Buddhist Mysticism
by Anwar Shaikh
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Mysticism, in Buddhism is an experience which
defies expression. It is a form of knowledge yet wrapped in a floral gauze which
hinders the intellectual grasp; it is more of a felt knowledge yet not removed
from intelligence. The vision of a Buddhist mystic, like any mystic, is
different from the secular perception, because his oblivion to surroundings, and
the disinterest in fleeting things, takes him out of the bounds of space and
time.
Buddhism is a philosophical religion which originated
in India, and came into being as a protest against Brahmanism or the religious
hegemony of the Brahmins, which they exercised as the sole interpreter of the
Vedas. As members of the highest caste, the Brahmins claimed thal the whole
universe had been evolved for their benefit. Sidhartha, the founder of Buddhism,
owing to his great philosophical vision and interest in the well-being of
mankind, remains as one of the greatest sons of humanity. The understanding of
his mysticism is not possible without knowing his philosophy which is complex
and requires attention. However, the Buddhist philosophy like the western
philosophy is not a cult of the mind or an intellectual innovation but is a path
to self-realisation where anyone can travel and report his experience to his
fellow-travellers and exchange his views with them.
Its major precepts are:
a. There is no divine creator. It believes that the
universe is uncreated; it has no beginning or end; what comes into being must
suffer destruction and what faces annihilation must come back again; becoming
and unbecoming follow each other like day and night. The existence is, in
fact, a recurrent cyclical change.
b. The world is a phenomenon of "dependent
origination," that is, everything is caused by something else. Therefore,
dependent origination means the inter-relational existence or all things.
c. Everything is in a constant flux. Thus, life is a
series of manifestations and extinctions. Therefore, there is no such thing as
self, atman or ego for lack of permanence. A human is an embodiment of five
aggregates i.e. Sakandhas. As a person is constantly subject to the process of
change, he has no fixed underlying identity.
Thus Buddhism does not acknowledge the identity of
soul and by the same token is silent about the existence of God.
d. Now, the Buddhist doctrine becomes quite baffling.
There is no self or soul, yet according to the doctrine of Karman, a good
action brings happiness and a bad deed produces sorrow; a person is followed
by the goodness and wickedness of his actions life after life.
This shows Gautama's susceptibility to his cultural
background. He was born as a Hindu and the Hindus have believed in
reincarnation since time immemorial. However, the Caste System, which the
Buddha hated for his love or mankind, is the natural consequence of
metempsychosis i.e. the chain of rebirth. Though there is no specific mention
of rebirth in the Rg. Veda, the Cast System is unambiguously described there
and forms the basis of Hinduism. Thus, reincarnation is a doctrine indigenous
to India. The Lord Buddha could not escape its psycholcgical backlash. He
believed that an individual comes into being as a result of many causes
carried over from his previous existence. It means that man is subject to a
chain of rebirths according to his past actions, which are intimately
connected with the environment brought about by the universal influences.
e. The Buddhist concept of voidness holds that there
is no real existence; all tlhings are forms of appearance. However, voidness
or Sunyata is the middle stage of being and nonbeing. Therefore, it is neither
existence nor extinction. The void includes everything and is free from the
polar strife, for it neither excludes nor opposes anything. This void or
emptiness is live because all manifestations come out of it. Thus realisation
of the void is tantamount to life and power. It is this voidness which is the
ultimate reality.
To a Buddhist, life is like a burning fire lit by the
illusion of existence, the illusion of passions and the illusion of cravings,
leading to Dukkha or troubles. Extinguish these illusions and you become an
enlightened person, who has achieved Narvana, a state which represents release
from suffering, culminating in total happiness.
After this narrative, I may discuss the Buddhist
mysticism. It is totally different from the Hindu approach, which seeks union of
soul with God (Atman-Brahmin). It is because Buddhism is silent about God and
soul, and concerns itself with existence i.e. the nature of being and causation.
This is the reason that knowledge of Being is the essence of the Buddhist
mysticism. Thus it lays emphasis on the path that man must adopt to attain his
goal of Narvana by freeing himself from the alien constraints which hinder his
progress towards his destination. Thus the Buddhist mysticism places the highest
value on knowledge and piety of action.
Aesthetic experience is the kernel of the Buddist
mysticism. This situation arises from the fact that it persuades an individual
to free himself from the alien constraints by separating some portions of
existence, then putting them together and thus reconstituting some aspect of the
Being as he sees it. Since this is not possible physically, the mystic uses his
contemplative powers which are closely related to his aesthetic vision or
intrinsic perception. The essence of concentration or Dhayana is that the mystic
sees the same thing quite differently as other pcople do. It actually means that
a mystic, owing to his passion for Being or Reality, can see it according to his
stage of maturity whereas other people cannot. Though his experience is real, it
is ineffable. It is like the pearls of dew which can be enjoyed usually but
impossible to be strung into a necklace.
We ought to remember that this universe inspires awe in
man with its mysterious nature. Buddhist mysticism acknowledges this fact
because all its meditative techniques enable the practitioner to come closer to
his being by feeling a corresponding loss in such a fear.
Here the Buddhist mysticism runs into a serious
philosophical problem. Despite not acknowledging the existence of Self or Soul,
it makes cultivation of selfhood as the final goal. The principle of nonself is
based on the view that nothing is permanent in the universe. Therefore there is
no such thing as a permanent self or soul. Yet it treats reincarnation as fact
because the doctrine of Karman i.e. deed or act must take its effect. An
individual is brought about by many causes of his past existence and is closely
related to all other causes in the universe. Thus there is a close connection
between man and the world. Man's rebirth is analogous to a burning fire, which
looks the same all the time but keeps changing every moment. Thus rebirth is a
continuity of an everchanging self. Though this view is logically defective, the
Buddhist emphasis on the development of selfhood is adorable.
Know thyself is a basic tenet of Buddhism. Buddha
himself taught his disciples: "Be a refuge to yourself."
Once a woman was lost. When a search-party was
arranged, he said to them, "Which is better for you - to go seeking the
woman or go seeking the self?"
The ultimate aim of a Buddhist mystic is to seek
Narvana; it is a release from suffering and represents an ideal state of bliss.
Thus Buddha, despite his silence about soul and God, stands close to the
Vedantic philosophy which states that release or Mukti (Narvana) is attained
when soul unites with God. To a Hindu, this is the state of bliss, which a
Buddhist calls Narvana.
Buddha had an acute mind brimming with psychological
understanding and reformative zeal. As he was a Hindu by birth, he could not
completely shake off the influences of his cultural inheritance and upbringing.
What he disliked most was the hegemony of Brahmins over the other castes. He
challenged their supremacy. The Indian castes have always been expressed in the
following order:
Brahmin, Kstrya, Vaishya and Shudra
He altered this order to: Kstrya, Brahmin, Vaishya and
Shudra.
Because Sanskrit was the language of the Vedas, which
served as the fountain of the Brahmanical superiority over the other castes, he
even forsook Sanskrit and adopted Pali as the medium of his teachings. But these
were just the methods of protests because he was a staunch ambassador of human
equality.
Gautama Buddha was a born-reformer. He was the first
sage who believed in the equality of mankind. Thus, he hated caste system. He
was a prince by birth, and had a natural taste for justice. His compassion
towards animals, which he shared with the Jainas, and brotherhood of mankind, is
simply marvellous, to say the least. Buddhism came into being as a protest
against Brahmanism but it was a positive movement, having an independent goal.
It was a wave of Reformation which took place at least 2000 years earlier than
the Christian Reformation but excelled it in piety, purity and probity because
in a country like India, which has always housed one-fifth of the world
population, not even one person was murdered over the theological argument. It
shows the philosophical mind, and the cultural level of the Indians which they
had attained when nnankind was getting acquainted with the concept of
civilisation.
Buddha was deeply indebted to his native philosophy,
Sankhya System, the oldest philosophical system of all, had existed several
hundred years before the birth of Gautama. Its author, the great sage Kapila,
stated bluntly that the complete sensation of pain was the true goal of life. He
was the first person who propounded the theory of evolution by natural means and
emphasised that the universe was a cyclical phenomenon of decay and development,
destined to repeat itself indefinitely. It was he, and not Lamarck, who
discovered thal needs of the self or organism generate the functions such as
sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, and it is these functions which lead to
the development of organs such as eye, ear, nose, tongue and skin. He also
denied the existence of a personal creator because he thought it inconceivable,
for "a thing to be made out of nothing." Therefore, creator and the
created are one. Here is the doctrine of monism at work which pervades the
Buddhist system as interrelationship of all things.
Yet he was not a materialist. He was a fore-runner of
Aristotle because he believed in an independent physical principle, Purusha,
person or soul, which animates things, vitalises and stimulates them to evolve.
This principle is omnipresent and everlasting. Though incapable of working
itself, it is indispensible to every action. This soul or spirit is the same in
every organism and has no individuality, which is a physical characteristic.
Kapila's philosophy known as the Sankhya System is vast in its scope. It deals
not only with the twenty-five Realities (Tattwas "thatness") which
make up the world but also describe the significance of numbers. According to
Winternitz, Pythagoras was influenced by Kapila. And so was Buddha who was born
in Kapilavastu, a town built by the pupils of Kapila to commemorate his
greatness.
Another native philosophy called "Yoga" not
only becomes as the basic element of the Buddhist mysticism but also reveals
that mysticism as the science and search for the Being started in India, and
from there, it spread to the rest of the world.
In the days of the Upanishads, yoga was pure mysticism,
and its purpose was union of soul with God. Later, it was corrupted with magic
and tales of miracles. It must have exercised a tremendous influence on Buddha.
For the fuller understanding of this point, one ought to realize what yoga
really is. It is a method of cleansing one's self through all ascetic discipline
for achieving supernatural intelligence and powers. To be a yogi or practitioner
of yoga, one must believe that matter is the root of ignorance and suffering.
Therefore, the aspirant must dedicate himself to freeing the soul from all sense
phenomena and bodily attachments. It is an attempt for atoning in one life all
the sins of the soul it has committed in its previous births, which may amount
to several hundred or thousands.
Yoga is equally known for its bodily discipline in the
field gaiety, sports and entertainment as well as in the world of a mystic,
recluse and a crusader. Yoga-Sultra, are heard in the centres of yoga from
Benares to London and Cairo to New York whether they have been set up by
delicate women to enhance their beauty through callisthenic exercises, derived
from the yoga discipline, or they are in the grottoes of Sufis, Darweshes and
Sadhus engaged in the painful yogic practices with a view to gaining control of
their bodies and minds for stealing a glimpse of the Most Beautiful, hiding
behind the phenomenal veil.
The yoga consists of the following eight stages, which
speak for their significance in the mystical world, irrespective of religious
barriers, though one must make some provision for local modifications:
1. Yama: This is the first stage of yoga: it requires
the aspirant to give up desire. Take a vow of non-violence and celebacy
(Ahimsa and Brahmacharia). One becomes a well-wisher of all things by ignoring
celf-interest.
This is at the root of the Buddhist philosophy which
treats desire as suffering on the ground that what is desired is changing and
perishable. Thus the impermanence of the object of desire causes
disappointment and sorrow.
Celebacy and renunciation of the Christian monk stems
from the same yogic principle. The Muslim sufi or mystic, against the
teachings of Islam, lives a life of poverty and seclusion. A true sufi is
averse to carnal relationships but a fake sufi may have several wives!
2. Niyama: strict, sincere and severe observation of
the preliminary rules for yoga such as purity, piety, probity and cleanliness,
contentment and self containment.
These rules apply universally to all mystics
irrespective of faith though a small number practise filthy habits to show
their disgust, dislike and disdain of the world.
3. Asana: the adoption of a posture. This is a must.
Though Indian posture is different from the postures of other mystics, yet
they have realised the importance of the Indian concept of posture.
4. Prananyama or the breath control. These exercises
aim at forgetting everything but breathing with a view to clearing the mind
for passive emptiness. Those yogis who have mastered this technique can be
buried alive for several days, and then dug up quite safe and well.
In addition, it is practised by the students of judo,
karate, boxing and even the seekers of beauty through fitness and slimming.
5. Pratyahara denotes the stage when a practitioner
of yoga finds that his mind controls all the senses and has the ability to
withdraw itself from all sense objects.
6. Dharana is the next stage. This exercise aims to
concentrate on one object to the exclusion of everything else.
Once the mind has developed such an exclusive
power of concentration, it is in a position to free itself from the objects of
desire and penetrate into the immaterial essence of reality.
7. Dhayana or meditation results from Dharana, which
is concentration on a single object and is greatly helped by the constant
repetition of the mystical syllable: OM.
Both Dharna and Dhayand are integral parts of the
mystical practices throughout the world though the practitioners are not
always aware of their origin. A sufi or Muslim ascetic recites ISM-E-AZAM
(ALLAH-HOO) while concentrating on an object and a Christian may repeat Jesus
or Hail Mary.
8. Samadhi is the stage when the mind is completely
exhausted of all thoughts, and finds itself in a trance; this is the stage
when the mind is empty and loses consciousness of itself as a separate being:
it feels a sense of oneness with everything else. This is the state of
complete harmony and total bliss.
Of course, yoga does not seek union of soul with God but
believes that man has the ability to be God-like when he has cleansed his soul
of all temptations and bodily subjections. Brahman or God, to a yogi is the
occult spiritual base of man called soul or self. Releasing soul from the
corporal command is an act of becoming Brahman or God.
Yoga is one of the six philosophical systems of India.
It has exerted a good deal of influence on the Buddhist mystics, but because of
its rational basis, it remains its individuality, independence and ingenuity
Buddha means "The Enlightened One." Gautama
wanted his disciples to become enlightened like himself by practising his
principles. He sought awakening in one's self as well as in others. This
awakening is akin to removing the Vedantic veil of ignorance for seeking unity
with the ultimate Reality or Being. A Hindu calls it union with God but a
Buddhist names it Narvana, the eternal stale of bliss.
Though it is not usually realised, the Indian forms of
mysticism, Hindu and Buddhist, have exerted greater influence on the human mind
than any other religion or philosophy. To realise this fact, one has only to
look at the cultural background and spiritual vision of such countries as
Ceylon, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, China,
Tibet, Mongolia, Korea, Japan, Turkestan, Afghanistan and Iran. If we add to it
the population of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, we can easily see that at
least two-thirds of mankind has directly benefited from the Indian mysticism.
Arabian peninsula, the fountain of mighty international
religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam, itself forms a spiritual
province of the Indian mysticism. This fact has been deliberately concealed by
the Muslem scholars to promote dislike and "primitiveness" of the
Indian culture and philosophy. That once, Mecca itself was under the sway of the
Indian thought and practice is proved by the following Hadith:
"Abdullah .... reported: Allah's Messenger saw me
wearing two clothes dyed in saffron, whereupon he said: These are the clothes
worn by the non-believers, so do not wear them."
This hadith has been transmitted by several
authorities; the Prophet, among other things, forbade his followers to wear
clothes of yellow colour. Saffron or yellowish colour is associated with the
clothes of the Hindu and Buddhist ascetics. It clearly shows that the Indian
influence had once penetrated the heart of Arabia.
Triad, the principle of one-in-three, krown to
Christianity as Trinity, is an ancient Indian innovation to be seen in the triad
of Vishnu-Brahma-Shiva. The Arab world adopted this doctrine from India. For
example, the Palmyrenes had a triple god: Bal, Yarhibol and Aglibol. The Quran
itself refers to the triad of Al-Lat, Al-Uzza and Manaat, the three daughters of
Allah. The Kaaba itself was an extension of the Indian temple where idolatory
was practised. Allah was one of the statues of the Kaaba.
One can give several other examples to this effect.
However, the purpose of this narrative is not jingoism but to establish the
source of mysticism with a view to showing that the quest for the hidden truth
is latent in the human mind and this truth makes mysticism the natural religion
of mankind.
With this fact in my mind, I shall devote the next
chapter to Greek mysticism.
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