The Buddhist Catechism Part 8

163. Q. _What do they respectively contain?_

A. The first contains all that pertains to morality and the rules of discipline for the government of the Sangha, or Order; the second contains instructive discourses on ethics applicable to all; the third explains the psychological teachings of the Buddha, including the twenty-four transcendental laws explanatory of the workings of Nature.

164. Q. _Do Buddhists relieve these books to be inspired, or revealed, by a Divine Being?_

A. No; but they revere them as containing all the parts of that most Excellent Law, by the knowing of which man may break through the trammels of _Samsara_.

165. Q. _In the whole text of the three Pitakas how many words are there?_

A. Dr. Rhys-Davids estimates them at 1,752,800.

166. Q. _When were the Pitakas first reduced to writing?_

A. In 88-76 B.C., under the Sinhalese King, Wattagamini, or three hundred and thirty years after the Paranirvana of the Buddha.

167. Q. _Have we reason to believe that all the discourses of the Buddha are known to us?_

A. Probably not, and it would be strange if they were. Within the forty-five years of his public life he must have preached many hundreds of discourses. Of these, in times of war and persecution, many must have been lost, many scattered to distant countries, and many mutilated. History says that enemies of the Buddha Dharma burnt piles of our books as high as a coco-nut tree.

168. Q. _Do Buddhists consider the Buddha as one who by his own virtue can save us from the consequence of our individual sins?_

A. Not at all. Man must emanc.i.p.ate himself. Until he does that he will continue being born over and over and over again--the victim of ignorance, the slave of unquenched pa.s.sions.

169. Q. _What, then, was the Buddha to us, and all other beings?_

A. An all-seeing, all-wise Counsellor; one who discovered the safe path and pointed it out; one who showed the cause of, and the only cure for, human suffering. In pointing to the road, in showing us how to escape dangers, he became our Guide. He is to us like one leading a blind man across a narrow bridge over a swift and deep stream and so saving his life.

170. Q. _If we were to try to represent the whole spirit of the Buddha's doctrine by one word, which word should we choose?_

A. Justice.

171. Q. _Why?_

A. Because it teaches that every man gets, under the operations of unerring KARMA, exactly that reward or punishment which he has deserved, no more and no less. No good deed or bad deed, however trifling, and however secretly committed, escapes the evenly-balanced scales of Karma.

172. Q. _What is Karma?_[4]

A. A causation operating on the moral, as well as on the physical and other planes. Buddhists say there is no miracle in human affairs: what a man sows that he must and will reap.

173. Q. _What other good words have been used to express the essence of Buddhism?_

A. Self-culture and universal love.

174. Q. _What doctrine enn.o.bles Buddhism, and gives it its exalted place among the world's religions?_

A. That of _Mitta_ or _Maitreya_--compa.s.sionate kindness. The importance of this doctrine is moreover emphasised in the giving of the name "Maitri" (the Compa.s.sionate One), to the coming Buddha.

175. Q. _Were all these points of Doctrine that you have explained meditated upon by the Buddha near the Bo-tree?_

A. Yes, these and many more that may be read in the Buddhist Scriptures. The entire system of Buddhism came to his mind during the Great Enlightenment.

176. Q. _How long did the Buddha remain near the Bo-tree?_

A. Forty-nine days.

177. Q. _What do we call the first discourse preached by the Buddha--that which he addressed to his five former companions?_

A. The _Dhammacakka-ppavattana sutta_--the Sutra of the Definition of the Rule of Doctrine.[5]

178. Q. _What subjects were treated by him in this discourse?_

A. The "Four n.o.ble Truths," and the "n.o.ble Eightfold Path". He condemned the extreme physical mortification of the ascetics, on the one hand, and the enjoyment of sensual pleasures on the other; pointing out and recommending the n.o.ble Eightfold Path as the Middle Path.

179. Q. _Did the Buddha hold with idol-wors.h.i.+p?_

A. He did not; he opposed it. The wors.h.i.+p of G.o.ds, demons, trees, etc., was condemned by the Buddha. External wors.h.i.+p is a fetter that one has to break if he is to advance higher.

180. Q. _But, do not Buddhists make reverence before the statue of the Buddha, his relics, and the monuments enshrining them?_

A. Yes, but not with the sentiment of the idolater.

181. Q. _What is the difference?_

A. Our Pagan brother not only takes his images as visible representations of his unseen G.o.d or G.o.ds, but the refined idolater, in wors.h.i.+pping, considers that the idol contains in its substance a portion of the all-pervading divinity.

182. Q. _What does the Buddhist think?_

A. The Buddhist reverences the Buddha's statue and the other things you have mentioned, only as mementoes of the greatest, wisest, most benevolent and compa.s.sionate man in this world-period (Kalpa). All races and people preserve, treasure up, and value the relics and mementoes of men and women who have been considered in any way great.

The Buddha, to us, seems more to be revered and beloved than any one else, by every human being who knows sorrow.

183. Q. _Has the Buddha himself given us something definite upon this subject?_

A. Certainly. In the _Maha Pari-Nirvana Sutta_ he says that emanc.i.p.ation is attainable only by leading the Holy life, according to the n.o.ble Eight-fold Path, not by eternal wors.h.i.+p (_amisa puja_), nor by adoration of himself, or of another, or of any image.

184. Q. _What was the Buddha's estimate of ceremonialism?_

A. From the beginning, he condemned the observance of ceremonies and other external practices, which only tend to increase our spiritual blindness and our clinging to mere lifeless forms.

185. Q. _What as to controversies?_

A. In numerous discourses he denounced this habit as most pernicious.

He prescribed penances for Bhikkhus who waste time and weaken their higher intuitions in wrangling over theories and metaphysical subtleties.

186. Q. _Are charms, incantations, the observance of lucky hours and devil-dancing a part of Buddhism?_

A. They are positively repugnant to its fundamental principles. They are the surviving relics of fetis.h.i.+sm and pantheistic and other foreign religions. In the _Brahmajata Sutta_ the Buddha has categorically described these and other superst.i.tions as Pagan, mean and spurious.[6]

187. Q. _What striking contrasts are there between Buddhism and what may be properly called "religions"?_