Dhammanusari

ANATTA-NO-SELF – BY V. R. DHIRAVAMSA

Anatta is the pali term for No-self.  This may seem a very dry subject to discuss, and in fact often frightens people, because normally they have a strong feeling of self.  Even at the time of the Buddha, people were afraid of his teaching of anatta.  Usually people have to feel they are somebody, otherwise they find it difficult to live.  Actually, any statement that there is no self goes to one extreme, and the statement that there is a self goes to the other extreme.  This first is an annihilist idea, and the second is eternalist in the sense that the self is regarded as a permanent entity.  Because Buddhism is the Middle Way, it teaches that the mind should not become attached to belief in either of these two extremes.  This is the way of balance.

But what can we say, if neither view can be held?  If I say either, I shall be an extremist, not a Buddhist, so what is the truth?  The fact is that there is conditionality in things as they are.  Everything comes to be because of certain conditions, and then ceases to be because of other conditions.  Nothing can be completely grasped and no-one can grasp it.  Things are as they are.

I do not want to go into the theory of anatta.  Most of us have read something on the subject in books written by learned Buddhist.  But what we talk about now should be something which relates to our actual experience, and based on putting the teaching into practice of life.  I feel it is a waste of time to merely learn the doctrine of anatta, or try to prove one or another view about the subject of self.  This type of intellectual Buddhism, which is little more than a display of knowledge to show scholastic status, does not help us in life.  We do not live according to what we know, so what is the point of gaining knowledge, accumulating information, continuing to speculate?  We must not waste our time.

We have to understand why the Buddha taught anatta.  Perhaps one reason was because it was such a central factor in his teaching of the truth that nothing can be permanent, nothing can be absolute.  It is a relative, conditioned world, in which everything is related and nothing can remain independent from other things.  Human beings cannot exist alone, without dependence upon something else.  If there is no relationship with the things in this world, there is no existence.  This is obvious to all of us.  It not only applies to actual existence, but to our affairs in life.  Everything is interconnected, so that one activity or event will automatically affect another.  The law of cause and effect governs the activity of everything.

When this is not understood, we seek permanence or the eternal, and if we care taught the doctrine of eternity we create an idea of this in our minds in terms of permanent time.  Thus we limit the truth to concepts within time and space.  But if we cease our thinking, time and space will disappear.  When we think of “now”, we call it the eternal now, thus qualifying it into endless time.  Similarly, the Buddhist goal of Nirvana is thought of as an eternal state.  This is because of our limited understanding, so we have to look at things carefully to see whether they can be permanent or absolute.

Something called “self” is sometimes thought to be an everlasting, unchanging entity, leaving the body and taking up another body, living many lives until it becomes completely purified.  The self is also regarded as the feeler of feelings, the experiencer of experiences, the thinker of thoughts, the perceiver of the perceived.  With our usual pattern of thought, we believe there are always two things: the seer and the seen, the thinker and the thought, in a subject-object relationship.  Our language implies a subject and an object.  But is language capable of expressing the truth, or is it only concerned with symbols of the truth?

When we say “I am the thinker”, what is the “I”?  The body?  The mind?  Or both?  I cannot say that “I am” means, but I have the feeling that the “I” as thinker, perceiver, observer, listener, talker, cannot be grasped.  Who is the thinker?  You may say “Buddha was a clear thinker”, but perhaps the Buddha never thought at all, yet because his teaching was clear and helpful he has been described as a great man, a great thinker.

When you meditate, you may think there is a meditator, doing meditation.  If this is so, the meditation is not properly done, because the self who is meditating is always in the way, creating problems, looking for results, hoping for experiences.  The ego is planning to be somebody, wanting to be recognized.

If we cannot really grasp the “I” who is the thinker, the meditator, why do we still hold on to it, but if you observe your behaviour you will find that it is largely concerned with the defence and support of the ego.  You also feel your self.  But if you look more attentively at the processes of feeling and thought, going more and more deeply into your observation, the image of self will disappear and there will be a great clarity of seeing, without a seer behind it.  This may be a frightening experience for those experiencing it for the first time.  “Me” is lost, and until insight has strengthened there will be a tendency to try to regain it because of the feeling of insecurity.  But in fact the “me” remain lost in order to rediscover what is real.

Who knows what the “real self” is?  If it can be defined, it is only an idea.  If it can be recognized, it is something known by us already.  The mind is expert at creating anything which maintains its own progress.  It cannot exist without satisfying itself and the ego, by grasping and trying to maintain what supports it.  But the real self is like no-self – free from grasping, and free from loss.  At a psychological level, identity may be essential, but if we try to live on a wholly psychological plane we shall deceive ourselves and remain in illusion, thinking it is the truth, and living very superficially.  It is the same with security.  We may feel security with certain factors in life, good friends, a safe position, firm beliefs, a well-protected ego.  But is such security valuable, or even desirable?  It can screen us from the true nature of life, and it builds up dependence.  We have no freedom, but are ruled by the ego and our psychological conditioning.  These operate in us all the time, and unless they are dissolved we cannot come to freedom.

Freedom from the idea of self is the first step leading to liberation, and in order to dissolve this idea one has to be fully aware of the process of “me”, “my” and “myself”.  They are the product of time, the residue of karma, and create the problems of living.  The conflicts of life arise from the “me”, which cannot live in the present fully but brings with it the past, because the “me” itself has been created by the past.  Anything “me” feels or thinks must be conditioned by the past, and its eyes are blurred or blind because it always has to see from angle of the past.  Its entire range of perception is therefore distorted by conditioning, and it can never see things anew.  This is why it can never see reality, or live in a fresh dimension.

You may take the view that because of past conditioning, what we have been determined what we are and there is no chance of freedom.  Do you accept that?  It may be said that there is no way out, and therefore it must be accepted.  But his finalist way of thinking is not the Buddhist way, which regards change as the only thing in life which is certain.  Everything fluctuates, and the power of awareness can change everything in the here and now.  It is true that we are conditioned by the past, but this is because the past is here now, operating in us in the present, and is therefore not distant and inaccessible.  It is operating at this moment in our feelings, thoughts and behaviour.  In order to have immediate access to the past, we have only to watch what is going on in the present.  Patterns of reaction are conditioned by past experience, and intensive observation in the present will therefore clarify not only what your pattern are, but also reveal their sources.  You will begin to understand your past existence as well as the present.

Everything is within you, and all that must be done is to look at it, to be constantly aware of yourself in all situations, and then you will have knowledge which is not based on other people’s experience and beliefs.  When observing yourself, it is of the greatest importance to be honest, otherwise the understanding will be clouded.  We try to avoid direct observation in many ways, and often by seeking knowledge from someone else.  It is silly nonsense to search for true knowledge by going outside ourselves to other people.  It is the typical behavior of the conditioned mind which is afraid to look at itself, afraid to discover the truth.  It is the activity of the “me”.  The “me” will only disappear if we practice action without having “me” as its centre.

But how can this be done?  First of all, leave the “me” alone.  You may see that the “me” is the centre of all your thoughts, emotions and perceptions.  O.K., it doesn’t matter – let the “me” do what it wants to do, but notice what it is doing.  Deal with it gently and fairly, without aggression or violence.  Do not try to destroy it believing it to be “bad”, because this merely creates another problem, another area of rejection.  We have enough problems of violence without adding another.

If we leave the “me” alone we can then watch it in this activities – thoughts, perceptions, feelings.  If we can see these process as they are, and how they arise and disappear, we hall be able to understand the whole structure of the “me” through its activities.  In this way you will achieve understanding and centre of the “me” you will find automatically disappears without any effort on your part to destroy it.  This is because the “me” has no real centre, and depths but first have to go through all levels of the superficial, taking each process as it appears, using a simple approach of direct attention.

The method is simple, but this does not mean that the “me” is easy to dissolve.  We do not give up just because it is difficult.  Instead, we look at the difficulties as they arise, and see why they are there.  In this work, we do not look towards a goal, or a destination, but at the problem here, in front of us.  When we become aware of difficulty, is it in fact a feeling of difficulty that we are experiencing?  You already know that feeling is an activity of the “me”, and you will find that if you continue to look at feelings of difficulty they will disappear.

We should not overlook what is in front of us.  Usually our attention is directed to something “over there”, or in the past or future, but this can be dangerous to us, and it is not easy to drop the habit.  We have to watch what is happening now.  If you say “the me always interferes with my life”, the “my” indicates that it is the life of the ego.  When you say “my life” you are limiting yourself, and trying to act from the centre of the “me” again.  Life is life, not mine or yours.  It is a moving reality, and has to flow without obstruction.  If is like water moving along in a river, which sometimes gets stuck, or hindered by an obstacle in its way.  It will be seen to churn, or “struggle” because its nature is to flow.  In fact it is not struggling, but its disturbance is a result of its need for movement.  The force of life is the same, and when its flow is obstructed by the accumulation of mental contents, suffering must arises.

It is suffering which can therefore awaken us to the fact that something is preventing the flow of life, and only by looking into the suffering, and the processes of “me” which cause suffering, shall we be able to learn the lesson of life.  If we are not aware of the suffering that is there, we shall never gain in wisdom, or have compassion for others.  Awareness of suffering will show us the process of suffering, and we shall realize that there is no sufferer.  Looking at this objectively will weaken the hold of the “me” and lessen the image of a sufferer.  Unless we can look at suffering objectively, without holding on to the idea of an entity who is suffering, it becomes very difficult to see what is happening.  This is because “the sufferer” is creating more obstacles.

One can feel very painful suffering, often appearing to be in the “heart”, which seems too intolerable to look at and which has to be repressed again and again.  Many people start an avoidance pattern during childhood, when their parents teach them to ignore situations.  Children are often discouraged from talking about what they think, or expressing what they feel, until they gradually lose their original awareness.  It they were encouraged to look at everything that was happening, in a simple, direct way, they would have less tendency to develop unconscious fears and fantasies.

When turning away from the realities of life one is planting misery and illusion.  The attempt to avoid the facts, to close the mind to actual feelings and thoughts, creates weakness and psychological problems.  It is not the way to train oneself for life, or for death.  In one of the Buddhia’s discourses on the development of the senses, we learn that certain people at the time of the Buddha were trying to develop their senses by closing their eyes, mouth, ears, and nose, ignoring everything that was going on in the world.  But the Buddha said that this only makes their senses dull; without exercising the senses, they atrophy, and cannot perceive what is actually there.

The Buddha’s teaching was the opposite: be alert, and aware of what is going on, receiving all the impressions of life without trying to block them.  When all perceptions occur receptively with awareness, everything will be taken care of.  When awareness is the doorkeeper, at the gate of the senses, perceiving will have clarity and tranquility, without dullness or heaviness.  There will then be no self-deception, delusion or hallucination.

Whatever we are working out, awareness should be present, and this especially applies to the investigation of the “self”.  The Buddha gave this important advice: “Be a lamp unto yourself.  Let the truth be your refuge, and nothing else.”  He completely denied the existence of any self outside the body and mind, and told his followers to be a light unto themselves.  You are your own light and protection – don’t look for this externally, or it becomes an avoidance or defensive activity.

In Buddhism there is the injunction to take refuge in the Three Gems: the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha – but they are really within us.  If we put our trust in our image or idea of the Buddha, we shall be wasting our time.  If we look for the Dhamma in scriptures or preachers, we shall never understand the Way.  If we believe the Sangha is the external form, the monastic community, we shall not know what it truly means.  Also, taking refuge does not mean the search for security through bolstering the ego – it means the discovery of what protection really is.  We can gradually find that we are the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha.  How?  By following the Buddha’s teaching of cultivation of awareness, of all physical and mental processes.  The whole universe is the object of our awareness.  Do not give importance to the object – the essential thing is the awareness of whatever is there.  It can be developed with any object, whether pleasant or unpleasant.  If an object is painful to us, we have to continue to look at it; this is wisdom in action.  All negative emotions, such as bitterness, resentment, envy, jealousy and fear, have to be observed as well as pleasurable or positive emotions.  Also, we have to go through “the Death” in life.

Thus the Buddha gave us the means for dissolving the idea of self.  But this will not be achieved unless we attain to the First Stage on the path to enlightenment.  At that moment we enter the Stream of Nirvana, when freedom from the idea of self is obtained.  The only way to become such a “Stream-winner” is through awareness and insight.  How can we practice this awareness?  By starting with our daily activities, from ourselves.  If we think in terms of a technique, we shall tend to stay with the idea of awareness, without entering the practice.  We should go direct to awareness, not be afraid of doing something incorrectly.  We are usually afraid of not doing the right thing, and cling to the idea that everything must be quite clear before we start.  This type of perfectionism paralyses the natural flow of awareness and prevents us from doing anything.  All this is the activity of the “me”.

Instead, try to attend to everything without judging your own abilities or criticizing the weakness of your awareness.  If you feel that you are failing, be aware of that feeling.  Give your attention without hesitation to all that your experience, and do not waste time on regrets or disappointment if you do not succeed.  Persistent application of your attention, even if it fluctuates, will gradually create greater sensitivity in you, and you will become aware more quickly of your distractions.  As soon as you observe you have lost awareness, do not dwell on it, or complain, or become frustrated.  Just return immediately to your work, because such feelings of disappointment are yet another distraction created by the self, carrying you away from what you are doing.

So whatever comes, just know it as it is.  Do nothing else.  In this way the “me” is not able to persuade us to take its path, and we become more and more objective in our observation and thought.  As we gradually gain freedom, the self has less and less place in our life, yet at the same time we see the self’s process with greater clarity.  We see the two aspects of truth: conventional and ultimate.  Conventionally speaking, there is “me” and I accept this.  However I do not cling to it, or work from its centre.  I recognize it because I perceive it.  But on the ultimate level, I know there is no “me”.  Because we live on different levels, there is no conflict.  I conform to conventional conditions, for the sake of living and communicating; yet on another level I am free, being myself without having to be tied to the “me”.  Then I am in contact with my whole being, instead of the fragmented “me”.  The whole being is not a being, it just being – complete being without an entity.

(Extract from “Voice of Buddhism” Magazine, Vol. 11 no. 2 & 3 June/Sept 1974, KDN No. 7773, Published by Buddhist Missionary Society, Jalan Berhala, Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur 09-06, Malaysia.)

A PLEA FOR THE REVIVAL OF INFORMAL BUDDHIST EDUCATION – By Ananda W.P. Guruge

Former Ambassador Extraordinary

And Plenipotentiary of Sri Lanka in France and Permanent Delegate to Unesco.

This article reflects the view of the author on the necessity for providing an informal system of Buddhist education to children.  This is especially of great interest to us in Malaysia where no formal teaching of the Buddhist religion is provided for in the school system.  For that reason, the home and the temple are undoubtedly the most suitable centres for the Buddhist community to equip with the necessary facilities for informal Buddhist education to their children.

Ed.

A popular Sunday television show which claims an audience of thirty million in France figures children of five and six years of age.  In one of the recent programmes, two girls wore pendants with engravings of Virgin Mary.  The producer of the show, who has a knack of putting children at ease, interviews them for a few minutes before they sing.  The pendants prompted him to base his questions on Virgin Mary.  Both girls knew that she was the mother of Jesus Christ.  But they knew little of Christ.  To the question on how Christ died, they replied that he was killed in war.  That is what they heard in Church, both kids asserted and hardly a gasp or any other reaction was heard from the thousand in the audience.  Only an hour ago, when in a quiz a participant failed to name the bride of a French comedian, the very same audience gasped in disbelief and laughed at her ignorance.

More than the little kids’ answers, the reaction of the audience led me to reflect on what our own attitude to religious knowledge would be in traditionally Buddhist countries in Asia.  I wonder how many six-year olds in these countries would know the name of the parents of Prince Siddhartha or say where he was born or how and where he died.  How many would have some basic knowledge of the Buddha’s teachings”  At what age do our children become conscious of the personality of the founder of the Faith?  What do they learn first at the foundations of their inherited Faith?  Do all children have access to early religious education?

My fairly substantial sojourns in several of these countries persuade me to say “Hardly anyone” and add in respect of at least Myanmar and Sri Lanka “other than in rare cases where a strong sense of piety and commitment exists in the family”.  But if a kid were to give a wrong answer – one that is palpably incredible – what would the reaction of an adult audience be?  In other words, how very pronounced is the general apathy as regards religious knowledge and how great is the resulting ignorance?

With no in-depth search for answers to these questions, one could hazard a quick response: the overall attitude to religious knowledge in Buddhist Asia has rapidly deteriorated in recent times and one should not be surprised if more and more who claim to profess Buddhism actually know very little of the life and the teachings of the Buddha.  To many, Buddhism is only one aspect of the sum total of their numerous beliefs which include many superstitions.  To many others, Buddhism means only a set of rites and rituals and external symbols only have a meaning.

But what is really surprising is that this growing mass ignorance co-exists with spectacular activities initiated by the intelligentsia in the very same countries to make Buddhism better known in non-Buddhist circles.  On an average, more and better publications are produced for foreign consumption in international languages than in national languages and nine out of ten Bhikkhus with qualifications in higher education opt for Dhammaduta work abroad in preference to national educational services.  It is paradoxical that a greater degree of priority is assigned by us to taking the knowledge and practice of Buddhism to foreign lands than to improving religious education at the national level.  How could such a situation have arisen?  How did this gap between the Buddhist intelligentsia and the masses originate?

First and foremost, there exists an incredibly high sense of complacence in Buddhist countries.  This complacence is based on an assumption that the traditional system of diffusing religious knowledge persists undisturbed and it is adequate and more than satisfactory.  This assumption is particularly strengthened by the conviction that the traditional system has succeeded in preserving Buddhism in these countries for thousands of years.  If it has worked so well so long, it should work now and in the future too, we seem to think.  But how justified is this thought and the resulting complacence?  We have not paused to ask the crucial question: Is that system alive?

It cannot be denied that Buddhists have inherited one of the oldest and most effective system of formal and informal religious education.  The history of the Buddhist education is replete with unmatched achievements starting with the Buddha’s own methodological innovations whose efficacy and relevance baffle modern educators.  The Sangha, as a well-established, supremely motivated and ever-renewing learning society, has preserved knowledge and added new insights through research and reflection, study and instruction.  The institutional infrastructure has been equally wellfounded and its capacity to produce intellectual leaders has been amply proved.  The formal system of Buddhist education continues to be as efficient despite vicissitudes of history and challenges of new knowledge and attitudes.  That every Buddhist country in Asia has developed such a tradition of formal religious education is evident.  There is no country in Buddhist Asia which has not preserved or developed functionally effective institutions for this purpose.

Even as recent political and economic problems in traditionally Buddhist countries forced thousands of bhikkhus and lamas to migrate to the wide world, they took with them these systems.  Thus, outside Asia, in Europe, Australia, North America and elsewhere, Chinese, Tibetan, Vietnamese as well as Theravada Buddhist educational institutions have not only come into being but they perform with a baffling degree of success.  In fact, this is the greatest strength of Buddhism.  It has in this traditional educational system an unparalleled capacity to renew itself irrespective of where it goes.  The struggle which goes on in the Kampuchean camps on the Thai border to restore the tradition of Sangha education is indicative of the capacity.  Amidst unbelievable hardships, a group of dedicated persons – nationals as well as foreigners – have begun serious operations to mobilize all available resources to ensure that a well-trained and motivated Sangha is ready to take over its traditional mission once peace returns.  They have already begun to mobilize resources, develop curricula and learning materials and look for facilities to train their future teachers.

But Buddhist education was not restricted to the Sangha.  The monastery had been a centre of learning for the laity as well.  The bhikkhu had been a teacher to the community and he contributed to the spread of literacy.  To the more motivated members of the laity, the whole system was open to acquire knowledge of language and literature, religion and philosophy.  It is not by accident that there are in the history of Buddhism in Asia so many lay scholars whose contribution to philosophy and literature has not been second to that of the Sangha.  But the more important aspect of Buddhist education had been its informal system which again is unique in many respects.  Instructing the laity through every conceivable modality had been the hall mark of Buddhism.

The Buddhists appear to have been the earliest to realize the value of visual aid to diffuse knowledge.  With sculpture and painting depicting the inspiring and colourful life of the Buddha, the numerous episodes from Jatakas with apt moral messages and memorable incidents from Buddhist history, the temple has been a veritable resource centre for the entire community.  Very early its Buddhist art, the technique of representing a few related incidents in “shorthand” (as some art critics describe it) enabled the temple wall to be used for a mnemonic purpose.  The picture provided clues for a guide of preacher to elaborate the story or enabled the viewer to recall details of the episode so represented from what he had learnt in sermons.  A regular guided tour of the temple painting and sculptures has remained the most effective way of teaching the very young the essentials of Buddhism.

The development of internal modalities of teaching and learning received a further impetus from the absence of congregational worship in Buddhism.  A Buddhist goes to a temple when he or she wants and remains as long as possible.  This informality permits not only interaction with the bhikkhus but also among themselves.  The social contact thus engendered has also been educationally very fruitful.

The regular sermons in the temples as well as in homes, as certain domestic rites necessitated, have been equally efficacious.  They were also occasions for both social contact and entertainment.  With several dramatic elements lightly introduced into them, sermons in a variety of forms did provide an element of entertainment.  The more popular preachers had always been consummate story-tellers.  Buddhist literature is full of stories which are as entertaining as are edifying.  They illustrate the importance of virtue while, at the same time, helping us to understand the foibles and failings as well as lofty ideals of humanity.  When distractions of modern mass media had not yet invaded Buddhist societies, the collective reading of these stories in both verse and prose had been a popular pastime.

The net result of such active informal modalities of education had been that the essentials of Buddhism were learned effortlessly.  Even an illiterate mother – illiterate in that she could neither read nor write – was not ignorant and the children began to share her knowledge and understanding of Buddhism from a very tender age.  When an Asian Buddhist claims that Buddhism was imbibed by him or her with the milk of the mother, the statement is literally true.  Thence began the life-long learning of the noble teachings of the Buddha.

The question to be asked now is paramount: Does this traditional system exist today and if so, does it work?  To say that it had collapsed in Buddhist Asia with very little to take its place is no exaggeration.  In industrially more advanced countries, the situation is worse than in others.  All over, there is still some vestige of the system in remote areas while, with urbanization, the temple – community contact and relations become weaker and educationally ineffective.  Some countries have realized the dangers of losing the great asset of informal Buddhist education for the laity and have taken remedial measures.  The lost temple schools are being revived in the form of Sunday schools.  Buddhism has become a school subject and progressively facilities are provided for its study in Colleges and Universities – but, necessarily, as a subject in which a prescribed level of proficiency has to be time-tested informal system of Buddhist education remains grave and chances for improvement are bleak.

The biggest problem is that the inculcation of Buddhist knowledge, principles and ethical values, which, until recent times, has been a full-time activity of the home, the temple and the community is now guided by a time-table of life in which religion gets only a limited time slot.  There is no total immersion in religious knowledge and experience.  The affective function of Buddhist education is subued by cognitive objectives.  Some even argue that religion should not be allowed to suffuse life in its entirety.  I have listened to arguments of eminent educators in favour of relegating religion to a ‘safe little corner’ in one’s life so as to save one’s self from the dreaded complications of ‘suppression, repression and depression!’  My answer to them has always been to invite them to examine Buddhism in its entirety and say how much of their arguments would apply to the teachings of the Buddha.  I have had surprising responses.  But many see my point that the values of critical examination, independence of thought, altruistic moral conduct and freedom from dogma make Buddhism a model of the best intellectual preparation for life.

The need to revive the informal system of Buddhist education is vital throughout Buddhist Asia.  We cannot afford to be complacent because our complacence stems from misplaced confidence in a system which we have long neglected under modernizing influences in economy, science and technology and mass media.  We would soon have audiences of thousands who would remain hardly moved or perturbed when a child gives a wrong answer to a simple question on the life and teachings of the Buddha.  The home, the temple and the community have to be aided in restoring the educational role they played as regards teaching the young the exalted principles of Buddha Dhamma.  Modern media have to be pressed to complement and supplement this effort.  The knowledge of the life and teachings of the Buddha has to be rediffused in our own communities with as much or greater enthusiasm and devotion than in non-Buddhist circles.  The latter, too, must be done because the world intelligentsia yearns for Buddhism much more now than ever before.  But if our own people lose their precious heritage, we would hardly have anything to share with humanity.  With the revival of informal modalities of mass education in Buddhism, the motto most aptly has to be ‘Charity begins at home’.

(Extract from “Voice of Buddhism” Magazine, Vol. 29 no. 1, June 1991, Published by Buddhist Missionary Society, 123, Jalan Berhala, Brickfields, 50470 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  ISSN 0042/2094-1991)