A History of Indian Philosophy Part 16

He should never become angry with any person. Should he at any time feel himself offended on account of the injuries inflicted on him by his enemies, he should think of the futility of doubling his sadness by becoming sorry or vexed on that account. He should think that if he should allow himself to be affected by anger, he would spoil all his sila which he was so carefully practising.

If anyone has done a vile action by inflicting injury, should he himself also do the same by being angry at it? If he were finding fault with others for being angry, could he himself indulge in anger? Moreover he should think that all the dhammas are momentary ([email protected]_); that there no longer existed the khandhas which had inflicted the injury, and moreover the infliction of any injury being only a joint product, the man who was injured was himself an indispensable element in the production of the infliction as much as the man who inflicted the injury, and there could not thus be any special reason for making him responsible and of being angry with him. If even after thinking in this way the anger does not subside, he should think that by indulging in anger he could only bring mischief on himself through his bad deeds, and he should further think that the other man by being angry was only producing mischief to himself but not to him. By thinking in these ways the sage would be able to free his mind from anger against his enemies and establish himself in an att.i.tude of universal friends.h.i.+p [Footnote ref 1]. This is called the metta-bhavana. In the meditation of universal pity ([email protected]_) also one should sympathize with the sorrows of his friends and foes alike. The sage being more keen-sighted will feel pity for those who are apparently leading a happy life, but are neither acquiring merits nor endeavouring to proceed on the way to Nibbana, for they are to suffer innumerable lives of sorrow [Footnote ref 2].

We next come to the jhanas with the help of material things as objects of concentration called the [email protected] These objects of concentration may either be earth, water, fire, wind, blue colour, yellow colour, red colour, white colour, light or limited s.p.a.ce (_paricchinnakasa_). Thus the sage may take a brown ball of earth and concentrate his mind upon it as an earth ball, sometimes

[Footnote 1: _Visuddhimagga_, pp. 295-314.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._ pp. 314-315.]

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with eyes open and sometimes with eyes shut. When he finds that even in shutting his eyes he can visualize the object in his mind, he may leave off the object and retire to another place to concentrate upon the image of the earth ball in his mind.

In the first stages of the first meditation (_pathamam jhanam_) the mind is concentrated on the object in the way of understanding it with its form and name and of comprehending it with its diverse relations. This state of concentration is called vitakka (discursive meditation). The next stage of the first meditation is that in which the mind does not move in the object in relational terms but becomes fixed and settled in it and penetrates into it without any quivering. This state is called vicara (steadily moving). The first stage vitakka has been compared in [email protected]'s _Visuddhimagga_ to the flying of a kite with its wings flapping, whereas the second stage is compared to its flying in a sweep without the least quiver of its wings. These two stages are a.s.sociated with a buoyant exaltation (_piti_) and a steady inward bliss called sukha [Footnote ref 1] instilling the mind. The formation of this first jhana roots out five ties of avijja, kamacchando (dallying with desires), vyapado (hatred), thinamiddham (sloth and torpor), uddhaccakukkuccam (pride and restlessness), and vicikiccha (doubt).

The five elements of which this jhana is const.i.tuted are vitakka, vicara, plti, sukham and ekaggata (one pointedness).

When the sage masters the first jhana he finds it defective and wants to enter into the second meditation (_dutiyam jhanam_), where there is neither any vitakka nor vicara of the first jhana, but the mind is in one unruffled state (_ekodibhavam_). It is a much steadier state and does not possess the movement which characterized the vitakka and the vicara stages of the first jhana and is therefore a very placid state ([email protected] ativiya acalata suppasannata ca_). It is however a.s.sociated with piti, sukha and ekaggata as the first jhana was.

When the second jhana is mastered the sage becomes disinclined towards the enjoyment of the piti of that stage and becomes indifferent to them (_upekkhako_). A sage in this stage sees the objects but is neither pleased nor displeased. At this stage all the asavas of the sage become loosened ([email protected]). The enjoyment of sukha however still remains in the stage and the

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[Footnote 1: Where there is piti there is sukha, but where there is sukha there may not necessarily be piti. _Visuddhimagga_, p. 145.]

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mind if not properly and carefully watched would like sometimes to turn back to the enjoyment of piti again. The two characteristics of this jhana are sukha and ekaggata. It should however be noted that though there is the feeling of highest sukha here, the mind is not only not attached to it but is indifferent to it (_atimadhhurasukhe sukhaparamippatte pi tatiyajjhane upekkhako, na tattha sukhabhisangena [email protected]@dhiyati_) [Footnote ref 1]. The earth ball ([email protected]_) is however still the object of the jhana.

In the fourth or the last jhana both the sukha (happiness) and the dukkha (misery) vanish away and all the roots of attachment and antipathies are destroyed. This state is characterized by supreme and absolute indifference (_upekkha_) which was slowly growing in all the various stages of the jhanas. The characteristics of this jhana are therefore upekkha and ekaggata. With the mastery of this jhana comes final perfection and total extinction of the citta called cetovimutti, and the sage becomes thereby an arhat [Footnote ref 2]. There is no further production of the khandhas, no rebirth, and there is the absolute cessation of all sorrows and sufferings--Nibbana.

Kamma.

In the Katha (II. 6) Yama says that "a fool who is blinded with the infatuation of riches does not believe in a future life; he thinks that only this life exists and not any other, and thus he comes again and again within my grasp." In the Digha Nikaya also we read how Payasi was trying to give his reasons in support of his belief that "Neither is there any other world, nor are there beings, reborn otherwise than from parents, nor is there fruit or result of deeds well done or ill done [Footnote ref 3]." Some of his arguments were that neither the vicious nor the virtuous return to tell us that they suffered or enjoyed happiness in the other world, that if the virtuous had a better life in store, and if they believed in it, they would certainly commit suicide in order to get it at the earliest opportunity, that in spite of taking the best precautions we do not find at the time of the death of any person that his soul goes out, or that his body weighs less on account of the departure of his soul, and so on. Ka.s.sapa refutes his arguments with apt ill.u.s.trations. But in spite of a few agnostics of

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[Footnote 1: _Visuddhimagga_, p. 163.]

[Footnote 2: _Majjhima Nikaya_, I.p. 296, and _Visuddhimagga_, pp.

167-168.]

[Footnote 3: _Dialogues of the Buddha_, II. p. 349; _D. N._ II. pp. 317 ff.]

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Payasi's type, we have every reason to believe that the doctrine of rebirth in other worlds and in this was often spoken of in the [email protected] and taken as an accepted fact by the Buddha. In the _Milinda Panha_, we find Nagasena saying "it is through a difference in their karma that men are not all alike, but some long lived, some short lived, some healthy and some sickly, some handsome and some ugly, some powerful and some weak, some rich and some poor, some of high degree and some of low degree, some wise and some foolish [Footnote ref 1]." We have seen in the third chapter that the same soil of views was enunciated by the [email protected] sages.

But karma could produce its effect in this life or any other life only when there were covetousness, antipathy and infatuation.

But "when a man's deeds are performed without covetousness, arise without covetousness and are occasioned without covetousness, then inasmuch as covetousness is gone these deeds are abandoned, uprooted, pulled out of the ground like a palmyra tree and become non-existent and not liable to spring up again in the future [Footnote ref 2]."

Karma by itself without craving ([email protected]_) is incapable of bearing good or bad fruits. Thus we read in the [email protected]@thana sutta_, "even this craving, potent for rebirth, that is accompanied by l.u.s.t and self-indulgence, seeking satisfaction now here, now there, to wit, the craving for the life of sense, the craving for becoming (renewed life) and the craving for not becoming (for no new rebirth) [Footnote ref 3]." "Craving for things visible, craving for things audible, craving for things that may be smelt, tasted, touched, for things in memory recalled. These are the things in this world that are dear, that are pleasant. There does craving take its rise, there does it dwell [Footnote ref 4]." Pre-occupation and deliberation of sensual gratification giving rise to craving is the reason why sorrow comes.

And this is the first arya satya (n.o.ble truth).

The cessation of sorrow can only happen with "the utter cessation of and disenchantment about that very craving, giving it up, renouncing it and emanc.i.p.ation from it [Footnote ref 5]."

When the desire or craving ([email protected]_) has once ceased the sage becomes an arhat, and the deeds that he may do after that will bear no fruit. An arhat cannot have any good or bad

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[Footnote 1: Warren's _Buddhism in Translations_, p. 215.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._ pp. 216-217.]

[Footnote 3: _Dialogues of the Buddha_, II. p. 340.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid._ p. 341.]

[Footnote 5: _Ibid._ p. 341.]

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fruits of whatever he does. For it is through desire that karma finds its scope of giving fruit. With the cessation of desire all ignorance, antipathy and grasping cease and consequently there is nothing which can determine rebirth. An arhat may suffer the effects of the deeds done by him in some previous birth just as Moggallana did, but in spite of the remnants of his past karma an arhat was an emanc.i.p.ated man on account of the cessation of his desire [Footnote ref 1].

Kammas are said to be of three kinds, of body, speech and mind (_kayika_, _vacika_ and _manasika_). The root of this kamma is however volition (_cetana_) and the states a.s.sociated with it [Footnote ref 2]. If a man wis.h.i.+ng to kill animals goes out into the forest in search of them, but cannot get any of them there even after a long search, his misconduct is not a bodily one, for he could not actually commit the deed with his body. So if he gives an order for committing a similar misdeed, and if it is not actually carried out with the body, it would be a misdeed by speech (_vacika_) and not by the body. But the merest bad thought or ill will alone whether carried into effect or not would be a kamma of the mind (_manasika_) [Footnote ref 3]. But the mental kamma must be present as the root of all bodily and vocal kammas, for if this is absent, as in the case of an arhat, there cannot be any kammas at all for him.

Kammas are divided from the point of view of effects into four cla.s.ses, viz. (1) those which are bad and produce impurity, (2) those which are good and productive of purity, (3) those which are partly good and partly bad and thus productive of both purity and impurity, (4) those which are neither good nor bad and productive neither of purity nor of impurity, but which contribute to the destruction of kammas [Footnote ref 4].

Final extinction of sorrow (_nibbana_) takes place as the natural result of the destruction of desires. Scholars of Buddhism have tried to discover the meaning of this ultimate happening, and various interpretations have been offered. Professor De la Vallee Poussin has pointed out that in the Pali texts Nibbana has sometimes been represented as a happy state, as pure annihilation, as an inconceivable existence or as a changeless state [Footnote ref 5].

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[Footnote 1: See _Kathavatthu_ and Warren's _Buddhism in Translations_, pp, 221 ff.]

[Footnote 2: _Atthasalini_, p. 88.]

[Footnote 3: See _Atthasalini_, p. 90.]

[Footnote 4: See _Atthasalini_, p. 89.]

[Footnote 5: Prof. De la Vallae Poussin's article in the _E. R.E._ on [email protected] See also _Cullavagga_, IX. i. 4; Mrs Rhys Davids's _Psalms of the early Buddhists_, I. and II., Introduction, p. x.x.xvii; _Digha_, II. 15; _Udana_, VIII.; [email protected]_, III. 109.]

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Mr Schrader, in discussing Nibbana in _Pali Text Society Journal_, 1905, says that the Buddha held that those who sought to become identified after death with the soul of the world as infinite s.p.a.ce (_akasa_) or consciousness (_vinnana_) attained to a state in which they had a corresponding feeling of infiniteness without having really lost their individuality. This latter interpretation of Nibbana seems to me to be very new and quite against the spirit of the Buddhistic texts. It seems to me to be a hopeless task to explain Nibbana in terms of worldly experience, and there is no way in which we can better indicate it than by saying that it is a cessation of all sorrow; the stage at which all worldly experiences have ceased can hardly be described either as positive or negative. Whether we exist in some form eternally or do not exist is not a proper Buddhistic question, for it is a heresy to think of a Tathagata as existing eternally (_s'as'vata_) or not-existing (_as'as'vata_) or whether he is existing as well as not existing or whether he is neither existing nor non-existing. Any one who seeks to discuss whether Nibbana is either a positive and eternal state or a mere state of non-existence or annihilation, takes a view which has been discarded in Buddhism as heretical.

It is true that we in modern times are not satisfied with it, for we want to know what it all means. But it is not possible to give any answer since Buddhism regarded all these questions as illegitimate.

Later Buddhistic writers like Nagarjuna and Candrakirtti took advantage of this att.i.tude of early Buddhism and interpreted it as meaning the non-essential character of all existence.

Nothing existed, and therefore any question regarding the existence or non-existence of anything would be meaningless. There is no difference between the worldly stage ([email protected]_) and Nibbana, for as all appearances are non-essential, they never existed during the [email protected] so that they could not be annihilated in Nibbana.