Baishui Zen

The purpose of these posts will be to roughly follow the series of volumes by the Dalai Lama entitled The Library of Wisdom and Compassion. These span an impressive 9 volumes (soon to be 10) at the time of beginning, and will be an opportunity for beginners who are curious about Buddhism to get a gentle introduction to topics that are important to understanding Buddhist thinking and scripture. Posts in this category will be about collecting the main ideas from sections of the text, and talking about how I (or you, in the comments) relate to them on a more personal level than in some of the other sections of this blog. This is the “blog” part of the blog.

So let’s start with the absolute basics. Buddhism is one of the world’s oldest religions, and the fourth largest by total number of adherents. On top of being a religion, it is also a philosophy. Like most other world religions, it is an umbrella term, with the different groups having varying degrees of shared history and concepts. Unlike say, Christianity, which has essentially one holy text, the Bible (with some lesser texts surrounding it), Buddhism does not have one text which it places above all others. The earliest Buddhists were an oral tradition, and by the time writing was common in any given place, there were numerous collections of teachings, with no person or group having any ultimate authority as to what was considered even just “important,” let alone “sacred.” There are tens of thousands of scriptures that have been found across Asia.

Why so many? Buddhists write about everything. The throughline through (many of) these texts is that they are about those teachings of the Buddha himself, the dharma. Dharma means “teaching,” but it also means “phenomenon,” and in this way it’s not too different from the Greek “logos,” which can be literally ‘word’ but also ‘Word’ with a capital W, as in, the Word of god. The “Buddhadharma” is therefore as broad as the idea of dharma itself. Given the approximately two thousand years since the time of the Buddha, and the lack of direct quotes from his own time, it’s not that surprising that each community has cropped up teachings on all manner of things from the relatively mundane to the most lofty of philosophical questions. During the time of the Buddha, there was no scientific method, and there were not really distinctions between philosophy and religion. Therefore, since just about anything can be regarded as some sort of dharma, Buddhists have applied the Buddha’s teachings to understand essentially everything. Many of these teachings have been collected into essays, dialogues, poems, and instructional manuals, known collectively as “sutras” or “scriptures.” We will discuss some of these from my own readings in other sections of this blog.

Unlike many major religions where the teachings of the religion constitute a body of dogma, Buddhism has very little of this. Part of this is due to the lack of central authorities or scriptures, but it is also due to the attitude of the Buddha that practitioners should see his teachings at work in their own lives, only adopting those things which actually help them. In this sense, there is a proto-scientific element to the Buddhadharma. Furthermore, attitudes about the Buddha himself as a religious figure vary. Some regard him as an eternal being who came to our world to spread understanding of dharma. Others, merely a wise man whose understanding of the world was ahead of its time. Because Buddhists are not obligated to pray to the Buddha as a god, and focus on putting these teachings into practice, it is possible to observe the teachings and benefit from them even while maintaining your own religious views.

Some of the beliefs in Buddhism are a bit foreign to us, if we’re from the west. For example, many world religions in Asia have a belief in reincarnation in some form or another, and Buddhism is among these. To Buddhist practitioners, these beliefs are as obvious to them as a belief in heaven is to many in the United States. These beliefs are culturally informed, in addition to being explicit teachings of many religions. Alongside this is the belief in escape from reincarnation and cyclic rebirth to nirvana. With teachings like these, it can be difficult for us to see how to apply them to our life, because of their highly metaphysical nature.

To bring things down to earth, I like to interpret them somewhat metaphorically. Our lives are like our habits, mental ones, like recurrent thoughts, feelings, and reactions we have trained ourselves to have. Going through these cycles can be thought of as an analogy for going through the process of cyclic rebirth. Mental liberation means breaking free from these cycles, realizing that these transient states are not the essence of who we are. It is about cultivating the insight that these states are impermanent, and ultimately make us into something other than our selves. This realization leads to a profound sense of freedom because we are no longer caught up in identifying with these temporary mental states.

While dharma can be multi-faceted in subject matter and interpretation, above all else, it’s about finding ways to connect to ourselves and others, through mindfulness and compassion. When we are chiefly concerned with our own personal gratification, our vision is quite narrow. By having a broad perspective, we find purpose for ourselves, and when problems do inevitably arise, we mind less. If we think about more than the betterment of this life, then when we encounter difficulties in the present, we will be better able to weather them and remain positive about the future. Thinking only about our selves, the pleasures of this life and putting all our hopes in this life alone, we feel let down when things inevitably do not turn out the way we wanted. We also alienate others who rely on us, and are alone when we need someone to rely on. Therefore a broad perspective of life and an understanding of the nature of suffering and dissatisfaction helps us to improve our life now and in many lives to come. I’ll let you decide what I mean by that. More importantly, decide for yourself what it means to you.