Woven cadences as a subtle map for the inner journey.
[image: Inline image 1]
There is no path, no steps on a path, and 'concentration' is not a way to
transcend, according to the Maharishi and Sri Buddha. Transcending is a
middle way between relative and absolute, called subtle by the wise, a
state of non-cognition, obtained through effortless experience of the
non-ideational nature of mantric devices. TMers do not extremely avoid
thoughts during meditation, nor do they cling to them, neither do they
concentrate on their mantra. Thus the TMers avoid extremes; but they do not
extremely avoid extremes.
Says Maharishi: "When consciousness of outside objects begins to be lost,
one should not begin to mourn its loss."
The 'Four Truths' as expressed by Sri Buddha, called Gotama, are not four
principles, but merely one principle, with four statements asserted about
it. According to A. J. Bahm, the principle is "Desire for what will not be
attained ends in frustration; therefore to avoid frustration, avoid
desiring what will not be attained." The four statements: (1) Unhappiness
consists in frustration (dissatisfaction, anxiety). (2) It originates in
desiring what will not be attained. (3) It ceases when one ceases to desire
what will not be attained. (4) The method is to seek the middle way between
wanting things to be more than they are or less than they are with respect
to any way that they are.
Says Bahm: "If this be Gotama's doctrine, surely we are all followers of
Gotama, assenting to the truth of his principle, even if, unhappily, we
fail to practise it to perfection." Unfortunately for doctrinal simplicity,
the 'Four Truths' have received other formulations, even in the Pitakas
themselves. Consider the now-common formula: 'All is suffering, because all
is impermanent. The cause of suffering is desire. The way to remove
suffering is to remove desire. The way to remove desire is to follow the
Eight-Fold Path.'
Although it is clear, notes Bahm, that Gotama intended his principle to be
a universal solution to a universal problem ('All is suffering' meaning
that people normally always desire more than they will attain, at least in
some degree), the explanation, 'because all is impermanent', appears to be
the work of other minds. The importance of the role which this doctrine has
played in Buddhist history does not permit it to be lightly cast aside. Yet
certain persisting inconsistencies continue to call for more suitable
explanation.
Asks Bahm: "If all is impermanent, is impermanence impermanent, is the
doctrine of impermanence impermanent, is dhamma (Gotama's doctrine)
impermanent? If attachment to the permanent is extreme, should one seek
permanent non-attachment? If self is impermanent, what is it that reaps
karmic rewards, that is reborn, that continues through the eight steps,
through the jhanas, or in nirvana?"
Such inconsistencies disappear when the doctrine of impermanence is treated
as an example of 'greed for views', and subordinated to Gotama's principle
of the Middle Way: desire neither more permanence nor impermanence than you
are going to get. Gotama's view is not that all is suffering because all is
impermanent. Rather it is that all is suffering (i.e., all are frustrated
because they desire more than will be attained), and this holds true
regardless of whether all is permanent, all is impermanent, or both, or
neither. Although the doctrine of impermanence, together with the no-soul
doctrine, is profusely expressed in the Pitakas, especially in the third or
Abhidhamma Pitaka, and accepted as orthodox by Theravadins, it not only is
inconsistent with Gotama's central principle of the Middle Way, but is
explicitly denied in other quotations from Gotama, according to Bahm.
His answer to the question 'Is all impermanent?' is the same as to the
question 'Is the world eternal (permanent)?' cited above. To it he would
give no definite answer because doing so would be not only seeking, but
claiming to have achieved, more certainty than could be attained. Hence the
commonly-accepted statement of the first of the 'Four Truths' was rejected
by Gotama, not in the sense that he claims that all, or anything, is
permanent, but in the sense that he refused to assert either that anything
is or is not impermanent.
Did Gotama deny the existence of the metaphysical? No. 'These things do
exist and there are those who can see them; and consequently he would be
wrong in saying they were non-existent merely because he could not see
them.' (Further Dialogues of the Buddha, Vol. II, p. 115. Tr. Lord
Chalmers, Oxford University Press, London, 1927.) Did he deny that
metaphysical problems could ever be solved? No. To deny the possibility of
solution would itself involve drawing inferences about the metaphysical and
desiring more certainty regarding the truth of such denial than can
reasonably be attained.
Did he himself discuss such metaphysical problems? Yes, for when such
problems were presented to him by people in anguish about them, he
sometimes tried to relieve their anguish by examining the problems with
them, partly to gain their confidence that he had a sympathetic grasp of
their predicament and partly as a means of showing that their trouble lay
really not in having failed to settle a metaphysical puzzle but in having
failed to realize that over-desireousness must yield frustration in this
area also.
Dogmatists, men 'fixed in their theories' (Woven Cadences of Early
Buddhists, p. 130. Tr. E. M. Hare, Oxford University Press, London, 1945,
1947), and those who would be dogmatists, as evidenced by the tenacity of
their search, are possessed of 'greed for views'. To the extent that
anyone, in the absence of evidence, is dogmatic, his claiming to have
attained more certainty than has actually been attained is an invitation to
anguish. Even the desire for more certainty than will be attained, by one
who does not yet claim to have attained, is also conducive to anguish.
Thus whoever would avoid such anguish must remain in doubt. He must be a
skeptic. Only by being skeptical regarding a solution to problems which he
will not solve (or to the extent that he will not solve them), will one be
freed from anguish. However, if the avid seeker, accepting this advice to
doubt, then doubts with equal avidity, he becomes, in turn, a dogmatic
skeptic, 'doubt completely', or an agnostic, 'no solution is possible'.
Going from one extreme to the other, from dogmatism to agnosticism, he has
then to be cautioned about agnosticism as greed for no view. Since
agnosticism is itself a view, one can as easily be frustrated by
overzealous attachment to it as to its opposite.
Concludes Bahm: "The Middle Way, believing neither that one will attain
more certainty than he will attain nor that he will attain less certainty
than he will attain, again needs to be sought. But again too avid seeking
for the Middle Way embodies a more subtle greed which must be rooted out by
more subtle efforts, without pursuing such uprooting greedily, but by means
of a still more subtle Middle Way. The problem of stopping anguish is
sufficiently difficult, complex, and attention-demanding that anyone who
pursues it will have little time left over for indulging unhappily in
metaphysical pursuits."
Works cited:
'On the Bhagavad Gita'
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Penguin Books, 1969
p. 404
'Philosophy of the Buddha'
by A. J. Bahm
Harper & Brothers, 1959
Jain Pub. 1993 (Reprint)
p. 20-23
On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 7:51 AM, Richard J. Williams
<[email protected]>wrote:
> According to MMY, the Buddha is the ninth incarnation of the Sun God,
> Vishnu, based on the Bhagavata Purana.
>
> MMY has been very supportive of the Buddha, and apparently, judging from
> what he has written and said, Buddha, is held by MMY in very high esteem.
> And no wonder, seeing as how the historical Buddha, that is, Shakya the
> Muni, called Gotama, is the inspiration for the entire enlightenment
> tradition in India. Not for nothing did the Adi Shankara take up an ochre
> robe fashioned from rags. Go figure.
>
> Recorded history in India begins with the so-called Buddhist Canon, which
> was compiled one hundred years after the demise of the Master. This corpus
> of texts is the foundation for all subsequent Asian philosophy, to wit:
>
> 1. The enlightenment tradition - yoga.
> 2. The order of sramanas - adeptship.
> 3. The eight limbs of yoga - the eight-fold path.
> 4. Universal compassion, non-violence - ahimsa.
> 5. The Chain of Dependent Causation - moral reciprocity.
> 6. Zero tolerance for social hierarchy - egalitarianism.
> 7. Individual conservation of energy - nirvana.
> 8. Knowledge of relative reality - samsara.
>
