Những tôn giáo lớn trong đời sống nhân loại

KẾT LUẬN

22. TIẾN TỚI ĐỜI SỐNG PHONG PHÚ HƠN

Vì đã bắt đầu làm quen với những tôn giáo lớn khác nhau trên thế giới trong những chương trước đây, bạn có thể hỏi: "Từ những tôn giáo này, cá nhân tôi phải chọn tôn giáo cho tôi? Liệu tôi có phải quyết định để trở thành người Phật Tử, hay người Ấn Giáo, hay người Hồi Giáo, hay người Khổng Giáo, hay môn đồ của Do Thái Giáo, hay người Cơ Đốc Giáo? Có lẽ, một mặt khác bạn đã ngạc nhiên một cách vui vẻ thấy những những tôn giáo khác cao thượng hợn bạn tưởng nhiều. Thâm chí bạn cảm thấy bạn đã khám phá một ít nhận thức mới sâu xa mà tôn giáo riêng của bạn dường như bỏ sót. Mặt khác, bạn có thể lo lắng về khả năng chấp nhận niềm tin của một tín ngưỡng mà người khác gọi là "Phật Tử" hay "Không Giáo" vì sợ rằng hồ như bạn trở thành bơ vơ trong nhà thờ hay cộng đồng của bạn. Có một cảm giác yên tâm khi tin rằng văn hóa tôn giáo do văn hóa của mình mang lại là cái tốt nhất trong tất cả tôn giáo -- ít nhất là cho chính mình.

Xét cho cùng, người ta nói, có những thứ mà đời sống cho chúng ta nhưng không có sự lựa chọn của chúng ta. Bởi vô tình mà sinh ra, mỗi chúng ta có thể trắng, hay nâu, vàng hoe hay ngăm đen, Mỹ hay Pháp, nam hay nữ. Những cái "được cho" khác quyết định cho chúng ta về mặt xã hội -- những tục lệ ở nước bạn, gia đình hay tôn giáo quốc gia của bạn. Bởi vô tình sinh ra, mỗi một người trong chúng ta sinh vào một nhà văn hóa tự nó được gọi bằng tên riêng như Ấn Giáo, Phật Giáo, Do Thái Giáo, hay Cơ Đốc Giáo. Rất lâu trước khi chúng ta tiến tới cái gọi là "tuổi khôn lớn", khi đúng là chúng ta có thể lựa chọn cho chính mình trên cơ sở của lý trí và kinh nghiệm đã được dân tộc đó làm sáng tỏ, hầu hết chúng ta hoàn toàn hấp thụ những giá trị do văn hóa đem lại mà rất ít người trong chúng ta có quyết định cấp tiến để từ bỏ sự giáo dục của chúng ta.

Tuy nhiên hầu hết chúng ta có một nhu cầu sâu xa hơn sự tự nguyện theo quá khứ của chúng ta hay giống như những người chung quanh chúng ta. Dưới những hoạt động và quyền lợi hiển nhiên của chúng ta, là cái nhân của sự ham muốn khám phá cho chính mình xem, chúng ta thực sự là ai, và cái gì trong đời sống là quan trọng. Nhiều triệu người đã hỏi những câu này trước chúng ta, dù người ta có tin chắc về câu trả lời của họ đến đâu thì mỗi người chúng ta vẫn có cái khát khao riêng tư khám phá cho chính mình.

Đúng như đứa bé mới học bò, và đưa lên miệng thử mọi thứ mà nó được chạm vào. Thật đúng là thanh niên hay cố gắng khám phá ý nghĩa của cuộc đời, tình yêu, và công việc làm. Và đúng là người già luôn có khả năng làm được điều kỳ lạ đòi hỏi bền bỉ.

Rất quan trọng là chúng ta tiếp tục duy trì trong lòng mình cái ham thích tìm hiểu và biết cách đặt vấn đề. Tin vào sự ngờ vực lương thiện còn hơn là tin vào tất cả những tín điều của quá khứ và hiện tại mà không xem xét. Trong ý nghĩa này mỗi một người trong chúng ta phải đọc cho hiểu tôn giáo của mình -- đó là, quan niệm của chính mình về cái gì có giá trị tối thượng trong cuộc sống, cách bầy tỏ quan niệm ấy của chính mình, tận tâm trong đời sống hàng ngày đối với những giá trị mà mình tin tưởng là căn bản. (Những lời nói cụ thể dùng để mô tả những tiến trình này tương đối không quan trọng, khi tất cả tinh thần tự do trong tôn giáo đã được công nhận ở khắp nơi -- trước sự kinh hoàng của những người bảo thủ thận trọng hay các thầy tu phản động).

Có thể dường như lạ lùng, chỉ khi chúng ta khám phá chiều sâu của kinh nghiệm cá nhân nằm dưới những khác biệt mà chúng ta có khả năng hiểu rõ tại sao có những khác biệt này. Và những gì chúng ta thấy ở một mức độ sâu hơn cho chúng ta thấy những nhân tố phổ quát. Chúng ta vỡ lẽ ra rằng trên những phương diện sâu xa tất cả mọi người đều giống nhau -- dù cho mỗi người có một nguồn gốc.

KHÔNG GIAN CHO CUỘC SỐNG SÁNG TẠO

Một trong những điều kỳ diệu bất diệt trong đời sống là bao giờ cũng có chỗ cho người khác, có khái niệm khác, có sự giải thích khác. Mỗi người trong chúng ta đều có cơ may giữ một vị trí trong vũ trụ của chúng ta. Chúng ta xây dựng "không gian sống" cho chính chúng ta trước tiên qua thái độ của chúng ta rồi qua những nỗ lực và hành động của chúng ta, với xóm giềng và trong toàn bộ thế giới của chúng ta.

Một mặt chúng ta cố gắng vật lộn với cái "không gian sống" cho chính chúng ta bằng cách dùng một thái độ thù nghịch đối với những người khác và hung hăng chống lại những ai mà chúng ta nghĩ là cản đường chúng ta. Hoặc, mặt khác, chúng ta có thể lẩn tránh những cơ hội mà đời sống hiến dâng và rút lui vào một thế giới riêng tư bao quanh bởi sợ hãi và ngờ vực. Trong cả hai trường hợp chúng ta phải bằng lòng có một vị trí nhỏ bé hạn chế trong cuộc sống.

Nhưng chúng ta có sự lựa chọn thứ ba. Chúng ta có thể chào mừng mỗi người và hoàn cảnh chúng ta gặp với thái độ tin cẩn, thân hữu, tìm hiểu. Bằng cách này chúng ta thâm nhập càng ngày càng nhiều vào cái mà người và hoàn cảnh đưa đến. Bởi vậy chúng ta xây dựng một "không gian sống" không ngừng phát triển. Đời sống dường như hiến dâng những giải thưởng phong phú nhất cho những ai đã phát triển khả năng "mở rộng" "không gian sống" của họ một cách liên tục. Đúng là không có ai có thể tạo ra toàn bộ môi trường chung quanh, nhưng mỗi người nhất định xây dựng được một môi trường cá nhân về thái đô và cảm nghĩ dẫn đến có thể sửa đổi đáng kể môi trường chung quanh mình.

CHÚNG TA CÓ THỂ GIÚP ĐỠ LẪN NHAU

Mỗi một người trong chúng ta ở một mức độ nào đó đều xây dựng "không gian sống" riêng của mình. Tuy giống như sợi dọc sợi ngang của một tấm thảm dệt, "không gian sống" của chúng ta gối lên nhau hay thâm nhập vào nhau. Như một nhà thi sĩ Anh Quốc John Donne, bầy tỏ từ lâu: Không ai là một hòn đảo hoàn toàn của chính mình; mỗi người là một mảnh của Lục địa, một phần của Biển cả". Cải thiện phẩm chất trong "không gian sống" của chúng ta, thì chúng ta không thể giúp cải thiện phẩm chất của người khác.

Mỗi người trong chúng ta có thể học hỏi hầu hết từ người khác bằng cách theo nguyên tắc của "hạt bụi và tia sáng". Bằng cách ý thức được "tia sáng" theo cặp mắt tín ngưỡng hay không tín ngưỡng của chúng ta, chúng ta ít khuynh hướng xoi mói nhìn vào "khuyết điểm" của người dù chỉ bàng hạt bụi. Nhưng tìm hiểu cái xấu nhất về niềm tin của người khác trong khi lại tập trung vào cái tốt nhất của chính mình thì quả là tai hại cho tình bè bạn của con người và cộng đồng lớn hơn. Đúng hơn, chúng ta phải tìm kiếm cái tốt nhất trong khi không quên bỏ qua cái xấu nhất. Từ Ấn Giáo và Phật Giáo, chẳng hạn, nhiều người Tây phương có thể đi đến (và đã đi đến) sự hiểu biết mới về tầm quan trọng trong việc tìm kiếm cái ngã thật. Để làm việc này, ta cần không quên những nhược điểm của Ấn Giáo như đã được vạch ra bởi một người Ấn Giáo, Gandhi. Cũng chẳng cần phải học cách ngồi xếp chéo chân và ăn cơm để trên lá chuối lá dừa trong khi đóng một cái khố hay mặc áo Xari. Cũng chẳng cần phải từ chối cái mà người ta vui theo truyền thống riêng của người ấy. Tính cởi mở này có lẽ không đòi hỏi thay đổi sự gia nhập tôn giáo của mình, nói một cách có tổ chức, liệu ta có đủ may mắn thuộc về nhóm tin vào việc cho phép mọi thành viên đánh giá rộng rãi nhất trong tìm kiếm chân thật.

Quả thực, rất có thể là một người học hỏi được nhiều về tầm quan trọng của việc biết mình do nghiên cứu sâu hơn những khía cạnh không được lưu ý tới về truyền thống tôn giáo của mình cũng như nghiên cứu tôn giáo khác. Nhưng trong một thế giới tràn đầy với những người am hiểu quá ít cái đẹp nhất của các nền văn hóa khác tiến dẫn, lại hay bảo vệ văn hóa hoặc tôn giáo mình, có một lập luận thực tiễn để cố gắng đi vào tính khí hay tinh thần của những triết lý hay tôn giáo khác. Trong tiến trình này, nhiều người khám phá thấy lần đầu tiên trong đời họ, họ thực sự trực nghiệm một chân trời rộng mở biết mình nhiều hơn. Họ giành được sự am hiểu sâu hơn về truyền thống tôn giáo của chính họ.

Trong ý nghĩa này, bất cứ tôn giáo nào, hay nền văn hóa nào được nghiên cứu cẩn trọng, hồ như có thể trở thành tấm gương đa diện qua gương đó mỗi người chúng ta học hỏi cách hiểu mình trọn vẹn hơn. Mỗi người trong chúng ta là một cá nhân, tuy nhiên mỗi chúng ta là một phần của cộng đồng lớn hơn. Trong chừng mực chúng ta là những cá nhân, chúng ta phải đi sâu vào kinh nghiệm của chính mình để tìm ra ý nghĩa của cuộc đời. Không có cha mẹ, thầy giáo hay nhà lãnh đạo tôn giáo vĩ đại nào có thể làm việc đó thay cho chúng ta, dù cộng đồng có thể cung cấp cho chúng ta những đầu mối và hướng dẫn. Mỗi người trong chúng ta đều có quyền không thể chuyển nhượng về việc quan hệ trực tiếp với vũ trụ. Nhưng mỗi chúng ta phải giành được nó cho chính mình.

Tấm bi kịch là quá nhiều người chúng ta cam chịu bằng lòng, dù là trong những năm trưởng thành, với những câu trả lời hay diễn tả của một ai đó đưa ra. Chúng giới hạn mình vào cái người khác nói thay vì thăm dò một lần nữa những câu hỏi căn bản cho chính chúng ta. Nhiều người trong chúng ta bám níu vào giá trị do một số lãnh đạo trong quá khứ nhấn mạnh mà không khảo sát nghĩa lý của nó trong hiện tại. Hầu hết chúng ta đã đóng kín một số lãnh vực tư tưởng ở đâu đó dọc ranh giới này.

Có những cánh cửa phải được mở, và mỗi một chúng ta có thể giúp chính mình và người khác vào tiến trình mở cửa. Những người khác là gì, họ nói gì, và họ nói thế nào, tất cả có thể giúp cho việc mở cửa. Kiến thức trong quá khứ có giá trị đến mức nó có thể giúp mở cửa trong hiện tại.

TIẾN TỚI KHÁM PHÁ TÍNH CHẤT THỐNG NHẤT CỦA CHÚNG TA

Dưới ánh sáng của việc tiếp cận đời sống mà chúng ta đã bàn thảo trong những chương này, một số kiểu thái độ, niềm tin và hành động bị bác bỏ. Thái đô nào bị bác bỏ? Những cái phản ảnh sự tin cậy thiếu óc phê bình vào kinh nghiệm và lời nói của người khác, dù là ở Phương Đông hay ở Phương Tây; thái độ sợ hãi và phục tùng, cũng như thái độ quá tự tin hay gần như là "biết tất cả"; thái đô ép buộc hay cảm nghĩ chỉ có một con đường duy nhất để bắt đầu sự trải nghiệm quan trọng việc tìm ý nghĩa cuộc sống.

Loại niềm tin nào bị loại trừ? Những niềm tin tạo thành bức tường thành quanh chính mình hay bao quanh bộ lạc ta, ngăn cản mối quan tâm chân thật về lý do tại sao người ta lại tin cái mà họ tin, những niềm tin cố chấp vì mặc cảm tội lỗi thầm kín hoặc những lo âu bị khuấy động; những niềm tin nhấn mạnh vào những nhược điểm gây tổn thất cho đức hạnh hay tiềm năng của mình, những niềm tin câu thúc tinh thần, bóp chết lòng can đảm hoặc đạo đức của ta.

Tương tự như vậy, một số loại hành động bị loại trừ. Dùng "tòa án dị giáo" hay khủng bố nhân danh tôn giáo chính là sự phủ nhận nhân tính của con người cũng như bằng chứng về việc niềm tin của mình bị ngăn chặn như thế nào. Ở mọi tôn giáo, người ta thấy có những thái độ và lễ nghi ngây ngô. Nhưng giống như thanh niên hay người trưởng thành lại có thái độ trẻ thơ, những thái độ ấy không thể làm thành luật hay ép buộc được trong cuộc sống phải bỏ chúng. Hầu hết người ta cần đến sự giúp đỡ có thiện cảm trong việc học hỏi cách bỏ được những chỗ mù quáng của họ, hay đánh giá những hành động và thái độ tôn giáo ngây ngô.

Có một kết quả tất yếu thực tiễn về việc này nó ảnh hưởng đến công việc của mỗi xã hội có giấc mơ "truyền giáo". Những cố gắng trong việc đổi đạo thường trở thành dạng thức ép buộc. Nên cố gắng thấy cái tốt đẹp nhất trong tôn giáo của người khác ngay cả khi noi gương người ta tìm cách để chia sẻ niềm tin của mình. Noi gương không thôi là một niềm tin tôn giáo riêng của ta chứng tỏ chứng cớ hùng hồn trong cách tôn trọng tính toàn vẹn giá trị của người khác.

Để cho phép mỗi một người trong chúng ta phát triển đến mức đầy đủ nhất, chúng ta phải chủ động trừ bỏ kiểu không khí cạnh tranh coi tính đa dạng của tôn giáo như "một trận tử chiến". Hầu hết người Phương Đông thấy phẫn uất về sự "Tây Phương Hóa" trong những vấn đề tôn giáo cũng như người Phương Tây thấy phẫn uất về "sự Phương Đông Hóa". Tất cả chúng ta phải trở thành những công dân có thể giáo dục được của "Một Thế Giới". Bổn phận đầu tiên của chúng ta phải là kiểu mẫu của tính thần thánh nó biểu lộ phẩm chất con người; bổn phận thứ hai của ta có thể được tạo ra một cách an toàn cho nền văn hóa, xã hội, hệ thống gia đình đó hay quốc gia đã trở thành sự hướng dẫn thân thiện cho chúng ta trên con đường đi tới xác nhận tính đồng nhất thực sự của nhân loại. "Tính thần thánh ở xung quanh chúng ta -- không bao giờ mất" -- đó là bài học chúng ta phải luôn luôn học.

- HẾT -

Chân thành cám ơn Thượng tọa Thích Tâm Quang đã gửi tặng bản vi tính.

(Bình Anson, 05-2004)

The Great Religions By Which Men Live

Brahmanic Hinduism - Buddhism - Taoism - Confucianism -

Christianity - Shintoism - Judaism - Islam

Floyd H. Ross and Tynette Hills

CONTENTS

[00]

FOREWORD, by Vergilius Ferm

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION: We Look at Life

[01]

SECTION I: BRAHMANIC HINDUISM

The Unity of Life

What Is My Place in This Universe?

What Shall My Life Goals Be?

How Shall I Worship?

[02]

SECTION II: BUDDHISM

The Buddha Asks and Answers

Why Am I Unhappy?

How Can I Find Happiness?

Which Path Shall I Take?

[03]

SECTION III: CHINESE RELIGIONS

TAOISM: The Way of Naturalness and Non-coercion

CONFUCIANISM: The Way of Harmony and Propriety

[04]

SECTION IV: THE RELIGION OF JAPAN

SHINTO: The Way of the Gods

[05a]

SECTION V: THE SEMITIC RELIGIONS

JUDAISM:

The Lord Is One

Festivals and Holy Days

[05b]

CHRISTIANITY:

Jesus and the Kingdom of God

Foundations of the Faith

Paths to Salvation

A Religion to Live By

[05c]

ISLAM:

Mohammed Speaks for Allah

Moslems Hear and Obey

The Brotherhood of Islam

[06]

CONCLUSION

Toward Richer Living

TOWARD A RICHER FAITH

Most of us tie our faith to a fixed set of beliefs. We tend to look upon other religions as less pure or genuine. We forget that the Oriental finds many of our beliefs incredible.

Yet no religion should be measured by its lowest expression -- it should be measured by its highest. And looking at the great prophets of the great religions, we see how similar they were in many of their attitudes. To honor one does not mean to dishonor another.

FOREWORD

Prophets are people who live out on the fringe of their society. They are not tied down to the manners and ways of their own people hut walk out where their vision takes in wider horizons. They carve out new paths. Their religion is open and outreaching.

Priests are those who minister close to the altars of convention. They are the salesmen of wares handed on to them and the distributors of tradition. They do not so much create as conserve.

All religions have their prophets and priests -- few of the former and many of the latter. The institutions such as the shrine and the temple, the church and the synagogue are the concern of the priests; reform, new revelations, and fresh insights are the meat and drink of the prophets.

Christianity (like all religions) has been a religion of many facets. Down through the centuries it has had its full measure of both prophets and priests -- the latter in the great majority. Most of us have been taught our religion by means of some institution, and we easily come to believe the institution’s interpretation of it. We tie our faith to the faith of the church (our church), to a set of beliefs, to fixed forms and patterns. We tend to look askance upon others not of our own household -- regarding others as "less pure" or less genuine. Institutional religion is by nature divisive: it sets people off from each other, sometimes deliberately (with creeds and polity) and more often unconsciously (by the nurture of pride that we are the possessors of religious truths). Priest religions are like nationalisms: self-perpetuating and self-conscious.

When we look across the borders to other religions, we tend to look down from our self-assertive heights. We like to point out how naive and superstitious are the beliefs of people in other geographical and cultural areas, how immature their gods, how fantastic their practices. We forget that if an Oriental looked at us from his heights he would find many of our Christian practices and even our beliefs equally incredible and many of our religious manners fantastic.

It is unfair to measure any religion by its lowest expressions. All religions have their heights as well as their lowlands, and the heights are to be seen clearly in their creators, their founders, and their great literature. The measure of a religion is its best ideals. We expect others to estimate our religion by its best expression; and, in turn, as an elemental courtesy, we should judge others by their best. A Christian always prefers to have Jesus of Nazareth represent his religion when it is judged; and those of the other faiths would choose their best prophets to represent them when comparisons are made.

If our approach is in this spirit, we come to see how much alike the greater prophets in all the greater religions are as they have pointed the direction for men, how similar they are in estimating virtues, and how, presumably, their best gods show character not unlike some of the best traits we know. The metaphors of religions differ greatly. All religions thrive in metaphors appropriate to specific times, places, and cultures. But metaphors are instruments and not ends. God is always more than any metaphor.

To believe in a worthy God is to believe in a God of all people, whatever the race or clime; a God not far from consecrated human spirits anywhere.

There are many prophets of divinity, though the light may be transmitted more brightly through some than through others. To honor one of them in deepest reverence does not mean to dishonor others. We need to know more about the prophets of other treat religions who presumably have transmitted divine light, even as we ought to hunger to know more about the unclouded message of the founder of our own religion. We can afford to be charitable toward those who so haltingly understood their prophets and who, as priests, have gotten lost in the coarse details of their religion.

This book, it seems to me, is a prophetic hook. While it shows forth priestly religions, it sets the sights toward the prophetic in all of them. It is prophetic in its evident purpose: to stimulate a warmer appreciation of great prophets and great prophetic literature. It is prophetic in its evident desire: to promote the attitude that the sons of men must cultivate in the days ahead, while cultures are impinging upon cultures, while people are being drawn together in the interchange of communication and in the awareness of a common destiny. The way the world is going, we shall have to grow big in spirit, in tolerance and fraternity. There is hardly any other choice for survival.

It is my own belief that if the founders of the great faiths were with us today they would cross the borders that their disciples have set up between them; they would sit down at a table to express their agreements and discern the truths behind their various metaphors. They would find kinship in a common world of spirit, their common God.

Many of us are finding out how alike people are in their deepest aspirations. If you exchange ideas with a liberal of the Jewish faith. you will find him close to your own (if your own has the breath of fresh air that the prophet breathes). You will not be surprised if one of our friends calls himself both Christian and Buddhist, if you know something of the essentials of each faith. You will attend the simple service of a Ramakrishna meetinghouse in New York City with the feeling that the founder of your own religion is present in this house of God. And you will appreciate the Hindu affirmation that truth shines more brilliantly when it shines from many angles, like the diamond with its many facets. You will be impressed by the counsel of the Hindu who urges you, not to give up your own religious heritage, but to see it with the help of its greatest prophet rather than the dogmas of its priests.

Dr. Ross is eminently qualified to point the way to a larger faith. Professor of World Religions at the University of Southern California, he is the author of The Meaning of Life in Hinduism and Buddhism and Addressed to Christians: Isolationism vs. World Community, and co-author of Ethics and the Modern World. He knows his own historic religion intimately, and his studies have brought him closer to the prophets and prophetic literature of other great religions.

Mrs. Hills has been a public-school teacher and a member of the religious-education staffs of several large churches. After majoring in religion at the University of Southern California, she went on to study for her M.A. degree there.

Together they have produced a book that points in the right direction for the days immediately ahead.

Vergilius Ferm

The College of Wooster

Wooster, Ohio, U.S.A.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors wish to express their appreciation for the assistance of Sophia L. Fahs in the editing of the total manuscript. Jeanette Perkins Brown made helpful suggestions on earlier drafts. Rabbi Edwin Zerin went over the material on Judaism and made valuable comments. And Professor Paul Irwin of the School of Religion, University of Southern California, made many pertinent suggestions regarding the over-all planning.

INTRODUCTION

1. WE LOOK AT LIFE

A story is told of three men who were shipwrecked on an island in the South Seas. As the ship was pounded to pieces on the coral shoals, food, clothing, and equipment were lost in the surf. The three exhausted survivors pulled themselves up on the beach out of reach of the pounding waves. Having caught their breath, they began to take stock of their surroundings. Beyond the sandy stretch arose wooded hills and then rocky ledges and steep precipices. There was no evidence of any human being aside from themselves. The only sounds were the roaring of the ocean and the noisy cries of the gulls.

Not one of the men had a compass. Their radio had been lost in the wreck. Their immediate urge was to find out whether the island was inhabited. The food supply, they saw, would be no problem, for tropical fruits abounded. But they desperately wanted to find out where they were. They realized that this meant making a search for other persons who might be able to give them a clue as to their whereabouts. It was decided that one man would work along the beach in one direction, a second man going in the opposite direction. The third man was to penetrate to the foothills. Each sought some sign of human habitation -- a footprint, a cultivated field, or smoke from some village in the distance.

In the hours of search that followed, it was the third man who discovered the first trace of human beings -- smoke rising from a small hut high up on a mountainside. He reported back to his companions, and all three set off for the village. The islanders proved to be quite friendly. Before many weeks were past, the men found passage on a small boat, which took them in the direction of their homeland.

OUR ISLAND UNIVERSE

You and I are in a similar situation. Without choice we have been cast up on this "island" called Earth. Like shipwrecked men, we can either feel terribly sorry for ourselves or start looking around to try to get our bearings. To be sure, we do not have to search for people, for we are usually surrounded by them. However, we sometimes find it difficult to locate people who can help us find out exactly where we are or assist us toward our destination.

As children, we take for granted that our parents know all the answers. As we get older we sometimes try to solve our problems in the same ways our parents seem to have solved theirs. We sometimes forget that they cannot know all the answers to all life’s problems. They live on the island, too. And nobody asked them if they wanted to be here. Finding themselves here, they set out to make the best of it. They have found some answers through their living.

We are guided in our early years by their learned wisdom, partial though it is. But we cannot safely guide our lives solely by the ideas of those who have happened to live ahead of us. Nor can we accept their suggestions blindly. We must remember that an answer can be ours only when we have made it a part of our experience. No parent or teacher can live for us. There is much we can learn only through living and learning for ourselves.

CAN WE BE HONEST WITH OURSELVES?

Some people appear to be living day by day without taking much time to think about it. They never seem to wonder about the world in which they live or their place in it. Their living is controlled by habit, and they do not seem to look for any improvements. It is unfortunate when this happens to anyone, for he is losing his opportunity to grow and progress. The continuing search for better answers about the nature of life and the universe adds zest to living. It is much more thrilling than having to accept old answers and customs and habits just because they are old.

A person may stop wondering and questioning because some adult discouraged him. Sometimes teachers and parents are too tired, too busy, or too impatient to give helpful attention to a younger person’s questions. So lie just quits asking after a time. Others become so interested in social activities or sports or work that they ignore their deeper wonderings about the nature of things.

Yet the questions are there inside us. What is life? How did we get here? What is God like? What is the difference between right and wrong? What is love? What happens to us when we die? These and many other questions like them have been asked by people of all lands and all times.

If we are honest with ourselves, we let such questions absorb some of our attention and our efforts. Searching for answers is the way we learn. We should never feel ashamed to raise questions. Nor should we feel that someone else, no matter how famous he is, has found all the answers for us already. In order to live fully, all of us must ask about the meaning of life and try to find some satisfactory answers. Doubts and questions are healthy signs of honesty with ourselves and are a measure of our effort to increase self-understanding.

DOES RELIGIONS HAVE THE "ANSWERS"?

Some people talk about religion as though it had all the answers, but the claim only raises more questions. What is "religion"? Is it going to church, singing songs, listening to prayers, learning how to pray? When people talk about God, what do they mean? Where do people get their ideas of God? How do we know whether they are right or not? Why should we feel that we have to believe in a certain way?

No religion has all the answers, no matter what ministers or priests may sometimes say. All religions try to raise the questions that matter most. Religions also provide a record of how some people have answered these basic questions. Many persons think that their own religion offers the best answers to everyone’s questioning. But the wisest teachers of the religions have not said so. Instead, they have encouraged others to explore the meaning of life, as they themselves were doing.

WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM OTHERS?

As we look for the answers to our wonderings, it is often helpful to look beyond ourselves. Many people of other cultures and religions have found some important clues to the meaning of life. Their ideas may furnish us with some valuable suggestions. A study of them will give us more help than the study of one "answer" alone -- exclusively that of our own nation or our own religion. It will offer us a shorter path towards the wisdom that others have gathered.

We must choose carefully the people to whom we go for help, for life does not allow us time to quiz all of our ancestors and examine all the religions of other generations. We must choose persons who have tried to be honest in the quest. We do not want to waste our time with insincere or self-important teachers, ancient or modern.

Neither do we want to get lost on a slumming expedition among the people whose religions we are going to study. If we want to discover whether Beethoven wrote music that we might like, we need to listen to his symphonies or sonatas. We should not worry over the fact that he often went around with egg stains on his tie. In the same way, if we want to find helpful suggestions from other people, we need to examine their ideas about life. We should not become preoccupied with the ways in which their clothing or customs differ from ours.

Scientists, artists, engineers, teachers, philosophers, and theologians -- all, regardless of race, language, or country, are trying to find new meanings about life. Someday we may have a much more complete picture than we now have. At the moment it is as though we are still trying to put together a big jigsaw puzzle. Some people are working on one corner of the puzzle, some on another, and so on. Many of us get so interested in the tiny details that we forget the total picture. Only in our more imaginative moments do we try to get a glimpse of the whole of life.

Almost always people have looked to their religions for some sense of the whole picture of life, even though countless pieces have not yet been fitted into the puzzle. Perhaps we shall learn a few things from other religions that may help us to understand more.

WHY SHOULD WE STUDY LIFE AT ALL?

As children we were very concerned with the immediate activities of every day. But as young persons we begin to discover that, while separate activities are important, they are but a part of our whole lives. And our lives are part of something much bigger -- the life in which all beings share. We become more concerned about what each life is and how it relates to every other. We begin to explore the meaning of life. We are interested in doing more independent thinking than we have done before.

Our lives become increasingly a matter of our own making, and if we think about it, we make our lives meaningful. Because men everywhere, have found that the meaningful life was a goal of all people, they have developed religions to help them decide what is really important. The world’s religions have much to offer to us today in our personal quest for meanings and answers. All men’s searches for right relationships to themselves, to others, and to the world are parts of that common search in which we too are involved.

Let us take up the challenge of this quest for meaningful life, raising our questions and searching constantly and gladly for answers we can accept. As we do, we shall gain inspiration from those who have asked and answered in other times and places. Let us see what they have to say to us, and let US use what will help us to continue our search for better ways to live.

Top of page | Contents | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05a | 05b | 05c | 06 | Vietnamese version

Sincere thanks to Venerable Thich Tam Quang for making this digital version available.

(Bình Anson, 05-2004)

The Great Religions By Which Men Live

Floyd H. Ross and Tynette Hills

SECTION ONE

BRAHMANIC HINDUISM

2. THE UNITY OF LIFE

Thousand of years ago, the people of India, young and old, were wondering about the same questions that concern us today. Sometimes they tried to guess where human beings came from and where they would go after this life. They questioned further, too, even as we do. How was the world created, and how does it keep going? What is the purpose of the world? What is the difference between right and wrong? What am I? What is my place in the world? How can I really find myself?

Over the centuries, the Indians kept up the search for answers to their questions, constantly studying and interpreting their experiences in living. Each generation gave the next some suggestions about the best kind of life and the best ways of living, in the universe. Later, the people decided that some of these suggestions ought to he written down, in order that they might not be forgotten or changed, as was sometimes unwittingly done in the telling. The written suggestions became the scriptures of the Hindu religion. Some of them are so old that no one knows when they were first offered as possible answers to the questions of men.

The oldest ones are ancient poems and hymns, called the Vedas, which are considered to be as much as 3000 years old. The Brahmanas -- rules, which the priests gave for rituals of worship -- date from between 1200 and 1000 B.C. The Upanishads, dating from about 800 B.C., are answers that the renowned hermit-teachers of that period gave to questions about life and the universe. The Great Epics are philosophical and religious poems about legendary heroes and gods. They were ancient stories that had been told for generations before they were finally set down in writing at about the first century B.C. A short section of one of the Epics, the Bhagavad-Gita Gait, has become the favorite religious text in India.

If you could see all these scriptures together, you would see that the Hindu "bible" is much longer than the Bibles of Christians and Jews. Although the Hindu texts have been translated into English from the original Sanskrit writing, probably there would be parts of them that you could not understand without a Hindu’s explanation. Many of them would be interesting to you, for they contain stories and suggestions which attempt to answer the questions that men of today are still asking, in India and in America.

The stories in these books reveal a great deal about the Indian people who were searching for answers. For example, they reveal that the Indians valued wisdom. Among them were great students -- not in the sense of those who do assigned lessons in a school, for they did not have schools such as ours. Their students were men who studied and interpreted the things that went on around them, and in so doing, they became wise. The common people observed that the wise men seemed to be most successful in living. They did not become upset with trivial things, and neither did they have to go looking feverishly for ways to be happy. They were content -- at home with themselves. Since this seemed to the people to be the only true and lasting happiness they saw achieved, the man who had wisdom became a kind of national hero.

Wisdom was valued so much that the people went to great lengths to achieve it. There is one Indian story about a rich man who took much of his wealth -- 1000 cows, expensive jewelry, a carriage with many mules, and even his own daughter -- to pay a renowned sage to teach him the meaning of life. The Indians describe a man without wisdom as being like a frog in a dried-up pond, or like a fish out of water.

A story in the Upanishads tells about an unhappy young main who came to study under the direction of a wise teacher. The teacher first asked him what he already knew. The young man responded with the titles of all the books he had read and the passages he had memorized. Then he added sadly, "I know all this, but I do not know myself. I am unhappy. Please help me to overcome this unhappiness." The teacher agreed to help, pointing out that the trouble was that the boy was trying to find wisdom in knowing words about life, instead of seeking meaning in living. So for a while, under the tutelage of his teacher, the boy studied and meditated upon himself and his reactions to daily experiences. He became much happier and, at the end of a period of such study, felt that he was wise enough to continue his search alone.

What was the happiness which the boy found through self-study and which so many Hindus seek diligently today? It was the same thing they observed in their wisest men -- that at home with themselves. We all know at least one person who never seems to be quite able to settle down to one thing for very long, lie is always looking for something new and more exciting to do next. Another person we know appears poised in almost any place he finds himself. He seems to carry his contentment deep within. The Hindus would unanimously say that the second of our friends is the happier, for he knows himself better.

Like the unhappy young student, all people are discontented when they know just facts or just books or just things. Happiness can come only from knowing yourself. What does it mean to be yourself. Who are you? First, there is the "you" that people see and hear: the way you look, your voice, your mannerisms, your talents. Is that you? The Hindus answer that you are more than that. If you see your image in a mirror, or hear a transcription of your voice, or see yourself in a home movie, you agree with them. You are more than that.

In addition to the parts of your personality that people see and hear, there is your temperamental make-up. The Hindus have said that there are three general levels of temperament. The lowest level is inertia, unwillingness to change, or laziness. The second is aggressiveness and the capacity to be agitated by external forces. The third and best is tranquillity of spirit and the ability to remain undisturbed by outside forces. Each person has a little of each of these in his make-up. The aim is to eliminate inertia and aggressiveness from your temperament so that you may be calm and tranquil.

This is similar to the recent American emphasis on peace of mind. People are much happier when they are not disturbed by every little upsetting event. They can study and know themselves better when they have an unruffled temperament. And they will make no progress at all toward true happiness until they are willing to expand the necessary effort.

If you have ever taken the time to look inside yourself and try to explore what is there, you will realize that the things we have mentioned are not all there is to you. You have certain attitudes toward yourself, and these are part of yourself. Whether you are proud or ashamed most of the time, whether you look forward to or dread the rest of your life, whether you do more right things or more wrong things according to your own standards -- these things help to form your feelings about yourself. According to the Hindus, your feelings about yourself arise from the way you look and talk and from your temperament. These feelings and the facts from which they arise form what we shall call the "outer self."

Besides the outer self, there is an essential self, which you must know in order to be really happy. This very important inner self is the Atman. It is extremely difficult for anyone to help you understand exactly how to know the Atman. This is because only you can know your own inner self completely. Hindu teachers have given a few hints to help one in his search for self-knowledge. They have said that, since the Atman is the inner spirit of a man, it underlies all the fleeting experiences of life. It remains as the unchanging, permanent substance of you. All the qualities that make up the outer self are collected around the center core, the Atman, and are affected by it. But the Atman is not affected by them.

Some very wonderful things happen when a person succeeds in knowing what is basic and essential in himself. He learns that the everyday affairs, which may formerly have bothered him very much, are not really so important. This is because he has learned that the real center of his life is not affected by them. He learns to take a longer view of his experiences. He has perspective on life; life becomes unprejudiced and less emotional. He is able to make choices and to judge events maturely, because he is not blinded by his own emotions and attitudes. Hindus say that he has taken the most important step toward the most important human attribute -- wisdom.

WHAT IS REAL?

At the same time that the Hindus were exploring the question of what the real self is, they were wondering about their world. What kind of world is it? What was the power that had created the world and still made it continue? They looked about them and saw the trees, the mountains, the plains, and the rivers. They felt the rain and the wind. They came to know all the other living creatures with which they shared the land.

They realized that they could not say that the world was any one of these. Nor was it just the total of the things they saw and felt and knew. The world was more than all these things. The power that had made the world and made it continue was indeed more than the things in the world. But the world, they decided, was an evidence of that power, just as they themselves were. Everything in the whole universe,’ including themselves, was a result of the working of the creative and continuing force. All things were kin, then, because all had the same origin.

Thoughts such as these made them conclude that there is a fundamental unity of all existence and all experience. A Hindu will tell us that all apparent differences which people think so important are trivial and temporary. They seem for a time to be important, but soon they fade away or change. For example, all of us can distinguish between a living being and the elements of the earth. Yet, in death, all living beings return to the elements. There are no exceptions. The Hindu who points to such illustrations is trying to say that in the very beginning there was unity (no differences). In the end, there will also be unity. It is just a matter of time.

In the Rig Veda, there is the Hindu Hymn of Creation, which tries to explain how the world came to be. This hymn stresses that there was unity in the beginning, and no distinctions could be made:

Existence was not, nor its opposite,

Nor earth, nor heaven’s blue vault, nor aught beyond.

Death was not yet, nor deathlessness; the day

Was night, night day, for neither day nor night

Had come to birth.

The hymn goes on to tell about the power behind the world:

Then THAT, the primal fount

Of light -- immobile -- rest and action joined --

Brooded in silent bliss. Itself beside

In the wide universe there nothing was.

The important thing that the hymn emphasizes is the supreme unity of THAT (or THAT ONE). the ALL which lies behind or beyond both existence and non-existence. In THAT, there are no differences. Rest and action are joined, for example. Everything is united.

The Hindus use THAT to refer to the supreme One, Brahman. They use the neuter pronoun in order to avoid any idea of a manlike God or Creator or First Principle. They believe that Brahman is the ultimate reality behind and beyond all the things that men find to be "real" from experiencing them through the senses.

This is a different idea about God from that of most Christians and Jews. Many use the term "God" to mean a personalized God -- that is, a God who has characteristics like a person. For example, we are familiar with expressions like, "God loves," "God is merciful," "the face of God," "the hand of God." Hindus say that such personal descriptions are qualities people admire in other people. And since they believe that God is infinitely good, people surmise that God has unlimited amounts of these admirable qualities. But, say the Hindus, God -- if we use that term to mean the REALITY and the true nature of the universe -- is beyond such human representation. And that is what they mean by Brahman, or THAT.

In the Hindu religion, there are personal gods to be worshiped by those persons who so desire. Often it is these gods about which we are told most in writings on Hinduism. According to Hindu myths, the gods have wives (who are also worshiped), and they live almost like human beings. Out of a large number of gods, three are worshiped most by present-day Hindus. The three together form a Hindu trinity: Brahma, the creator; Vishnu, the savior; Shiva, the destroyer and restorer.

Hindus believe that the creation of the world is a continuing thing in which men share, not something that happened long ago in the past. Therefore, they believe that the three gods work to carry out the continual creation. At the end of each cycle or age in creation, Shiva destroys the old world. Brahma creates a new world. When, during the cycle, men face a problem they cannot solve alone, Vishnu comes as a human being or in some other form, with special powers to give the necessary aid.

The many other gods and goddesses are also worshiped in whatever ways the people see fit, with prayers, praise, and gifts. Devotees appeal to them to attend to and to bless all phases of human life. And yet, even while they worship the personal gods, the educated Hindus know that the gods are essentially human ideals that men imagine to be objective reality. They do not actually exist in the form in which the people think they exist. The real function of the worship of personal gods is to direct the worshiper to knowledge of Brahman, which lies beyond all men’s wondering and speculation about the universe.

One can always raise that most troublesome of all questions: "Why was a world created at all?" To this men have not found a final answer, according to the Hindus. Their Hymn of Creation mentions it:

Ah vain are words, and weak all mortal thought!

Who is there truly knows, and who can say,

Whence this unfathomed world, and from what cause?

Nay, even the gods were not! Who, then, can know?

The source from which this universe hath sprung,

That source, and that alone, can bear it up -- None

else: THAT, THAT alone, lord of the worlds,

In its own self contained, immaculate

As are the heavens above, THAT alone knows

The truth of what itself hath made -- none else

But if men cannot know the reasons for the creation of the world, they can know something more important. They can know Brahman. The Hindu scriptures are full of suggestions about how a person may live his own life in order to experience the essential unity that is the pattern of all creation. When you know the Atman, your own "inner self," you also know the heart of the universe, Brahman, the "inner self" of all creation. A person can know Brahman only by knowing himself. Hindus say, "He who knows himself will know God."

One of their scripture readings describes it in this way:

The spirit within me is smaller than a mustard seed.

The spirit within me is greater than this earth and

sky and the heaven and all these united. It is Brahman.

Happiness lies in the direction of finding real meaning: the real self, the real nature of the universe. Brahman expresses itself in many ways -- in man, through the Atman. But Brahman is not one of the expressions: that is beyond them all. When a man truly knows the Atman, then he may know Brahman. When he knows both, he sees that Atman and Brahman are united. And man realizes the supreme knowledge, gains the supreme happiness. All the creatures and creations of the earth arc the same, bound up in inclusive Brahman. There is no diversity, no real difference in any part of reality. All are the same. All are one. "It is Brahman."

3. WHAT IS MY PLACE IN THIS UNIVERSE?

Why can’t I be happy?

Why do I make so many mistakes?

Why am I so often afraid?

These are the questions people often ask themselves and others when they are thinking about the ways they live their lives. For thousands of years, men of every race and nationality have offered seemingly good explanations for ways to be happy. Yet, persons in every generation and in every land live unhappy and sometimes worthless lives -- by their own confession.

Hindus say that one of the biggest reasons for man’s unhappiness is maya. Each person born into this world suffers from confusion and finds it difficult to know the important things in his experience because of maya. The world is maya in the sense that it is always changing from what it is into something else that changes and so on without ceasing. No man can know what the world is, for the world never is: that is, it never stands still long enough to be studied and explained; it is always becoming. Therefore, men easily become bewitched into attaching great importance to something that in reality is trivial.

Hindus do not mean that the world is not important, but they emphasize the fact that the world as we see it is not the real world. It continually confuses us. For example, if you look down a straight stretch of railroad tracks on a level roadbed, you will see the tracks meet in the distance. Actually they do not meet, but to you they appear to do so.

The eye, the hand, the ear, the touch -- all deceive us again and again. How can we be so sure that the world we "know" through our first-hand experience is the real world? We cannot be sure, answers the Hindu. Because we are so often confused by apparent truth, we must learn to interpret all our experiences, in order to find reality.

No matter how carefully wise men explained the danger of confusion because of maya and the importance of knowing Atman and Brahman, there were still some people who lived miserable lives. The Hindus were concerned about these unhappy people. Why did this happen? How could it be prevented? They wondered about such things as the inequality in abilities between persons, the inequalities in joy and pain. They wanted a reasonable explanation.

They decided that it did not make much sense to say that it was all a matter of accident or chance, or that Brahman was responsible for the inequalities. That would make Brahman unfair and arbitrary. It did not satisfy the questioners to say that all the differences would be solved in some eternity of "heaven" or "hell," because people did not seem to fall into two distinct groups of "good" and "bad."

Hindus found a satisfactory answer in a belief in reincarnation (or transmigration). Each person has had many lives and will go on having many lives -- enough to discover who he really is. Life is a school to a man; in it he comes to know Atman and Brahman. \When he attains this knowledge, he leaves the school of life. He does not need to enrol again; he has "passed the course."

Life is described by the Hindus as being like a stream or river, which flows ceaselessly, without beginning and without ending. All things are part of this stream of existence: stones, plants, animals, men, and so on. Everything exists in life after life until it has come to knowledge of the unity of Atman and Brahman. Each will have as many opportunities for coming to self-knowledge as he needs. This doctrine of reincarnation offers hope to all. No one will be punished for an unlimited period because of a limited number of mistakes.

There is a universal law, which operates throughout all life. Whatever is sown must be reaped sometime and somewhere. This is the law: every action, every intention to act, every attitude bears its own fruit. "A man becomes good by good deeds and bad by bad deeds," says one of the Hindu sacred writings. This means that each person is really responsible for his own condition, whether he is confused and mixed-up and unhappy -- or happy. We may want to put the blame on someone else, perhaps our parents. Or we may wish to carry it back to our grandparents or even to Brahman. But this is avoiding the real issue. You are what you are because of what you have done in the past. To a Hindu the past, of course, would include all previous lives or existences. Each person can break with that past only by stretching his mind and gaining knowledge of his real self.

The Indian writings emphasize that one must exert himself to know the Atman if the influence of past unhappiness is to he outgrown or cast off. But a person very often does not make this his goal. He ignores his real nature, and this is the chief evil from which he suffers. He is blind to his real capacities. Many of us sink into the rut of habit and let our past actions and attitudes govern the way we react to present situations instead of aspiring to higher goals. This is like a mountain climber who fails to reach his goal because in his fear of the heights he forgets his real desire to climb the mountain.

Many people live without thinking about it and simply react the way they always have. Hindus describe them as "rushing about like one possessed by an evil spirit; bitten by the world like one bitten by a great serpent." When a person finds himself running around in this distracted way, he should stop and remind himself, "This is not my true nature." Sometimes people do things, which they themselves cannot understand. "Why did I do that?" one asks himself later. Sometimes it is as though a closet door in our insides had suddenly burst open and things we had stuck inside came tumbling out before we could stop them. Sometimes such internal explosions are accompanied by a great deal of emotional expression: we get angry, we get sad, we become moody, and we have tantrums. Such actions are not the result of intelligent choice, but of the load of past attitudes and actions we carry with us. The way to overcome both maya and the influence of the past is to stop and ask, "But what is the real me? What is the Atman?"

CASTE AND DUTY

According to the Hindu teachings, every person has a specific place in life and specific responsibilities. Each person is born where he is, and with particular abilities that he has, because of past actions and attitudes. This underlies the whole pattern of society in India, and it includes what is known as caste. There are four main castes, mentioned in some of the Hindu writings. These are: (1) the intellectual-priestly group; (2) the nobility, including the warriors; (3) the administrative group, including merchants and landowners; and (4) the great masses of people who do the common work of a society. The class of so-called "untouchables" or "out-castes" (recently abolished by Indian law) was composed of people who had originally belonged to different sub-groups of the fourth caste, the masses. Through various social and economic conditions, they "lost caste," or lost their place in society.

Within the four castes, there are dozens of sub-divisions. Through the years, more than a thousand levels of castes have appeared in Indian social life; but all belong to one of the four main groups. In ordinary social life, caste lines have frequently reflected real injustices and strong prejudices. Many thoughtful Hindus today realize that abuses have crept into the system. In the twentieth century, many efforts have been made in the direction of straightening out some of the gross injustices. Gandhi was one who gave freely of his energies in restoring the "untouchables" to caste status.

The caste system serves to afford each person a particular niche in society, with certain duties to be performed in the best way he can. Just as no person can be someone else, neither can he pull himself out of one caste in this life and enter another. In successive rebirths, he can better his position -- if he does his present task well. It is also taught in India that even the lowest caste members may attain complete knowledge of the Atman, if they try hard enough. They can in that way attain the greatest fulfilment life has to offer.

4. WHAT SHALL MY LIFE GOALS BE?

OVER and OVER again, another question arose in the minds of the Indians: "What is my life for?" or "What should I do with my life?" Thoughtful Hindus came to believe that there are four basic goals, which include all valuable parts of human activity and give purpose to every life.

The most important goal for each person to achieve is release from the influence of past unhappiness. Each person has the fundamental aim all through life of escaping from maya through union with Brahman. To help the person in the process of reaching this goal, there are other lesser goals to be fulfilled along the way.

One of these is the life of pleasure, fulfilment of all normal human desires, including the very important desires rooted in sex. Hindus do not reject the sensory experiences of life -- development of creative relationships with other people, aesthetic appreciation, and sexual expression. The Hindus value these experiences when used correctly and not regarded as the only goals of life. The life of pleasure is included as one of the four goals of men.

Another human goal is participation in economic activity or public welfare, which includes working in some worthwhile job or profession. Each person has an obligation to himself and to society to do some useful work. For this he receives the wherewithal for his daily needs, and through it he contributes to the common welfare. A person’s economic responsibility to the community is not to be ignored as of any importance, for it is one of the four life goals.

The fourth important achievement for each Hindu is living the right kind of moral or ethical life. One has a duty to him and to others to do what is expected of him morally and ethically. The duty has been rather specifically defined in India, for each caste has a code of actions and attitudes, which are expected of its members. And to this code a person is pledged through all his endeavors if he wishes to attain the good life.

Large segments of Hindu teachings have been concerned with the idea of moral duty. Since Hindus stress the unity of all existence, they believe that one person is important to all other persons. This means that each must learn to rise above his own selfish interests. When deciding what to do, most people are tempted to say: "What am I going to gain from this?" Hindus say that we find lasting happiness when we do a thing because for us in our situation it is the right thing, regardless of the gain we receive.

"To work and work alone are you entitled, not to its fruits. Desire for the fruits of work must never be your motive in working... Wretched are they who work for results." Thus reads a statement in one of their sacred texts.

We often say somewhat the same thing in noting that he who plays a game because he loves to play it is happier than he who plays to win. The more intent one is upon winning the game, the more he loses what the playing of the game can offer him. On the other hand, if one plays the game for the sake of the playing, the results take care of themselves. Win or lose, he will have had the satisfaction of playing. The Hindus say that it is the same with all of life’s activities. The important thing is how we feel about what we do and the way we do it -- not what we gain from it.

THE STAGES OF LIFE

The ancient Hindus knew that there were certain periods in a person’s life when one goal could be more easily sought than at other times. They divided life into several stages, and then they tried to point out what pleasures or actions were appropriate for each stage. Instruction in the four goals was to be given according to the individual’s readiness to learn about them and his ability to achieve them at that time.

For example, the child does not need to worry about his later economic and ethical obligations to society. He will have time to learn about them as he grows older. Neither is a child ready for an adult religious experience. Therefore, it would be foolish to expect him to achieve those adult goals. Persons whose duty to caste codes requires them to devote a great deal of time and effort to economic activity are not expected to be very concerned about that most important goal of union of Atman and Brahman. This is true of the lowest caste group, the workers. However, Indians have never claimed the members of the lowest caste cannot realize such a union in their present lifetimes. It simply is not expected of them, because they are required to be so busy with other responsibilities.

All male members of the three higher castes are advised to follow the suggested life plan, whereby they might attain all the goals. The ancient teachers who developed the plan emphasized the importance of studying and interpreting life. In following the plan, a man will become in successive stages a student, a householder, a retired man, and a spiritual pilgrim.

The Student Stage. The length of time spent in this stage varies, depending upon the particular caste to which one belongs. Every young man of the upper castes is expected to live for a time with his religious tutor who teaches him the ancient wisdom of India and directs his reading of the sacred books. Each student is personally helped to learn the meaning of life and is encouraged to find his proper place in it.

According to tradition, no young man in the student phase of his life is supposed to marry. In modem India, however, many of the old customs are not followed as strictly as formerly. Today, some marriages do occur before the young man has completed the usual student phase -- but they are comparatively few in number. Many Indian parents still choose the wives for their sons. Since the arrangements are made by the parents of the couple, usually when they are both quite young, the young man is not expected to take time from his studies to court his future wife.

In general, there is no social custom comparable to the dating done in the United States today. The adults do not pretend that young people are not interested in the opposite sex. They simply arrange that the interest will not be unduly aroused before the young people are ready for the responsibilities of children. For the three higher castes, this usually means after the young men have passed through the student phases of their lives. Indian law now requires that a girl must be at least fifteen years of age before she can marry; the boy may not be married before eighteen.

There are reasons why the student stage is important enough to be completed. Every person has a natural Capacity to wonder about life and to raise questions about it. Many of those questions are so big that no person has ever found more than a partial answer, but people seem somehow driven to keep trying to find answers, to learn and continue to learn. The student stage promotes this learning process.

According to Hindus, it also gives one a chance to get what they call his "second birth." The first birth was an event over which one had no control, but the second birth is in part an achievement resulting from one’s own efforts. The Indians call it a spiritual rebirth: a young person begins to see something of the meaning of life. It is essential that one catch the meaning of life before he assumes family obligations.

The Householder Stage. Although one should retain the student’s desire to learn, he cannot remain forever with a teacher. Soon the former student is expected to marry and undertake the responsibilities of parenthood. In the householder stage, the Hindu can attain three of the four goals of life. He can find the meaning of the life of pleasure, for the marriage relationship should help to release all the basic human energies and drives. Being a member of the family requires that the person make his own contribution to the economic stability of society by productive work. And certainly the householder has opportunities to do his duty according to the ethical code of his caste. If India has changed slowly through the years, it is because of the specific rights and duties that were regarded as binding on each person in each caste.

The Retired Stage. The three goals that can be attained in the householder stage of life are important. But they should contribute to a larger goal -- the finding of the real self and the real nature of the universe. Therefore, the Hindus provided for a third step, retirement from public life, at which time a man (and his wife with him, if they so wish it) might return to student interests. After one’s first grandchild is born, one is permitted to withdraw from business or professional activities, give up direct family responsibilities, and retire to a forest hermitage for study. In a group of like-minded retired persons, the middle-aged student now has the opportunity to push further than in his student days the questions: What is the meaning of life? What am I? What is God like?

Not everyone in India can go on to this stage. Members of the upper castes normally have a better chance to do so because of the more favorable economic conditions, which are theirs. People in Indian live in large family groups instead of in single-family units as Americans usually do. If one man leaves the large family compound, he is not missed as badly as he would be in a single-family plan. Even in America, some people retire from business after the children are married. In India, a man who retires does so not only from business but also from the usual daily activities of the householder or family stage. He has outgrown the need for the earlier kinds of amusement and activities. He wants to reflect, to study, and to meditate.

The Stage of Spiritual Pilgrim. There is a fourth stage that can be undertaken -- but few enter into it. If he feels ready to do so, a man may leave his hermitage, his village, and his group of congenial friends. Taking his staff and begging bowl, he wanders from place to place without cares or worries -- eating whatever comes his way through the grace of those dwelling in the villages through which he travels, lie helps the people by sharing his wisdom about the meaning of life or merely by his presence. He may live for a while as the tutor of a young student; but when he finishes the task, he wanders off again.

Westerners have frequently scorned this ideal. Yet, as Indians who know the story of Jesus point out, Jesus was demanding something like this of his own immediate followers. They were to give up everything -- including family obligations -- in order to follow him. To those who were ready for the step, he gave the invitation: leave everything. The search for meaning is more important than any institution -- even the family. The wandering Hindu pilgrim is expressing this conviction dramatically when he leaves every vestige of his former life, in full dedication to the attempt to understand the real self. The attempt may result in physical hardship and loneliness, but the Hindu pilgrim believes these to be unimportant, for the Atman lies beyond comfort and companionship.

Hinduism teaches us that we can find the real self-only if we search honestly. The search starts during our student days. It goes on through our family days and our retired days. The search does not involve giving up anything that is natural. One should not try to repress or suppress part of his life, his feelings, or his emotions. One should try to see all the desires, urges, and feelings for what they are.

Facing these honestly, a person discovers many things about himself. When he discovers what he himself is, he discovers what he is most capable of doing. Doing that with all of his heart just because he wants to do it, and doing it with love, he discovers that he is worshiping. To worship God is at the same time to find the real self and its meaning. These values are to be found only by the person who, with the honest desire to learn the answers to his basic questions, plans and lives his life for fulfilment of his highest goals.

5. HOW SHALL I WORSHIP?

The simple folk of Hindu India have listened for many centuries to the advice of their scholars and their wise men. They have heard the answers these learned ones gave to the questions about life and its meaning. And they have done their best to adopt the answers as their own. But there are many people in India, as elsewhere, who cannot make religion their main business. They must till the soil for food for their families and for other people -- for even priests must eat. There are some who must tend the shops, or else all commerce would cease. There are women, whom many men still consider to be incapable of gaining the knowledge that the wise philosophers considered essential.

What are these people to do? They wish to have happy lives. They wish to live at their best. Above all, they wish to free themselves of the endless chain of reincarnations, which, they fear, will keep them living life after life of work and worry. Is there some way that these people may come to know the Great Power within the universe, without having to spend all their days seeking? Is there some way they can live in accordance with the universal laws, without having to spend the money and the time to study with a wise teacher?

THE HELP OF GODS AND GODDESSES

To people like these, Brahman is difficult to understand. Brahman seems vast and remote. To these people the world seems much more friendly if they have a personal god "on their side." They want some god to pray to, to give gifts to, to honor in special ceremonies. They feel that such a god will help them to success in their material undertakings and in their spiritual lives. Because the wise men said that everything reflects Brahman, the people consider their god or goddess to be divine. And many of the people feel that a god like this is all of Brahman they need to know.

And so over the centuries, some personal gods have come to be very popular with the Hindu people. Of the Hindu trinity, Shiva (the destroyer-restorer god) and Vishnu (the savior god) are especially revered. (Vishnu is most often worshiped in one of his incarnated forms, Rama or Krishna.) Worshipers seek the aid of the wives of the gods, too. Some of the important goddesses are Durga, Lakshmi, Sita, and Radha. The most famous is Kali, the Mother Goddess of India. Many temples are built in her honor, and she is worshiped as the universal mother and feared as the foe of all sinful people.

There are many less-known deities to whom shrines are erected and to whom prayers and offerings arc given. Among these are animal gods, nature gods, and legendary heroes. A count of the gods worshiped in India would yield a figure of several hundreds. Each family chooses one god or goddess to worship in particular. While the members of the family may pray and give offerings to other gods, they never forget to pay daily reverence to the family god at the home shrine.

Such gods and goddesses seem closer to men than Brahman, for they are thought to understand human failings and human hopes. So a visitor to India sees images of various gods being fed and dressed and taken for walks. For all of these activities there are suitable rituals, hymns, and prayers. There is somewhere in Hinduism a deity that the humblest of men can comfortably worship.

In this way the masses of Hindu believers answer their questions about what the world is like and what the power behind it is. When they see a storm, they believe it to be the work of one of their gods. When they begin a new undertaking, they believe another of the gods will help them. To some, the world has almost "come alive" with gods and goddesses who can be loved or appeased.

What the average Hindu wants most is aid in his life’s pilgrimage. He believes that he can expect to go on living in one body after another until he learns enough about the true nature of himself and about life. And since he knows he cannot spend as much time as the sages and priests in meditation and study, he looks for short cuts to help him. He hopes to find ways that will give him special merit with the gods -- especially Kali, Vishnu, and Shiva. He believes that since the gods are reflections of the Supreme Spirit, Brahman, the person who so worships is truly helped.

A great number of short cuts have been developed by Hindu devotees. That is the reason travelers to India return with stories strange to our ears. They tell of people thronging to bathe in the River Ganges, the largest river there, and in other rivers and streams. Hindus come to the water because they believe it to be especially purifying; it will wash away some of their past sins and give them merit with the gods. Even the riverbanks are considered sacred. Some Hindus hope to gain ease for their consciences or a better position in their next lives by walking for great distances along the banks of some of the rivers.

The city of Benares is a sacred city to Hindus. They believe that a person who dies within a ten-mile radius of the city will have the mistakes of his previous lives forgotten by the gods. He may go for a stay of many years in one of the heavens of which Hindus speak. But after this "rest" from the plan of transmigration, he must return to earth to live out the lives necessary for him to gain complete self-knowledge and Brahman-knowledge.

Through centuries of search for merit, the Hindu believers have added other religious customs. The cow is treated as a holy animal, and prayers are addressed to it. Monkeys must never be harmed, for they, too, are sacred. Some plants are addressed with prayers. The wise men of India explain this by saying that the Atman is present in every living thing. Some nearby animal might be the present life of the Atman that used to be housed by a relative of yours in an earlier life.

Gandhi -- called by his compatriots the Mahatma or "Great Soul" -- said that cow-worship was the distinctive contribution of Hinduism to the world’s religious ideas. He explained that many religions teach love of man, but that Hinduism is the only one to teach such love of animals. Therefore, many devout Hindus never eat meat. Killing an animal for meat is wrong, they feel, for the animal has as much right to live as a man.

THREE WAYS TO WORSHIP

Many thoughtful members of the Hindu faith do not believe that all the worship of the common people is effective. They are as critical as many travelers to India, who say that some of the religious practices are absurd and unintelligent. These thoughtful Hindus regard some of the popular religious practices as sheer superstition. They believe that there are three ways to live a good life. One is the way of good deeds. One is the very important way of knowledge about reality. The third is the way of complete devotion.

Good deeds can be performed by everyone. The poorest member of the lowest caste can do as many good deeds as the well-kept priest in the richest temple in the land. To Hindus, part of doing good deeds is to perform your duty to the best of your ability. There is a place for everyone in this life, and the place that is yours can be filled only by you. Fill it well -- and on your way through this world stop often to help the people and animals.

The only happiness deserving the name comes from knowledge of reality -- the supreme goal of every Hindu. To this end, men leave their families and go to the forest to study and meditate. Some give up all earthly ties -- even to having a funeral service for them -- to wander about the countryside seeking truth. Some men study Yoga, a system of training for meditation. These men practice breathing and posture exercises untiringly (much more diligently than our football, basketball, or track stars in training). When they have gained the ability to be totally unaware of themselves as persons, they are ready to know the Atman.

The easiest way to live the good life is to love all living things and to love the gods. Living the life of unselfish love, one becomes completely devoted to the gods. "Love of men leads to love of God," Hindus say. Some try to intensify their love by looking upon a chosen god in each of these successive roles: parent, master, friend, child, mate, or sweetheart. If such devotional activity brings the worshiper nearer his own true nature, it brings him nearer Brahman. There are some Hindus who feel that during their lives they attain the maturity to worship Brahman directly. But usually the worship of love is exercised on one of the personal gods.

RAMAKRISHNA

One of the most interesting Hindus of recent times was the man called Ramakrishna. He worshiped after the manner of all three paths. Of himself he declared, "He who was Rama and Krishna is now Ramakrishna." He is considered an incarnation of the supreme lord Vishnu, along with these other two very popular divine descents. When he was just a young man, Ramakrishna was admonished by his brother for not studying more diligently in order to earn his living as a priest. Ramakrishna replied: "And what shall I do with a mere bread-winning education? I would rather acquire that wisdom which will illumine my heart arid give me satisfaction forever."

When he was established in a temple supported by a sympathetic, rich widow, Ramakrishna proceeded to live the most devoted kind of life he knew. He became a devotee of Kali, the Divine Mother, represented in Hindu folklore as the wife of the god Shiva. He went beyond all the usual rituals and ceremonials, to make of his life a constant and intense expression of his religious ardor.

He began to think it important to reach the religious goals that all the sects of Hinduism looked upon as important. He worshiped through the methods of Yoga exercises of self-control, through finding the deepest meanings in pleasure, through renunciation of all material and pleasing things, and through intense and blissful love of Krishna. He took up each method in turn and kept practicing it until he had successfully achieved union of Atman with Brahman.

When this was over, his zeal carried him on to attempts to reap the spiritual values of other religions. He became in turn a Buddhist, a Moslem, and a Christian. From that experience, he became convinced that the goal of all religions was the same. An order of monks named .after Ramakrishna is active in India and in other parts of the world, including the United States. He is remembered for his belief in the unity of all religions and for his stress on the importance of the spiritual search.

A HINDU WHO WORSHIPED THROUGH GOOD DEEDS

Recently the eyes of Hindus have turned increasingly toward the outer world. India has begun to assert its rightful place as an important nation. This movement was helped a great deal by the efforts and the life of one very devoted Hindu, Gandhi. Before his assassination in 1948, a large part of the world had begun to look to Mahatma Gandhi for guidance in applying religious principles to political situations. For much of his life, he had been engaged in a struggle to better the conditions of the Indian people. He gained much for the nation through fasting, prayer, and conference, rather than through propaganda, terrorism, and armed rebellion. When his death came, it was at the hands of a radical Hindu, who could not bear Gandhi’s insistence that violence not be used against the Moslems living in India.

It was a religious motivation that made his life a compelling example to millions of his fellow Hindus and the center of attention for masses of people all over the world. Gandhi felt that for him the best kind of life as the life of good deeds. \When he was thirty-four years old, he undertook the vows of purity and poverty, lie dedicated himself to the service of his fellow men. Henceforth no work was too lowly for him to do. Although he had been a member of the merchant caste, he left all caste distinctions behind.

This saintly statesman had a dream toward which he tried to help the world move. The ideal world, he thought, would be achieved by peaceful means, not by war. All religions and all communities and all peoples would have equal privileges. Gandhi insisted on truth and non-violence in every sphere of life. In his insistence, he focused the white light of truth on the inequalities of the caste system and upon untouchability, which he considered to be blight upon the face of modern India.

He came to feel that the Indian people were being deprived of their rights to their unique culture, and so he initiated the movement, which finally led to independence from British rule. The changes he effected were nude through the medium of his ascetic habits: his fasts and penances and his renunciation of material comforts. He indeed ceased to live for himself and lived for truth and non-violence.

Gandhi raised so effective a voice for his people that probably some of his writings will someday be included among India’s sacred literature, he is already being described by his followers as a savior of his people -- an avatar. Of himself, he said simply, I am a man of peace."

THE INFLUENCE OF HINDUISM

For a time we have been looking at the Hinduism that people can see: the gods and goddesses, the images and idols, the temples and sacred places, the rituals and the offerings. We have paused to look at Ramakrishna and Gandhi, two spiritual giants who helped to turn the attention of others to the necessity of living religiously. Thereby the two bettered their religion and their country. Wherever a religion makes a real difference in the lives of people, it becomes a truly magnificent force. Hinduism is such a force. One of the oldest religions in the world -- some say the oldest -- Hinduism has for centuries helped people to find answers to their deepest questions.

What am I really? In your inner self, replies the Hindu, you are part of God.

What is my life? The Hindu answers that it is a search of whatever length necessary to find God in yourself.

How can I be happy? Only by coming to know God, replies the Hindu.

How can I know God? "He who knows himself will know God."

Which way of worship is best? Hindus have said: "Cattle are of different colors, but all milk is alike; ... systems of faith are different, but God is one."

Top of page | Contents | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05a | 05b | 05c | 06 | Vietnamese version

Sincere thanks to Venerable Thich Tam Quang for making this digital version available.

(Bình Anson, 05-2004)

The Great Religions By Which Men Live

Floyd H. Ross and Tynette Hills

SECTION TWO

BUDDHISM

6. THE BUDDHA ASKS AND ANSWERS

In the middle of the sixth century B.C., many people in India had begun to use some of the religious short cuts described in the preceding chapter about Hindu worship. In general, this was a period of disillusionment. Probably because the people had become thoroughly disillusioned about life, they looked upon reincarnation with increasing dread. Some of them even forgot what their most serious questions were, in their frantic effort to save themselves from the 100,000 lives, which they felt they were doomed to live. The art of that time shows people adoring cows, deer, horses, hogs, monkeys, and elephants. Others inflicted tortures on themselves -- maintaining one position for a long time, gazing at the brilliant Indian sun, or in. haling smoke and fire.

Many of the priests were not particularly helpful. They, too, had become preoccupied with short cuts in religious living. They were not taking their priestly vocations seriously enough. In one picture from this period, some dogs, intended to symbolize priests, are shown in a grand procession. They are reciting the prayer: "Om, let us eat! Om, bring us food! Lord of food, bring hither food, bring it!" (Om is their shortest word by which God might be addressed.) The people further expressed their low opinion of the priests in this Indian proverb: "Vishnu gets the barren prayers, while the priest devours the offering."

Hinduism was later to regain a place of respected leadership in India; but, during the period described, many people were not able to find in it satisfying answers to life’s disturbing problems. Because of this dissatisfaction, some religious reforms shortly arose in an attempt to rid Hinduism of its superficiality. One of these reforms was to be the beginning of Buddhism.

PRINCE GAUTAMA

At this time when thoughtful men were questioning the value of their native religion, there was born a prince named Gautama. He was the only son of a rich Hindu raja of the warrior caste, and his parents expected him to be-conic a ruler. His father was afraid that Gautama might do what many members of the upper castes did -- become a religious seeker or a pilgrim renouncing life. So in his great ambition that his son might follow his own footsteps, the father did everything possible to protect Gautama from influences that would lead him away from this royal life.

Because of the many legends about his early life, it is difficult to know the truth about Gautama. But it seems fairly clear that he was an intelligent and sincere young man, sensitive to all that went on around him. Possibly because of that sensitivity, his father tried to protect him from knowing about the evil and unhappiness that existed outside the palace walls. The stories tell us that Gautama’s parents surrounded him with luxuries and all material delights. They attempted to make him feel that all life was happiness and pleasure -- that there was no reason to be sad or even very serious. They hoped that Gautama would simply accept the royal life and never question its differences from the lives of other people.

Like all young people, however, Gautama had to live his life in his own way, in spite of his parents’ planning. While out driving through a park -- so the story goes -- he saw four things that made a lasting impression on him. They were more startling than any previous experiences he had had.

First, he noticed a trembling old man, broken-toothed, grey-haired, crooked and bent of body, leaning on a staff. For the first time, he realized that old age must come to everyone. Later, Gautama saw a diseased man, quite loathsome to look upon. Gautama became further dismayed, wondering whether everyone has to suffer, sooner or later. The third disturbing sight was a corpse lying by the side of the road. Apparently for the first time, death became real to the young prince. After these sights had caused him to reflect sadly on the impermanence of life and beauty, he chanced to see a monk, decently clad and of serene countenance. It was then that the thought of retiring from the palace life became very real to Gautama.

The legends tell how his father tried to divert the prince from such serious reflection. Lovely dancing maidens were sent into his palace to entertain him with dance and song. In trying to drive away his sober thoughts, they danced until they collapsed in exhaustion. When Gautama noticed the great alterations in their appearance as they lay in the awkward positions in which they had fallen, he was once more struck with the sadness and ugliness of life. He resolved to leave his comfortable palace immediately. In spite of his baby son and his loyal wife, and in spite of the close watch of his father’s palace guards, Gautama took his leave and sought out the solitude of the forest. He was not to return until many years had passed and until many changes had come in his life.

GAUTAMA’S SEARCH

Gautama had left the palace with his mind filled with questions: What is life? Why is there unhappiness? In the quiet and timeless Indian forests, he looked for the wise men that could help him find the answers. He hoped to find the contentment he had seen on the face of the monk that day in the park. Since the monk had seemingly found it in the religious life, Gautama determined to look to religion also.

For several years he studied with the best teachers he could find. A very apt pupil, he soon had learned as much as his teachers knew. One of the teachers, impressed with Gautama’s learning, invited him to stay and become a partner with him in teaching others. But Gautama felt he could not teach others when he had not yet found the answers he himself was seeking. He knew the scriptures well, but he had not found contentment there. He knew the Yoga exercises, but he had not found full contentment there.

Still the burning questions lingered with him: Why was there unhappiness? How could a man be happy?

He turned more diligently to ascetic practices. He had already left all material pleasure behind. He forced himself to eat less and less, and to meditate more and more. Finally, the legends say, he was living on one grain of rice a day, and he was spending all his time in meditation and study. After six years of persevering search and strenuous self-denial, he was at the point of death. And still he had not found the answers lie sought. One day he collapsed from near-starvation.

This proved to be a climax of Gautama’s life, for he saw once and for all the futility of what he had been doing. If he continued in his asceticism, he would simply die without finding the answers. What he had been doing, he decided, was as foolish as trying to tie the air into knots. He must go directly to the problem.

Several friends had followed Gautama admiringly because of his religious zeal, but when he resolved to eat again they left him. He was now alone with his thoughts. He sat down under a tree and began to ponder the problem of unhappiness and suffering. So agitated was he, after spending six years in seeking a solution that he determined to find the answer in thought and meditation before getting up again.

GAUTAMA BECOMES THE BUDDHA

After a day and part of a night, lie had found his answer. He had become enlightened with the new knowledge. He had become the Buddha, the "awakened one." In the joy of his new understanding, he spoke aloud, though there was no one to hear. No longer, he said, was he going to be subject to the unhappiness of the present life or of repeated births in the round of existence; for he had won insight into man’s suffering -- its nature, its cause, and its cessation. He was free from the endless round of anxiety and suffering, free from the sense of sorrow and alienation -- free to live.

Gautama the Buddha then wondered what he should do next. Should he try to teach others what he had found out for himself after years of seeking? Would anyone else understand him? He soon decided that the good news, which was now his, could be shared with equally earnest seekers. So he set off for Benares, where lie knew he would find five of his former associates who had left him when he decided to take food.

They were the first to hear what he had discovered. His talk to them is usually known as the Sermon on the Turning of the Wheel of the Law. It dealt with the problem of suffering and how to overcome suffering. The points the Buddha emphasized in this first sermon, in the excited joy of his awakening, have formed the basic ideas of Buddhism. Buddhism means the religion of those seeking to be awakened.

THE MIDDLE PATH

The path that Gautama had found was one he was to describe as the "Middle Path" between extremes. The extremes to be avoided were the life of sensual indulgence on the one hand and the life of drastic asceticism on the other. Both led to out-of-balance living. Neither led to the true goal of release from suffering. Many people never realize what over-indulgence in comfort and in sensual pleasures have done to their real questions and their real aims. Some who have discovered the evils of over-indulgence come to regard as wicked anything that gives a sense of pleasure. Both groups are reacting too strongly to the human appetites.

Gautama discovered that neither extreme was wise, for neither brings happiness. Over-indulgence has the same final effect on a person as has the release of all tension on the strings of a violin. Extreme self-denial, on the other hand, has the same general effect as tightening the strings on a violin until they are at the breaking point. In neither case is there the right attunement. Harmony is lacking because there is either too little tension or too much. It was this lack of attunement or harmony that Gautama considered to be man’s suffering. It was to help men find harmony within themselves and with the universe that he began to teach.

Before the time of Gautama, the Hindu philosophers had taught that the way to self-knowledge was as narrow as the edge of a razor. Gautama discovered the meaning of this for himself and then thought of a more specific way to teach it to others. In all his teachings, however, he never left his Hindu tradition very far behind. Some people and some books give the impression that Gautama tried to start a new religion, or that he disagreed entirely with the other religious teachers of his day. This is not the case.

Gautama simply entered the religious search with a different question: What causes so many people to be unhappy? He took the question to the best teachers he could find, and he could not solve the problem with what they taught him. So he lost respect for the philosophers who wanted only to talk about release from suffering. Gautama liked to remind them that they were playing around with words. He warned his friends against the many schools of philosophy, because the teachers tended to take their own words too seriously.

To find the Middle Way to harmonious living, the Buddha declared, each person must search thoughtfully -- not spend his time in wordy arguments. Each person must explore and experiment. "Happiness he who seeks may win, if he practice the seeking," said the Buddha.

7. WHY AM I UNHAPPY?

Even infants suffer. When they are uncomfortable, they cry. As they grow older, they find other ways of expressing their discomfort. But there is no problem of suffering for an infant, since the infant does not really think about it. He simply reacts. Suffering becomes a problem only when people find themselves asking, "Why do I suffer?" Or, as we most often state it, "Why am I unhappy?"

Usually by the time we are ten years of age or a little older, there have been at least a few occasions when we have suffered and have also wondered, "Why this suffering?" Apparently, this question did not occur seriously to Gautama until he was about thirty years of age. This was probably because his parents tried to prevent his experiencing any unpleasantness.

Young people who have grown up in an environment of such over-protection often do not know what it is to face real unhappiness. Personalities of people are different, and the particular rate at which we move from childhood into adolescence varies from one person to another. But, sooner or later, each person has to face the question of the reason for suffering -- his own and that of others.

Gautama’s whole contribution to the knowledge of mankind centers around the problem of pain or unhappiness. The new knowledge to which he became awakened that night under the tree was about the reason for suffering and how it could be overcome. He first spoke of that knowledge in his sermon to his former colleagues who had left him to go to Benares. The things lie mentioned then have become the cardinal principles of Buddhism, even in this day, and they are called the Four Noble Truths. The first truth, which he tried to state to his friends, was the fact of suffering.

THE FIRST NOBLE TRUTH

Birth is suffering; decay is suffering; illness is suffering; death, ... presence of objects we hate, ... separation from objects we love, ... not to obtain what we desire is suffering... Clinging to existence is suffering.

When this list is studied, it becomes clear that Gautama was talking about everybody’s experience, not just his own. Birth is uncomfortable, both to the mother and to the child, although the child does not consciously remember it. The birth of a new idea, of a new "self" or personality, can also be quite painful; for old habits and old ideas are difficult to discard. Decay also is painful, whether it is decay of a tooth or decay of one’s morale and confidence. Illness is uncomfortable, both mentally and physically. Both death and the fear of death, for ourselves and for others, constitute suffering. Either the presence of objects we hate or the absence of objects we love is a painful experience. Not obtaining what we have set our hearts on can make us very miserable. And, as we grow keener in our understanding of life, we become aware that clinging to anything can cause us to suffer.

It is unfortunate that so many people have said that the Buddha was pessimistic about life, or that he said that all of life was suffering. If we interpret accurately his words as reported in the records, that is not what he said. He did teach that everything holds the possibility of suffering; every phase of life can result in disharmony for a person. The Buddha did not say that all of life is suffering.

It is clear that Gautama’s interpretation of suffering goes beyond mere physical pain. His strongest emphasis was on suffering of the mind and the emotions. This was the deepest unhappiness. Gautama believed that this suffering was felt by a man who was out of harmony with life. "If I am unhappy, it is because I am not living harmoniously. If I am not living harmoniously, it is because I have not learned to accept the world as it is. Perhaps I am expecting from the world things that I have no right to expect. Perhaps I am clinging too strongly to one part of my world, thus losing touch with the total picture."

Gautama tried to take as his starting point an actual fact of experience, which no one could question and which each one could see for him. In all human experience, he said, unless there is real understanding, there is an element of pain. He issued the invitation: ‘Look and see for yourself if this is not true of your life." He asked each person to see that he was not alone in his predicament. All people, sometime in their lives, must face this universal fact -- their disharmony. It is not just "my unhappiness"; it is a problem that all men have. Gautama was reminding his friends that "my sorrow" is "world sorrow" -- and that the sorrow of the world is "mine."

THE SECOND NOBLE TRUTH

Gautama said to his disciples, "I teach only two things, suffering and release from suffering." He was like the doctor who comes to see the sick person. First he learns how the patient is feeling. Then he tries to diagnose the cause of the illness. Gautama, like a good physician, proceeded to the Second Noble Truth, the cause of suffering.

Now this is the Noble Truth as to origin of suffering. It is the craving thirst that causes the renewal of be-comings. This craving thirst is accompanied by sensual delights and seeks satisfaction, now here, now there. It takes the form of craving for the gratification of the senses, or the craving for prosperity.

Suffering is the result of a wrong attitude toward the world and our experiences in it. The world is not bad, but our attitude of craving is what makes it seem bad. This craving, or excessive desire, makes us slaves of whatever we crave. Everyone has seen this principle in operation -- a craving for food, a craving for popularity, a craving for success. All make us lose our freedom to choose wisely. What Gautama the Buddha wanted people to see is that he who craves cannot be free and thus cannot be really happy.

You may say that there is a kind of happiness to be found in fulfilling all desires. "If I could just have everything I want and do everything I want to do, I would be so happy." But that kind of happiness boomerangs quickly, for it does not give the deeper contentment that is man’s real goal. Often we find people depending more and more on such artificial joys because they are actually afraid to face the deep unhappiness and unrest within themselves.

Gautama advised each person to find for himself the difference between the two kinds of happiness. And he told of his own observations.

When in following after happiness I have perceived that bad qualities developed and good qualities were diminished, then that kind of happiness is to be avoided. And when following after happiness I have perceived that bad qualities were diminished and good qualities developed, then such happiness is to be followed.

He gave some further advice to people who were searching for happiness. The craving, which leads to unhappiness, he said, is caused by our ignoring our real needs. If we did not so ignore them, we would not make ourselves unhappy by pursuing things that will never bring satisfaction. This brings us back to the same question that had been raised centuries before by the Hindu wise men: "Who am I really?" Gautama agreed with them that a person is more than the sum of his feelings and thoughts. A person who is wise will always say of any feeling, ‘this is not the real me." The Buddha taught that worthwhile activity in life should lead to more knowledge of what is the real self, for this brings happiness.

The things people desire frequently do not satisfy their real needs. One Buddhist story tells how Gautama, on one of his journeys, chanced to meet thirty running men. He stopped to ask what the trouble was, and they told their story. While they had been picnicking, one of their woman companions had sneaked away with the belongings of the others, and the men were in hot pursuit of the thief.

The Buddha asked one question: "which do you think is better -- to go on chasing this woman or to go tracking the self?" The men decided that searching for the real self was more important than running after belongings. So, the story says, they became followers of Gautama.

Like the thirty young men, we may be wasting our energies in a fruitless search. If we are wise, we stop to ask ourselves, "What is really worth looking for?" Gautama’s answer is quite direct: We should look for the cause of our cravings, and then we should seek to remove the cause.

THE THIRD NOBLE TRUTH

Suffering ceases with the complete cessation of craving. A person does not have to remain a slave to his cravings, said Gautama. He can do something about his unhappiness. Each person has a choice about the way he lives. He can fill his life with simple, unquestioned, habitual activities, which have arisen because of cravings. Or he can choose his reactions on the basis of each situation he meets. In the first case, the person is acting out of superficial "needs," in ignorance of his own real needs. In the second case, the person is making possible the realization of his true potentialities. The choice is up to the individual, and it is he who will reap the results.

For example, a person may once find that by eating something he likes he can take his mind off his troubles. Later on, he may choose to eat something good every time he feels unhappy. But this kind of behavior can hardly solve the problem. Actually, he will be simply adding to his troubles while he ignores them, because he may develop indigestion and excess weight and be filled to the brim with problems that are never solved. This is the kind of situation that Gautama had in mind when he spoke of "the craving thirst that causes the renewal of becoming," in his Second Noble Truth. By avoiding an actual grappling with the heart of every difficulty, a person causes himself to have one new problem after another. He builds the new problem on the foundation of all his unsolved problems. By doing so, he continually renews his unhappiness.

When the person meets a new difficulty in the same ineffective way he met old difficulties, he creates new ineffective actions and unwholesome habits. Can this possibly lead to lasting happiness? No, answered the Buddha. Such actions and habits, he further said, come from unexamined and uncontrolled desires. They lead to increasing unhappiness. They keep appearing in a person’s life over and over again, in new ways, and even in new lives, according to Buddhist teaching.

Buddhists, like Hindus, believe in transmigration. The ineffective actions and unwholesome habits must be lived out or overcome before one is freed from the endless round of lives that constitute a major part of man’s suffering. This is partly what Gautama meant by "clinging to existence" in his First Noble Truth. The whole scheme of transmigration and all unhappiness can be made to cease for a person if he ceases his uncontrolled craving.

Covetousness, resentment, infatuation -- these are earmarks of craving. Actions arising from them lead to unhappiness. Happiness is gained by ceasing to crave. The kind of character a person builds today determines the happiness he will have tomorrow. The Buddhist would add that the kind of life one lives today determines in part his chances for happiness in his next reincarnation. Buddhists do not speak of a "person" or "soul" -- not even the Hindu Atman -- as passing over to another life. It is the influence of past lives that transmigrates to the next life.

When a child grows to adulthood, we know that influences from his childhood determine in large measure the kind of adult he will be. And the Buddhists would add that what holds true of one life is true of all conceivable lives, since this earthly life is but one episode among many others.

One may find it difficult to understand the Buddhist theory of past influences and transmigration when extended to many lives. Yet it is easy to see that such a theory contributes to our understanding of our own lives now. What we are today is determined by everything that has entered into our past, including the history of the human race. What we shall be tomorrow is being determined today by the choices we make. We make the best choice, says the Buddhist, when we choose thoughtfully, overcoming selfish and over-strong desires.

8.HOW I CAN FIND HAPPINESS?

If Gautama had said only, "Cease the desires that lead to unhappiness," he would have left his followers without any real help. Fortunately, he did not stop his teaching with just advice. He realized that most people needed help in learning how to stop craving. His first sermon concluded with an important Fourth Noble Truth. In giving this last statement of the truths he had discovered, Gautama described the way a person might stop craving. Since Gautama’s time, this way has been called the "Holy Eightfold Path." The eight steps are specific ways Gautama suggested for people to release themselves from the clutches of their own desires.

(1) Right Viewpoint

The first step toward happiness, Gautama said, is the right viewpoint on unhappiness. Before a person can make any progress, he must look at his problem for what it is. When he sees that it is his ignoring of the true facts of his life that causes his trouble, and when he has accepted his responsibility for that trouble, then he has entered upon the Path. Gautama did not claim to have found an original way to happiness. He described it as being very ancient. But he felt that most people were not aware of it.

Gautama said that so long as we see life from the wrong viewpoint we would go on craving things as though the things would make us happy. This is a way of deceiving ourselves. We must learn to see for ourselves why it is a delusion. Then we are ready to take the second step, which Gautama called right aspiration.

(2) Right Aspiration

Everyone aspires after something. The trouble is that most of us, in our confused mental and emotional condition, have aspired after the wrong things. We have not focused our desires and efforts on worthwhile objectives. But when we renounce false values that lead us into unhappiness, we are in a position to choose the true values. The Buddha pointed to kindness and love as being true values. Such values can be attained only when a person has gone beyond the point where his primary concern is "I," "me," and "mine.’ It is after self-centeredness ceases that true kindness and love are shown in a free and spontaneous way.

The Buddha’s first two steps in the Path deal with the importance of getting attitudes changed for the better. The next three steps deal with the kind of conduct that ought to flow from right attitudes.

(3) Right Speech

The third step is right speech. A person following the Buddha’s Path can no longer take delight in gossip, slander, and abusive or idle talk. His speech will be controlled, considerate, and thoughtful, because it sterns from kind attitudes toward others. Some people commit worse crimes through what they say than hardened criminals do. Gautama recognized, just as modern psychologists do, that this is a stumbling block to real maturity.

(4) Right Behavior

The next step in the Buddha’s Path is the important step of right behavior. Gautama did not describe fully the scope of this step. But his followers gradually drew up lists of the things one was not supposed to do. One typical list says that a person must not kill, steal, he impure, lie, or drink intoxicants. However, such negative commandments are incidental to the importance of what Gautama said about behavior. He knew that it was much more important to encourage people to do certain things than to order them not to do others.

To Gautama, right behavior meant love. Gautama taught that "all that we are is the result of what we have thought." Therefore, we should not harbor feelings of resentment or hatred. Feelings and thoughts wreck chances for happiness, as truly as do actions. "He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me’ -- in those who harbor such thoughts, hatred will never cease," warned Gautama. For he had discovered that "hatred does not cease by hatred at any time; hatred ceases by love." And he said at another time, "Let a man overcome anger by love, let him overcome evil by good."

Gautama frequently told his friends that even if they were attacked violently, either with abusive language or with sticks and stones, they were not to fight back or to dwell on resentful thoughts. "If someone curses you, you must suppress all resentment and make the firm determination, ‘my mind shall not he disturbed, and no angry word shall escape my lips. I will remain kind and friendly, and with loving thoughts and no secret spite.’ If then you are attacked with fists, with stones, with sticks, with swords, you must suppress all resentment and preserve a loving mind with no secret spite."

(5) Right Livelihood

To a man who was really earnest about finding the true happiness, the fifth step was the next logical one. It is right livelihood. There were certain occupations a man could not engage in without damaging himself and others seriously, Gautama felt. Any business that involved injuring life in any form was not to be followed. This included, for Buddhists, the trade of the butcher, of the vendor of poisons (dopes, drugs, and the like), of the slave trader or the slave owner. One must not engage in making or distributing liquors. Neither must one be a soldier.

This was in sharp contrast to one teaching of the Hindu religion, with which Gautama was so familiar. Hindus felt that a man was born into his rightful occupation. But the Buddha was convinced that one must not hinder others in his own search for the happiest adjustment to life. Hence a person might have to change his occupation. Gautama himself was surrounded by people who had renounced the normal family life and usual occupations to enter the monastic way of life. Ideally, he thought, all sincere religious seekers would do this. In this way, they would most surely find lasting contentment. Yet later an order of Buddhist laymen was established. And more and more Buddhists through the years have continued to live with their families, finding suitable occupations, rather than leaving such things behind for the monastery.

(6) Right Effort

The sixth step is a move beyond the level of conduct. It is right effort, and to the Buddha those words had a special meaning. Right effort means that one must find for himself his own proper rate of speed on the Holy Eight-Fold Path to true happiness. A religious seeker must not move too slowly or too quickly. And there is no happiness to be gained in trying to keep pace with someone else. You arc yourself, with your own needs and your own tempo. One task in learning to know our true selves is to learn to travel at our own best pace.

(7) Right Mindfulness

Gautama’s seventh emphasis was right mindfulness. He declared that it is the mind that leads man into most of his disharmonious living. Physical desires might be distracting, the Buddha admitted, but usually that is because the vivid imagination creates too many desires. The desire to eat in itself does not make one unhappy. Unhappiness develops from excessive eating or excessive desire to eat. Part of right mindfulness meant learning to see physical desires and everything else for what they actually were, not as the imagination had made them appear.

The Buddha s aim was to teach people that objects that appeal to the senses have power to make us unhappy because they may lead to excessive desires. He was aware that the average man had a habit of "idealizing" women. He urged his followers to overcome this habit of enslavement to a pretty face. The story is told of a traveler who once asked a Buddhist monk, "Tell me, have you seen a woman walking along this was’?" The monk replied, "I cannot say whether it is a woman or a man that passed this way. This I know, that a set of bones is traveling this road." This is Buddhist right mindfulness carried to the extreme.

Gautama hoped that his fellow travelers on the Path would develop calmness in their search for happiness. In that way, each would learn to stand off from himself and observe his own passions as unexcitedly as he might look at the stars in the heavens. Each was to practice considering his emotions for what they were, both externally and internally. This was suggested for both painful and pleasant feelings. The Buddhist monk tries to remember constantly that his feelings are short-lived, coming and going. In this way he is able to hold himself undisturbed by his emotions, not craving anything or clinging to anything. A person who can accept his feelings in this objective way will be less inclined to be swept off his feet by them.

(8) Right Contemplation

The final step in the Path is called right contemplation. Gautama had a great appreciation for some of the prevailing Yoga practices of his day. Although he had not found in Yoga the full answers to his questions about unhappiness, he had been helped by such practices to "silence" his mind. Therefore, he told his followers of its values.

The Yoga discipline was taught individually. It involved learning how to quiet the irrelevant thoughts of the mind, until the person could come directly to knowledge of his own true needs. This contemplation that Gautama recommended was not a process of reasoning or logic. It was a different way of knowing -- by insight or intuition. Because Gautama recognized that people vary greatly in temperament, he suggested several dozen modes of training the mind for right contemplation. His followers into the Yoga practices that are still important to many zealous Buddhists developed these ways.

NIRVANA

Gautama emphasized that a serious follower of the Eight-Fold Path would achieve Nirvana. The minimum meaning of Nirvana is the extinction of all craving, resentment, and covetousness. As we have seen, to the Buddha such extinction of craving and other improper attitudes was true happiness. Nirvana has another meaning, which is just as important to most Buddhists. That is the release from all future reincarnations, escape from the "Round of Becoming."

Just as Buddhists do not speak of a soul or the Atman, so they hesitate to talk about a Supreme Spirit such as Brahman. They feel that such matters cannot be surely determined. Talk, they say, is unimportant. Knowing and searching are important. But whether or not there is a soul or a Supreme Spirit, Buddhists believe there is transmigration. For the influences and habit-tendencies of one life will go on reproducing themselves in one form or another for an indefinite time in the future.

Nirvana is not a place. It is a condition of the mind. Nirvana is reached after earnest thoughtfulness and vigorous effort. Thoughtfulness is one of the chief virtues of Buddhists. Thoughtlessness is deplored. Buddhists have compared a thoughtless man to a monkey feverishly searching for food in a forest.

Nirvana does not mean the loss of personal consciousness that comes with death, for Gautama achieved it and then spent many years trying to help others realize it. However, Buddhists soon found it necessary to talk about ultimate Nirvana. This could be achieved after one had died. They called it Parinirvana.

A truly happy person is the one who has given the thought and effort necessary to realize Nirvana. The Buddha did not respect titles or castes -- even the highest castes in India. He said that a man did not reach happiness by the status of the family into which he was born. Had not he himself been born a prince and yet been for a time among the unhappiest of the unhappy? Not by birth, not by wealth, does one discover how to overcome suffering. By seeking to overcome unwholesome desires, by keeping to the practical Eight-Fold Path, by self-knowledge -- by these one attains lasting happiness.

9. WHICH PATH SHALL I TAKE?

Today about one-fifth of the world’s people are Buddhists. The story of their religion goes back to the day Gautama sat under the Bo-tree and arose with a new understanding of life. Buddhism began when Gautama’s five disciples heard him tell about his experiences. They became his followers again, this time with real conviction. If they had kept the good news to themselves, Buddhism would never have begun. As it was, they gladly told all who would hear. The number of followers of the "Enlightened One" slowly grew.

Gautama spent the rest of his long life teaching and loosely organizing groups of followers. Finally, when he was more than eighty, he died. His saddened followers continued to meet and study and meditate together, held by the memory of his talking and meeting with them. At first they kept very closely to his teachings. They showed the power of his influence by their insistence on doing just what they would have done had he been still with them.

Gradually some of them began to see and show things that reminded them of their master. These things became symbols of Buddhism. The Bo-tree, the "Tree of Wisdom," reminds Buddhists of his enlightenment. The lotus blossom is a reminder that any person can rise up, just as pure, from whatever surroundings. The Buddhist wheel is a reminder of the Buddha’s first sermon on eternal truth and the endless Round of Becoming. The monks would turn the wheel as a symbol of putting the law of eternal truth into motion.

Sometime during the early years after his death, Gautama’s followers wrote down his sayings and teachings, dividing them into three sections. This scriptural work is known as the Tripitaka, which means "Three Baskets." Other important Buddhist teachers interpreted some of these scriptures. They, too, said things that Buddhists wished to remember. Additions were made to the scriptures.

Gradually, followers of Gautama began to differ in their opinions on what was most important in the search for understanding of life. The early disagreements grew and developed into two great branches. The branch of Buddhism that claims to have changed least from the form of the Buddha’s teaching is Hinayana or Southern Buddhism. Hinayana Buddhists dwell, for the most part, in Thailand, Ceylon, and Burma. The larger branch is Mahayana or Northern Buddhism, which is a dominant religion of China, Japan, Korea, and Tibet.

The two terms have an interesting meaning. Hinayana means "small vehicle" and indicates that a small number of people are able to achieve release from life’s sorrow by its rigorous discipline. Mahayana means "great vehicle’ and means that a large number of people are able to fulfill its requirements along the path to salvation.

Neither of these branches is a real force in the religious life of India, the mother country of Buddhism. It was a long time after Gautama’s life before people came to look upon Buddhism as a religion apart from Hinduism. After missionary monks had begun to carry Buddhist ideas to other lands, the Indian people slowly began to reject it as a separate religion, mostly because its teachings did not include some ideas and practices that had been a part of their traditions and their society for centuries. Since some Hindus, the influence of the gentle, adopted a few of the Buddha’s ideas thoughtful prince survives in modern India. However, the Buddha’s contributions to religious truth live on largely in other lands. And in these other lands of the Far East, much of the full glory of Buddhism has been achieved.

HINAYANA BUDDHISM: THE PATH OF SELF-RELIANCE

In Thailand, Ceylon, and Burma, there are many devoted Buddhists, who believe themselves to be following the way of life taught by the master teacher, Gautama. The underlying basis of their faith is that one is responsible for his own salvation. A person’s past, present, and future -- all are up to him. As the Buddha taught, so they believe. There is no god who can arrange that salvation. No one can do it for you.

The truly devout Hinayana Buddhist is the arhat, whose first duty is his own salvation. He works diligently to achieve release from the sorrow of many lives. He loses himself in the search for release by concentrating on the teaching and philosophy that come from the teachings of Gautama. His material needs for food, shelter, and clothing are limited to the very minimum. Even these are usually supplied by other believers, who cannot break all ties in the way the arhat has done. They hope to gain merit through helping him.

As in all other religions, there are few people who can and do put everything else second to the religious search. Recognizing this fact, the monks teach the people who have no other way of learning the truths as the Buddha taught them. There are no priests in Hinayana Buddhist communities, but there is an active order of monks. They teach the people what they consider to be essential: to grow spiritually every day and to show kindness to all things. Present-day Buddhists learn what Gautama taught the lay people who flocked to learn from him. They are expected to observe the first five rules of the ancient order of monks. They are also taught to recite the universal Buddhist statement of the "refuges":

I take refuge in the Buddha;

I take refuge in the Doctrine;

I take refuge in the Order.

The teachings of the monks spread throughout the Hinayana Buddhist lands because almost all the young boys spend time in monasteries as a part of their education. There they take part in study, in religious ceremonies, in meditation, and in all other activities of the monastery. The monks who teach them emphasize the most important idea in Hinayana Buddhism -- which they must learn to be responsible for their own religious development. They are encouraged to examine and question religious traditions. They are not to accept a doctrine or a practice that is not helpful in their search for Nirvana. They learn the values of self-control and moderation in all things.

After such an education, some of the boys decide to become ordained and live as monks the rest of their lives. Everyone is pleased at this turn of events, since all believers feel that this is the only way to assure release from the endless and sorrowful cycle of lives. The family, however saddened they may be at what amounts to a loss of their son, comfort themselves with the remembrance that they must not cling overmuch to anything. They know that he is working to attain Nirvana. There are solemn ceremonies to mark monastic vows. The boy dramatizes the Great Renunciation that Gautama made, when he left his family and his kingdom, took up his monk’s robe and begging bowl, and set out in search of salvation.

Buddhists believe that the teachings of Gautama still apply to life in the twentieth century, because they came straight from Gautama’s grappling with life. Since his wisdom came directly, out of what happened to him and not out of books, present-day Hinayana Buddhists are encouraged to go through the same kind of learning process he did. Most of them decided that their Master was right in his understanding of the nature of sorrow and how to overcome it. Therefore, generation after generation of Buddhists find the age-old teachings valuable. This is the reason that the Hinayana Buddhists of today are still very close to the spirit of the earliest Buddhists in ancient India.

Like most religions, Hinayana Buddhism has been with its people so long that some social customs now seem to be a part of the religion. Even very young children are taught the need of self-control, of the Oriental respect and reverence for parents, neatness of person and home, serenity of emotions and bearing. In some homes and in temples there are idols or statues of the Buddha, beside which the people lay white flowers as a sign of their reverence.

Shot through all the colorful but serene fabric of Hinayana Buddhism are the essential ideas. Man must make himself wise for his own salvation, starting now. He must show sympathy and peace in his dealings with all living beings. He must learn to control all his thoughts and his actions, because these are what make up himself in this life, and these are what influence all succeeding lives.

No act or thought stops upon your completion of it. It continues in what it causes to happen. If you become angry and give a tongue-lashing to a friend, that is not the end of the act and the words. The friend, hurt by your anger, may react in anger at you or even at another. In that way the act continues and lives on in other acts. The same cycle is the way of the kind act also. Your show of kindness toward a person or even an animal causes the receiver of the kindness to act in the same way to a third party.

A man reaps what he sows. Buddhists believe that character is made up of the thoughts and actions that a person has sown: The effects of the thoughts and actions are what is reborn -- not the "inner self" or the soul. A person has only to think of the life lived by Gautama, who taught more by example than by words. He has shown men that all can educate themselves to enlightenment and Nirvana, even if it takes more than one lifetime. The effects of Gautama’s good and kind thoughts and actions have continued until today and will for all time, even though Gautama released himself from the wheel of rebirth. Everyone is able to do what Gautama did.

MAHAYANA BUDDHISM: THE PATH OF MUTUAL AID

In its own way, Mahayana Buddhism is very different from Hinayana Buddhism. This Northern Buddhism dates from the years immediately following the death of Gautama, when his followers were yearning for the old days when he was with them. Always they treated his memory with reverence. Some of them soon came to attach special importance to anything that reminded them of his life. The meeting places of some disciples gradually began to look like temples. Profound changes took place in the interpretations of the scriptures. These newer forms of Buddhism took the name Mahayana. Mahayana arose to meet the spiritual needs of the simple, hard-working, common people.

Mahayana Buddhists believe that they are right in their efforts to get help with their religious growth. They point to the Buddha’s own example of unselfish service in teaching others how to find the path to Nirvana, even when he himself had reached the goal. Love such as he had thus shown became the supreme teaching of the different schools and sects of Mahayana Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhists do not idealize the arhat, who "wandered lone as a rhinoceros," looking for Nirvana. Instead, they have a loving respect for a compassionate saint, a Bodhisattva. This is a person who is so attuned to the sufferings and hopes of all human beings that he refuses to enter into Nirvana himself until all others can enter with him. This is the dominant ideal in Chinese and Japanese Buddhism.

The story of Amitabha (or Amida, as he is called in Japan) illustrates the Bodhisattva’s place in Mahayana Buddhism. Although Amitabha was originally a Bodhisattva, be is now referred to as a Buddha, since in Mahayana Buddhism there are many Buddha’s. Amitabha Buddha is next to Gautama in the hearts of Northern Buddhists. (In northern lands, Gautama is called Sakyamuni Buddha, meaning "the sage of the Sakya clan," to whom his family belonged.) According to legends, Amitabha was a man who lived infinite ages ago. He made a vow that he would devote all of his wisdom and merits to the saving of others. Through the years, he built up what might be called a "Treasury of Merit," a tremendous checking account of goodness. Mahayana Buddhists believe that anyone in need of merit can draw upon this account by meditating upon the compassion of Amitabha and calling upon his name.

In Buddhist writings, the checking account is often referred to as the "Ship of Amitabha’s Vow." The "Ship of the Vow" is designed to carry individuals across the floods of life to a "Pure Land" or Western Paradise, which Amitabha established for all those who would have faith in him. Amitabha is the central figure of some schools and sects in Mahayana Buddhism. These groups comprise what is called "Pure Land" Buddhism, because they believe that anyone who has faith in Amitabha will enter into the Western Paradise upon death, and thus escape indefinitely the sorrow of rebirth:

The best-known Bodhisattva is Kwan-Yin (Kwannon in Japan), who is a goddess of mercy. Ancient stories tell Mahayana Buddhists that she lived long ago. She was so filled with love and kindness for all mankind that she took a vow to help any persons anywhere who needed her. She would not even enter Paradise upon her death. Instead, she went to live on an island, where there is now a temple to symbolize her presence. Buddhists may pray to her for aid in the task of collecting enough merit to escape transmigration. Some make pilgrimages to the temple on her island in the Eastern Sea of China.

The basic idea in both these stories is mutual helpfulness. Buddhists tell us that these arc legends written in picture-language. They are designed to show us that we are not independent. We are part of the interdependence of all of life. The influence of my thoughts and deeds is intertwined with the influence of yours. No one is an island, all by himself in the sea of life. Each person is a part of the mainland. An artist drawing a picture to symbolize our lives would not draw vertical threads stretching up from each of us to some heaven above. He would instead draw a complex net of threads, because each individual contributes to all others. Therefore, Buddhists believe that Amitabha and Kwan-Yin give of their merits to all.

A Buddhist poet has beautifully expressed the idea of what the Bodhisattva is and what he does:

I would be a protector of the unprotected, a guide to wayfarers, a ship, a dyke, and a bridge for them who seek the further shore; a lamp for them who need a lamp, a bed for them who need a bed, a slave for all beings who need a slave.

If I fulfill not my vow by deeds, I shall be false to all beings, and what a fate will be mine... If I labor not this very day, down, down I fall.

Wherever Mahayana Buddhism has attracted large numbers of believers, there are monks, philosophers, and students. There is also an organized religion with many gods, and with temples, priests, and ceremonies. It is still desirable to become a monk if it is possible, but there are many ways for a layperson to take part in his religion. There are rituals of individual worship and chanting services led by the monks. Some sects have sermons and hymn singing in their services. Some have "Sunday schools.’ In some places, the Young Men’s Buddhist Association is a well-known feature. Some large cities in the United States have Buddhist churches where you may see some of these new forms of worship.

Most Mahayana Buddhists stress that Sakyamuni Buddha was not just a man who lived in a certain time and in a certain place. He was much more than that. He was a disclosure of eternal truth. Whenever a person worships the Buddha, he is actually worshiping the eternal Buddha-nature, which Gautama revealed. The world is not so made that this revelation could come only in our age. Mahayana Buddhists believe that there have been other Buddha’s in other ages. They look for the coming of Maitreya, the future Buddha in the next age. In all, they speak of untold numbers of Buddha’s, who have revealed Truth to men of every age. Present in them was the same Buddha-nature, which can be discovered in everyone. All can achieve enlightenment or Buddha hood. Many say that Bodhisattvas are the Buddha’s of some future age.

There is another side of Mahayana Buddhism, which is quite different from the ideas we have been examining. It is called Ch’an in China and Zen in Japan. In Japan there is an active church based on its philosophy, but it is primarily a school of thought to which many monks belong. Zen does not stress any of the ideas about saviors, a Western Paradise, faith, or god. Its philosophers say that all ideas and religious practices are like shells which must be broken if the egg is to be eaten. People cling to ideas and practices, forgetting what it is they attempt to explain or show. To cling to ideas is like trying to cling to the wind or capture it in a box. The wind eludes you. So does Truth, if you limit yourself to one thought or one act.

To the Zen Buddhist, teachers, books, or scriptures can be only pointers -- like a finger pointing at the moon. Small children always look at the finger, which points, rather than at the thing to which it points. Most adults also become much more preoccupied by the pointer than by that to which it points. The mind, the mouth, the eye, the ear, and the hand provide us with opinions, impressions, and actions. But these are only ways of describing or showing what has happened to us. The danger is that we become wrapped up in our opinions and impressions and actions and forget the experience that caused them. It is like putting too much value on a frame, rather than on the picture it was designed to enhance. Or it is like treasuring the cover of a book and forgetting the story in it.

Zen Buddhists say that you find truth only in your experience, not in thinking about it or listening to someone talk about his experience. To understand the meaning of life, one must live, not make up theories about it. One day a famous Zen teacher who liked to shock his pupils threw all of the statues of the Buddha into the fire to provide more warmth in the room. This is what Zen says everyone must do with all of his ideas -- burn them up so that they will not clutter tip one’s mind unduly. All theories must be broken like so many clay idols. Zen Buddhists even teach that if a person says the word ‘Buddha" he should wash out his mouth.

Zen teachers know that by word of mouth they cannot teach the truth that comes only from experience. When young men come asking about Nirvana or the Buddha, Zen teachers often answer with anything that comes into their minds, however absurd. Or they may resort to a sort of "shock therapy" in which they strike the pupils. They hope that such a surprising answer will startle the pupils into understanding. They repeatedly tell their disciples that concentration upon a problem will not bring an answer, because you merely become tangled in your own thinking. You must live a life of moderation and kindness and go about your daily activities, learning to question your impressions and thoughts. Suddenly some day you will understand.

THE OUTREACH OF BUDDHISM

No section of the world is changing more rapidly than the Far East. Conditions in Buddhist lands have changed many times since Gautama first developed his answers to the riddle of why men suffer. Both Mahayana and Hinayana Buddhism have proved adaptable to changing conditions and to different peoples.

The world of tomorrow will grow out of the world of today. So Buddhism will probably continue to be a real influence in the lives of our Far Eastern neighbors. Mahayana Buddhism is widening its influence by sending missionaries to new sections, in the belief that what the Buddha discovered can help almost everyone.

"Why am I unhappy?" The Buddha suggests: Because you fill yourself with wanting, until the wanting is a thirst that cannot be satisfied even by the things you want.

"How can I be happy?" By ceasing to want. Just as a fire dies down when no fuel is added, so your unhappiness will end when the fuel of excessive desire is taken away. When you conquer selfish, unwise habits and hopes, your real happiness will emerge.

Top of page | Contents | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05a | 05b | 05c | 06 | Vietnamese version

Sincere thanks to Venerable Thich Tam Quang for making this digital version available.

(Bình Anson, 05-2004)

The Great Religions By Which Men Live

Floyd H. Ross and Tynette Hills

SECTION THREE

CHINESE RELIGIONS

10. TAOISM: THE WAY OF NATURALNESS AND NONCOERCION

For as long as we can remember, the news about China has been news about changes in the way of life of the people. Civil wars, international wars, revolutions, new political developments. Always changes such as these take their toll in the whole life of all the people affected. In China, as elsewhere, religions have been forced to change. Many of the old traditions and ceremonies and ideas are no longer respected or observed or understood by today’s Chinese.

The ancient country of China was relatively untouched by modern scientific and educational advancements until the beginning of the twentieth century. Yet, centuries ago, there lived a Chinese sage named Lao-tse, who believed and taught that the world moved according to a divine pattern, which is reflected in the rhythmic and orderly movements of nature. The sum of wisdom and of happiness for man, said Lao-tse, is that he adjusts himself to this order and himself reflect the way the world moves.

Lao-tse’s life and thought have added depth to Chinese life and thought. The world would be the poorer without him. His teachings, together with those of later followers who believed as he did, make up the thoughtful basis of Taoism. Yet, when we look back carefully into the past of China -- to about 600 B.C. -- we see only a faint, shadowy outline of this sage, humorist, philosopher, and prophet. The figure of Lao-tse comes close to being legendary. However, many scholars claim that such a person did live. Stories tell us that he was visited by Confucius and that the two philosophers conversed together. Lao-tse is mentioned in books written in the generation just after his own. According to tradition, Lao-tse himself is supposed to have written the Tao-Teh-Ching, the fascinating little book on which much of Taoism is based.

Lao-tse was first moved to speak because he saw around him many people who were perplexed by unanswered questions about their lives. The questions were not very different from the ones you and I ask even today. Like all basic human questions, they have been repeated by generations. "What am I? What is my life? Am I living the best life I can? What could I be? How can I do better? What are the results of trying to do better?"

The Chinese looked upon their world in an optimistic way, and when they asked, they asked hopefully and confidently. The world, they observed, was a good place for a man. It could be depended upon. All their experience in daily contacts with the world had shown them that it was orderly and dependable. Nature did not operate by whim. The Chinese seemed to sense that they ‘belonged" to nature.

Yet Lao-tse looked at the people around him and saw some of them struggling for happiness without remembering what their traditions taught them. He saw people trying to change what life offered, instead of accepting it. And he said: "You seek wisdom, goodness, and contentment. In the ways you arc trying to attain them, you are blind and foolish. Can you not see that wisdom is trust, goodness is acceptance, and contentment is simplicity? This is the way of the world."

THE WAY OF THE WORLD

In days earlier even than Lao-tse’s, the way of the world had been given a name, the Tao (pronounced Dow), which means simply "way" or "way to go." It has been translated as "nature" or "the way of nature." It is the way the universe moves and has its being. Man is a part of the universe. When men are most natural, they move according to the laws of interdependence and interaction of all parts of the world. If Tao were allowed freely to operate within men, then everything would be at its best, for the Tao is the way of perfection: perfect balance, perfect harmony. It is the way -- there is no other.

The Tao is the source of all created things. It is responsible for bringing all things into existence, even the Chinese gods. The Tao itself has never been considered as a god. The Tao is reality. It existed before there was any universe. It created all existence and continues to keep it in operation through the release of its energy. Rise and fall, flow and ebb, existence and decay -- through such an alternation of the Tao’s energy, existence began and will continue. Even so, the Tao never forces a person to act in a certain way. The Tao simply operates. That is all.

Taoism was so named because Lao-tse and his followers were insistent upon the Tao as the way of life. "Getting back to nature" was their goal -- "nature’ being understood to mean the natural and proper way of all things. So completely did the early Taoists follow this line of belief that they went about China calling for the end of human ceremonies and customs and even civilization itself, because these were the result of interfering with nature.

THE WAY OF MEN

The early Taoists frequently referred to a past "Golden Age," when men had lived in peace and harmony because they were natural, free from artificiality, simple -- in short, men of Tao. The good things that all men seek had been lost when that age had passed. Men would find them only when they returned to the simplicity and utter naturalness that had characterized the Golden Age.

"Nature" is the key to all the Taoists’ answers to the questions life makes us ask. A person’s highest good and his sincere happiness is to be found through conforming to the way of all nature, the Tao. When one is natural, he is relaxed within and able to accept what life offers. When one is ambitious or aggressive, he contradicts his true nature. In the ensuing civil war within himself, he strikes his possible happiness a fatal blow.

While Lao-tse was calmly suggesting that men must relax and accept the world as it is, instead of trying to change it, there were many others who loudly voiced their disagreement. Reformers and philosophers, Confucius among them, walked the land, telling all who would listen that the only way to regain happiness and prosperity was for all people to become virtuous. When every person learned to do his duty and to fulfill all of his responsibilities, then the land and all its people would be blessed. They, too, spoke of a past golden age, when happiness was the rule rather than the exception. But, they said, its values could be realized again when the people learned how to behave toward each other.

"Not so, not so!" cried the early Taoists. Virtue, duty -- these are achieved by those who let themselves go and do what comes naturally. Why should a man strive for goodness? Goodness comes of itself when all rules are forgotten and effort ceases. Virtue is never gained by seeking it. Duty is performed only when you are not trying to perform it.

Lao-tse had little sympathy for the typical reformer who wished to add rule after rule for proper living. It is after people have lost their way, said he, that the reformer cries, ‘be good, be righteous! I will tell you how." When a family is no longer getting along very well, the parents start telling the children to be respectful and obedient. This applies to nations, too, for only in times of national confusion are people anxious about patriotism.

Nature never argues the way persons do. Nature just goes on being natural. And what argument can change the way of the world? Gravity does not debate with us or insist; it just operates. In such ways, nature shows us the Tao. Lao-tse pointed out that the Tao is never forceful, yet there is nothing that it does not accomplish. Precisely because of its unceasing, unstriving, uncoercing operation, the Tao is the only power.

The man who lives by Tao will not use force, for force defeats his higher aims. The man who tries to shape the world into what he wants it to be damages himself and others in the attempt. He who insists or strives for something gets involved in his own efforts and merely loses the value of the thing he seeks. Thus he damages his ideal, defeats his purpose, and fails miserably.

Men should learn from a pond of muddy water. No amount of stirring can clear it. But when it is left alone, it becomes clear by itself. So it is with men and with nations. Rulers particularly must understand this. Lao-tse once said that one should govern people as he would cook a small fish -- gently. Too much cooking, too much handling makes it fall to pieces or destroy its flavor. As for the people who presume to teach others, they must also grasp this idea. He who thinks he knows a lot about others may think he is wise. But only he who knows himself has hold upon the true and the important.

THE MAN OF TAO

Lao-tse and Chuang-tse, the best-known later Taoist (around 350-275 B.C.), must have spoken reluctantly, for the real Tao is not the Tao that can be expressed in words. It is impossible to describe literally the man of Tao. Yet these two men were pressed for definitions. And so Lao-tse drew a word picture:

He is cautious, like one who crosses a stream in winter;

He is hesitating, like one who fears his neighbors;

He is modest, like one who is a guest;

He is yielding, like ice that is going to melt.

Taoists feel that such descriptions of the poised and serene person are true, not because Lao-tse or anyone else has said them -- but because they reflect the nature of things, the Tao.

Chuang-tse was fishing one day when some high officials of the government of his province came to visit him. As he continued to fish, they flattered him, by speaking of his wisdom and offered him a high governmental post, which would bring him recognition and respect from many people. Without interrupting his fishing, Chuang-tse asked the gentlemen if they knew of the sacred tortoise, dead over three thousand years, which the prince kept safely enclosed in a chest on the altar of his ancestors. Then he asked them, "Do you think this tortoise would rather be dead and have its remains revered, or be alive and wagging its tail in the mud of its pond?"

"It would rather be alive," they replied, "wagging its tail in the mud."

"You may be on your way," said Chuang-tse. "I too prefer to wag my tail in the mud in my own pond."

WHAT IS WORTHWHILE? THE THREE TREASURES

Then what is of value? And for what should a person spend his efforts? A person cannot simply sit and fold his hands and wait. Since he lives in a group of people, he has to think of others. The early Taoists faced the problem of living in an everyday world. They knew that they must live their philosophy, as well as think it. They decided that there were three things -- three treasures, they called them -- that is the supreme guide of the man to Tao. These three are love, moderation, and humility. How do these three qualities help the man of Tao to live in the world? "Being loving, one can be brave; being moderate, one can be ample; not venturing to go ahead of the world, one can be the chief of all officials."

One who sees the Tao within himself sees the Tao in others and in the entire world. It is this person who sees that his true welfare is good for all men. The good for all men is his rood, too. This is what- Lao-tse meant by being loving. The man of Tao will act with goodness toward all men, to the so-called good people as well as to the so-called bad, even returning love for great hatred. If this is not done, regardless of bow justly one deals with the hatred, some of the hatred or its results will remain. "Being loving, one can be brave." The man of Tao trusts the world, and the world can be entrusted to him.

In all his thoughts and actions, the man of Tao is moderate. Excesses in any direction are blocks to contentment. The man of Tao would not decide in advance exactly what course of action he would take in a given situation. Neither would he decide in advance that lie would not conduct himself in a certain way. He would remember always that whatever presents itself as the simplest and most natural way to act or to think is the way to follow. In this way, his actions are always sufficient and always right. "Being moderate, one can be ample."

Lao-tse and his followers never sought high places in governmental offices, for this was against their convictions. One cannot help people by trying to direct their actions. And they pointed out how one could better achieve his purposes by holding himself in a humble place. In our world there is no place for sonic to be ahead of others. There is room only for all to live naturally and in mutually helpful ways. Let no one seek private gain or personal success.

Heaven is eternal, the Earth everlasting.

How come they to be so? It is because they do not foster their own lives;

That is why they live so long.

Therefore the Sage

Puts himself in the background; but is always to the fore.

Remains outside; but is always there.

Is it not just because he does not strive for any personal end

That all his personal ends are fulfilled?

These qualities are treasures that do not lie buried somewhere so deeply that a teacher or friend or philosopher is needed to dig them out for us. They are found when we become aware of those things, which we ordinarily ignore, in our deepest nature. Simply by peeling back through the layers of our fears and habits and superficial aspirations, we find such treasures. A lack of these qualities shows us a person who is forced, unnatural, and unhappy.

WHAT MUST I DO?

Duty is to be performed, not because a man feels obligated to do it, but more because he does not feel that he must not do it. The man of Tao would conform to the world to the extent required to cause him least difficulty in living in harmony with the Tao. It is clear that he could not live harmoniously if he were constantly plotting to get out of responsibility and to overthrow governments and institutions. It is clear also that he would not live harmoniously if he were constantly planning to take over larger shares of responsibility and to reform or strengthen the things about him. The world is like a broth that too many cooks are about to spoil. The wise man will not refuse to add any ingredients, nor will he stir. He prefers to wait for a proper and natural blend.

But how can we just sit back and let things happen without doing anything to help or hinder. It is difficult to do, but it is simple. It is as simple and as difficult as relaxing. Chuang-tse gave this advice:

A man feels a pleasurable sensation before he smiles, and smiles before he thinks how he ought to smile. Resign yourself to the proper sequence of things.

The world is not ours to take by the horns and steer. The world is ours to live in and to understand. Harmony is not born of aggressive notes, striking out on their own. It is born of humble notes, yielding confidently and quietly in accord.

Chuang-tse once told a story about a man who struck out on his own, instead of yielding in confidence to the Tao. This man was so afraid of his shadow and he so disliked his own footsteps that he determined to get away from them. However, the more he moved, the more footsteps he made. And despite his fast running, he never left his shadow far behind. So lie decided that he was going too slowly. He ran his fastest, without pausing for rest. As a result, he weakened and finally died. He did not know that he could have lost his shadow in the shade and put an end to his footsteps by keeping still. Foolish indeed was he. Woe to the reformers and the moralists who come preaching of purity and goodness, says Chuang-tse -- they run from their own shadows.

WHAT IS RIGHT? WHAT IS TRUE?

When one really stops to analyze it, says the Taoist, how can one claim to offer rules for good living? How can one ever feel confident enough in his own knowledge to do such a thing? The cocksure person who pretends to know so much is probably pretending just for the sake of his own ego. The person who is truly wise is the one who does not know that he is wise. Thinking that we know, when actually we do not, is a special sickness to which all men are prone. Only when we become sick of such conceit and fraud can we cure ourselves of the sickness.

In his desire to help people do this, Chuang-tse often used the light touch of humor. He tells the story of how he once dreamed that he was a butterfly, fluttering around gaily here and there. He was completely unaware of being a man any longer. Then suddenly, he awoke and found himself lying in bed, still a human being. However, Chuang-tse then had to ask himself: "Was I then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly dreaming I am a man?"

What is truth? How do I know that I know? These are questions which cannot he answered definitely by the true wise man, though many self-styled sages offer answers. All answers depend upon a time and a place and a situation. The man of Tao forgets lists of answers; he ignores codes of behavior; he rises above morals and ethics. The man of Tao does not submit to external authorities of any sort. He merely listens keenly to his own deepest nature. In doing so, he not only finds truth but also lives truth. For in his deepest nature, there is the Tao, operating clearly and strongly; without going out of his door, the man of Tao can know the whole world.

Such were the words of the pioneers of Taoism, who would have preferred not to talk at all. They knew that their impressions of life could not best be conveyed in words. Their impressions would be fully understood only by those who shared them as a result of their own experiences. Each of us has at some time failed in the attempt to put his deepest feelings or intuitions into words. In such moments, we may express ourselves in poetry, or music, or some other art form. It is just so with the Taoists. If we are to understand them, we must realize that we arc dealing with the poetry of their impressions. Words are not meant to be taken literally, since words cannot convey impressions adequately. But the words of Taoism are meant to be taken seriously.

TAOISM IS A RELIGIOUS CULT

The Taoists’ reluctance to use words as a vehicle for their feelings was not misplaced. Hardly were the words uttered or the symbols drawn on the paper. when the weakness of words betrayed the speakers and the writers. People took the words literally, and they followed them to the letter, like the codes that the earlier Taoists so ridiculed. In clinging to the descriptions of the man of Tao, people forgot the inward harmony that had first been described. In memorizing the "three treasures," people neglected to find them buried within themselves. In trying to follow Lao-tse and Chuang-tse exactly, people lost their way to understanding the Tao.

This is not at all surprising. The people of Lao-tse’s time were never really lifted from their superstitious ways by his utterances, or those of any other teacher. Their worlds were filled with daily concerns for work and friends and families. It was easy and reassuring to placate the ever-present "spirits" who were everywhere about them. These people did not have the time, the education, or the desire to think searchingly about their lives. Most people, everywhere, and in every age, live their lives without thinking deeply about them.

Even so, most people have a high respect for those who do think deeply, and especially for those few famous thinkers whose ideas appeal to them as being an important part of what is universally true. Often, out of their respect, they turn to veneration and then, almost imperceptibly, to worship. Thus it was with Lao-tse. Later generations regarded him as a god. They forgot that the happiness of which he spoke had to be reached by the process he had followed -- conforming to the way of all things -- the Tao. They seemed to think that there were short cuts to the contentment that Lao-tse had experienced.