Wat Intharam". During the reign of King Rama VI, the temple's name was changed to "Wat Intharaviharn".
Somdej To spent his childhood at this temple when he entered monkhood as a novice. His parents would like him to become a supreme monk. He eventually became the Awakened One.
Several years ago, Senator Chirmsak Pinthong held a lantern in broad daylight while he walked into the Senate chamber. He was sending out a subtle message after it emerged that the government had fallen into greed, hatred and ignorance by launching a widespread probe of the bank accounts of journalists, activists, bureaucrats and politicians. “I am holding the lantern to send out a message that our country is in a crisis when it comes to civil liberty. The lantern will provide the light in this Dark Age," Chirmsak said. "Somdej Phraphutthajarn used to hold a lantern when he met with the phuyai of the country during the daytime in order to signal that the country was facing big problems." The senator from Bangkok was known as one of the fiercest critics of the Thaksin government at that time.
One day, Somdej To walked into the Grand Palace with a burning torch in his hand. It was broad daylight and the sun was shining above his shaved head. As soon as King Mongkut saw the abbot of Wat Rakhang, he immediately understood the subtle message. The two had achieved the same level of Buddhist enlightenment. King Mongkut said: "Khrua To, Nai Luang (the King) knows what you want to say to Nai Luang." Somdej To did not say anything. He doused the flame by pressing the torchlight against the wall of the Grand Palace. Then he walked out. At that time it was known that King Mongkut was distracted more by his worldly affairs. King Mongkut had high respect for Somdej To. The revered monk wanted to warn the King about his need to get back to the business of running his Kingdom. But Somdej To was reluctant to say so directly. So Somdej To used the torchlight to send his indirect warning. As a philosopher of the same rank with Somdej To, King Mongkut, who had been ordained as a monk for 26 years, quickly got the message. He said: "I know, I know."
Another torchlight incident took place during the reign of King Chulalongkorn, or King Rama V. Then, Somdej Chaophya Borom Mahasrisuriya-wongse (Chuang Bunnag) was serving as Regent. As a leader of the influential Bunnag clan, he commanded the highest power in the Kingdom because King Chulalongkorn, who became king at the age of 15 in 1868, was too young to rule. There were rumours during that time of political transition that the Regent might want the throne for himself. After the death of King Mongkut, Somdej Chaophya Borom Mahasrisuriyawongse, who dominated the council of senior bureaucrats in the Siamese Court, picked the young Prince Chulalongkorn as the new king as requested by King Mongkut. Yet Somdej Chaophaya also did the unprecedented by appointing Prince Bovornvichaicharn, the heir to Second King Pinklao, as the Palace of the Front. King Pinklao was brother to King Mongkut and was known to the West as the Second King.
The implication of the Palace of the Front appointment was that if anything should happen to King Chulalongkorn, who was then very ill and not expected to live much longer, Prince Bovornvichaicharn, who was the protege of the Regent, would become the next king. One day Somdej To proceeded to confront Somdej Chaophya at his residence. Again in broad daylight, he held a torch in his hand. The Regent asked about the purpose of his unusual visit. Somdej To got quickly straight to the point. He said he heard that a dark cloud was descending over the country because somebody was attempting to take over the Kingdom. "If it is true, then I would like to ask him for a bowl of merit," Somdej To said. Somdej Chaophya was dumbstruck for some seconds before the managed to assure the revered monk that as long as he lived he would not allow anybody to attempt to usurp the throne of King Chulalongkorn.
During his time, Somdej To was believed to have created 84,000 Phra Somdej as a symbol for the continuity of the Buddhist religion. He also commissioned the creation of the famous Phra Somdej Ketchaiyo at Wat Ketchaiyo Woraviharn. The story of his torchlight is a classic, serving to remind Thais how to act with moral courage during a time when the country is facing a crisis.
Phra Sri Ariyamaitreya that Somdej To built speaks to us about our future. The statue points to you the great expectation of an impending arrival of the Buddha of the Future and a return to the Golden Age of Suvarnabhumi. The Buddha image represents Maitreya, who is waiting for his turn to preside over another era succeeding the Sakayamuni Buddha Era. Our universe can afford to have only one Buddha at a time. Maitreya is a Bodhisattva, who will appear on earth to attain complete enlightenment and teach the pure Dharma. This land of Suvarnabhumi is waiting for Maitreya's return.
Facing the east, Phra Sri Ariyamaitreya Buddha statue surges into the sky as if it were to reach out to the Dusita Heaven, where Maitreya the Buddha of the Future is residing. According to The Buddhist Scriptures, Maitreya is described as a person with extraordinary personality, size and statue. “His body is eighty cubits high, and twenty cubits broad." Cubit is an ancient linear unit based on the length of the forearm, from elbow to the tip of the middle finger, usually from 17 to 21 inches. Based on the sheer size alone, Phra Sri Ariyamaitreya indeed has the physical necessity of the Buddha of the Future.
Maitreya is the fifth Buddha after Sakayamuni Buddha, whose teaching would last 5,000 years before going into oblivion. We have already passed the critical mid-point of the Buddhist era in 1957 or B.E. 2500 by more than five decades. Hence Maitreya would be born any time in the next 2,500 years in Suvarnabhumi, the Land of Buddhism.
According to Buddhist cosmology, the world system would gradually decline after the passing of one Buddha and then gradually improve before the arrival of the next Buddha. We are now living at this critical mid-point juncture. Now we are seeing a fast degeneration of the world system, with the people becoming immoral with greed, hatred, and delusion and forgetting the Buddha's Dharma. Many people are also afraid that the world system would go through prolonged periods of famine, disease and continuous warfare. The catastrophe could plunge the people into complete despair and result in dead tolls in the millions. Only then would human beings realise that the roots of all the suffering arise from their greed, hatred and delusion. Many of them would go back to embrace the old Dharma values and realise all of their shortcomings. The conditions of the world would then improve. There upon Maitreya would appear to lead the people further to redemption. Then the people "will lose their doubts, and the torrents of their cravings will be cut off: free from all misery they will manage to cross the ocean of becoming; and, as a result of Maitreya's teachings, they will lead a holy life. No longer will they regard anything as their own, they will have no possession, no gold or silver, no home, no relatives! But they will lead the holy life of chastity under Maitreya's guidance. They will have torn the net of the passions, they will manage to enter into trances, and theirs will be an abundance of joy and happiness, for they will lead a holy life under Maitreya's guidance."
Some people believe that Phra Sri Ariya Maitreya represents Somdej To himself, who built the Standing Budda as a memory of his childhood when as a novice he stood in front of Wat Intharaviharn and spent his formative years there. By commemorating his past, Somdej To was also predicting the future when the Buddha of the Future would be born again to lead the people out of the cycle of suffering. Somdej To had a clear vision of Suvarnabhumi.
This is the secret of Suvarnabhumi, the holy golden land and the land of Dharma. It is a Thai version of a Utopian society.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
The Sitting Buddha
At Wat Suthat Thepwararam, a royal temple of the first grade, the Buddha statue Phra Sri Sakayamuni offers a striking image. You are overwhelmed at once by the statue's immense size and beauty. The aesthetics of Thai arts and the Buddhist ideals are inseparable. Beauty is defined by a combination of an appropriate size and proportion. And Phra Sri Sakayamuni is created with an appropriate size and proportion to become a perfect piece of art, a rendition of the force of Metta and an embodiment of the Four Brahmaviharas. The creation of this Buddha image reflects the Golden Age of the Sukhothai Kingdom, which marked one of the early cradles of the Suvarnabhumi civilisation.
Wat Suthat is located at the centre of Old Bangkok on Bamrungmuang Road of Phra Nakhon District. In front of this temple stands the Giant Swing, a relic of Brahmanic ceremony. The Giant Swing is made of 20-metre tall red lacquered teak logs. In the ceremony, a group of men would push the swing until someone could snatch a bag of gold from a 15-metre bamboo pole with his teeth. Nearby are a Brahmin Shrine, the Dev Mandir Temple and the headquarters of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration.
Phra Srisakayamuni represents the historical Buddha Sitharta.
A narrow street in front of Wat Suthat leads to the broader Rajadamneon Klang Road, where the Democracy Monument stands frugally as a symbol of modernity. Yet most motorists driving around the circle of the Democracy Monument hardly draw any inspiration from what it stands for. The Democracy Monument, created after the 1932 Revolution that toppled Absolute Monarchy, looks more like a crumbling symbol of what has gone wrong with modern Thailand. Surrounding the Democracy Monument are buried arsenals, chained together in a circle as a curse against the true Thai ideals.
The main Viharn of Wat Suthat houses Phra Sri Sakayamuni, while Phra Buddha Trilokachet is placed in the Ubosot (Ordinary Hall) and Phra Buddha Setthamuni in the Sala Kan Parien (Meeting Hall). When you cross the threshold of the main gate into the temple, you immediately enter the layers of Heaven, symbolised by both the Hindu and Buddhist ideals. Chinese and Thai arts also blend together in an order of conformity. Most important, you witness the Ayutthaya heritage in a recreation. The verandah around it was built in the style of Wat Mongkhon Bophit in Ayutthaya.
The early Bangkok people called this temple as Wat Phra Yai or Wat Sao Ching Cha. King Yodfa named it as Wat Mahasuthawat, which means the temple endowed with the beauty of the Brahma Heaven. Later on King Mongkut, one of his grandsons, renamed this temple as Wat Suthatthepwararam. The new name also came with a heaven-like connotation from Hinduism. It means the Temple that resides on the Mount Meru, the central part of Heaven where Indra takes residence. For bronze horses, beautifully cast with polished surface, are located at each direction to represent the four continents surrounding Mount Meru. Wat Suthat, like all other temples in Bangkok, is a holy place, endowed with the highest Hindu and Buddhist ideals. This temple also represents a central corridor connected to the innermost part of the centre of Heaven situated at Wat Pho and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.
Wat Suthat
In 1807, King Yodfa commissioned the construction of Wat Suthat. King Lertla would help carved the door panels, which turned out to be a masterpiece. The carved doors are now being kept at the National Museum. But Wat Suthat would not be completed until 1847 during the reign of King Nangklao. A true nation builder, King Nangklao presided over the building and rennovation of most of the temples in Bangkok.
King Yodfa was conscious of the glory of Ayutthaya "when the country was still prosperous". He would like to recreate Ayutthaya, both its spirit and its physical features, in the new capital he built. Reviving the morale of the Siamese through Buddhism was his most important task, which included building new temples, renovating the old ones and moving the Buddha images from the old capitals and major cities to keep them in Bangkok. During his reign, King Yodfa ended up having 1,248 Buddha images moved to the new capita for preservation. Of these, the three most important Buddha images of the land were the Emerald Buddha of the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, Phra Srisakayamuni of Wat Suthat and Phra Srisanphet, a standing Buddha image installed inside the grand pagoda Phra Maha Chedi Srisanpetchadayarn at Wat Pho.
The new temple in the middle of Bangkok would be called Wat Phra Yai (Temple of the Big Buddha Image) because King Yodfa would like to model it after Wat Phanan Cherng of Ayutthaya. Located outside Ayutthaya's inner city on the riverbank in the south of the Old Capital, Wat Phanan Cherng was built probably in the year 1324 before the founding of Ayutthaya. The large Buddha image in the Vihara was called Phra Chao Phanan Cherng, whose name was later changed to Phra Puttha Trairatana Nayok. But the Ayutthaya people call this Buddha image simply as Luang Pho To. Most Thais also called Phra Sri Sakayamuni by a secular name of Luang Pho To.
The origin of Phra Srisakaymuni was from the Vihara of Wat Mahathat, the ancient city of Sukhothai in the North of Thailand. Phra Mahathammaraja Lithai, King of the Sukhothai Dynasty (1347-1375) had Phra Sri Sakayamuni Buddha image cast. The work was finished in 1361. Wat Mahathat was one of the royal temples of the first grade within what is now the Sukhothai Historical Park. The temple was left to decay with time under the scorching heat of the sun and the humidity of the rain. Phra Sri Sakayamuni, the main Buddha image in the chapel, was also left neglected. The Sukhothai Empire lost its power after the rise of Ayutthaya.
In 1808, King Yodfa commanded that Phra Phirenthep made a journey to Sukhothai to retrieve this Buddha image and bring it down to Bangkok. Phra Sri Sakayamuni was floated by raft through the Chao Phraya River before it disembarked at Tha Chang, a pier just outside the Grand Palace. Festivities followed for seven nights and seven days to celebrate the arrival of Phra Sri Sakayamuni, which would be transported via a sledge to the main vihara of the new temple.
The Buddha image was carried in a huge raft, floating down the Chao Phya River until it reached Tha Chang, some dozen steps away from the Grand Palace. Phra Srisakayamuni was installed temporarily there for celebration for seven days and seven nights. King Yodfa had a very fragile health at that point. Still, with his bare-footed, the King led a procession to move the Buddha image from Tha Chang, a new pier just outside the Grand Palace, to the new temple. Apparently, the King was committing the last virtuous act of restoring the glory of Buddhism to his land. The founder of Bangkok, who spent most of his life on the battlefield, was a deeply religious man. He was navigating the last part of his life toward Enlightenment and Heaven. He died shortly after this grand celebration of Phra Srisakayamuni at the age of 72.
Inside the Viharn where the Buddha image Phra Sri Sakyamuni is installed, there are murals portraying Thai Buddhist cosmology and scenes of the Himavanta forest with lotus ponds, Kinnara and Kinnari and their children. The Buddha image is seated at the centre of the Heaven.
At about eight metres in height and six metres in width, Phra Sri Sakayamuni is one of the largest and oldest bronze-cast Buddha images in Thailand. The Buddha image is seated in a classic mediating posture after his victory over King Mara. The Buddha image is in a crossed-legged position, with the right hand placing on the right knee while the left hand resting below the navel, dwelling on the upper thigh in front of the abdomen, with the palm facing up. The base on which the Buddha image sits resembles lion's feet. Under this base the royal ashes of Rama VIII are kept.
Goddess of Earth, bear witness to my overpowering the Mara.
Indeed, Phra Sri Sakayamuni is styled after the Buddha's Subduing of the Mara. According to the Buddhist legend, the Mara King rode on elephant back ahead of a fierce army, trying to disrupt the Buddha's path to enlightenment. The appearance of the Mara King is a recurring theme of a fight between Good and Evil. The Lord Buddha called Vasundhara, or the Goddess of Earth, to witness this confrontation with the Mara King and his army. The Goddess of Earth said she would return to the Buddha the water he had poured on the earth in an act of making merit (tham boon kruad nam). Thus she began to wring water from her hair. All of a sudden, the water flowing from her hair became a mighty ocean, sweeping away the Mara King and his army to the ends of the earth and killing most of them. Frightened by this power, the Mara King fled in disgrace. The Lord Buddha's confrontation with the Mara King has deeply caught the imagination of Thai artists, inspiring them to create statues and paintings of the Buddha in the act of subduing the Mara King.
The Sitting Buddha communicates to us several profound meanings. When you wake up from a long sleep, the first thing you do is to sit up on your bed. This sitting allows us to clear the dizziness in our head and to prepare a sound mind for the day. If you assume a loving-kindness mode or Metta without holding on to your elusive self, you will be starting your good day with auspicises.
Likewise, the Sitting Buddha assumes a mode of serenity and Metta, the first quality of the Four Brahmaviharas. The way his hands are posed signifies that they are empty. The Buddha image's hands are not holding to anything. They are in effect in a "letting go" posture. The Buddha has let it go. He does not hold on to anything. To him, all the things in the universe are subject to change. Nothing lasts forever.
As we pray before Phra Sri Sakayamuni, with a lotus, a candle and three joss sticks to represent the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, we feel that the image is radiating Metta onto you. The image's eyes penetrate our mind. We are overwhelmed by this Metta force. We are already entering the realm of Brahma.
Phra Sri Sakayamuni also looks into himself. He is in a meditation mode. The Buddha image looks inward, into his inner most self to realise that impermanence, suffering and anatta are the essence of this universe. The Buddha, or the Awakened One, attained enlightenment because he looked inward rather than outward to attain the perfect knowledge. While meditating under a bodhi tree near the River Neranjana, the Buddha discovered the Four Noble Truths. He saw through the nature of suffering (Dukkha), the fundamental cause of all suffering (Samuddaya), the escape from suffering (Nirodha), and what effort a person can go to so that they themselves can attain emancipation (Marga).
Once the Buddha became enlightened, he had the wisdom to understand thoroughly the world from within and the world from without. All the things come into beings, temporarily hold on to their status and then pass away, only to endlessly repeat this cycle or vatta. The Buddhist Nirvana he led us to is a place of absolute tranquillity.
As the name Phra Sri Sakayamuni implies, this Buddha image represents the historical Buddha, or Sithartha Gautama, who lived more than two thousand years ago. The Buddha was born into the royal Sakaya family. Since there are no photos or paintings of the Buddha, artists or artisans can only create the Buddha in their own images or imaginations. Phra Sri Sakayamuni has a facial look of a man who is and is not of this world. The part that belongs to this world must have reflected a common feature of one of the ancient persons of Suvarnabhumi, who was gentle and kind. Phra Sri Sakayamuni represents an ideal superman man of Suvarnabhumi, one who was noble, bold, religiously tolerant and having a Metta heart.
The Sukhothai artists achieved the high art of beauty through the creation of Phra Sri Sakayamuni, which could not be more perfect. The Buddha image also embodies the highest virtue of goodness because it represents the Buddha's Dharma teachings. Moreover, Phra Sri Sakayamuni also teaches us about absolute reality through his bare left hand, which does not hold on to anything because in absolute reality there is nothingness. In our life, we all aim to realise the highest ideals of beauty, virtue and truth. In Phra Sri Sakayamuni, we can realise these highest ideals of beauty, virtue and ultimate truth all at once.
By placing Phra Sri Sakayamuni in Wat Phrayai in Bangkok, modelled after Wat Phanan Cherng, King Yodfa created a necessary link between the three kingdoms into an unbroken line. The Thon Buri Kingdom would represent a ring that ties the knot between Sukhothai and Ayutthaya Kingdoms with the Bangkok Kingdom. Without King Taksin the Great, who consolidated Siam after the fall of Ayutthaya in 1767, the Suvarnabhumi civilisation would have ceased to exist. King Yodfa took on from the Thonburi Kingdom to found the new capital and to restore the glory that was Ayutthaya. But he also consciously had a vision of Suvarnabhumi, through Sukhothai ideals, in his mind when he built Bangkok as the new capital. Wat Suthat would represent the glory of Sukhothai through Phra Sri Sakayamuni, the grandeur of Ayutthaya through the modelling of its spirit, and the celebration of the Bangkok Kingdom.
The surrounding courtyard, a blend of Chinese and Thai arts so prevalent during the reign of King Nangklao, contains 156 Buddha images. A statue of King Rama VIII stands in one of the corners in front of the Vihara. On the door and windows panels there are pictures of guardians and divinities. At the lower terrace of the base there are Chinese pagodas, seven pagodas on each side making 28 of them to signify the 28 Buddhas born onto this earth. Buddhists believe in the reincarnation and a perfect being in the Buddha. Phra Sri Sakayamuni is one of a series of the Buddhas born into this world to lead human beings to salvation. He was the historical Buddha, or the Buddha that had flesh, blood and feeling like all of us. And he was the Awakened One, or the Enlightened One, who understood thoroughly the impermanent of the universe.
The Sakayamuni Buddha’s teaching would only last 5,000 years before it goes into oblivion. We have already passed the middle of Buddhist era. After Sri Sakayamuni, a new Buddha will be born to lead us to redemption again. The next Buddha is called Maitreya.
Wat Suthat provides a platform for Sri Sakayamuni to pass on the candle of Dharma to the next Buddha, or Maitreya. For all of his Metta, Phra Sri Sakayamuni gives blessing of compassion for Maitreya, who waits for his turn to come down to this world to attain the complete enlightenment.
Sakayamuni spoke about the Buddha of the Future, who would follow him as follows:
"He will have a heavenly voice which reaches far; his skin will have a golden hue, a great splendour will radiate from his body, his chest will be broad, his limbs well developed, and his eyes will be like lotus petals. His body is eighty cubits high, and twenty cubits broad. He will have a retinue of 84,000 persons, whom he will instruct in the mantras. With this retinue he will one day go forth into the homeless life. A Dragon tree will then be the tree under which he will win enlightenment; its branches rise up to fifty leagues, and its foliage spreads far and wide over six Kos. Underneath it Maitreya, the best of men, will attain supreme enlightenment - there can be no doubt on that. And he will win his enlightenment the very same day that he has gone forth into the homeless life.
“And then, a supreme sage, he will with a perfect voice preach the true dharma, which is auspicious and removes all ill, i.e. the fact of ill, the origination of ill, the transcending of ill, and the holy eightfold path which brings security and leads to Nirvana. He will explain the four Truths, because he has seen that generation, in faith, ready for them, and those who have listened to his Dharma will thereupon make progress in the religion. They will be assembled in a park full of beautiful flowers, and his assembly will extend over a hundred leagues. Under Maitreya's guidance, hundreds of thousands of living beings shall enter upon a religious life."
The Buddha of the Future
Phra Srisakayamuni has witnessed it all. He saw the glory of Sukhothai 700 years ago and Suvarnabhumi as well as their decline. In the middle period represented by Ayutthaya, Phra Srisakyayamuni was completely forgotten. Now this Buddha image is about to make his move by passing on the legacy of Buddhism and the Middle Path principle to the next Buddha. The Standing Buddha of Phra Sri Ariyamaitreya at Wat Indhraviharn in Bangkok’s Bangkhunphrom area is about to take over as the next Buddha as a new chapter of Suvarnabhumi begins.
Wat Suthat is located at the centre of Old Bangkok on Bamrungmuang Road of Phra Nakhon District. In front of this temple stands the Giant Swing, a relic of Brahmanic ceremony. The Giant Swing is made of 20-metre tall red lacquered teak logs. In the ceremony, a group of men would push the swing until someone could snatch a bag of gold from a 15-metre bamboo pole with his teeth. Nearby are a Brahmin Shrine, the Dev Mandir Temple and the headquarters of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration.
Phra Srisakayamuni represents the historical Buddha Sitharta.
A narrow street in front of Wat Suthat leads to the broader Rajadamneon Klang Road, where the Democracy Monument stands frugally as a symbol of modernity. Yet most motorists driving around the circle of the Democracy Monument hardly draw any inspiration from what it stands for. The Democracy Monument, created after the 1932 Revolution that toppled Absolute Monarchy, looks more like a crumbling symbol of what has gone wrong with modern Thailand. Surrounding the Democracy Monument are buried arsenals, chained together in a circle as a curse against the true Thai ideals.
The main Viharn of Wat Suthat houses Phra Sri Sakayamuni, while Phra Buddha Trilokachet is placed in the Ubosot (Ordinary Hall) and Phra Buddha Setthamuni in the Sala Kan Parien (Meeting Hall). When you cross the threshold of the main gate into the temple, you immediately enter the layers of Heaven, symbolised by both the Hindu and Buddhist ideals. Chinese and Thai arts also blend together in an order of conformity. Most important, you witness the Ayutthaya heritage in a recreation. The verandah around it was built in the style of Wat Mongkhon Bophit in Ayutthaya.
The early Bangkok people called this temple as Wat Phra Yai or Wat Sao Ching Cha. King Yodfa named it as Wat Mahasuthawat, which means the temple endowed with the beauty of the Brahma Heaven. Later on King Mongkut, one of his grandsons, renamed this temple as Wat Suthatthepwararam. The new name also came with a heaven-like connotation from Hinduism. It means the Temple that resides on the Mount Meru, the central part of Heaven where Indra takes residence. For bronze horses, beautifully cast with polished surface, are located at each direction to represent the four continents surrounding Mount Meru. Wat Suthat, like all other temples in Bangkok, is a holy place, endowed with the highest Hindu and Buddhist ideals. This temple also represents a central corridor connected to the innermost part of the centre of Heaven situated at Wat Pho and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.
Wat Suthat
In 1807, King Yodfa commissioned the construction of Wat Suthat. King Lertla would help carved the door panels, which turned out to be a masterpiece. The carved doors are now being kept at the National Museum. But Wat Suthat would not be completed until 1847 during the reign of King Nangklao. A true nation builder, King Nangklao presided over the building and rennovation of most of the temples in Bangkok.
King Yodfa was conscious of the glory of Ayutthaya "when the country was still prosperous". He would like to recreate Ayutthaya, both its spirit and its physical features, in the new capital he built. Reviving the morale of the Siamese through Buddhism was his most important task, which included building new temples, renovating the old ones and moving the Buddha images from the old capitals and major cities to keep them in Bangkok. During his reign, King Yodfa ended up having 1,248 Buddha images moved to the new capita for preservation. Of these, the three most important Buddha images of the land were the Emerald Buddha of the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, Phra Srisakayamuni of Wat Suthat and Phra Srisanphet, a standing Buddha image installed inside the grand pagoda Phra Maha Chedi Srisanpetchadayarn at Wat Pho.
The new temple in the middle of Bangkok would be called Wat Phra Yai (Temple of the Big Buddha Image) because King Yodfa would like to model it after Wat Phanan Cherng of Ayutthaya. Located outside Ayutthaya's inner city on the riverbank in the south of the Old Capital, Wat Phanan Cherng was built probably in the year 1324 before the founding of Ayutthaya. The large Buddha image in the Vihara was called Phra Chao Phanan Cherng, whose name was later changed to Phra Puttha Trairatana Nayok. But the Ayutthaya people call this Buddha image simply as Luang Pho To. Most Thais also called Phra Sri Sakayamuni by a secular name of Luang Pho To.
The origin of Phra Srisakaymuni was from the Vihara of Wat Mahathat, the ancient city of Sukhothai in the North of Thailand. Phra Mahathammaraja Lithai, King of the Sukhothai Dynasty (1347-1375) had Phra Sri Sakayamuni Buddha image cast. The work was finished in 1361. Wat Mahathat was one of the royal temples of the first grade within what is now the Sukhothai Historical Park. The temple was left to decay with time under the scorching heat of the sun and the humidity of the rain. Phra Sri Sakayamuni, the main Buddha image in the chapel, was also left neglected. The Sukhothai Empire lost its power after the rise of Ayutthaya.
In 1808, King Yodfa commanded that Phra Phirenthep made a journey to Sukhothai to retrieve this Buddha image and bring it down to Bangkok. Phra Sri Sakayamuni was floated by raft through the Chao Phraya River before it disembarked at Tha Chang, a pier just outside the Grand Palace. Festivities followed for seven nights and seven days to celebrate the arrival of Phra Sri Sakayamuni, which would be transported via a sledge to the main vihara of the new temple.
The Buddha image was carried in a huge raft, floating down the Chao Phya River until it reached Tha Chang, some dozen steps away from the Grand Palace. Phra Srisakayamuni was installed temporarily there for celebration for seven days and seven nights. King Yodfa had a very fragile health at that point. Still, with his bare-footed, the King led a procession to move the Buddha image from Tha Chang, a new pier just outside the Grand Palace, to the new temple. Apparently, the King was committing the last virtuous act of restoring the glory of Buddhism to his land. The founder of Bangkok, who spent most of his life on the battlefield, was a deeply religious man. He was navigating the last part of his life toward Enlightenment and Heaven. He died shortly after this grand celebration of Phra Srisakayamuni at the age of 72.
Inside the Viharn where the Buddha image Phra Sri Sakyamuni is installed, there are murals portraying Thai Buddhist cosmology and scenes of the Himavanta forest with lotus ponds, Kinnara and Kinnari and their children. The Buddha image is seated at the centre of the Heaven.
At about eight metres in height and six metres in width, Phra Sri Sakayamuni is one of the largest and oldest bronze-cast Buddha images in Thailand. The Buddha image is seated in a classic mediating posture after his victory over King Mara. The Buddha image is in a crossed-legged position, with the right hand placing on the right knee while the left hand resting below the navel, dwelling on the upper thigh in front of the abdomen, with the palm facing up. The base on which the Buddha image sits resembles lion's feet. Under this base the royal ashes of Rama VIII are kept.
Goddess of Earth, bear witness to my overpowering the Mara.
Indeed, Phra Sri Sakayamuni is styled after the Buddha's Subduing of the Mara. According to the Buddhist legend, the Mara King rode on elephant back ahead of a fierce army, trying to disrupt the Buddha's path to enlightenment. The appearance of the Mara King is a recurring theme of a fight between Good and Evil. The Lord Buddha called Vasundhara, or the Goddess of Earth, to witness this confrontation with the Mara King and his army. The Goddess of Earth said she would return to the Buddha the water he had poured on the earth in an act of making merit (tham boon kruad nam). Thus she began to wring water from her hair. All of a sudden, the water flowing from her hair became a mighty ocean, sweeping away the Mara King and his army to the ends of the earth and killing most of them. Frightened by this power, the Mara King fled in disgrace. The Lord Buddha's confrontation with the Mara King has deeply caught the imagination of Thai artists, inspiring them to create statues and paintings of the Buddha in the act of subduing the Mara King.
The Sitting Buddha communicates to us several profound meanings. When you wake up from a long sleep, the first thing you do is to sit up on your bed. This sitting allows us to clear the dizziness in our head and to prepare a sound mind for the day. If you assume a loving-kindness mode or Metta without holding on to your elusive self, you will be starting your good day with auspicises.
Likewise, the Sitting Buddha assumes a mode of serenity and Metta, the first quality of the Four Brahmaviharas. The way his hands are posed signifies that they are empty. The Buddha image's hands are not holding to anything. They are in effect in a "letting go" posture. The Buddha has let it go. He does not hold on to anything. To him, all the things in the universe are subject to change. Nothing lasts forever.
As we pray before Phra Sri Sakayamuni, with a lotus, a candle and three joss sticks to represent the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, we feel that the image is radiating Metta onto you. The image's eyes penetrate our mind. We are overwhelmed by this Metta force. We are already entering the realm of Brahma.
Phra Sri Sakayamuni also looks into himself. He is in a meditation mode. The Buddha image looks inward, into his inner most self to realise that impermanence, suffering and anatta are the essence of this universe. The Buddha, or the Awakened One, attained enlightenment because he looked inward rather than outward to attain the perfect knowledge. While meditating under a bodhi tree near the River Neranjana, the Buddha discovered the Four Noble Truths. He saw through the nature of suffering (Dukkha), the fundamental cause of all suffering (Samuddaya), the escape from suffering (Nirodha), and what effort a person can go to so that they themselves can attain emancipation (Marga).
Once the Buddha became enlightened, he had the wisdom to understand thoroughly the world from within and the world from without. All the things come into beings, temporarily hold on to their status and then pass away, only to endlessly repeat this cycle or vatta. The Buddhist Nirvana he led us to is a place of absolute tranquillity.
As the name Phra Sri Sakayamuni implies, this Buddha image represents the historical Buddha, or Sithartha Gautama, who lived more than two thousand years ago. The Buddha was born into the royal Sakaya family. Since there are no photos or paintings of the Buddha, artists or artisans can only create the Buddha in their own images or imaginations. Phra Sri Sakayamuni has a facial look of a man who is and is not of this world. The part that belongs to this world must have reflected a common feature of one of the ancient persons of Suvarnabhumi, who was gentle and kind. Phra Sri Sakayamuni represents an ideal superman man of Suvarnabhumi, one who was noble, bold, religiously tolerant and having a Metta heart.
The Sukhothai artists achieved the high art of beauty through the creation of Phra Sri Sakayamuni, which could not be more perfect. The Buddha image also embodies the highest virtue of goodness because it represents the Buddha's Dharma teachings. Moreover, Phra Sri Sakayamuni also teaches us about absolute reality through his bare left hand, which does not hold on to anything because in absolute reality there is nothingness. In our life, we all aim to realise the highest ideals of beauty, virtue and truth. In Phra Sri Sakayamuni, we can realise these highest ideals of beauty, virtue and ultimate truth all at once.
By placing Phra Sri Sakayamuni in Wat Phrayai in Bangkok, modelled after Wat Phanan Cherng, King Yodfa created a necessary link between the three kingdoms into an unbroken line. The Thon Buri Kingdom would represent a ring that ties the knot between Sukhothai and Ayutthaya Kingdoms with the Bangkok Kingdom. Without King Taksin the Great, who consolidated Siam after the fall of Ayutthaya in 1767, the Suvarnabhumi civilisation would have ceased to exist. King Yodfa took on from the Thonburi Kingdom to found the new capital and to restore the glory that was Ayutthaya. But he also consciously had a vision of Suvarnabhumi, through Sukhothai ideals, in his mind when he built Bangkok as the new capital. Wat Suthat would represent the glory of Sukhothai through Phra Sri Sakayamuni, the grandeur of Ayutthaya through the modelling of its spirit, and the celebration of the Bangkok Kingdom.
The surrounding courtyard, a blend of Chinese and Thai arts so prevalent during the reign of King Nangklao, contains 156 Buddha images. A statue of King Rama VIII stands in one of the corners in front of the Vihara. On the door and windows panels there are pictures of guardians and divinities. At the lower terrace of the base there are Chinese pagodas, seven pagodas on each side making 28 of them to signify the 28 Buddhas born onto this earth. Buddhists believe in the reincarnation and a perfect being in the Buddha. Phra Sri Sakayamuni is one of a series of the Buddhas born into this world to lead human beings to salvation. He was the historical Buddha, or the Buddha that had flesh, blood and feeling like all of us. And he was the Awakened One, or the Enlightened One, who understood thoroughly the impermanent of the universe.
The Sakayamuni Buddha’s teaching would only last 5,000 years before it goes into oblivion. We have already passed the middle of Buddhist era. After Sri Sakayamuni, a new Buddha will be born to lead us to redemption again. The next Buddha is called Maitreya.
Wat Suthat provides a platform for Sri Sakayamuni to pass on the candle of Dharma to the next Buddha, or Maitreya. For all of his Metta, Phra Sri Sakayamuni gives blessing of compassion for Maitreya, who waits for his turn to come down to this world to attain the complete enlightenment.
Sakayamuni spoke about the Buddha of the Future, who would follow him as follows:
"He will have a heavenly voice which reaches far; his skin will have a golden hue, a great splendour will radiate from his body, his chest will be broad, his limbs well developed, and his eyes will be like lotus petals. His body is eighty cubits high, and twenty cubits broad. He will have a retinue of 84,000 persons, whom he will instruct in the mantras. With this retinue he will one day go forth into the homeless life. A Dragon tree will then be the tree under which he will win enlightenment; its branches rise up to fifty leagues, and its foliage spreads far and wide over six Kos. Underneath it Maitreya, the best of men, will attain supreme enlightenment - there can be no doubt on that. And he will win his enlightenment the very same day that he has gone forth into the homeless life.
“And then, a supreme sage, he will with a perfect voice preach the true dharma, which is auspicious and removes all ill, i.e. the fact of ill, the origination of ill, the transcending of ill, and the holy eightfold path which brings security and leads to Nirvana. He will explain the four Truths, because he has seen that generation, in faith, ready for them, and those who have listened to his Dharma will thereupon make progress in the religion. They will be assembled in a park full of beautiful flowers, and his assembly will extend over a hundred leagues. Under Maitreya's guidance, hundreds of thousands of living beings shall enter upon a religious life."
The Buddha of the Future
Phra Srisakayamuni has witnessed it all. He saw the glory of Sukhothai 700 years ago and Suvarnabhumi as well as their decline. In the middle period represented by Ayutthaya, Phra Srisakyayamuni was completely forgotten. Now this Buddha image is about to make his move by passing on the legacy of Buddhism and the Middle Path principle to the next Buddha. The Standing Buddha of Phra Sri Ariyamaitreya at Wat Indhraviharn in Bangkok’s Bangkhunphrom area is about to take over as the next Buddha as a new chapter of Suvarnabhumi begins.
Friday, March 26, 2010
purpose
1.a. DEDICATION OF OFFERINGS
Yo so bhagavaa araha"m sammaasambuddho
Svaakkhaato yena bhagavataa dhammo
Supa.tipanno yassa bhagavato saavakasa"ngho
Tammaya"m bhagavanta"m sadhamma"m sasa"ngha"m
Imehi sakkaarehi yathaaraha"m aaropitehi abhipuujayaama
Saadhu no bhante bhagavaa suciraparinibbutopi
Pacchimaa-janataa-nukampamaanasaa
Ime sakkaare duggata-pannaakaara-bhuute pa.tigga.nhaatu
Amhaaka"m diigharatta"m hitaaya sukhaaya
To the Blessed One, the Lord who fully attained perfect enlightenment,
To the Teaching which he expounded so well,
And to the Blessed One's disciples, who have practised well,
To these - the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha -
We render with offerings our rightful homage.
It is well for us, Blessed One, that having attained liberation,
You still had compassion for later generations.
Deign to accept these simple offerings
For our long-lasting benefit and for the happiness it gives us.
Araha"m sammaasambuddho bhagavaa
Buddha"m bhagavanta"m abhivaademi
-(bow)-
Svaakkhaato bhagavataa dhammo
Dhamma"m namassaami
-(bow)-
Supatipanno bhagavato saavakasa"ngho
Sa"ngha"m namaami
-(bow)-
The Lord, the Perfectly Enlightened and Blessed One -
I render homage to the Buddha, the Blessed One.
-(bow)-
The Teaching so completely explained by him -
I bow to the Dhamma.
-(bow)-
The Blessed One's disciples who have practised well
- I bow to to the Sangha.
-(bow)-
1.b. PRELIMINARY HOMAGE
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammaasambuddhassa
(Three times)
Homage to the Blessed, Noble and Perfectly Enlightened One.
(Three times)
2. a. RECOLLECTION OF THE BUDDHA
Itipi so bhagavaa araha"m sammaa-sambuddho
Vijjaa-cara.na-sampanno sugato lokaviduu
Anuttaro purisa-damma-saarathi satthaa deva-manussaana"m buddho bhagavaa
Tamaha"m bhagavanta"m abhipuujayaami
Tamaha"m bhagavanta"m sirasaa namaami
-(bow)-
He, the Blessed One, is indeed the Noble Lord, the Perfectly Enlightened One;
He is impeccable in conduct and understanding, the Serene One, the Knower of the Worlds;
He trains perfectly those who wish to be trained; he is Teacher of gods and men; he is Awake and Holy.
I chant my praise to the Blessed One,
I bow my head to the Blessed One.
-(bow)-
2.b. RECOLLECTION OF THE DHAMMA
Svaakkhaato bhagavataa dhammo
Sandi.t.thiko akaaliko ehipassiko
Opanayiko paccatta"m veditabbo vi~n~nuuhii
Tamaha"m dhamma"m abhipuujayaami
Tamaha"m dhamma"m sirasaa namaami
-(bow)-
The Dhamma is well-expounded by the Blessed One,
Apparent here and now, timeless, encouraging investigation,
Leading to liberation, to be experienced individually by the wise.
I chant my praise to this Teaching,
I bow my head to this Truth.
-(bow)-
2.c.RECOLLECTION OF THE SANGHA
Supa.tipanno bhagavato saavaka-sa"ngho
Uju-pa.tipanno bhagavato saavaka-sa"ngho
~Naaya-pa.tipanno bhagavato saavaka-sa"ngho
Saamiici-pa.tipanno bhagavato saavaka-sa"ngho
Yadida"m cattaari purisa-yugaani a.t.tha purisa-puggalaa
Esa bhagavato saavaka-sa"ngho
Aahuneyyo paahuneyyo dakkhi.neyyo añjali-kara.niiyo
Anuttara"m puññakkhetta"m lokassa
Tamaha"m sa"ngha"m abhipuujayaami
Tamaha"m sa"ngha"m sirasaa namaami
-(bow)-
They are the Blessed One's disciples who have practised well,
Who have practised directly,
Who have practised insightfully,
Those who are accomplished in the practice;
That is the four pairs, the eight kinds of noble beings,
These are the Blessed One's disciples.
Such ones are worthy of gifts, worthy of hospitality, worthy of offerings, worthy of respect;
They give occasion for incomparable goodness to arise in the world
I chant my praise to this Sangha,
I bow my head to this Sangha
-(bow)-
3. METTA SUTTA - The Buddha's Words on Loving-Kindness
This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech.
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied.
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful,
Not proud and demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in saftey,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born,
May all beings be at ease!
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings:
Radiating kindness over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.
4. THE REFUGES AND PRECEPTS
The "Going for Refuge" and taking the Precepts define a person as a practising Buddhist.
Going for Refuge gives a continual perspective on life by referring one's conduct and understanding to the qualities of Buddha (wisdom), Dhamma (truth) and Sangha (virtue). The Precepts are also for reflection and to define one's actions as a responsible human being.
There is a formal means of requesting the Refuges and Precepts from a bhikkhu, which is as follows:
After bowing three times, with hands joined in Anjali, recite the following:
Maya"m bhante, ti-sara.nena saha pa~nca siilaani yaacaama
Dutiyampi maya"m bhante, ti-sara.nena saha pa~nca siilaani yaacaama
Tatiyampi maya"m bhante, ti-sara.nena saha pa~nca siilaani yaacaama
(Note: When requesting individually, change Maya"m to Aha"m, and Yaacaama to Yaacaami)
We, Venerable Sir, request the three Refuges and the Five Precepts.
For the second time, we, Venerable Sir, request the three Refuges and the Five Precepts.
For the third time, we, Venerable Sir, request the three Refuges and the Five Precepts.
4.1 GOING TO THE THREE REFUGES
Repeat after the leader:
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammaasambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammaasambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammaasambuddhassa Homage to the Blessed One, the Noble One, the Perfectly Enlightened One.
Homage to the Blessed One, the Noble One, the Perfectly Enlightened One.
Homage to the Blessed One, the Noble One, the Perfectly Enlightened One.
Buddha"m sara.na"m gacchaami
Dhamma"m sara.na"m gacchaami
Sa"ngha"m sara.na"m gacchaami
Dutiyampi buddha"m sara.na"m gacchaami
Dutiyampi dhamma"m sara.na"m gacchaami
Dutiyampi sa"ngha"m sara.na"m gacchaami
Tatiyampi buddha"m sara.na"m gacchaami
Tatiyampi dhamma"m sara.na"m gacchaami
Tatiyampi sa"ngha"m sara.na"m gacchaami
To the Buddha I go for refuge.
To the Dhamma I go for refuge.
To the Sangha I go for refuge.
For the second time, to the Buddha I go for refuge.
For the second time, to the Dhamma I go for refuge.
For the second time, to the Sangha I go for refuge.
For the third time, to the Buddha I go for refuge.
For the third time, to the Dhamma 1 go for refuge.
For the third time, to the Sangha I go for refuge.
Leader:
Tisara.na-gamana"m ni.t.thita"m
Response:
-- Aama bhante
Leader:
This completes the going to the Three Refuges.
Response:
-- Yes, Venerable Sir.
4.2 THE FIVE PRECEPTS
To undertake the precepts, repeat each precept after the leader:
1. Paa.naatipaataa verama.nii sikkhaa-pada"m samaadiyaami
2. Adinnaadaanaa verama.nii sikkhaa-pada"m samaadiyaami
3. Kaamesu micchaacaaraa verama.nii sikkhaa-pada"m samaadiyaami
4. Musaavaadaa verama.nii sikkhaa-pada"m samaadiyaami
5. Suraa-meraya-majja-pamaada.t.thaanaa verama.nii sikkhaa-pada"m samaadiyaami
1. I undertake the precept to refrain from destroying living creatures.
2. I undertake the precept to refrain from taking that which is not given.
3. I undertake the precept to refrain from sexual misconduct.
4. I undertake the precept to refrain from incorrect speech.
5. I undertake the precept to refrain from intoxicating liquors and drugs which lead to carelessness.
Leader:
Imaani pañca sikkhaa-padaani
Siilena sugati"m yanti
Siilena bhoga-sampadaa
Siilena nibbuti"m yanti
Tasmaa siila"m visodhaye
Response:
-- Saadhu, saadhu, saadhu
-(bow three times)-
Leader:
These Five Precepts
Have morality as a vehicle for happiness,
Have morality as a vehicle for good fortune,
Have morality as a vehicle for liberation.
Let morality therefore be purified.
Response:
-- Well said, well said, well said!
-(bow three times)-
Yo so bhagavaa araha"m sammaasambuddho
Svaakkhaato yena bhagavataa dhammo
Supa.tipanno yassa bhagavato saavakasa"ngho
Tammaya"m bhagavanta"m sadhamma"m sasa"ngha"m
Imehi sakkaarehi yathaaraha"m aaropitehi abhipuujayaama
Saadhu no bhante bhagavaa suciraparinibbutopi
Pacchimaa-janataa-nukampamaanasaa
Ime sakkaare duggata-pannaakaara-bhuute pa.tigga.nhaatu
Amhaaka"m diigharatta"m hitaaya sukhaaya
To the Blessed One, the Lord who fully attained perfect enlightenment,
To the Teaching which he expounded so well,
And to the Blessed One's disciples, who have practised well,
To these - the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha -
We render with offerings our rightful homage.
It is well for us, Blessed One, that having attained liberation,
You still had compassion for later generations.
Deign to accept these simple offerings
For our long-lasting benefit and for the happiness it gives us.
Araha"m sammaasambuddho bhagavaa
Buddha"m bhagavanta"m abhivaademi
-(bow)-
Svaakkhaato bhagavataa dhammo
Dhamma"m namassaami
-(bow)-
Supatipanno bhagavato saavakasa"ngho
Sa"ngha"m namaami
-(bow)-
The Lord, the Perfectly Enlightened and Blessed One -
I render homage to the Buddha, the Blessed One.
-(bow)-
The Teaching so completely explained by him -
I bow to the Dhamma.
-(bow)-
The Blessed One's disciples who have practised well
- I bow to to the Sangha.
-(bow)-
1.b. PRELIMINARY HOMAGE
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammaasambuddhassa
(Three times)
Homage to the Blessed, Noble and Perfectly Enlightened One.
(Three times)
2. a. RECOLLECTION OF THE BUDDHA
Itipi so bhagavaa araha"m sammaa-sambuddho
Vijjaa-cara.na-sampanno sugato lokaviduu
Anuttaro purisa-damma-saarathi satthaa deva-manussaana"m buddho bhagavaa
Tamaha"m bhagavanta"m abhipuujayaami
Tamaha"m bhagavanta"m sirasaa namaami
-(bow)-
He, the Blessed One, is indeed the Noble Lord, the Perfectly Enlightened One;
He is impeccable in conduct and understanding, the Serene One, the Knower of the Worlds;
He trains perfectly those who wish to be trained; he is Teacher of gods and men; he is Awake and Holy.
I chant my praise to the Blessed One,
I bow my head to the Blessed One.
-(bow)-
2.b. RECOLLECTION OF THE DHAMMA
Svaakkhaato bhagavataa dhammo
Sandi.t.thiko akaaliko ehipassiko
Opanayiko paccatta"m veditabbo vi~n~nuuhii
Tamaha"m dhamma"m abhipuujayaami
Tamaha"m dhamma"m sirasaa namaami
-(bow)-
The Dhamma is well-expounded by the Blessed One,
Apparent here and now, timeless, encouraging investigation,
Leading to liberation, to be experienced individually by the wise.
I chant my praise to this Teaching,
I bow my head to this Truth.
-(bow)-
2.c.RECOLLECTION OF THE SANGHA
Supa.tipanno bhagavato saavaka-sa"ngho
Uju-pa.tipanno bhagavato saavaka-sa"ngho
~Naaya-pa.tipanno bhagavato saavaka-sa"ngho
Saamiici-pa.tipanno bhagavato saavaka-sa"ngho
Yadida"m cattaari purisa-yugaani a.t.tha purisa-puggalaa
Esa bhagavato saavaka-sa"ngho
Aahuneyyo paahuneyyo dakkhi.neyyo añjali-kara.niiyo
Anuttara"m puññakkhetta"m lokassa
Tamaha"m sa"ngha"m abhipuujayaami
Tamaha"m sa"ngha"m sirasaa namaami
-(bow)-
They are the Blessed One's disciples who have practised well,
Who have practised directly,
Who have practised insightfully,
Those who are accomplished in the practice;
That is the four pairs, the eight kinds of noble beings,
These are the Blessed One's disciples.
Such ones are worthy of gifts, worthy of hospitality, worthy of offerings, worthy of respect;
They give occasion for incomparable goodness to arise in the world
I chant my praise to this Sangha,
I bow my head to this Sangha
-(bow)-
3. METTA SUTTA - The Buddha's Words on Loving-Kindness
This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech.
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied.
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful,
Not proud and demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in saftey,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born,
May all beings be at ease!
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings:
Radiating kindness over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.
4. THE REFUGES AND PRECEPTS
The "Going for Refuge" and taking the Precepts define a person as a practising Buddhist.
Going for Refuge gives a continual perspective on life by referring one's conduct and understanding to the qualities of Buddha (wisdom), Dhamma (truth) and Sangha (virtue). The Precepts are also for reflection and to define one's actions as a responsible human being.
There is a formal means of requesting the Refuges and Precepts from a bhikkhu, which is as follows:
After bowing three times, with hands joined in Anjali, recite the following:
Maya"m bhante, ti-sara.nena saha pa~nca siilaani yaacaama
Dutiyampi maya"m bhante, ti-sara.nena saha pa~nca siilaani yaacaama
Tatiyampi maya"m bhante, ti-sara.nena saha pa~nca siilaani yaacaama
(Note: When requesting individually, change Maya"m to Aha"m, and Yaacaama to Yaacaami)
We, Venerable Sir, request the three Refuges and the Five Precepts.
For the second time, we, Venerable Sir, request the three Refuges and the Five Precepts.
For the third time, we, Venerable Sir, request the three Refuges and the Five Precepts.
4.1 GOING TO THE THREE REFUGES
Repeat after the leader:
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammaasambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammaasambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammaasambuddhassa Homage to the Blessed One, the Noble One, the Perfectly Enlightened One.
Homage to the Blessed One, the Noble One, the Perfectly Enlightened One.
Homage to the Blessed One, the Noble One, the Perfectly Enlightened One.
Buddha"m sara.na"m gacchaami
Dhamma"m sara.na"m gacchaami
Sa"ngha"m sara.na"m gacchaami
Dutiyampi buddha"m sara.na"m gacchaami
Dutiyampi dhamma"m sara.na"m gacchaami
Dutiyampi sa"ngha"m sara.na"m gacchaami
Tatiyampi buddha"m sara.na"m gacchaami
Tatiyampi dhamma"m sara.na"m gacchaami
Tatiyampi sa"ngha"m sara.na"m gacchaami
To the Buddha I go for refuge.
To the Dhamma I go for refuge.
To the Sangha I go for refuge.
For the second time, to the Buddha I go for refuge.
For the second time, to the Dhamma I go for refuge.
For the second time, to the Sangha I go for refuge.
For the third time, to the Buddha I go for refuge.
For the third time, to the Dhamma 1 go for refuge.
For the third time, to the Sangha I go for refuge.
Leader:
Tisara.na-gamana"m ni.t.thita"m
Response:
-- Aama bhante
Leader:
This completes the going to the Three Refuges.
Response:
-- Yes, Venerable Sir.
4.2 THE FIVE PRECEPTS
To undertake the precepts, repeat each precept after the leader:
1. Paa.naatipaataa verama.nii sikkhaa-pada"m samaadiyaami
2. Adinnaadaanaa verama.nii sikkhaa-pada"m samaadiyaami
3. Kaamesu micchaacaaraa verama.nii sikkhaa-pada"m samaadiyaami
4. Musaavaadaa verama.nii sikkhaa-pada"m samaadiyaami
5. Suraa-meraya-majja-pamaada.t.thaanaa verama.nii sikkhaa-pada"m samaadiyaami
1. I undertake the precept to refrain from destroying living creatures.
2. I undertake the precept to refrain from taking that which is not given.
3. I undertake the precept to refrain from sexual misconduct.
4. I undertake the precept to refrain from incorrect speech.
5. I undertake the precept to refrain from intoxicating liquors and drugs which lead to carelessness.
Leader:
Imaani pañca sikkhaa-padaani
Siilena sugati"m yanti
Siilena bhoga-sampadaa
Siilena nibbuti"m yanti
Tasmaa siila"m visodhaye
Response:
-- Saadhu, saadhu, saadhu
-(bow three times)-
Leader:
These Five Precepts
Have morality as a vehicle for happiness,
Have morality as a vehicle for good fortune,
Have morality as a vehicle for liberation.
Let morality therefore be purified.
Response:
-- Well said, well said, well said!
-(bow three times)-
Monday, March 22, 2010
purpose
if u cant luv the one ur sitting next to u, u aint christian, jewish, muslim, buddhist, or any other religion/faith, we r all here here to luv n learn....................... not hate n fight
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
telephone
[Lady Gaga]
Hello
Hello, baby; you called
I can't hear a thing
I have got no service in the club you say, say
Wa-wa-what did you say?
Huh?; You're breaking up on me
Sorry; I cannot hear you
I'm kinda busy
K-kinda busy
K-kinda busy
Sorry; I cannot hear you
I'm kinda busy
Just a second; it's my favorite song they're gonna play and I cannot text you with a drink in my hand, eh?
You shoulda made some plans with me; you knew that I was free
And now you won't stop calling me
I'm kinda busy
Stop callin', stop callin'; I don't wanna think anymore!; I left my head and my heart on the dance-floor
Stop callin'', stop callin; I don't wanna talk anymore!; I left my head and my heart on the dance-floor
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh
Stop telephonin' me!
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh
I'm busy!
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh
Stop telephonin' me!
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh
Can call all you want but there's no one home and you're not gonna reach my telephone!
'Cause I'm out in the club and I'm sippin' that bub' and you're not gonna reach my telephone
Call when you want but there's no one home
and you're not gonna reach my telephone
Out in the club and I'm sippin' that bub' and you're not gonna reach my telephone
[Beyonce]
Boy, the way you blowin' up my phone won't make me leave no faster, put my coat on faster, leave my girls no faster.
I shoulda left my phone at home 'cause this is a disaster!
Callin' like a collector
Sorry: I cannot answer!
Not that I don't like you: I'm just at a party
And I am sick and tired of my phone ri-ringing
Sometimes I feel like I live in Grand Central Station
Tonight I'm not takin no calls 'cause I'll be dancin'
'Cause I'll be dancin'
'Cause I'll be dancin'
Tonight I'm not takin' no calls 'cause I'll be dancin!
Stop callin', stop callin'; I don't wanna think anymore!; I got my head and my heart on the dance-floor
Stop callin', stop callin'; I don't wanna talk anymore!; I got my head and my heart on the dance-floor
Stop callin', stop callin'; I don't wanna think anymore!; I got my head and my heart on the dance-floor
Stop callin', stop callin'; I don't wanna talk anymore; I got my head and my heart on the dance-floor
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh
Stop telephonin' me!
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh
I'm busy!
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh
Stop telephonin' me!
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh
Can call all you want, but there's no one home
And you're not gonna reach my telephone
'Cause I'm out in the club and I'm sippin' that bub'
And you're not gonna reach my telephone
Call when you want, but there's no one home
And you're not gonna reach my telephone!
'Cause I'm out in the club, and I'm sippin' that bub'
And you're not gonna reach my telephone, my telephone, mi-mi-mi, my telephone
'Cause I'm out in the club and I'm sippin' that bub'
And you're not gonna reach my telephone
My telephone
Mi-mi-mi, my telephone
'Cause I'm out in the club and I'm sippin that bub' and you're not gonna reach my telephone
We're sorry; the number you have reached is not in service at this time
Please check the number, or try your call again
Hello
Hello, baby; you called
I can't hear a thing
I have got no service in the club you say, say
Wa-wa-what did you say?
Huh?; You're breaking up on me
Sorry; I cannot hear you
I'm kinda busy
K-kinda busy
K-kinda busy
Sorry; I cannot hear you
I'm kinda busy
Just a second; it's my favorite song they're gonna play and I cannot text you with a drink in my hand, eh?
You shoulda made some plans with me; you knew that I was free
And now you won't stop calling me
I'm kinda busy
Stop callin', stop callin'; I don't wanna think anymore!; I left my head and my heart on the dance-floor
Stop callin'', stop callin; I don't wanna talk anymore!; I left my head and my heart on the dance-floor
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh
Stop telephonin' me!
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh
I'm busy!
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh
Stop telephonin' me!
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh
Can call all you want but there's no one home and you're not gonna reach my telephone!
'Cause I'm out in the club and I'm sippin' that bub' and you're not gonna reach my telephone
Call when you want but there's no one home
and you're not gonna reach my telephone
Out in the club and I'm sippin' that bub' and you're not gonna reach my telephone
[Beyonce]
Boy, the way you blowin' up my phone won't make me leave no faster, put my coat on faster, leave my girls no faster.
I shoulda left my phone at home 'cause this is a disaster!
Callin' like a collector
Sorry: I cannot answer!
Not that I don't like you: I'm just at a party
And I am sick and tired of my phone ri-ringing
Sometimes I feel like I live in Grand Central Station
Tonight I'm not takin no calls 'cause I'll be dancin'
'Cause I'll be dancin'
'Cause I'll be dancin'
Tonight I'm not takin' no calls 'cause I'll be dancin!
Stop callin', stop callin'; I don't wanna think anymore!; I got my head and my heart on the dance-floor
Stop callin', stop callin'; I don't wanna talk anymore!; I got my head and my heart on the dance-floor
Stop callin', stop callin'; I don't wanna think anymore!; I got my head and my heart on the dance-floor
Stop callin', stop callin'; I don't wanna talk anymore; I got my head and my heart on the dance-floor
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh
Stop telephonin' me!
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh
I'm busy!
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh
Stop telephonin' me!
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh
Can call all you want, but there's no one home
And you're not gonna reach my telephone
'Cause I'm out in the club and I'm sippin' that bub'
And you're not gonna reach my telephone
Call when you want, but there's no one home
And you're not gonna reach my telephone!
'Cause I'm out in the club, and I'm sippin' that bub'
And you're not gonna reach my telephone, my telephone, mi-mi-mi, my telephone
'Cause I'm out in the club and I'm sippin' that bub'
And you're not gonna reach my telephone
My telephone
Mi-mi-mi, my telephone
'Cause I'm out in the club and I'm sippin that bub' and you're not gonna reach my telephone
We're sorry; the number you have reached is not in service at this time
Please check the number, or try your call again
Saturday, January 23, 2010
my luv
Every night I rush to my bed
With hopes that maybe I'll get a chance to see you
When I close my eyes
I'm goin outta my head
Lost in a fairytale
Can you hold my hands and be my guide
Clouds filled with stars cover your skies
And I hope it rains
You're the perfect lullaby
What kinda dream am is this
You can be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Either way I, don't wanna wake up from you
Sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Somebody pinch me, your loves to good to be true
My guilty pleasure I ain't goin no where
Baby long as you're here
I'll be floating on air cause you're my
You can be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Either way I, don't wanna wake up from you
I mention you when I say my prayers
I wrap you around around all of my thoughts
Boy you my temporary high
I wish that when I wake up you're there
So wrap your arms around me for real
And tell me you'll stay by side
Clouds filled with stars cover your skies
And I hope it rains
You're the perfect lullaby
What kinda dream am is this
You can be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Either way I, don't wanna wake up from you
Sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Somebody pinch me, your loves to good to be true
My guilty pleasure I ain't goin no where
Baby long as you're here
I'll be floating on air cause you're my
You can be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Either way I, don't wanna wake up from you
Tattoo your name across my heart
So it will remain
Not even death can make us part
What kind of dream is this!
You can be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Either way I, don't wanna wake up from you
Sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Somebody pinch me, your loves to good to be true
My guilty pleasure I ain't goin no where
Baby long as you're here
I'll be floating on air cause you're my
You can be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Either way I, don't wanna wake up from you
With hopes that maybe I'll get a chance to see you
When I close my eyes
I'm goin outta my head
Lost in a fairytale
Can you hold my hands and be my guide
Clouds filled with stars cover your skies
And I hope it rains
You're the perfect lullaby
What kinda dream am is this
You can be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Either way I, don't wanna wake up from you
Sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Somebody pinch me, your loves to good to be true
My guilty pleasure I ain't goin no where
Baby long as you're here
I'll be floating on air cause you're my
You can be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Either way I, don't wanna wake up from you
I mention you when I say my prayers
I wrap you around around all of my thoughts
Boy you my temporary high
I wish that when I wake up you're there
So wrap your arms around me for real
And tell me you'll stay by side
Clouds filled with stars cover your skies
And I hope it rains
You're the perfect lullaby
What kinda dream am is this
You can be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Either way I, don't wanna wake up from you
Sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Somebody pinch me, your loves to good to be true
My guilty pleasure I ain't goin no where
Baby long as you're here
I'll be floating on air cause you're my
You can be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Either way I, don't wanna wake up from you
Tattoo your name across my heart
So it will remain
Not even death can make us part
What kind of dream is this!
You can be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Either way I, don't wanna wake up from you
Sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Somebody pinch me, your loves to good to be true
My guilty pleasure I ain't goin no where
Baby long as you're here
I'll be floating on air cause you're my
You can be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare
Either way I, don't wanna wake up from you
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Thursday, November 26, 2009
one of my fav politicians
IN REMEMBERANCE: Samak Sundaravej - always marching to his own drum
By Pornpimol Kanchanalak
Published on November 26, 2009
"Let Hercules himself do what he may, The cat will mew and dog will have his day." (Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 1.A Churchyard)
Whatever ambiguity this passage may convey, Samak Sundaravej, Thailand's 25th Prime Minister - an ardent cat lover - may have known precisely what it meant.
On January 29, 2008, the day he was sworn in as the 25th prime minister of Thailand, the country saw a man so defiant, turned unreservedly triumphant. Nobody ever believed he would reach the pinnacle of political life, he said, looking straight into the news cameras during his brief press statement after the swearing in ceremony; he had proved them all wrong.
The expression on Samak's face that day was not disparate from the expression of Barack Obama that the world saw on January 20, 2009 as the new US president walked in the bright sunshine towards the podium on the steps of the Capitol where he would be sworn in. Before he took the first stride of that monumental walk, he buttoned his jacket, straightened his back, raised his chin slightly, and took a deep breath, savouring every breath of air he took in. It was his moment, imprinted not only on the memory, but much deeper inside.
Perhaps not unlike Obama - whose critics predicted there was nowhere else for his political stock to go from that day forward but south - Samak Sundaravej saw his misfortune as a politician and prime minister grow exponentially during his turbulent five months in office. His political demise and his eventual exit as premier were forced by a ruling of the Constitutional Court over his cooking show. The affairs of the pantry were always just another one of his passions.
Samak's political life was never a one-act play, but a lengthy and colourful drama. Throughout his life, his friends and foes, admirers and haters, could always agree on one thing about the man: Unlike most politicians, Samak always spoke his mind. He wore his heart on his sleeve. He was known as the man with the golden tongue who wooed more than a million votes from Bangkokians to win the 2000 gubernatorial race with a historic landslide. His tongue was not always forked.
Unlike some politicians who are known to take revenge on a hostile press by spearheading sponsorship boycotts to cut off media lifelines, Samak was not known to ever consider that path. Perhaps it was the journalist/commentator in him that made him more benign towards the press - or maybe taking revenge was not part of his constitution. Samak simply slugged it out and butted heads with the press in front of a full audience and in broad daylight. In hindsight, he was truly an amazing breath of fresh air. But at the time, many felt embarrassed for him and for his office.
As a man who many believed was at least partly responsible for the brutal massacre of demonstrators during the October 1976 unrest, Samak, until the very end, maintained that only one or a few people died on that day and that he was not responsible. Such is his view that did not conform to the factual accounts of what transpired at the time. But there is no doubt that Samak truly believed his own words to be the case. There was no doubt that he ever questioned his statement at the time that there was an underground tunnel at Thammasat University, the hotbed of the demonstration. And that only one Thai was killed, and the rest were Vietnamese.
In his first act as prime minister, Samak defiantly declared that he would bring back, in full grace, the man many believe was the bona fide boss of the People's Power Party, which Samak chaired. Samak must have known full well that this move was not going to be popular, given the strong outcry in some quarters over the serious misdeeds of the fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and the heated political debate over the issue. But Samak did it without a blink. To him, it was nothing more than something that had to be done, so he figured he might as well do it sooner rather than later. And he did it in the best fashion he knew how - in your face.
But there is more to the man who many loved to loathe.
"There is something about cat lovers," said an American who introduced her friend - the syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer - to Samak when he was the Bangkok governor, to discuss Geyer's book on cats. "They are kind and humane." She recalled her meeting with Samak and coming away with a fond impression of the man she and her friend had met. "He was very intelligent and funny," she said. "And he had eleven cats!"
Maybe he should have stayed in retirement and enjoyed going to the Sunday market for grocery shopping and food tasting. Maybe he should have spent the remaining days of his life making cookery shows, raising more cats and writing more books about them. After all, Geyer credited him as being one of most knowledgeable people in the world when it came to feline matters.
One can see how happy and decent Samak was as a man when he enjoyed all the non-political and mundane things he held close to his heart. Maybe he should not have answered to the call of politics during his twilight years, particularly that last "call to duty" that would eventually cause his ultimate demise as a public figure. But then again, maybe he could not help it. Maybe it was meant to be, all along.
But if there is one thing true about Samak Sundaravej rather than him being just a controversial political figure - he was not one-dimensional. It may be unfair to give just one simple definition of a man and how he lived his life and who he was. Nonetheless, if one is to try to apply one to Samak Sundaravej - the 25th prime minister of Thailand - it could be "chutzpah".
He had more than his fair share of it. And it is something that is worth remembering and honouring.
By Pornpimol Kanchanalak
Published on November 26, 2009
"Let Hercules himself do what he may, The cat will mew and dog will have his day." (Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 1.A Churchyard)
Whatever ambiguity this passage may convey, Samak Sundaravej, Thailand's 25th Prime Minister - an ardent cat lover - may have known precisely what it meant.
On January 29, 2008, the day he was sworn in as the 25th prime minister of Thailand, the country saw a man so defiant, turned unreservedly triumphant. Nobody ever believed he would reach the pinnacle of political life, he said, looking straight into the news cameras during his brief press statement after the swearing in ceremony; he had proved them all wrong.
The expression on Samak's face that day was not disparate from the expression of Barack Obama that the world saw on January 20, 2009 as the new US president walked in the bright sunshine towards the podium on the steps of the Capitol where he would be sworn in. Before he took the first stride of that monumental walk, he buttoned his jacket, straightened his back, raised his chin slightly, and took a deep breath, savouring every breath of air he took in. It was his moment, imprinted not only on the memory, but much deeper inside.
Perhaps not unlike Obama - whose critics predicted there was nowhere else for his political stock to go from that day forward but south - Samak Sundaravej saw his misfortune as a politician and prime minister grow exponentially during his turbulent five months in office. His political demise and his eventual exit as premier were forced by a ruling of the Constitutional Court over his cooking show. The affairs of the pantry were always just another one of his passions.
Samak's political life was never a one-act play, but a lengthy and colourful drama. Throughout his life, his friends and foes, admirers and haters, could always agree on one thing about the man: Unlike most politicians, Samak always spoke his mind. He wore his heart on his sleeve. He was known as the man with the golden tongue who wooed more than a million votes from Bangkokians to win the 2000 gubernatorial race with a historic landslide. His tongue was not always forked.
Unlike some politicians who are known to take revenge on a hostile press by spearheading sponsorship boycotts to cut off media lifelines, Samak was not known to ever consider that path. Perhaps it was the journalist/commentator in him that made him more benign towards the press - or maybe taking revenge was not part of his constitution. Samak simply slugged it out and butted heads with the press in front of a full audience and in broad daylight. In hindsight, he was truly an amazing breath of fresh air. But at the time, many felt embarrassed for him and for his office.
As a man who many believed was at least partly responsible for the brutal massacre of demonstrators during the October 1976 unrest, Samak, until the very end, maintained that only one or a few people died on that day and that he was not responsible. Such is his view that did not conform to the factual accounts of what transpired at the time. But there is no doubt that Samak truly believed his own words to be the case. There was no doubt that he ever questioned his statement at the time that there was an underground tunnel at Thammasat University, the hotbed of the demonstration. And that only one Thai was killed, and the rest were Vietnamese.
In his first act as prime minister, Samak defiantly declared that he would bring back, in full grace, the man many believe was the bona fide boss of the People's Power Party, which Samak chaired. Samak must have known full well that this move was not going to be popular, given the strong outcry in some quarters over the serious misdeeds of the fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and the heated political debate over the issue. But Samak did it without a blink. To him, it was nothing more than something that had to be done, so he figured he might as well do it sooner rather than later. And he did it in the best fashion he knew how - in your face.
But there is more to the man who many loved to loathe.
"There is something about cat lovers," said an American who introduced her friend - the syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer - to Samak when he was the Bangkok governor, to discuss Geyer's book on cats. "They are kind and humane." She recalled her meeting with Samak and coming away with a fond impression of the man she and her friend had met. "He was very intelligent and funny," she said. "And he had eleven cats!"
Maybe he should have stayed in retirement and enjoyed going to the Sunday market for grocery shopping and food tasting. Maybe he should have spent the remaining days of his life making cookery shows, raising more cats and writing more books about them. After all, Geyer credited him as being one of most knowledgeable people in the world when it came to feline matters.
One can see how happy and decent Samak was as a man when he enjoyed all the non-political and mundane things he held close to his heart. Maybe he should not have answered to the call of politics during his twilight years, particularly that last "call to duty" that would eventually cause his ultimate demise as a public figure. But then again, maybe he could not help it. Maybe it was meant to be, all along.
But if there is one thing true about Samak Sundaravej rather than him being just a controversial political figure - he was not one-dimensional. It may be unfair to give just one simple definition of a man and how he lived his life and who he was. Nonetheless, if one is to try to apply one to Samak Sundaravej - the 25th prime minister of Thailand - it could be "chutzpah".
He had more than his fair share of it. And it is something that is worth remembering and honouring.
GREAT BUDDHIST's
by Urgyen Sangharakshita
Urgyen Sangharkshita is an Englishman, who spent 20 years in India. For fourteen of those years he was editor of the Maha Bodhi, journal of the Maha Bodhi Society of India founded by Anagarika Dharmapala. After return to the U.K. he founded the Friends of Western Buddhist Order, which now has centres throughout the world. He gave a talk on the above subject under the general title 'Religious Relevance' at the London Buddhist Vihara on 14th October 1995. It was a most interesting talk and was extremely well attended.
Ven. Sangharakshita defined the qualities of a "Great Buddhist" as a person who should have a sound grasp of the Dhamma, and should have gone for refuge in the Three Jewels of Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. A Great Buddhist should possess some characteristically Buddhist qualities to a high degree, especially metta, viriya and panna. His work should have had a widespread influence on other people and he should have set a personal example for others to follow, both during his lifetime and after his death, acting as a source of permanent inspiration and guidance. Using these criteria, Ven. Sangharakshita chose to speak about five people: Anagarika Dharmapala, Alexandra David-Neel, B. R. Ambedkar, Lama Govinda, and Edward Conze.
The future Anagarika Dharmapala was born as David Hewavitarana in 1864, and received his education largely at Christian schools. At that time in Sri Lanka all higher education was in the hands of Christian missionaries. Buddhism and Buddhist culture were at a low ebb, in fact it was not officially possible to be a Buddhist at all. Parents had to register the birth of their children in a church, where they were given a Christian name. Otherwise, the child would be regarded in law as illegitimate and unable to inherit any property. This law was not repealed until 1884.
David Hewavitarana received a thoroughly Christian education, and even learned the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles by heart. Nevertheless, his home environment was strongly Buddhist and he remained a devout Buddhist despite the efforts of the Christian missionaries. For three consecutive years he took the festival of Vesak as a holiday, despite being forbidden to do so by his headmaster and was punished accordingly.
The fortunes of Buddhism in Sri Lanka began to change in 1880 with the arrival of the Theosophical movement, a society which had been founded in New York in 1875 by Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott. They created a great sensation by being the first Europeans publicly to embrace the Buddhist faith. The youthful Dharmapala helped Colonel Olcott in much of his work, and it was Madame Blavatsky who recommended that he should study Pali. In 1889 he accompanied Colonel Olcott on a visit to Japan, which marked the first contact between the Theravada Buddhists of Sri Lanka with the Mahayana Buddhists of Japan. Two years later, at the age of 29, he visited the Buddhist holy places in North-East India and was shocked to find their dilapidated condition. He was so moved by this discovery that he resolved to devote himself to their repair and restoration.
In 1891 he founded the Maha Bodhi Society to help him in his work, initially with the restoration of Buddhagaya and also with the spreading of Buddhism throughout the world. In 1893 he was invited to attend the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, travelling via England en route to the meeting, and via Japan, China, Thailand, and Honolulu on his way back. He made a very great impression on his audiences in Chicago. He spent the remaining 40 years of his life devoted unceasingly to the spreading of the Dhamma. In India he built temples, viharas and rest-houses, in Sri Lanka he established schools and hospitals; he even spent three years living in America, giving hundreds of talks and lectures. In 1926 he established a vihara here in London, first in Ealing, and later in the Regent's Park area. In 1931 in Sarnath he became a samanera and in 1933 a bhikkhu. He died in December 1933 aged 69.
Dharmapala lived a very active and full life, but he was also a meditator and invariably starting his day with a two-hour period of meditation, particularly metta bhavana, learned from a Burmese lay yogi when he was in his twenties.
His background was distinguished by two great features - the revival of Buddhism in India after it had been extinct there for several centuries, and the introduction of Buddhism to the West. He was the first Buddhist in modern times to preach the dhamma in the three continents of Asia, Europe and America. He was the first Anagarika of modern times to take the brahmacariya vow at the age of nine, although he did not observe all the vinaya rules during this life as he felt this might get in the way of his missionary activities. He realised the importance of Going for Refuge; at the top of every alternate page of his diary he wrote the reminder that "The only refuge for him who aspires to true perfection is the Buddha." He was also a pioneer of the arts and crafts of Sri Lanka, discouraging the use of imported fashions and encouraging Sinhalese women to wear the sari.
Whilst Dharmapala was busy bringing contact from the East to the West, the second "Great Buddhist", Alexandra David-Neel was bringing contact from the West to the East. She was born in Paris in 1868, and died in 1969. At a young age she showed a liking for travel, and eventually from 1911 spent 14 years in the East: Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Sikkim, Japan, China and Tibet, where she met the XIIIth Dalai Lama who was in exile in India. One of her most famous journeys was her visit to Lhasa, which at that time was forbidden to foreigners which meant she had to travel in disguise. In 1925 she returned to France, where she spent the rest of her life - except for a visit to Tibet at the time of the outbreak of the Second World War, which meant she was trapped in Tibet for 6 years. There are three elements of her life which are particularly noteworthy:- she was one of the first Westerners to take Buddhism seriously as a way of life, not just as a subject of academic study. Secondly, there was her readiness to defy convention, at a time when these were particularly strong. Thirdly, she showed what a determined woman can achieve and this must be a source of inspiration to all Buddhists and to Buddhist women in particular.
Unlike both Dharmapala and David-Neel whose origins were middle-class, B. R. Ambedkar came from the very bottom of the social heap. He was born in 1891 into an "untouchable" family at a time when this caste was not allowed to enter Hindu temples, attend Hindu schools, own property or have any economic or political rights. They were not allowed to better themselves in any way. The British Army did, however, recruit "untouchables" and Ambedkar's father had become a school teacher in the army. He helped his son to gain an education and eventually to become one of the most highly qualified men in Indian public life. Nevertheless the Hindu community generally continued to regard him as an "untouchable", which only inspired Ambedkar to work for the uplift of his people. He founded newspapers, started schools and colleges, entered politics, fought legal battles, wrote books and articles. From 1932 onwards the story of his life is inseparable from the history of modern India. In 1947 he became law minister in the first government of newly-independent India and was responsible for the drafting of the constitution. He first came into contact with Buddhism at the age of 16, but it was not until 1954 at the age of 63 that he decided to devote the rest of the life to the propagation of the dhamma in India. He was drawn to Buddhism because it did not conflict with reason, it did not condone the caste system and man's inhumanity to man, and it was of Indian origin. In 1956 he became a Buddhist along with 380,000 of his followers on 14th October, coincidentally the day of this lecture. Further conversions of "untouchables" took place elsewhere in India, and this was the most significant event for Buddhism in India for many hundreds of years. Sadly Ambedkar died only 6 weeks later. His main achievement was the uplifting of his fellow "untouchables" socially, economically and educationally, which was done mainly by leading them to change their religion and thereby effecting a transformation of their lives. Ambedkar believed that there should be an ordination for lay people, which he called Dhammadiksha. It consisted of two parts (i) taking the refuges and five precepts, and (ii) taking 22 vows, which included a specific renunciation of Hinduism. Although Ambedkar was initiated into Buddhism by a monk, it was he - a layman - who administered this ordination to his followers. This ordination made it clear that it was not possible to both a Buddhist and a Hindu, and that Buddhism was not just an offshoot of Hinduism.
The fourth "Great Buddhist" is Lama Govinda. He was born in Germany in 1898. After two years in the German army in the First World War, he moved to Capri in Italy and became increasingly interested in Buddhism, including the practice of meditation. In 1928 he moved to Sri Lanka where he studied under the German monk Nyanatiloka, thence he moved to India and met Tomo Geshe Rinpoche who was to become his guru in Tibetan Buddhism. During the Second World War he was interned as a German national, but was allowed to continue his Buddhist studies. In 1948 he made his famous journey to Western Tibet which is so graphically described in his book "The Way of the White Clouds". In the 1960s and 1970s he visited Europe and America, eventually settling in San Francisco. Shortly before his death, in 1985 aged 87, he wrote to Ven. Sangharakshita emphasising two points: first, that we must know the roots of our own culture if we are to absorb the essence of Buddhist culture and, secondly, that it is up to the next generation to take Buddhism out of the merely academic atmosphere and make it a living experience. This was one of Anagarika Govinda's most important contributions to the spread of Buddhism; we must make it a living experience, not just achieve a mere intellectual understanding.
The fifth "Great Buddhist" is Edward Conze. He was born in London in 1904 of mixed German, French and Dutch parentage. He was brought up in Germany as a Protestant, but came into contact with the doctrines of Theosophy and Astrology. He was strongly opposed to the rise of Nazism in Germany which led him to become a communist. In 1933 he moved to England, but by 1935 his world was in tatters. He was disillusioned with communism and his marriage had failed, but he was fortunate in discovering the teachings of the Buddha through the writings of D. T. Suzuki. These had a profound impact on him and gave him a new sense of direction. He devoted much of the rest of his life to translating many of the fundamental Mahayanist scriptures into English. Edward Conze may be characterised as a "Middle European Intellectual" and as a highly skilled translator, but he also tried to practise Buddhism, especially meditation. He was the forerunner of a whole new breed of Western scholars in Buddhism. He died in 1979.
Urgyen Sangharkshita is an Englishman, who spent 20 years in India. For fourteen of those years he was editor of the Maha Bodhi, journal of the Maha Bodhi Society of India founded by Anagarika Dharmapala. After return to the U.K. he founded the Friends of Western Buddhist Order, which now has centres throughout the world. He gave a talk on the above subject under the general title 'Religious Relevance' at the London Buddhist Vihara on 14th October 1995. It was a most interesting talk and was extremely well attended.
Ven. Sangharakshita defined the qualities of a "Great Buddhist" as a person who should have a sound grasp of the Dhamma, and should have gone for refuge in the Three Jewels of Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. A Great Buddhist should possess some characteristically Buddhist qualities to a high degree, especially metta, viriya and panna. His work should have had a widespread influence on other people and he should have set a personal example for others to follow, both during his lifetime and after his death, acting as a source of permanent inspiration and guidance. Using these criteria, Ven. Sangharakshita chose to speak about five people: Anagarika Dharmapala, Alexandra David-Neel, B. R. Ambedkar, Lama Govinda, and Edward Conze.
The future Anagarika Dharmapala was born as David Hewavitarana in 1864, and received his education largely at Christian schools. At that time in Sri Lanka all higher education was in the hands of Christian missionaries. Buddhism and Buddhist culture were at a low ebb, in fact it was not officially possible to be a Buddhist at all. Parents had to register the birth of their children in a church, where they were given a Christian name. Otherwise, the child would be regarded in law as illegitimate and unable to inherit any property. This law was not repealed until 1884.
David Hewavitarana received a thoroughly Christian education, and even learned the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles by heart. Nevertheless, his home environment was strongly Buddhist and he remained a devout Buddhist despite the efforts of the Christian missionaries. For three consecutive years he took the festival of Vesak as a holiday, despite being forbidden to do so by his headmaster and was punished accordingly.
The fortunes of Buddhism in Sri Lanka began to change in 1880 with the arrival of the Theosophical movement, a society which had been founded in New York in 1875 by Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott. They created a great sensation by being the first Europeans publicly to embrace the Buddhist faith. The youthful Dharmapala helped Colonel Olcott in much of his work, and it was Madame Blavatsky who recommended that he should study Pali. In 1889 he accompanied Colonel Olcott on a visit to Japan, which marked the first contact between the Theravada Buddhists of Sri Lanka with the Mahayana Buddhists of Japan. Two years later, at the age of 29, he visited the Buddhist holy places in North-East India and was shocked to find their dilapidated condition. He was so moved by this discovery that he resolved to devote himself to their repair and restoration.
In 1891 he founded the Maha Bodhi Society to help him in his work, initially with the restoration of Buddhagaya and also with the spreading of Buddhism throughout the world. In 1893 he was invited to attend the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, travelling via England en route to the meeting, and via Japan, China, Thailand, and Honolulu on his way back. He made a very great impression on his audiences in Chicago. He spent the remaining 40 years of his life devoted unceasingly to the spreading of the Dhamma. In India he built temples, viharas and rest-houses, in Sri Lanka he established schools and hospitals; he even spent three years living in America, giving hundreds of talks and lectures. In 1926 he established a vihara here in London, first in Ealing, and later in the Regent's Park area. In 1931 in Sarnath he became a samanera and in 1933 a bhikkhu. He died in December 1933 aged 69.
Dharmapala lived a very active and full life, but he was also a meditator and invariably starting his day with a two-hour period of meditation, particularly metta bhavana, learned from a Burmese lay yogi when he was in his twenties.
His background was distinguished by two great features - the revival of Buddhism in India after it had been extinct there for several centuries, and the introduction of Buddhism to the West. He was the first Buddhist in modern times to preach the dhamma in the three continents of Asia, Europe and America. He was the first Anagarika of modern times to take the brahmacariya vow at the age of nine, although he did not observe all the vinaya rules during this life as he felt this might get in the way of his missionary activities. He realised the importance of Going for Refuge; at the top of every alternate page of his diary he wrote the reminder that "The only refuge for him who aspires to true perfection is the Buddha." He was also a pioneer of the arts and crafts of Sri Lanka, discouraging the use of imported fashions and encouraging Sinhalese women to wear the sari.
Whilst Dharmapala was busy bringing contact from the East to the West, the second "Great Buddhist", Alexandra David-Neel was bringing contact from the West to the East. She was born in Paris in 1868, and died in 1969. At a young age she showed a liking for travel, and eventually from 1911 spent 14 years in the East: Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Sikkim, Japan, China and Tibet, where she met the XIIIth Dalai Lama who was in exile in India. One of her most famous journeys was her visit to Lhasa, which at that time was forbidden to foreigners which meant she had to travel in disguise. In 1925 she returned to France, where she spent the rest of her life - except for a visit to Tibet at the time of the outbreak of the Second World War, which meant she was trapped in Tibet for 6 years. There are three elements of her life which are particularly noteworthy:- she was one of the first Westerners to take Buddhism seriously as a way of life, not just as a subject of academic study. Secondly, there was her readiness to defy convention, at a time when these were particularly strong. Thirdly, she showed what a determined woman can achieve and this must be a source of inspiration to all Buddhists and to Buddhist women in particular.
Unlike both Dharmapala and David-Neel whose origins were middle-class, B. R. Ambedkar came from the very bottom of the social heap. He was born in 1891 into an "untouchable" family at a time when this caste was not allowed to enter Hindu temples, attend Hindu schools, own property or have any economic or political rights. They were not allowed to better themselves in any way. The British Army did, however, recruit "untouchables" and Ambedkar's father had become a school teacher in the army. He helped his son to gain an education and eventually to become one of the most highly qualified men in Indian public life. Nevertheless the Hindu community generally continued to regard him as an "untouchable", which only inspired Ambedkar to work for the uplift of his people. He founded newspapers, started schools and colleges, entered politics, fought legal battles, wrote books and articles. From 1932 onwards the story of his life is inseparable from the history of modern India. In 1947 he became law minister in the first government of newly-independent India and was responsible for the drafting of the constitution. He first came into contact with Buddhism at the age of 16, but it was not until 1954 at the age of 63 that he decided to devote the rest of the life to the propagation of the dhamma in India. He was drawn to Buddhism because it did not conflict with reason, it did not condone the caste system and man's inhumanity to man, and it was of Indian origin. In 1956 he became a Buddhist along with 380,000 of his followers on 14th October, coincidentally the day of this lecture. Further conversions of "untouchables" took place elsewhere in India, and this was the most significant event for Buddhism in India for many hundreds of years. Sadly Ambedkar died only 6 weeks later. His main achievement was the uplifting of his fellow "untouchables" socially, economically and educationally, which was done mainly by leading them to change their religion and thereby effecting a transformation of their lives. Ambedkar believed that there should be an ordination for lay people, which he called Dhammadiksha. It consisted of two parts (i) taking the refuges and five precepts, and (ii) taking 22 vows, which included a specific renunciation of Hinduism. Although Ambedkar was initiated into Buddhism by a monk, it was he - a layman - who administered this ordination to his followers. This ordination made it clear that it was not possible to both a Buddhist and a Hindu, and that Buddhism was not just an offshoot of Hinduism.
The fourth "Great Buddhist" is Lama Govinda. He was born in Germany in 1898. After two years in the German army in the First World War, he moved to Capri in Italy and became increasingly interested in Buddhism, including the practice of meditation. In 1928 he moved to Sri Lanka where he studied under the German monk Nyanatiloka, thence he moved to India and met Tomo Geshe Rinpoche who was to become his guru in Tibetan Buddhism. During the Second World War he was interned as a German national, but was allowed to continue his Buddhist studies. In 1948 he made his famous journey to Western Tibet which is so graphically described in his book "The Way of the White Clouds". In the 1960s and 1970s he visited Europe and America, eventually settling in San Francisco. Shortly before his death, in 1985 aged 87, he wrote to Ven. Sangharakshita emphasising two points: first, that we must know the roots of our own culture if we are to absorb the essence of Buddhist culture and, secondly, that it is up to the next generation to take Buddhism out of the merely academic atmosphere and make it a living experience. This was one of Anagarika Govinda's most important contributions to the spread of Buddhism; we must make it a living experience, not just achieve a mere intellectual understanding.
The fifth "Great Buddhist" is Edward Conze. He was born in London in 1904 of mixed German, French and Dutch parentage. He was brought up in Germany as a Protestant, but came into contact with the doctrines of Theosophy and Astrology. He was strongly opposed to the rise of Nazism in Germany which led him to become a communist. In 1933 he moved to England, but by 1935 his world was in tatters. He was disillusioned with communism and his marriage had failed, but he was fortunate in discovering the teachings of the Buddha through the writings of D. T. Suzuki. These had a profound impact on him and gave him a new sense of direction. He devoted much of the rest of his life to translating many of the fundamental Mahayanist scriptures into English. Edward Conze may be characterised as a "Middle European Intellectual" and as a highly skilled translator, but he also tried to practise Buddhism, especially meditation. He was the forerunner of a whole new breed of Western scholars in Buddhism. He died in 1979.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
A foriegner
Im now in the unique position to be a foriegner in a land far different from my own, which allows me the oppurtunity to step back from the chains of society, and to be able to see how much people are slaves, tied down by their governments, religion, society and families all around the world, and to really see how little free choice people have today.
From the day we are born, we are told by the authorities what is right and wrong, then by society and our families what is best for us, go to school, then go to university, then get a job, buy a car, get married, by a house, get that promotion, work up the corporate ladder, have children, get a new car, have more children, get a bigger another promotion.
Yet for some reason i have never once wished to travel down that road, i have seen that we are not here to gain anthing, and in fact the more we gain the more pain and suffering we must endure. We are here to free our minds from the bonds which hold people down and blind them to their true selves and true purpose. The human is far greater a power than any country, government or weapon, yet most fail to even experience any form of delight from it.
From the day we are born, we are told by the authorities what is right and wrong, then by society and our families what is best for us, go to school, then go to university, then get a job, buy a car, get married, by a house, get that promotion, work up the corporate ladder, have children, get a new car, have more children, get a bigger another promotion.
Yet for some reason i have never once wished to travel down that road, i have seen that we are not here to gain anthing, and in fact the more we gain the more pain and suffering we must endure. We are here to free our minds from the bonds which hold people down and blind them to their true selves and true purpose. The human is far greater a power than any country, government or weapon, yet most fail to even experience any form of delight from it.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
THE WORLD'S MOST DANGEROUS BOOK
by Alan Watts (1915-1973)
For many centuries the Roman Catholic Church was opposed to translating the Holy Scriptures into the "vulgar tongue.” To this day, you can still get rid of a Bible salesman by saying, "But we are Catholics and, of course, don’t read the Bible.” The Catholic hierarchy included subtle theologians and scholars who knew very well that such a difficult and diverse collection of ancient writings, taken as the literal Word of God, would be wildly and dangerously interpreted if put into the hands of ignorant and uneducated peasants. Likewise, when a missionary boasted to George Bernard Shaw of the numerous converts he had made, Shaw asked, " Can these people use rifles?” "Oh, indeed, yes,” said the missionary. "Some of them are very good shots.” Whereupon Shaw scolded him for putting us all in peril in the day when those converts waged holy war against us for not following the Bible in the literal sense they gave to it. For the Bible says, "What a good thing it is when the Lord putteth into the hands of the righteous invincible might.” But today, especially in the United States, there is a taboo against admitting that there are enormous numbers of stupid and ignorant people, in the bookish and literal sense of these words. They may be highly intelligent in the arts of farming, manufacture, engineering and finance, and even in physics, chemistry or medicine. But this intelligence does not automatically flow over to the fields of history, archaeology, linguistics, theology, philosophy and mythology which are what one needs to know in order to make any sense out such archaic literature as the books of the Bible.
This may sound snobbish, for there is an assumption that, in the Bible, God gave His message in plain words for plain people. Once, when I had given a radio broadcast in Canada, the announcer took me aside and said, "Don’t you think that if there is a truly loving God, He would given us a plain and specific guide as to how to live our lives?”
"On the contrary," I replied, "a truly loving God would not stultify our minds. He would encourage us to think for ourselves." I tried, then, to show him that his belief in the divine authority of the Bible rested on nothing more than his own personal opinion, to which, of course, he was entitled. This is basic. The authority of the Bible, the church, the state, or of any spiritual or political leader, is derived from the individual followers and believers, since it is the believers’ judgment that such leaders and institutions speak with a greater wisdom than there own. This is, obviously, a paradox, for only the wise can recognize wisdom. Thus, Catholics criticize Protestants for following their own opinions in understanding the Bible, as distinct from the interpretations of the Church, which originally issued and authorized the Bible. But Catholics seldom realize that the authority of the Church rests, likewise, on the opinion of its individual members that the Papacy and the councils of the Church are authoritative. The same is true of the state, for, as a French statesman said, people get the government they deserve.
Why does one come to the opinion that the Bible, literally understood, is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Usually because one’s "elders and betters," or an impressively large group of ones peers, have this opinion. But this is to go along with the Bandar-log, or monkey tribe, in Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Books , who periodically get together and shout, "We all say so, so it must be true!" Having been a grandfather for a number of years, I am not particularly impressed with patriarchal authority. I am of an age with my own formerly impressive grandfathers (one of whom was a fervent fundamentalist, or literal believer in the Bible) and I realize that my opinions are as fallible as theirs.
But many people never grow up. They stay all their lives with a passionate need for eternal authority and guidance, pretending not to trust their own judgment. Nevertheless, it is their own judgment, willy-nilly, that there exists some authority greater than their own. The fervent fundamentalist whether Protestant or Catholic, Jew or Moslem is closed to reason and even communication for fear of losing the security of childish dependence. He would suffer extreme emotional heebie jeebies if he didn’t have the feeling that there was some external and infallible guide in which he could trust absolutely and without which his very identity would dissolve.
This attitude is not faith. It is pure idolatry. The more deceptive idols are not images of wood and stone but are constructed of words and ideas and mental images of God. Faith is an openness and trusting attitude to truth and reality, whatever it may turn out to be. This is a risky and adventurous state of mind. Belief, in the religious sense, is the opposite of faith because it is a fervent wishing or hope, a compulsive clinging to the idea that the universe is arranged and governed in such and such a way. Belief is holding to a rock; faith is learning how to swim and this whole universe swims in boundless space.
Thus, in much of the English-speaking world, the King James Bible is a rigid idol, all the more deceptive for being translated into the most melodious English and for being an anthology of ancient literature that contains sublime wisdom along with barbaric histories and the war songs of tribes on the rampage. All this is taken as the literal Word and counsel of God, as it is by fundamentalist Baptists, Jesus freaks, Jehovah’s Witnesses and comparable sects, which by and large know nothing of the history of the Bible, of how it was edited and put together. So we have with us the social menace of a huge population of intellectually and morally irresponsible people. Take a ruler and measure the listings under "Churches" in the Yellow Pages of the phone directory. You will find that the fundamentalists have by far the most space. And under what pressure do most hotels and motels place Gideon Bibles by the bedside Bibles with clearly fundamentalist introductory material, taking their name Gideon from one of the more ferocious military leaders of the ancient Israelites?
As is well known, the enormous political power of fundamentalists is what makes legislators afraid to take laws against victimless "sins" and crimes off the books, and what corrupts the police by forcing them to be armed preachers enforcing ecclesiastical laws in a country where church and state are supposed to be separate ignoring the basic Christian doctrine that no actions, or abstentions from actions, are of moral import unless undertaken voluntarily. Freedom is risky and includes the risk that anyone may go to hell in his own way.
Now, the King James Bible did not, as one might gather from listening to fundamentalists, descend with an Angel from heaven A.D. 1611, when it was first published. It was an elegant, but often inaccurate, translation of Hebrew and Greek documents composed between 900 B.C. and A.D. 120. There is no manuscript of the Old Testament, that is, of the Hebrew Scriptures, written in Hebrew, earlier than the Ninth Century B.C. But we know that these documents were first put together and recognized as the Holy Scriptures by a convention of rabbis held at Jamnia (Yavne) in Palestine shortly before A.D. 100. On their say-so. Likewise, the composition of the Christian Bible, which documents to include and which to drop, was decided by a council of the Catholic Church held in Carthage in the latter part of the Fourth Century. Several books that had formerly been read in the churches, such as the Shepherd of Hermas and the marvelous Gospel of Saint Thomas , were then excluded. The point is that the books translated in the King James Bible were declared canonical and divinely inspired by the authority (A) of the Synod of Jamnia and (B) of the Catholic Church, meeting in Carthage more than 300 years after the time of Jesus. It is thus that fundamentalist Protestants get the authority of their Bible from Jews who had rejected Jesus and from Catholics whom they abominate as the Scarlet Woman mentioned in Revelation.
The Bible, to repeat, is an anthology of Hebrew and late Greek literature, edited and put forth by a council of Catholic bishops who believed that they were acting under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Before this time the Bible as we know it did not exist. There were the Hebrew Scriptures and their translated into Greek the Septuagint, which was made in Alexandria between 250 B.C. and 100 B.C. There were also various codices, or Greek manuscripts, of various parts of the New Testament, such as the four Gospels. There were numerous other writings circulating among Christians, including the Epistles of Saint Paul and Saint John, the Apocalypse (Revelation) and such documents (later excluded) as the Acts of John , the Didache , the Apostolic Constitutions and the various Epistles of Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp.
In those days, and until the Protestant Reformation in the 16th Century, the Scriptures were not understood exclusively in a narrow literal sense. From Clement of Alexandria (Second Century) to Saint Thomas Aquinas (13th Century), the great theologians, or Fathers of the Church, recognized four ways of interpreting the Scriptures: the literal or historical, the moral, the allegorical and the spiritual and they were overwhelmingly interested in the last three. Origen (Second Century) regarded much of the Old Testament as "puerile" if taken literally, and Jewish theologians were likewise preoccupied with finding hidden meanings in the Scriptures, for the concern of all these theologians was to interpret the Biblical texts in such a way as to make the Bible intellectually respectable and philosophically interesting. Concern over the historical truth of the Bible is relatively modern, whether in the form of fundamentalism or of scientific research.
But when the Bible was translated and widely distributed as a result of the invention of printing, it fell into the hands of people who, like the Jesus freaks of today, were simply uneducated and who, as the depressed classes of Europe, eventually swarmed over to America. This is, naturally, a heroic generalization. There were, and are, fundamentalists learned in languages and sciences (although the standard translation of the Bible into Chinese is said to be in fearful taste), just as there are professors of physics and anthropology who somehow manage to be pious Mormons. Some people have the peculiar ability to divide their minds into watertight compartments, being critical and rational in matters of science but credulous as children when it comes to religion.
Such superstition would have been relatively harmless if the religion had been something tolerant and pacific, such as Taoism or Buddhism. But the religion of the literally understood Bible is chauvinistic and militant. It is on the march to conquer the world and to establish itself as the one and only true belief. Among its most popular hymns are such battle songs as "Mine eyes have seen the glory" and Onward, Christian Soldiers. The God of the Hebrews, the Arabs and the Christians is a mental idol fashioned in the image of the great monarchs of Egypt, Chaldea and Persia. It was possibly Ikhnaton (Amenhotep IV, 14th Century B.C.), Pharaoh of Egypt, who gave Moses the idea of monotheism (as suggested in Freud’s Moses and Monotheism). Certainly the veneration of God as "King of kings and Lord of lords" borrows the official title of the Persian emperors. Thus, the political pattern of tyranny, beneficent or otherwise, of rule by violence, whether physical or moral, stands firmly behind the Biblical idea of Jehovah.
When one considers the architecture and ritual of churches, whether Catholic or Protestant, it is obvious until most recent times that they are based on royal or judicial courts. A monarch who rules by force sits in the central court of his donjon with his back to the wall, flanked by guards, and those who come to petition him for justice or to offer tribute must kneel or prostrate themselves simply because these are difficult positions from which to start a fight. Such monarchs are, of course, frightened of their subjects and constantly on the anxious alert for rebellion. Is this an appropriate image for the inconceivable energy that underlies the universe? True, the altar-throne in Catholic churches is occupied by the image of God in the form of one crucified as a common thief, but he hangs there as our leader in subjection to the Almighty Father, King of the universe, propitiating Him for those who have broken His not always reasonable laws. And what of the curious resemblances between Protestant churches and courts of law? The minister and the judge wear the same black robe and "throw the book" at those assembled in pews and various kinds of boxes, and both ministers and judges have chairs of estate that are still, in effect, thrones.
The crucial question, then, is that if you picture the universe as a monarchy, how can you believe that a republic is the best form of government, and so be a loyal citizen of the United States? It is thus that fundamentalists veer to the extreme right wing in politics, being of the personality type that demands strong external and paternalistic authority. Their "rugged individualism" and their racism are founded on the conviction that they are the elect of God the Father, and their forebears took possession of America as the armies of Joshua took possession of Canaan, treating the Indians as Joshua and Gideon treated the Bedouin of Palestine. In the same spirit the Protestant British, Dutch and Germans took possession of Africa, India and Indonesia, and the rigid Catholics of Spain and Portugal colonized Latin America. Such territorial expansion may or may not be practical politics, but to do it in the name of Jesus of Nazareth is an outrage.
The Bible is a dangerous book, though by no means an evil one. It depends, largely, on how you read it with what prejudices and with what intellectual background. Regarded as sacred and authoritative, such a complex collection of histories, legends, allegories and images becomes a monstrous Rorschach blot in which you can picture almost anything you want to discover just as one can see cities and mountains in the clouds or faces in the fire. Fundamentalists "prove" the truth of the Bible by trying to show how the words of the prophets have foretold events that have come to pass in relatively recent times. But any statistician knows that you can find correlations, if you want to, between almost any two sets of patterns or rhythms between the occurrence of sunspots and fluctuations of the stock market, between the lines and bumps on your hand and the course of your life or between the architecture of the Great Pyramid and the history of Europe. This is because of eidetic vision, or the brain’s ability to project visions and forms of its own into any material whatsoever. But scholars of ancient history find the remarks of the prophets entirely relevant to events of their own time, in the ancient Near East. The Biblical prophets were not so much predictors as social commentators.
I am not in the position of those liberal Christians who reject fundamentalism but must still insist that Jesus was the one and only incarnation of God, or at least the most perfect human being. No one is intellectually free who feels that he cannot and must not disagree with Jesus and is therefore forced into the dishonest practice of wangling the words of the Gospels to fit his own opinions. There is not a scrap of evidence that Jesus was familiar with any other religious tradition than that of the Hebrew Scriptures or that he knew anything of the civilizations of India, China or Peru. Under these circumstances, he was faced with the virtually impossible problem of expressing himself in the peculiar religious language and imagery of his local culture. For it is obvious to any student of the psychology of religion that what he needed to express was the relatively common change of consciousness known as mystical experience the vivid and overwhelming sensation that your own being is one with eternal and ultimate reality. But it was as hard for Jesus to say this as it still is for a native of the American Bible Belt. It implies the blasphemous, subversive and lunatic claim to be identical with the all-knowing and allruling monarch of the world its Pharaoh or Cyrus. Jesus would have had no trouble in India, for this experience is the foundation of Hinduism, and the Hindus recognize many people in both ancient and modern times as embodiments of the divine, or sons of God but not, of course, of the kind of God represented by Jehovah. Buddhists, likewise, teach that anyone can, and finally will, become a Buddha (an Enlightened One), in the same way as the historic Gautama.
If the Gospel of Saint John , in particular, is to be believed, Jesus emphatically identified himself with the Godhead, considering such phrases as "I and the Father are one," or "He who has seen me has seen the Father," or "Before Abraham was, I am," or "I am the way, the truth and the life." But this was not an exclusive claim for himself as the man Jesus, for at John 10:31, just after he has said "I and the Father are one," the crowd picks up rocks to stone him to death.
He protests:
"Many good works have I shown you from my Father; for which of those works do you stone me?" The Jews answered him, saying, "We do not stone you for a good work, but for blasphemy, and because you, being a man, make yourself God."
And here it comes:
Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your law, I said, you are gods [quoting Psalms 82]? If He [i.e., God] called those to whom He gave His word gods and you can’t contradict the Scriptures how can you say of Him whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You blaspheme!’ because I said, ‘I am a son of God" [The original Greek says "a son," not "the son."]
In other words, the Gospel, or "good news" that Jesus was trying to convey, despite the limitations of his tradition, was that we are all sons of God. When he uses the terms I am (as in "Before Abraham was, I am") or Me (as in "No one comes to the Father but by Me"), he is intending to use them in the same way as Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita :
He who sees Me everywhere and sees all in Me; I am not lost to him, nor is he lost to Me. The yogi who, established in oneness, worships Me abiding in all beings, lives in Me, whatever be his outward life.
And by this "Me" Krishna means the atman that is at once the basic self in us and in the universe. To know this is to enjoy eternal life, to discover that the fundamental "I am" feeling, which you confuse with your superficial ego, is the ultimate reality forever and ever, amen.
In this essential respect, the, the Gospel has been obscured and muffled almost from the beginnings. For Jesus was presumably trying to say that our consciousness is the divine spirit, "the light which enlightens every one who comes into the world," and which George Fox, founder of the Quakers, called the Inward Light. But the Church, still bound to the image of God as the King of kings, couldn’t accept this Gospel. It adopted a religion about Jesus instead of the religion of Jesus. It kicked him upstairs and put him in the privileged and unique position of being the Boss’s son, so that, having this unique advantage, his life and example became useless to everyone else. The individual Christian must not know that his own "I am" is the one that existed before Abraham. In this way, the Church institutionalized and made a virtue of feeling chronic guilt for not being as good as Jesus. It only widened the alienation, the colossal difference, that monotheism put between man and God.
When I try to explain this to Jesus freaks and other Bible bangers, they invariably reveal theological ignorance by saying, "But doesn’t the Bible say that Jesus was the only -begotten son of God?" It doesn’t. Not, at least, according to Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Anglican interpretations. The phrase "only-begotten son refers not to Jesus the man but to the Second Person of the Trinity, God the Son, who is said to have become incarnate in the man Jesus. Nowhere does the Bible, or even the creeds of the Church, say that Jesus was the only incarnation of God the Son in all time and space. Furthermore, it is not generally known that God the Son is symbolized as both male and female, as Logos-Sophia, the Design and the Wisdom of God, based on the passage in Proverbs 7:9, where the Wisdom of God speaks as a woman.
"But then," they go on to argue, "doesn’t the Bible say that there is no other name under heaven whereby men may be saved except the name of Jesus? But what is the name of Jesus? J-E-S-U-S? Iesous? Aissa? Jehoshua? Or however else it may be pronounced? It is said that every prayer said in name of Jesus will be granted, and obviously this doesn’t mean that "Jesus" is a signature on a blank check. It means that prayers will be granted when made in the spirit of Jesus, and that spirit is, again, the Second Person of the Trinity, the eternal God the Son, who could just as well have been incarnate in Krishna, Buddha, Lao-tzu or Ramana Maharshi as in Jesus of Nazareth.
It is amazing what both the Bible and the Church are presumed to teach but don’t teach. Listening to fundamentalists, one would suppose that if there are living beings on other planets in this or other galaxies. they must wait for salvation until missionaries from earth arrive on spaceships, bringing the Bible and baptism. But if "God so loves the world" and means it, He will surely send His son to wherever he is needed, and there is no difference in principle between a planet circling Alpha Centauri and peoples as remote from Palestine A.D. 30 as the Chinese or the Incas. It should be understood that the expression "son of" means "of the nature of," as when we call someone a son of a bitch and as when the Bible uses such phrases as "sons of Belial" (an alien god), or an Arab cusses someone out as e-ben-i-el-homa "son of donkey!" or simply "stupid". Used in this way,"son of" has nothing to do with maleness or being younger than. Likewise, the Second Person of the Trinity, God the Son, the Logos-Sopia, refers to the basic pattern or design of the Universe, ever emerging from the inconceivable mystery or the Father as the galaxies shine out of space. This is how the great philosophers of the Church have thought about the imagery of the Bible and as it appears to a modern student of the history and psychology of world religions. Call it intellectual snobbery if you will, but although the books of the Bible might have been "plain words for plain people" in the days of Isaiah and Jesus, an uneducated and uninformed person who reads them today, and takes them as the literal Word of God, will become a blind and confused bigot.
Let us look at this against the background of the fact that all monotheistic religions have been militant. Wherever God has been idolized as the King or Boss-Principle of the world, believers are agog to impose both their religion and their political rulership upon others. Fanatical believers in the Bible, the Koran and the Torah have fought one another for centuries without realizing that they belong to the same pestiferous club, that they have more in common than they have against one another and that there is simply no way of deciding which of their "unique" revelations of God’s will is the true one. A committed believer in the Koran trots out the same arguments for his point of view as a Southern Baptist devotee of the Bible, and neither can listen to reason, because their whole sense of personal security and integrity depends absolutely upon pretending to follow an external authority. The very existence of this authority, as well as the sense of identity of its follower and true believer, requires an excluded class of infidels, heathens and sinners people whom you can punish and bully so as to know that you are strong and alive. No argument, no reasoning, no contrary evidence can possibly reach the true believer, who, if he is somewhat sophisticated, justifies and even glorifies his invincible stupidity as a "leap of faith" or "sacrifice of the intellect." He quotes the Roman lawyer and theologian Tertullian Credo, quia absurdum est , "I believe because it is absurd" as if Tertullian had said something profound. Such people are, quite literally, idiots originally a Greek word meaning an individual so isolated that you can’t communicate with him.
Oddly enough, there are unbelievers who envy them, who wish that they could have the serenity and peace of mind that come from "knowing" beyond doubt that you have the true Word of God and are in the right. But this overlooks the fact that those who supposedly have this peace within themselves are outwardly obstreperous and violent, standing in dire need of converts and followers to convince themselves of their continuing validity just as much as they need outsiders to punish.
Mindless belief in the literal truth of the Bible and furious zeal to spread the message lead to such widespread follies, in the American Bible Belt, as playing with poisonous snakes and drinking strychnine to prove the truth of Mark 16:18, where Jesus is reported to have said: "They [the faithful] shall take up serpents: and if they drink any deadly, thing, it shall not hurt them." As recently as April 1973, two men (one a pastor) in Newport, Tennessee, died in convulsions from taking large amounts of strychnine before a congregation shouting, "Praise God! Praise God!" So they didn't have enough faith; but such barbarous congregations will go on trying these experiments again and again to test and prove their faith, not realizing that by Christian standards this is arrant spiritual pride. Meanwhile, the Government persecutes religious groups that use such relatively harmless herbs as peyote and marijuana for sacraments.
What is to be done about the existence of millions of such dangerous people in the world? Obviously, they must not be censored or suppressed by their own methods. Even though it is impossible to persuade or argue with them in a reasonable way, it is just possible that they can be wooed and enchanted by a more attractive style of religion, which will show them that their unbending "faith" in their Bibles is simply an inverse expression of doubt and terror a frantic whistling in the dark.
There have been other images of God than the Father-Monarch: the Cosmic Mother; the inmost Self (disguised as all living beings), as in Hinduism; the indefinable Tao, the flowing energy of the universe, as among the Chinese; or no image at all, as with the Buddhists, who are not strictly atheists but who feel that the ultimate reality cannot be pictured in any way and, what is more, that not picturing it is a positive way of feeling it directly, beyond symbols and images. I have called this "atheism in the name of God" a paradoxical and catchy phrase pointing out something missed by learned Protestant theologians who have been talking about "death of God" theology and "religionless Christianity," and asking what of the Gospel of Christ can be saved if life is nothing more than a trip from the maternity ward to the crematorium. It is weird how such sophisticated Biblical scholars must go on clinging to Jesus even when rejecting the basic principle of his teaching the experience that he was God in the flesh, an experience he unknowingly shared with all the great mystics of the world.
Atheism in the name of God is an abandonment of all religious beliefs, including atheism, which in practice is the stubbornly held idea that the world is a mindless mechanism. Atheism in the name of God is giving up the attempt to make sense of the world in terms of any fixed idea or intellectual system. It is becoming again as a child and laying oneself open to reality as it is actually and directly felt, experiencing it without trying to categorize, identify or name it. This can be most easily begun by listening to the world with closed eyes, in the same way that one can listen to music without asking what it says or means. This is actually a turn-on a state of consciousness in which the past and future vanish (because they cannot be heard) and in which there is no audible difference yourself and what you are hearing. There is simply universe, an always present happening in which there is no perceptible difference between self and other, or, as in breathing, between what you do and what happens to you. Without losing command of civilized behavior, you have temporarily "regressed" to what Freud called the oceanic feeling of the baby the feeling that we all lost in learning to make distinctions, but that we should have retained as their necessary background, just as there must be empty white paper under this print if you are to read it.
When you listen to the world in this way, you have begun to practice what Hindus and Buddhists call meditation a re-entry to the real world, as distinct from the abstract world of words and ideas. If you find that you can't stop naming the various sounds and thinking in words, just listen to yourself doing that as another form of noise, a meaningless murmur like the sound of traffic. I won't argue for this experiment. Just try it and see what happens, because this is the basic act of faith of being unreservedly open and vulnerable to what is true and real.
Certainly this is what Jesus himself must have had in mind in that famous passage in the Sermon on the Mount upon which one will seldom hear anything from a pulpit: "Which of you by thinking can add a measure to his height? And why are you anxious about clothes? Look at the flowers of the field, how they grow. They neither labor nor spin; and yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his splendor was not arrayed like any one of them. So if God so clothes the wild grass which lives for today and tomorrow is burned, shall He not much more clothe you, faithless ones? . . . Don't be anxious for the future, for the future will take care of itself. Sufficient to the day are its troubles." Even the most devout Christians can’t take this. They feel that such advice was all very well for Jesus, being the Boss's son, but this is no wisdom for us practical and lesser-born mortals. You can, of course, take these words in their allegorical and spiritual sense, which is that you stop clinging in terror to a rigid system of ideas about what will happen to you after you die, or as to what, exactly, are the procedures of the court of heaven, whereby the world is supposedly governed. Curiously, both science and mysticism (which might be called religion as experienced rather than religion as written) are based on the experimental attitude of looking directly at what is, of attending to life itself instead of trying to glean it from a book. The scholastic theologians would not look through Galileo’s telescope, and Billy Graham will not experiment with a psychedelic chemical or practice yoga. Two eminent historians of science, Joseph Needham and Lynn White, have pointed out the surprising fact that in both Europe and Asia, science arises from mysticism, because both the mystic and the scientist are types of people who want to know directly, for themselves, rather than be told what to believe.
And in this sense they follow the advice of Jesus to become again "as little children," to look at the world with open, clear, and unprejudiced eyes, as if they had never seen it before. It is in this spirit that an astronomer must look at the sky and a yogi must attend to the immediately present moment, as when he concentrates on a prolonged sound. Years and years of book study may simply fossilize you into fixed habits of thought so that any perceptive person will know in advance how you will react to any situation or idea. Imagining yourself reliable, you become merely predictable and, alas, boring. Most sermons are tedious. One knows in advance what the preacher is going to say, however dressed up on a fancy language. Going strictly by the book, he will have no original ideas or experiences, for which reason both he and his followers become rigid and easily shocked personalities who cannot swing, wiggle, lilt or dance.
In this connection it should be noted that the blacks of the South swing and wiggle quite admirably, even in church but this is because the preacher, starting from the Bible in deference to his white overlords, very soon reverts to the rhythms and incantations of some old-time African religion, and there is no knowing at all what he is going to say. This is perhaps one of the principle roots of conflict between whites and blacks in the American South that the former go by the Book and the latter by the spirit, which, like the wind, as Jesus put it, blows where it wills, and you can’t tell where it comes from or where it’s going.
Thus, we reach the seeming paradox that you cannot at once idolize the Bible and embody the spirit of Jesus. He twitted the Pharisees as today he would twit the fundamentalists: "You search the Scriptures daily, for in them you think you have life." The religion of Jesus was to trust life, both as he felt it in himself and as he saw it around him. Most of us would feel that this was a ridiculous gamble to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness but, come to think of it, is there any real alternative? Basiaclly, no human community can exist that is not founded on mutual trust as distinct from law and its enforcement. The alternative to mutual trust, which is indeed a risky gamble, is the security of the police state.
For many centuries the Roman Catholic Church was opposed to translating the Holy Scriptures into the "vulgar tongue.” To this day, you can still get rid of a Bible salesman by saying, "But we are Catholics and, of course, don’t read the Bible.” The Catholic hierarchy included subtle theologians and scholars who knew very well that such a difficult and diverse collection of ancient writings, taken as the literal Word of God, would be wildly and dangerously interpreted if put into the hands of ignorant and uneducated peasants. Likewise, when a missionary boasted to George Bernard Shaw of the numerous converts he had made, Shaw asked, " Can these people use rifles?” "Oh, indeed, yes,” said the missionary. "Some of them are very good shots.” Whereupon Shaw scolded him for putting us all in peril in the day when those converts waged holy war against us for not following the Bible in the literal sense they gave to it. For the Bible says, "What a good thing it is when the Lord putteth into the hands of the righteous invincible might.” But today, especially in the United States, there is a taboo against admitting that there are enormous numbers of stupid and ignorant people, in the bookish and literal sense of these words. They may be highly intelligent in the arts of farming, manufacture, engineering and finance, and even in physics, chemistry or medicine. But this intelligence does not automatically flow over to the fields of history, archaeology, linguistics, theology, philosophy and mythology which are what one needs to know in order to make any sense out such archaic literature as the books of the Bible.
This may sound snobbish, for there is an assumption that, in the Bible, God gave His message in plain words for plain people. Once, when I had given a radio broadcast in Canada, the announcer took me aside and said, "Don’t you think that if there is a truly loving God, He would given us a plain and specific guide as to how to live our lives?”
"On the contrary," I replied, "a truly loving God would not stultify our minds. He would encourage us to think for ourselves." I tried, then, to show him that his belief in the divine authority of the Bible rested on nothing more than his own personal opinion, to which, of course, he was entitled. This is basic. The authority of the Bible, the church, the state, or of any spiritual or political leader, is derived from the individual followers and believers, since it is the believers’ judgment that such leaders and institutions speak with a greater wisdom than there own. This is, obviously, a paradox, for only the wise can recognize wisdom. Thus, Catholics criticize Protestants for following their own opinions in understanding the Bible, as distinct from the interpretations of the Church, which originally issued and authorized the Bible. But Catholics seldom realize that the authority of the Church rests, likewise, on the opinion of its individual members that the Papacy and the councils of the Church are authoritative. The same is true of the state, for, as a French statesman said, people get the government they deserve.
Why does one come to the opinion that the Bible, literally understood, is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Usually because one’s "elders and betters," or an impressively large group of ones peers, have this opinion. But this is to go along with the Bandar-log, or monkey tribe, in Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Books , who periodically get together and shout, "We all say so, so it must be true!" Having been a grandfather for a number of years, I am not particularly impressed with patriarchal authority. I am of an age with my own formerly impressive grandfathers (one of whom was a fervent fundamentalist, or literal believer in the Bible) and I realize that my opinions are as fallible as theirs.
But many people never grow up. They stay all their lives with a passionate need for eternal authority and guidance, pretending not to trust their own judgment. Nevertheless, it is their own judgment, willy-nilly, that there exists some authority greater than their own. The fervent fundamentalist whether Protestant or Catholic, Jew or Moslem is closed to reason and even communication for fear of losing the security of childish dependence. He would suffer extreme emotional heebie jeebies if he didn’t have the feeling that there was some external and infallible guide in which he could trust absolutely and without which his very identity would dissolve.
This attitude is not faith. It is pure idolatry. The more deceptive idols are not images of wood and stone but are constructed of words and ideas and mental images of God. Faith is an openness and trusting attitude to truth and reality, whatever it may turn out to be. This is a risky and adventurous state of mind. Belief, in the religious sense, is the opposite of faith because it is a fervent wishing or hope, a compulsive clinging to the idea that the universe is arranged and governed in such and such a way. Belief is holding to a rock; faith is learning how to swim and this whole universe swims in boundless space.
Thus, in much of the English-speaking world, the King James Bible is a rigid idol, all the more deceptive for being translated into the most melodious English and for being an anthology of ancient literature that contains sublime wisdom along with barbaric histories and the war songs of tribes on the rampage. All this is taken as the literal Word and counsel of God, as it is by fundamentalist Baptists, Jesus freaks, Jehovah’s Witnesses and comparable sects, which by and large know nothing of the history of the Bible, of how it was edited and put together. So we have with us the social menace of a huge population of intellectually and morally irresponsible people. Take a ruler and measure the listings under "Churches" in the Yellow Pages of the phone directory. You will find that the fundamentalists have by far the most space. And under what pressure do most hotels and motels place Gideon Bibles by the bedside Bibles with clearly fundamentalist introductory material, taking their name Gideon from one of the more ferocious military leaders of the ancient Israelites?
As is well known, the enormous political power of fundamentalists is what makes legislators afraid to take laws against victimless "sins" and crimes off the books, and what corrupts the police by forcing them to be armed preachers enforcing ecclesiastical laws in a country where church and state are supposed to be separate ignoring the basic Christian doctrine that no actions, or abstentions from actions, are of moral import unless undertaken voluntarily. Freedom is risky and includes the risk that anyone may go to hell in his own way.
Now, the King James Bible did not, as one might gather from listening to fundamentalists, descend with an Angel from heaven A.D. 1611, when it was first published. It was an elegant, but often inaccurate, translation of Hebrew and Greek documents composed between 900 B.C. and A.D. 120. There is no manuscript of the Old Testament, that is, of the Hebrew Scriptures, written in Hebrew, earlier than the Ninth Century B.C. But we know that these documents were first put together and recognized as the Holy Scriptures by a convention of rabbis held at Jamnia (Yavne) in Palestine shortly before A.D. 100. On their say-so. Likewise, the composition of the Christian Bible, which documents to include and which to drop, was decided by a council of the Catholic Church held in Carthage in the latter part of the Fourth Century. Several books that had formerly been read in the churches, such as the Shepherd of Hermas and the marvelous Gospel of Saint Thomas , were then excluded. The point is that the books translated in the King James Bible were declared canonical and divinely inspired by the authority (A) of the Synod of Jamnia and (B) of the Catholic Church, meeting in Carthage more than 300 years after the time of Jesus. It is thus that fundamentalist Protestants get the authority of their Bible from Jews who had rejected Jesus and from Catholics whom they abominate as the Scarlet Woman mentioned in Revelation.
The Bible, to repeat, is an anthology of Hebrew and late Greek literature, edited and put forth by a council of Catholic bishops who believed that they were acting under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Before this time the Bible as we know it did not exist. There were the Hebrew Scriptures and their translated into Greek the Septuagint, which was made in Alexandria between 250 B.C. and 100 B.C. There were also various codices, or Greek manuscripts, of various parts of the New Testament, such as the four Gospels. There were numerous other writings circulating among Christians, including the Epistles of Saint Paul and Saint John, the Apocalypse (Revelation) and such documents (later excluded) as the Acts of John , the Didache , the Apostolic Constitutions and the various Epistles of Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp.
In those days, and until the Protestant Reformation in the 16th Century, the Scriptures were not understood exclusively in a narrow literal sense. From Clement of Alexandria (Second Century) to Saint Thomas Aquinas (13th Century), the great theologians, or Fathers of the Church, recognized four ways of interpreting the Scriptures: the literal or historical, the moral, the allegorical and the spiritual and they were overwhelmingly interested in the last three. Origen (Second Century) regarded much of the Old Testament as "puerile" if taken literally, and Jewish theologians were likewise preoccupied with finding hidden meanings in the Scriptures, for the concern of all these theologians was to interpret the Biblical texts in such a way as to make the Bible intellectually respectable and philosophically interesting. Concern over the historical truth of the Bible is relatively modern, whether in the form of fundamentalism or of scientific research.
But when the Bible was translated and widely distributed as a result of the invention of printing, it fell into the hands of people who, like the Jesus freaks of today, were simply uneducated and who, as the depressed classes of Europe, eventually swarmed over to America. This is, naturally, a heroic generalization. There were, and are, fundamentalists learned in languages and sciences (although the standard translation of the Bible into Chinese is said to be in fearful taste), just as there are professors of physics and anthropology who somehow manage to be pious Mormons. Some people have the peculiar ability to divide their minds into watertight compartments, being critical and rational in matters of science but credulous as children when it comes to religion.
Such superstition would have been relatively harmless if the religion had been something tolerant and pacific, such as Taoism or Buddhism. But the religion of the literally understood Bible is chauvinistic and militant. It is on the march to conquer the world and to establish itself as the one and only true belief. Among its most popular hymns are such battle songs as "Mine eyes have seen the glory" and Onward, Christian Soldiers. The God of the Hebrews, the Arabs and the Christians is a mental idol fashioned in the image of the great monarchs of Egypt, Chaldea and Persia. It was possibly Ikhnaton (Amenhotep IV, 14th Century B.C.), Pharaoh of Egypt, who gave Moses the idea of monotheism (as suggested in Freud’s Moses and Monotheism). Certainly the veneration of God as "King of kings and Lord of lords" borrows the official title of the Persian emperors. Thus, the political pattern of tyranny, beneficent or otherwise, of rule by violence, whether physical or moral, stands firmly behind the Biblical idea of Jehovah.
When one considers the architecture and ritual of churches, whether Catholic or Protestant, it is obvious until most recent times that they are based on royal or judicial courts. A monarch who rules by force sits in the central court of his donjon with his back to the wall, flanked by guards, and those who come to petition him for justice or to offer tribute must kneel or prostrate themselves simply because these are difficult positions from which to start a fight. Such monarchs are, of course, frightened of their subjects and constantly on the anxious alert for rebellion. Is this an appropriate image for the inconceivable energy that underlies the universe? True, the altar-throne in Catholic churches is occupied by the image of God in the form of one crucified as a common thief, but he hangs there as our leader in subjection to the Almighty Father, King of the universe, propitiating Him for those who have broken His not always reasonable laws. And what of the curious resemblances between Protestant churches and courts of law? The minister and the judge wear the same black robe and "throw the book" at those assembled in pews and various kinds of boxes, and both ministers and judges have chairs of estate that are still, in effect, thrones.
The crucial question, then, is that if you picture the universe as a monarchy, how can you believe that a republic is the best form of government, and so be a loyal citizen of the United States? It is thus that fundamentalists veer to the extreme right wing in politics, being of the personality type that demands strong external and paternalistic authority. Their "rugged individualism" and their racism are founded on the conviction that they are the elect of God the Father, and their forebears took possession of America as the armies of Joshua took possession of Canaan, treating the Indians as Joshua and Gideon treated the Bedouin of Palestine. In the same spirit the Protestant British, Dutch and Germans took possession of Africa, India and Indonesia, and the rigid Catholics of Spain and Portugal colonized Latin America. Such territorial expansion may or may not be practical politics, but to do it in the name of Jesus of Nazareth is an outrage.
The Bible is a dangerous book, though by no means an evil one. It depends, largely, on how you read it with what prejudices and with what intellectual background. Regarded as sacred and authoritative, such a complex collection of histories, legends, allegories and images becomes a monstrous Rorschach blot in which you can picture almost anything you want to discover just as one can see cities and mountains in the clouds or faces in the fire. Fundamentalists "prove" the truth of the Bible by trying to show how the words of the prophets have foretold events that have come to pass in relatively recent times. But any statistician knows that you can find correlations, if you want to, between almost any two sets of patterns or rhythms between the occurrence of sunspots and fluctuations of the stock market, between the lines and bumps on your hand and the course of your life or between the architecture of the Great Pyramid and the history of Europe. This is because of eidetic vision, or the brain’s ability to project visions and forms of its own into any material whatsoever. But scholars of ancient history find the remarks of the prophets entirely relevant to events of their own time, in the ancient Near East. The Biblical prophets were not so much predictors as social commentators.
I am not in the position of those liberal Christians who reject fundamentalism but must still insist that Jesus was the one and only incarnation of God, or at least the most perfect human being. No one is intellectually free who feels that he cannot and must not disagree with Jesus and is therefore forced into the dishonest practice of wangling the words of the Gospels to fit his own opinions. There is not a scrap of evidence that Jesus was familiar with any other religious tradition than that of the Hebrew Scriptures or that he knew anything of the civilizations of India, China or Peru. Under these circumstances, he was faced with the virtually impossible problem of expressing himself in the peculiar religious language and imagery of his local culture. For it is obvious to any student of the psychology of religion that what he needed to express was the relatively common change of consciousness known as mystical experience the vivid and overwhelming sensation that your own being is one with eternal and ultimate reality. But it was as hard for Jesus to say this as it still is for a native of the American Bible Belt. It implies the blasphemous, subversive and lunatic claim to be identical with the all-knowing and allruling monarch of the world its Pharaoh or Cyrus. Jesus would have had no trouble in India, for this experience is the foundation of Hinduism, and the Hindus recognize many people in both ancient and modern times as embodiments of the divine, or sons of God but not, of course, of the kind of God represented by Jehovah. Buddhists, likewise, teach that anyone can, and finally will, become a Buddha (an Enlightened One), in the same way as the historic Gautama.
If the Gospel of Saint John , in particular, is to be believed, Jesus emphatically identified himself with the Godhead, considering such phrases as "I and the Father are one," or "He who has seen me has seen the Father," or "Before Abraham was, I am," or "I am the way, the truth and the life." But this was not an exclusive claim for himself as the man Jesus, for at John 10:31, just after he has said "I and the Father are one," the crowd picks up rocks to stone him to death.
He protests:
"Many good works have I shown you from my Father; for which of those works do you stone me?" The Jews answered him, saying, "We do not stone you for a good work, but for blasphemy, and because you, being a man, make yourself God."
And here it comes:
Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your law, I said, you are gods [quoting Psalms 82]? If He [i.e., God] called those to whom He gave His word gods and you can’t contradict the Scriptures how can you say of Him whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You blaspheme!’ because I said, ‘I am a son of God" [The original Greek says "a son," not "the son."]
In other words, the Gospel, or "good news" that Jesus was trying to convey, despite the limitations of his tradition, was that we are all sons of God. When he uses the terms I am (as in "Before Abraham was, I am") or Me (as in "No one comes to the Father but by Me"), he is intending to use them in the same way as Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita :
He who sees Me everywhere and sees all in Me; I am not lost to him, nor is he lost to Me. The yogi who, established in oneness, worships Me abiding in all beings, lives in Me, whatever be his outward life.
And by this "Me" Krishna means the atman that is at once the basic self in us and in the universe. To know this is to enjoy eternal life, to discover that the fundamental "I am" feeling, which you confuse with your superficial ego, is the ultimate reality forever and ever, amen.
In this essential respect, the, the Gospel has been obscured and muffled almost from the beginnings. For Jesus was presumably trying to say that our consciousness is the divine spirit, "the light which enlightens every one who comes into the world," and which George Fox, founder of the Quakers, called the Inward Light. But the Church, still bound to the image of God as the King of kings, couldn’t accept this Gospel. It adopted a religion about Jesus instead of the religion of Jesus. It kicked him upstairs and put him in the privileged and unique position of being the Boss’s son, so that, having this unique advantage, his life and example became useless to everyone else. The individual Christian must not know that his own "I am" is the one that existed before Abraham. In this way, the Church institutionalized and made a virtue of feeling chronic guilt for not being as good as Jesus. It only widened the alienation, the colossal difference, that monotheism put between man and God.
When I try to explain this to Jesus freaks and other Bible bangers, they invariably reveal theological ignorance by saying, "But doesn’t the Bible say that Jesus was the only -begotten son of God?" It doesn’t. Not, at least, according to Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Anglican interpretations. The phrase "only-begotten son refers not to Jesus the man but to the Second Person of the Trinity, God the Son, who is said to have become incarnate in the man Jesus. Nowhere does the Bible, or even the creeds of the Church, say that Jesus was the only incarnation of God the Son in all time and space. Furthermore, it is not generally known that God the Son is symbolized as both male and female, as Logos-Sophia, the Design and the Wisdom of God, based on the passage in Proverbs 7:9, where the Wisdom of God speaks as a woman.
"But then," they go on to argue, "doesn’t the Bible say that there is no other name under heaven whereby men may be saved except the name of Jesus? But what is the name of Jesus? J-E-S-U-S? Iesous? Aissa? Jehoshua? Or however else it may be pronounced? It is said that every prayer said in name of Jesus will be granted, and obviously this doesn’t mean that "Jesus" is a signature on a blank check. It means that prayers will be granted when made in the spirit of Jesus, and that spirit is, again, the Second Person of the Trinity, the eternal God the Son, who could just as well have been incarnate in Krishna, Buddha, Lao-tzu or Ramana Maharshi as in Jesus of Nazareth.
It is amazing what both the Bible and the Church are presumed to teach but don’t teach. Listening to fundamentalists, one would suppose that if there are living beings on other planets in this or other galaxies. they must wait for salvation until missionaries from earth arrive on spaceships, bringing the Bible and baptism. But if "God so loves the world" and means it, He will surely send His son to wherever he is needed, and there is no difference in principle between a planet circling Alpha Centauri and peoples as remote from Palestine A.D. 30 as the Chinese or the Incas. It should be understood that the expression "son of" means "of the nature of," as when we call someone a son of a bitch and as when the Bible uses such phrases as "sons of Belial" (an alien god), or an Arab cusses someone out as e-ben-i-el-homa "son of donkey!" or simply "stupid". Used in this way,"son of" has nothing to do with maleness or being younger than. Likewise, the Second Person of the Trinity, God the Son, the Logos-Sopia, refers to the basic pattern or design of the Universe, ever emerging from the inconceivable mystery or the Father as the galaxies shine out of space. This is how the great philosophers of the Church have thought about the imagery of the Bible and as it appears to a modern student of the history and psychology of world religions. Call it intellectual snobbery if you will, but although the books of the Bible might have been "plain words for plain people" in the days of Isaiah and Jesus, an uneducated and uninformed person who reads them today, and takes them as the literal Word of God, will become a blind and confused bigot.
Let us look at this against the background of the fact that all monotheistic religions have been militant. Wherever God has been idolized as the King or Boss-Principle of the world, believers are agog to impose both their religion and their political rulership upon others. Fanatical believers in the Bible, the Koran and the Torah have fought one another for centuries without realizing that they belong to the same pestiferous club, that they have more in common than they have against one another and that there is simply no way of deciding which of their "unique" revelations of God’s will is the true one. A committed believer in the Koran trots out the same arguments for his point of view as a Southern Baptist devotee of the Bible, and neither can listen to reason, because their whole sense of personal security and integrity depends absolutely upon pretending to follow an external authority. The very existence of this authority, as well as the sense of identity of its follower and true believer, requires an excluded class of infidels, heathens and sinners people whom you can punish and bully so as to know that you are strong and alive. No argument, no reasoning, no contrary evidence can possibly reach the true believer, who, if he is somewhat sophisticated, justifies and even glorifies his invincible stupidity as a "leap of faith" or "sacrifice of the intellect." He quotes the Roman lawyer and theologian Tertullian Credo, quia absurdum est , "I believe because it is absurd" as if Tertullian had said something profound. Such people are, quite literally, idiots originally a Greek word meaning an individual so isolated that you can’t communicate with him.
Oddly enough, there are unbelievers who envy them, who wish that they could have the serenity and peace of mind that come from "knowing" beyond doubt that you have the true Word of God and are in the right. But this overlooks the fact that those who supposedly have this peace within themselves are outwardly obstreperous and violent, standing in dire need of converts and followers to convince themselves of their continuing validity just as much as they need outsiders to punish.
Mindless belief in the literal truth of the Bible and furious zeal to spread the message lead to such widespread follies, in the American Bible Belt, as playing with poisonous snakes and drinking strychnine to prove the truth of Mark 16:18, where Jesus is reported to have said: "They [the faithful] shall take up serpents: and if they drink any deadly, thing, it shall not hurt them." As recently as April 1973, two men (one a pastor) in Newport, Tennessee, died in convulsions from taking large amounts of strychnine before a congregation shouting, "Praise God! Praise God!" So they didn't have enough faith; but such barbarous congregations will go on trying these experiments again and again to test and prove their faith, not realizing that by Christian standards this is arrant spiritual pride. Meanwhile, the Government persecutes religious groups that use such relatively harmless herbs as peyote and marijuana for sacraments.
What is to be done about the existence of millions of such dangerous people in the world? Obviously, they must not be censored or suppressed by their own methods. Even though it is impossible to persuade or argue with them in a reasonable way, it is just possible that they can be wooed and enchanted by a more attractive style of religion, which will show them that their unbending "faith" in their Bibles is simply an inverse expression of doubt and terror a frantic whistling in the dark.
There have been other images of God than the Father-Monarch: the Cosmic Mother; the inmost Self (disguised as all living beings), as in Hinduism; the indefinable Tao, the flowing energy of the universe, as among the Chinese; or no image at all, as with the Buddhists, who are not strictly atheists but who feel that the ultimate reality cannot be pictured in any way and, what is more, that not picturing it is a positive way of feeling it directly, beyond symbols and images. I have called this "atheism in the name of God" a paradoxical and catchy phrase pointing out something missed by learned Protestant theologians who have been talking about "death of God" theology and "religionless Christianity," and asking what of the Gospel of Christ can be saved if life is nothing more than a trip from the maternity ward to the crematorium. It is weird how such sophisticated Biblical scholars must go on clinging to Jesus even when rejecting the basic principle of his teaching the experience that he was God in the flesh, an experience he unknowingly shared with all the great mystics of the world.
Atheism in the name of God is an abandonment of all religious beliefs, including atheism, which in practice is the stubbornly held idea that the world is a mindless mechanism. Atheism in the name of God is giving up the attempt to make sense of the world in terms of any fixed idea or intellectual system. It is becoming again as a child and laying oneself open to reality as it is actually and directly felt, experiencing it without trying to categorize, identify or name it. This can be most easily begun by listening to the world with closed eyes, in the same way that one can listen to music without asking what it says or means. This is actually a turn-on a state of consciousness in which the past and future vanish (because they cannot be heard) and in which there is no audible difference yourself and what you are hearing. There is simply universe, an always present happening in which there is no perceptible difference between self and other, or, as in breathing, between what you do and what happens to you. Without losing command of civilized behavior, you have temporarily "regressed" to what Freud called the oceanic feeling of the baby the feeling that we all lost in learning to make distinctions, but that we should have retained as their necessary background, just as there must be empty white paper under this print if you are to read it.
When you listen to the world in this way, you have begun to practice what Hindus and Buddhists call meditation a re-entry to the real world, as distinct from the abstract world of words and ideas. If you find that you can't stop naming the various sounds and thinking in words, just listen to yourself doing that as another form of noise, a meaningless murmur like the sound of traffic. I won't argue for this experiment. Just try it and see what happens, because this is the basic act of faith of being unreservedly open and vulnerable to what is true and real.
Certainly this is what Jesus himself must have had in mind in that famous passage in the Sermon on the Mount upon which one will seldom hear anything from a pulpit: "Which of you by thinking can add a measure to his height? And why are you anxious about clothes? Look at the flowers of the field, how they grow. They neither labor nor spin; and yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his splendor was not arrayed like any one of them. So if God so clothes the wild grass which lives for today and tomorrow is burned, shall He not much more clothe you, faithless ones? . . . Don't be anxious for the future, for the future will take care of itself. Sufficient to the day are its troubles." Even the most devout Christians can’t take this. They feel that such advice was all very well for Jesus, being the Boss's son, but this is no wisdom for us practical and lesser-born mortals. You can, of course, take these words in their allegorical and spiritual sense, which is that you stop clinging in terror to a rigid system of ideas about what will happen to you after you die, or as to what, exactly, are the procedures of the court of heaven, whereby the world is supposedly governed. Curiously, both science and mysticism (which might be called religion as experienced rather than religion as written) are based on the experimental attitude of looking directly at what is, of attending to life itself instead of trying to glean it from a book. The scholastic theologians would not look through Galileo’s telescope, and Billy Graham will not experiment with a psychedelic chemical or practice yoga. Two eminent historians of science, Joseph Needham and Lynn White, have pointed out the surprising fact that in both Europe and Asia, science arises from mysticism, because both the mystic and the scientist are types of people who want to know directly, for themselves, rather than be told what to believe.
And in this sense they follow the advice of Jesus to become again "as little children," to look at the world with open, clear, and unprejudiced eyes, as if they had never seen it before. It is in this spirit that an astronomer must look at the sky and a yogi must attend to the immediately present moment, as when he concentrates on a prolonged sound. Years and years of book study may simply fossilize you into fixed habits of thought so that any perceptive person will know in advance how you will react to any situation or idea. Imagining yourself reliable, you become merely predictable and, alas, boring. Most sermons are tedious. One knows in advance what the preacher is going to say, however dressed up on a fancy language. Going strictly by the book, he will have no original ideas or experiences, for which reason both he and his followers become rigid and easily shocked personalities who cannot swing, wiggle, lilt or dance.
In this connection it should be noted that the blacks of the South swing and wiggle quite admirably, even in church but this is because the preacher, starting from the Bible in deference to his white overlords, very soon reverts to the rhythms and incantations of some old-time African religion, and there is no knowing at all what he is going to say. This is perhaps one of the principle roots of conflict between whites and blacks in the American South that the former go by the Book and the latter by the spirit, which, like the wind, as Jesus put it, blows where it wills, and you can’t tell where it comes from or where it’s going.
Thus, we reach the seeming paradox that you cannot at once idolize the Bible and embody the spirit of Jesus. He twitted the Pharisees as today he would twit the fundamentalists: "You search the Scriptures daily, for in them you think you have life." The religion of Jesus was to trust life, both as he felt it in himself and as he saw it around him. Most of us would feel that this was a ridiculous gamble to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness but, come to think of it, is there any real alternative? Basiaclly, no human community can exist that is not founded on mutual trust as distinct from law and its enforcement. The alternative to mutual trust, which is indeed a risky gamble, is the security of the police state.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
I
am of the nature to age:
am of the nature to sicken:
am of the nature to die:
ALL THAT IS MINE,
BELOVED AND PLEASING,
WILL CHANGE AND BECOME OTHERWISE,
WILL BECOME SEPERATED FROM ME.
am of the nature to sicken:
am of the nature to die:
ALL THAT IS MINE,
BELOVED AND PLEASING,
WILL CHANGE AND BECOME OTHERWISE,
WILL BECOME SEPERATED FROM ME.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
how civilized r we
there is a very serious problem ndermining the human psyche which needs to be address very very quickley thou those in power r unaware of it, they only see the results but fail to question the reason or cause behind all tat is happening, why is that people today turn to drugs as a way to run away from their problems and their emotions, r we moving to fast?????????
Friday, June 26, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
everyone is missing the point about NEDA i hope she didnt die for nothing.
she has died, and for what, people try to blame religion, then those with religion try to blame those without religion, is this getting anywhere,
Monday, May 25, 2009
have we learnt nothing
Gandhism (or Gandhianism) is a collection of inspirations, principles, beliefs and philosophy of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (known as Mahatma Gandhi), who was a major political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian Independence Movement.
It is a body of ideas and principles that describes the inspiration, vision and the life work of Gandhi. The term also encompasses what Gandhi's ideas, words and actions mean to people around the world, and how they used them for guidance in building their own future. Gandhism also permeates into the realm of the individual human being, non-political and non-social. A Gandhian can mean either an individual who follows, or a specific philosophy which is attributed to, Gandhism.
Talking about "Gandhism" Gandhi had said "There is no such thing as 'Gandhism', and I do not want to leave any sect after me. I do not claim to have originated any new principle or doctrine. I have simply tried in my own way to apply the eternal truths to our daily life and problems.". He said "The opinions I have formed and the conclusions I have arrived at are not final. I may change them tomorrow." “I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills.” he added[1]
Eminent scholar, Professor Ramjee Singh has called Mahatma Gandhi as the Bodhisattva of the twentieth century.[2]
It is a body of ideas and principles that describes the inspiration, vision and the life work of Gandhi. The term also encompasses what Gandhi's ideas, words and actions mean to people around the world, and how they used them for guidance in building their own future. Gandhism also permeates into the realm of the individual human being, non-political and non-social. A Gandhian can mean either an individual who follows, or a specific philosophy which is attributed to, Gandhism.
Talking about "Gandhism" Gandhi had said "There is no such thing as 'Gandhism', and I do not want to leave any sect after me. I do not claim to have originated any new principle or doctrine. I have simply tried in my own way to apply the eternal truths to our daily life and problems.". He said "The opinions I have formed and the conclusions I have arrived at are not final. I may change them tomorrow." “I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills.” he added[1]
Eminent scholar, Professor Ramjee Singh has called Mahatma Gandhi as the Bodhisattva of the twentieth century.[2]
Friday, April 24, 2009
to find
truth should be the goal of all, so many float throu unmindfully that they are unable to see what is real, what really matters in life, what really does make someone happy, what really does happen within our own mind, these things are all very similar and have been for centuries, which is why so many religions have lasted for so long, because they speak of everyday activities that people still have trouble with today, this is because they all arise from one source, and this source hasnt changed, and the basics of the nivers havent changed,
Sunday, March 22, 2009
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In the Garden of Solitude
T he stillness where shadows whisper, I wander the garden of my solitude, Amongst the withered petals of hope, Fear blooms like a nig...
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I dont like to follow. This has been both a blessing and a curse, but always a lesson. I want my own experince, whether its "good...
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T he stillness where shadows whisper, I wander the garden of my solitude, Amongst the withered petals of hope, Fear blooms like a nig... -
good days and bad, waves of emotions blending into each other, fueled by loneliness, caffeine, stress, worry and overthinking, trying to f...