In Our Time - The Buddha

Episode Date: March 14, 2002

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and teachings of The Buddha. Two and a half thousand years ago a young man meditated on life and death and found enlightenment. In that moment he saw his past lives spread out before him and he realised that all life, indeed the very fabric of existence, was made of suffering. That man was Siddhartha Gautama but we know him as The Buddha. He taught us that we have not one but many lives and are constantly reborn in different forms according to the laws of Karma: an immortality that binds us to a cosmic treadmill of death, decay, rebirth and suffering from which the only escape is Nirvana. Buddhism was quickly established as a major religion in South East Asia but now two millenia later it is one of the fastest growing religions of the Western world. Why has it captured the spirit of our times? Is it because there is no compulsion to believe in God? And what is it that Western converts hope to get from Buddhism - truth and enlightenment or simply a spiritual satisfaction that Western religion cannot provide? With Peter Harvey, Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Sunderland; Kate Crosby, Lecturer in Buddhist Studies, SOAS; Mahinda Deagallee, Lecturer in the Study of Religions, Bath Spa University College and a Buddhist Monk from the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk forward slash radio 4. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello, two and a half thousand years ago, a young man meditated on life and death and found enlightenment. In that moment, he saw his past lives spread out before him

and he realised that all life, indeed the fairy fabric of existence, was made of suffering. That man was Siddata Guatama, but we know him as the Buddha, meaning the enlightened or the awakened one. He taught that we've not worn but many lives, and are constantly reborn in different forms according to the laws of karma, an immortality that binds us to a cosmic treadmill of death, decay, rebirth, and suffering from which the only escape is Nirvana.

Buddhism was quickly established as a major religion in Southeast Asia, but now two millennia later it's one of the fastest-growing religions of the Western world. Why has it captured the spirit of our times? Is it because there's no compulsion to believe in? God, and what is it that Western converts hope to get from Buddhism? Truth and enlightenment, or simply a spiritual satisfaction that Western religion can't provide. With me to discuss the Buddha is Peter Harvey, Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Sondland, Kate Crosby lecturer in Buddhist studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London,

and Mahinda de Ghali, lecturer in the study of religions at Bath Spa University College and a Buddhist monk from the Taravada tradition in Sri Lanka. Peter Harvey, we told that the Buddha was born in the 5th century BC in northeast India. Can you tell me about his early life? And what evidence do we have for that early life? Well, the evidence is based on various collections of texts, which were originally passed on orally for several hundred years, and then written down in the first century BC.

The previous religion of Brahmanism, the texts were passed on by chanting. So it was a culture in which a learned person was a much heard person rather than a well-read person. We have no unified biography of the Buddha from the early text. That developed later, which is scattered accounts within the teachings. He seems to have been born into quite comfortable circumstances as the son of maybe an elected aristocratic ruler. So in one sense, his starting point was, by the standards of his day,

what many people would have wanted to have achieved, you know, good circumstances. We don't know a great deal about his early life. We know he got married, he had a son, but in his 20s he started contemplating the fragility of life, kind of awareness of aging, sickness and death. So in his mid-20s, according to his oral texts, which then in Sri Lanka were put into written texts.

In his 20s, he, were you about to say, he'd married at 16, he'd had a child so we understand. And at 29 he had what we would call a vision, that's for you. Not so much, but more of a kind of, you might say, an existential crisis. He was a young man, he became aware of ageing, the vanity of youth left him. He was well, he realized that people got ill, the vanity of health left him. And similarly, with awareness of death. So it's that which kind of made him.

start to look for something which was a form of security beyond aiding sickness and death and frustration. So where did this lead him? Because about six years later, he did have what one could if I return to that word vision. But that realization led him to seek a way out or a way forward, didn't it? He went into a set, according to these oral texts. He became an ascetic for a while and so on. Yeah. So he starts a kind of spiritual quest. He gives up his earlier life and starts living by arms, as people could do then, in India and still can. And he tried some of the different methods available at the time. He practiced some form of deep yoga, and that was quite good, but didn't go far enough.

And he also practiced asceticism, which was a method, which was practiced quite a lot. But he felt that even though he was fasting and not washing and various limitations on the bodily desires, he felt that that wasn't working. and so he reached a point where he nearly gives up, but then remembers a form of meditation that he'd gone into in his teens and thinks, right, that was quite calm, that was very relaxed and joyful,

and maybe that's a way through. And he took that, as far as we can tell, through various levels, deeper and deeper levels, were technically called Jarnas, until the mind was in a very, very calm, quiet and still, state. And then what? And then from that kind of rather sensitive state that he pushes his memory back and remembers many, many, many lives. He sees other beings dying and being reborn according to the quality

of their karma or action. And finally, he experiences that which is beyond aging, sickness, and death, which is nirvana. Okay, Kate Crosby, let's call this his enlightenment or his awakening. And then he, as I understand it, he set about gathering disciples and teaching. Can you tell us something of that. Let's just get this platform for the Buddha's life before we start talking about what he taught and what he believed in. The stories we have relate how initially after his enlightenment, he was concerned that actually people weren't ready to hear his teaching, that this idea of everything being impermanent and satisfactory or suffering and there isn't a permanent essence within us,

a permanent soul, was too against the stream, against the way people's lives naturally flow. And then he had this image come to him of a lotus pond with lotuses at different levels of maturation. So some just bud stuck in the mud and some blossoming on the surface and thought, yes, there are some people who are more ready to understand what I have to tell them than others. And he thought back to the period of his asceticism, Peter mentioned. And he had had five companions there who when he had started taking food had abandoned him, thought he wasn't following the path anymore and so he decided to seek them out again.

So he goes to them and they want to shun him because he gave up the ascetic life they think. But they are so amazed by the obvious transformation in him that they can't and they worship him and they listen to his teaching and they in turn are enlightened by him. So those are the first five disciples of the Buddha, and most traditions of monks and nuns take their own lineage back to that first sermon of the Buddha.

Most traditions, not all, believe that their texts go back to the rehearsal of the teachings of the Buddha after his death, and that their lineage, their monastic lineage, goes back to these five monks, or to the Buddha's aunt who later became a nun. as well. Mahinda de Ghali, how did Buddhism spread from this early monks into becoming a much huger religion which spread over India in other parts of Southeast Asia? It seems that up until Ashoka's time,

that means mid-third century. The Emperor Ashoka, yeah. Emperor Ashoka. Could we call the first emperor of India? A kind of emperor who unified India. So until that time, it was limited to only the northern part of India and it did not go beyond. So at least when we look back from Sri Lanka records,

Pali Chronicles, it seems that Asoka was very instrumental by sending his ministers and missionaries abroad and spreading it. So Asoka may be very instrumental in spreading Buddhism beyond India. What do we know about the appeal that Buddhism had to Emperor Asoka? Assook is defected as a kin who conquered the world by killing a lot of people, including his siblings. But I think his remorse with killing and the experience in the war made him to find an alternative way of life for his kingdom because he won't unify and bring harmony to his kingdom. So he may have used some of the Buddhist teachings, practical teachings about family values,

you know, treating your wife, children, relatives and teachers and things like that, but may not be necessarily on nirvana, but more kind of social ethic he was attracted in. So he changed, did he stop killing people and stopped being a massacring emperor when he took on Buddhism? According to tradition, yes, I think he seems to have even reduced the number of animals killed in his kitchen. and so he seems to have gone to a certain extent

and he seems to have even gave up capital punishment. Probably he has a political aim. Maybe his personal religion may have been influenced by Buddhism, but also he has kind of, in a way, I may not be right word, use propaganda, but maybe an attempt to convince people. Convince them of what? Convinced people that,

people have to live in harmony. In other words, obey him and keep quiet. That's right, keep quiet. And also, I think he doesn't, probably he didn't want to have dissent within his kingdom. So he used the religion to unify the people and keep them peaceful. And also maybe he has a spiritual urgence to educate people on good values because he himself changed. You know, I think Assook is interesting because it's saying that change is possible.

We can interpret his writings in two ways. These inscriptions are as if spoken by Ashoka. They're his own personal words, aren't they? And you can see them as a spiritual record. So he describes his devastation at seeing the killing in the area of ERISA, which he had recently conquered. And that's his own view of why he turned to Buddhism. And instead of wanting a conquest by military might,

he wanted a conquest through the dama, through the teaching. Or you can interpret it as being. politically motivated. So wanting these different peoples who are now in his kingdom to get on together, to think of him as being a wonderful person. So, for example, one of the inscriptions seems very innocent. He says, since I've been doing all this religious work, supporting not just Buddhism, but other religions as well, the gods have started appearing among the people again. And yet we find in, for instance, a treatise on political power that dates from around the same time, a suggestion that in order to convince people that you are a wonderful person and should

be the king because you have a divine right to be, you should get actors to dress up and wander around as gods within you. So there are some things that seem very personal. That's the same in this picture. And other things that seem like the religion is being used to authorise his kingship. Now can we talk about some of his teachings? Peter Harvey, according to the Buddha, as I understand it, we don't live one life, but we're constantly reborn and that is to do with our karma. Can you just briefly explain what's

going on there? Right, okay. It's not just a question of many past lives, it's the idea of innumerable past lives in various levels and forms, perhaps as a human being, perhaps as some kind of animal, perhaps as some kind of ghost,

perhaps in a hell realm for a while or perhaps in one of many heaven realms for a while. There's the idea of various forms of being, and a kind of solidarity of different beings because beings can move between different realms according to the quality of their action. The idea of solidarity is quite interesting

because it's said, for example, that it's difficult to come across a person or an animal that has not in some past life or other being your mother or your father or your best friend. So, so to speak, remember this and treat them accordingly and forget any problems they're called. you now. Basically, there's the idea that all sentient beings are exactly like oneself in not liking pain and suffering and wanting happiness. And in that fundamental way,

all beings, you know, that's what it is to be alive. So we're on this constant cycle. Now, why does karma come into that? Right. Karma means action. In Buddhism, it's explained particularly as volitional action. It's really the intention behind the action. And that is seen as having a potency to bring about various effects later in the present life, affecting the next life and some future life. So it's seen as a kind of causal principle, has a kind of knock-on effect. Do you know you've got karma? Do you have karma whether you know it or not? Well, all beings will have it, whether they remember.

I mean, you know you've got karma. Do you think, right, this is my karma. I'm not as good as I should be. If I do that, my calm will improve and I'll come back to something better next time. I know I'm performing intentional actions, and some of the time I can see, just from day to day how some of the things I do come back at me in a good way or a bad way. It is your admission as a Buddhist, as it were, let's assume you are just for the purpose of this conversation, to improve your karma.

Is that much different from a Christian wishing to improve their moral behaviour? I'm trying to get distinctions here. Not a great deal, no. I think there's a lot in common between Christian Buddhist ethics, but particularly, yeah. Except that the result will run out, won't it? There's not a single heaven that you go to forever.

You might go to a heaven for a while, but then your good karma runs out and you'll be reborn in another realm again. So you cultivate your virtue and this has certain long-lasting effect but not forever and one tries to be mindful of avoiding unskilful action partly because of the negative effect that will have. Is there any sense that you remember in this life

what you were in previous lives? If you were a Buddhist, would you say, I remember being, I'm not trying to be silly here, I remember being that other person 400 years ago, or that small animal 300 years ago or whatever it was. Is there any sense of trace memory, any sort of... Most people certainly not. It's seen as possible in principle to do it by certain deep meditations.

And not so much from Buddhism, but from certain contemporary studies like people like Ian Stevenson. There's studies of young children from various cultures that seem to have something like memories and they're kind of checkable. That's interesting empirically. It has to be looked at carefully. But broadly speaking, it's the idea of Carmen Reber.

for Buddhists, most Buddhists, is something, I guess, you take on trust, but which gives a framework which makes sense of life. Okay, Kate, this business of constant change, then, we're talking about constant change with karma. The implication is that there's no creation. We've already said there's no creator God. And so there's no idea of a beginning, and no idea of an ending. Yes, that's right.

So the round of rebirth applies to everything. Everything keeps dying and becoming again. And the ideal in Buddhism is actually to leave that cycle of repeated dying and becoming. So while one's future within this round of rebirth, sunsara, is dictated by one's actions and one's intentions, the idea is to not be subject to karma anymore by getting rid of the underlying problems, which in Buddhism are usually taken to be greed, hatred,

and ignorance about the nature of the world. Mahinda, Buddhism is based on the ideas. I understand it, that all life is suffering, and this is contained in the four noble truths. Can you tell us what those four noble truths are? The four noble truths are very crucial because this is the idea of suffering and it has a cause and also it has a solution which is called nirvana,

and there's a path to it. And most people think that this was adopted from Indian medical system that you see the suffering as a disease. Right, now how can you tell us how the study of suffering leads to nirvana? I think individual Buddhist may have, depending on each person's volition, they will take a shorter or longer route. But you'll never know when you can, but that understanding, try to make an effort is very important.

But how do you make the effort? I mean, what do you do to make the effort? Is it through meditation? Is it through certain techniques? Is it through obeying certain rules? Is it through certain dietary laws? What do you do together? All of these. All of these.

I mean, meditation may be very crucial to clear in the mind, but also your life in this world as a nice human person, human being is very important. You have to involve in good actions which is good not only for you, but everybody around you. In a way, an important principle which connects as morality and meditation, is mindfulness or awareness. It's not just a question of doing certain things because that's what he's guided to do. but to actually observe the effect that if you live like that, it's happier for yourself and others.

And when you act in a greedy, selfish way, this makes yourself and other people less happy. So it's kind of an empirical thing based on looking at the effect of actions and learning from that. And the crucial role of meditation, Mahindah mentioned, in Buddhism, meditation is very specific. So if you have specific problems like you're over-attached to, people or your hate type. There are very specific meditations which alter the process of your mind, alter the way you think.

So, for example, there's a meditation which is about learning to feel love or friendliness towards everybody. It starts with the individual. You have to learn it towards yourself. And by doing these meditations, you can alter your natural state.

So you can get rid of these poisons, this greed, hatred, delusional craving that causes us to be stuck in the round of rebirth. Are these meditations taught or are they listed, are they textualt when you look them up from yourself? You should ideally work with an experienced teacher who can judge whether you happen to be, for instance, stable enough to do meditation, such as meditations on a rotting corpse to get rid of this idea of permanence. So an experienced teacher will be able to judge whether you are, yet calm enough through calming meditations to be able to do that.

But there are texts as well, so you can do it from text. And a lot of Western practitioners will essentially go to text rather than to a teacher to learn their meditation. It's like learning a craft. You learn a craft from somebody. Can you give us a – I still haven't got kind of grip on it. So can you give us a little example as to how you – well, any form of meditation will also involve learning to sit still. and the mind, as soon as you start to try and steal it, you learn what it's very much compared to a monkey,

very restless animal. The mind is a very restless animal. But when one gradually guides it to focus on something and calm down, then all that restless energy becomes harmonised and focused. What if you like the restless energy? Fine, you go with a restless energy and you take the consequences. You transform it, really. You transform it into being diverted.

directed rather than... Why would you want to transform it? If you have the commitment to transform yourself. The whole thing is based on the idea of suffering. What if you don't find life is all suffering? What do you do then? Well, actually, I go back to the suffering. Because the word, Dukai, can mean suffering,

but it can mean anything from intense agony to just very, very mild dissatisfaction. But what if you're happy some of the time? How does that fit in? Well, in fact, Buddhism, many of the Buddhist practices are very good at generating happiness and joy. but then it will say, Buddhism will say, that's a great state, very good,

don't become attached to it because it's impermanent. So while Buddhism says a lot, points out the suffering aspects of life, it also gives ways of going beyond it, but then says the state that you've reached has also got limitations so one can go further ultimately to Nirvana. So it's a kind of refinement process. If Nirvana means losing yourself, a sense of self, what if you don't want to lose your sense of self?

Actually, it's a freedom from, I mean, traditionally says freedom from greed, hatred, and delusion. And so all negative accents come from those three roots according to Buddhism. So the freedom being nirvana is to attain in that means being basically virtuous, isn't it? Virtuous and happy and a mind which is very, very open. I'm just trying to get at, why would, what is losing your own sense of self? What does it bring you? It's undermining a sense of self which you've seen is based on a delusion, right? But that's not something, so to speak, that one should do because it's noble and virtuous,

but because it produces an incredible amount of equanimity, happiness and joy. It's not about losing awareness of you as an individual. If you accept that there is some essential soul, then there's no motive for transforming. yourself and transforming your interactions with the world. So you essentially become a selfish person. There's no reason to try and alter what you do. Often religions accept there's this underlying soul will accept either that that soul will go to join God

or to join, for instance, a kind of universal soul afterwards. So there's no personal responsibility then. Whereas if you see yourself as a process that needs to be transformed, then there's a personal responsibility. We've agreed that Buddhism has a... There's no creator God. So you achieve nirvana. Now Christians believe that you go to heaven, hell or purgatory.

You go somewhere. You went to Valhalla. You went to somewhere. Where is this place, this state, whatever it is, nirvana? Well, I mean, you've also got the options of heaven and hell. But from Buddhism, that's this side of salvation. That's just part of the round of rebirths. Nirvana is seen as beyond even heavens.

And it's seen as radically difficult to put into words. Most of the way of talking about nivana is negative. not conditioned, it's nothing to do with suffering, it's nothing to do with time, you get some things it's the highest bliss, or it's the cool cave of shelter. It's seen, perhaps the crucial thing, it's beyond all suffering, beyond all limitation. And so that's the basic motivational hook, if you like. Although, because craving is that which prevents it being attained, on the path to it, you might need a little bit of craving for it,

but finally to attain it, you have to even let go of it in order to attain it. The difficulty is that we're trying to put into words something that is outside time, outside our current realm. And so, and in Buddhism words are regarded as being convention. They're part of that they're part of the caused world. So you'll find descriptions that say that you have this, such and such a bliss as a human or in heaven. And nirvana is beyond that.

It's better than it. But not attempts to actually describe what it is. Because as soon as you use words, you are trying to describe what is beyond words. So there's the analogy of trying to describe to a fish what it is to live out of water. It's just not something that can be done. Mahindu, do you think that Buddhism being so concerned

with your own karma, with your own karma, with your own development, has, in that sense, it doesn't seem to be geared to changing society, to bringing about social improvement and so on. The issue that you raise is very important because, I mean, that issue have been raised by missionaries all the time

as an attack on Buddhism, saying this, Buddhism does not have a social ethic. So this is very valid criticism. I think the notion of no self is basically says, that there's nothing permanent and everything is changing. So once you don't have a strong ego, it's easy for you to help others

because you lose your identity and you can immerse with others. So I think even enlightened person, ideally, even though he or she attained enlightenment, then helps others. So there is a social ethic, and I think even the Nirvana person can be useful to society.

So I think maybe it's not fair to say that there's no social engagement. There are movements that have responded to this criticism in modern Buddhism, and which are also responding to warfare that's happened in Southeast Asia, which seek specifically to change society, saying that with society in the terrible state that it's in, people are suffering too much. The same reason you can, asceticism is bad, people are suffering too much to be able to focus on

full liberation. Therefore, even monks need to be involved in changing society first, so that we have a society in which people can focus on spiritual liberation. Peter, very briefly, we did promise at the beginning of the programme to say why it was becoming more influential in the West. Briefly, why do you think Buddhism is, the evidence we have is that there are thousands of Western converts. What is drawing them to Buddhism at this time? I think probably

there are the attraction of the ideas but as much as anything it's the attraction of the practices the actual impact on the body mind system through practices whether it's chanting or meditation any need for faith particularly isn't it? Although that comes later for Westerners in Asia people have faith and then they practice in the West they practice and then they develop faith

and there are people in psychology that are investigating the actual pragmatic effect of things like mindfulness or awareness in terms of transforming people's awareness and dealing with problems. There's an analogy, isn't there, of how much leather you would need to cover the world, to make it a comfortable place to walk on. And you just couldn't do it.

Exactly. But if you just have enough leather for the sole of your foot, you can walk on the earth comfortably without getting thorns. You cannot control the world around you, but you can control your responses to it. And that's what it offers the mechanisms for. But also it challenge the people to think, I think twice. And that I think

people find it very attractive. It's a personal responsibility. Yeah, and then challenge and say, you have to do it. Right, yeah. You know. It's a pragmatic tradition, also a very intellectual tradition as well. Well, thank you all very much for going the course on that one. I hope we're all enlightened and awakened. Thanks to Peter Harvey and Kate Crosby and Mahindad de Ghali.

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