|
The Dhammapada and the Bhagavad Gita
Different ways – One destination to
salvation
By Thich nu Minh Tam
Outline
The Dhammapada and the
Bhagavad Gita
Different ways –
One Destination to Salvation I.
Introduction II.
What is religion? a)
Is Buddhism a religion? b)
Hinduism, one of the oldest religions in the world III.
Comparison the two religions’ philosophical theories through
the Dhammapada and the Bhagavad Gita a)
the Dhammapada: one of the basic tenets of Buddhism b)
The Bhagavad Gita: the most famous epic in Hinduism IV.
Conclusion
The Dhammapada and the Bhagavad Gita
Different
ways – One Destination to Salvation I.
Introduction The forces of materialism
have turned human beings upside down in recent decades.
Ethics have been less valuable and concerned and traditional
concepts are forgotten miserably into the past.
However the ignorance is the more people crave for pleasant
experiences, the more they get sufferings and disappointment due to the
impermanent property of things. The role and purpose of
religion are to help people be free from all kinds of suffering and to
achieve the highest stage of a purifying mind, a blissful state, a
spontaneous nature through moral and practical religious practices such
as meditation or contemplation. The
need for ethics and morality in religion arises from the fact that life
is full of suffering and impermanent. Thus religious and philosophical
theories become the most important aspects of living to explain the
cause of suffering and to implore human life. II.
What is religion? Anyone interested in the
study of religion will soon encounter the controversy about whether
religion is rational or non rational, cognitive or expressive, whether
religious belief is more like science or music and art. According to the Encyclopedia
Dictionary, ‘religion means a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed
upon by a number of persons or sects (page 1212).’ In this essay we
focus only on two world’s oldest religions, Buddhism and Hinduism, and
we try to analyze their philosophical and practical theories applying on
human life. A).
is Buddhism a religion? This question has been asked
by many people who wonder if Buddhism is a philosophy, a religion, or a
way of life. Naturally,
Buddhism includes all of those facets but goes beyond them.
To some people, Buddhism may appear as a mass of miracles or
superstitious practices. To
the other ones, Buddhism expresses as a systematically religious theory
only for intellectuals. To
some others, Buddhism exists as a proper science.
But for the Buddhist disciples, Buddhism is a righteous way of
life for the peace and happiness of every sentient being.
It is a method to get rid of miseries and to find liberation.
The Teachings of the Buddha are not limited to one nation or
race. It is neither a creed
nor a mere faith. It is a
teaching for the entire universe. It
is a teaching for all time. Its
objectives are selfless service, food-will, peace, salvation and
deliverance from suffering.
b).
Hinduism, one of the oldest religions in India Hinduism is the variety of
religious beliefs and practices making up the major religious tradition
of the Indian subcontinent. Most
Hindus believe in a supreme god called Brahma and its religious theme
include Dharma (duty, obligations, individual ethics, etc.), Samsara
(rebirths), Karma (right action), and Moksa (salvation). Hinduism is the third largest
religion in the world with about one billion devotees of whom about 890
millions live in India. Throughout the concept about
Buddhism and Hinduism, we all agree that both religions convey the idea
of ultimate salvation, cutting away of all kinds of suffering for living
beings not to be drifted along with the current of rebirths and
re-deaths or bad realms. III.
Comparison the Dhammapada and the Bhagavad Gita a)
The Dhammapada According to Bhikkhu Bodhi,
‘from the ancient times to the
present, the Dhammapada has been regarded as the most succinct
expression of the Buddha’s teachings found in the Pali canon and the
chief spiritual testament of early Buddhism.’[1] The Dhammapada is one of the
books of the Khuddaka Nikaya, the fifth major division of the Sutta
Nikaya in the Pali canon. The
text title translates as ‘Stanzas on the teaching,’ or ‘Verses of
the Dhamma,’ or better ‘Verses of the Awareness Path’ and
represents a series of 423 verses arranged in 26 chapters.
One special character of the Dhammapada is that there is no plot
line or logical sequence of the verses because they are collected from
other places in the Buddhist Pali canon, mostly from the Sutras, the
Jatakas, and the Sutta Nikaya; however the Dhammapada has been warmly
welcomed because of the simplicity and the poetic power of its verses
which relate to the Buddha’s Teachings as a lodestar to human everyday
life. For example, in the
verse 183 of the Dhammapada: ‘The giving up of all evil, the cultivation of all that is good,
cleansing of one’s mind, this is the teaching
of the Buddhas;’[2]
or in the verse 80: ‘Irrigators
lead the water, fletchers fashion the shaft, carpenters carve the wood,
the wise discipline themselves.’[3] Besides many verses make
comparisons between human and animals or nature or deal with the ethic
of Ahimsa (non violence) that is at the heart of Buddhist practice,
another important type of verses in the Dhammapada point that the monks
who purify their minds and can control their passions are the true
‘brahmanas’ (Brahmin priests): ‘Destroying
mother and father and two khattiya kings, destroying the country and the
attendant, the Brahmin comports himself without trembling.’(294)
‘Destroying mother and father and two learned kings, destroying also
those hindrances of which the fifth is like a tiger, the Brahmin
comports himself without trembling.’ (295)
[4] According to Grey Bailey and
Tim Mabbett ‘The Brahmin is this
seeker, and his victims are metaphors: mother and father beliefs in
eternalism and annihilationism, the country is the senses and their
spheres, the attendant is the pursuit of sensory pleasure, and the
tiger’s domain is the group of five hindrances of which skeptical
doubt, seen as a source of fear like the tiger, is the fifth member.’[5] In sum, we note that the
Buddha’s Teachings through the Dhammapada concentrating on three main
goals: 1) human advantage right in this life, 2) a rebirth in good
realm, and 3) the realization of the absolute mind’s freedom.
These three ideal aims can be distinguished in four stages of
teaching:
‘A
comfort in this world is loving your mother
Loving
your father is a comfort, too.
A
comfort in this world is respect for a life of seeking Living
a pure life is a comfort, too.’ (332) ‘A
comfort is virtue in old age A
comfort is the establishment of conviction A
comfort is the attainment of insightful knowledge Not
acting destructively is a comfort.’ (333)[6] By developing and mastering
his mind with diligence and delight, a man is able to live in harmony
and in peace with himself and his fellow men:
‘Win
over an angry man with poise Win
over a mean one with kindness Win
over a greedy person with generosity And
one who speaks falsely with honesty. (223)[7] The Buddha declares that the
man of virtue is loved and respected by everyone and the scent of virtue
(generosity, patience, honesty, compassion, etc.) is sweeter than the
scent of all flowers and perfumes: ‘Sandal
wood, crepe jasmine,
‘Slight is this fragrance Blue
lotus, and flowering jasmine
jasmine and sandal Of
the fragrances born of these
but the scent of a virtuous person Incomparable
is the scent of virtue.’ (55)
Wafts supreme among the radiant ones.’ (56)[8]
‘Even
a person who acts to his
‘Even a person experiences injury Own
detriment has good fortune
As long as his goodness has not matured As
long as his misdeed has not matured
But when the good has matured But
when the misdeed has matured
Then the good person experiences benefit.’ (120)[9] Then
that person experiences misfortunes.’ (119)
‘Sorrow
springs from attachment
‘Sorrow springs from sensual pleasures Fear
springs from attachment
fear springs from sensual pleasures For
the person freed from attachment
for the person freed from sensual pleasures There
is no sorrow.
There is no sorrow. From
where could fear emerge?’ (214)
From where could fear emerge?’ (215) ‘Sorrow
springs from craving Fear
springs from craving For
the person freed from craving There
is no sorrow. From where
could fear emerge?’ (216)[10] Therefore if we wish to
destroy craving and release from suffering, we have to practice the
Noble Eightfold Path (chapter 20 in the Dhammapada) in order to live
rightly and perfectly without fear or sorrow during our whole life.
Throughout the short analysis
above, we realize that the main purpose of the Dhammapada concerning to
guide people living well and correctly by practicing its ethical and
moral keystones to eliminate suffering and attain the eternal peace of
mind. b)
The Bhagavad Gita
Apart from the Vedas and the Upanishads that are technically part of the Vedas, the Bhagavad-Gita is considered as the most sacred and popular religious scripture of Hinduism. The Bhagavad Gita is the story of Arjuna, a great warrior but was suddenly overcome by sorrow in the middle of battle field and stood confused about his duty. Lord Krishna, who was his charioteer in the battle field, teaches him, out of extreme compassion and love, the paths of right action, right knowledge and right devotion. Truly the battle in this famous epic symbolizes the battlefield between two forces inside everyone: good and bad, saint and evil, paradise or hell, etc. The content of the Bhagavad Gita teaches us how to live in this world, fulfill our duty but without attachment as well as with a stability of mind accepting God as the savior and doer. The world in which we live is said to be a world of illusion. Out of ignorance and egoism we bind ourselves to this world through our desires and our actions, not knowing our true nature and true purpose; therefore we reborn and reborn always in the cycle of rebirths and re-deaths. According to the Bhagavad
Gita, salvation is not possible for those who want to escape from life
and activity. Those who remain amidst society, unafraid of the burdens
of life, and live a life of sacrifice fully surrendering to God are in
fact more qualified for it. Those who are prepared to go through the
battles of life, through self-discipline, stability of mind, detachment,
surrendering to God with full devotion, wisdom, right discrimination and
knowledge, are qualified to attain liberation and union with the
Supreme. For example in
lines 2.61: ‘Restraining all the
senses, one should sit, yogically disciplined, focused on me; for if
one’s senses are under control, one’s mentality is grounded,’ or
in line 2.64: ‘But engaging the
objects of sense with his senses separated from desire and loathing, and
subject to the will of the self, a man who is self-controlled attains
calmness,’ in line 2.69: ‘When
it is night for all creatures, the man who restrains himself is awake,’
in line 2.71:
‘The man who, having abandoned all desires, lives free from longing,
unpossessive and unegoistical, approaches peace.’[13] In short, through the Dhammapada and the Bhagavad Gita’s philosophy, we notice that these two religions all agree that ‘craving, sensual desires, attachment’ are the dangerous causes which blindfold man to be obscured in his veil of ‘ignorance’ and lead him to suffering forever in dark and bad realms of the endless samsara. In the Dhammapada, ‘there is an analogy that says that the rain of desire encourages the growth of the grass of sorrow:[14] ‘The
craving of a person who lives carelessly
Whomever this miserable craving Grows
like a creeping vine
This entanglement in the world, overcomes He
plunges from existence to existence
His sorrows grow, like grass well rained upon (335)[15] Like
a monkey seeking fruit in the forest (334) Desire, craving and
attachment in any kind are very dangerous and that is the real obstacle
to the practitioner on his way to the end of suffering.
To eliminate such danger, the practitioner must concentrate his
mind on meditation to sever attachments to the physical world such as
wealth and fame, family life, success . . . because desire or attachment
break into the mind that has not been practicing meditation
like the rain breaks into a bad house’s roof but in vice versa: ‘Just
as rain pierces
Just as rain cannot pierce A
poorly roofed house
a well-roofed house So
passion pierces
so passion cannot pierce An
uncultivated mind.’(13)
a well-cultivated mind.’ (14)
[16]
The Bhagavad Gita says that
‘desire is the source of
attachment to the world and the great impediment to spiritual freedom. When one renounces his/her desires and acts without craving,
possessiveness, or individuality, he /she will find peace forever.’[17]
‘From
purity comes knowledge, and from passion greed, from darkness come
negligence and delusion, as well as ignorance.’ (17)[18] ‘Having
gone beyond these three constituents, which are the sources of the body,
the embodied self, released from birth, death, old age, and suffering,
attains immortality.’ (20)[19] Buddhism also agrees with
Hinduism about that if we attach too much on everything, we will reborn
again and again depending on our deeds but if we are able to renounce
such craving in any kind, we can attain Nirvana in this present life, a
state of purity and calmness of mind without troubles and suffering.
However to Hindus, the desire to know Brahman is not a bad desire
but the process of the cessation of desire.
The Hindus believe that above the ego is Atman and finally at the
top is Brahman. To reach
this highest stage of mind, the disciple must realize that Atman is
truly Brahman. This is called self-realization; it is the state in which
human is not separable from everything in the universe. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna that every being
is part of the Self, whom never was born and will never die: ‘Bharata, this embodied self in the body of everyone is
eternally unkillable. Therefore
you must not grieve for any beings at all.’ (2.30) ‘I
am the Self, Gudakesha, situated in the hearts of all creatures, just as
I am the beginning, the middle, and the end of creatures.’ (10.20) ‘He whose self is
unaffected by outside contact finds his happiness in the self united
through yogic discipline with Brahman, he reaches inextinguishable
happiness.’ (5.21)[20] This belief is quite contrary
of Buddhism because according to Buddhist thought, a belief in the Self
is also a delusion and leads to suffering.
Selfish ideas appear in man’s mind due to his conception of
Self and craving for existence. To
Buddhism, there is no reason to believe that there is an eternal soul
that comes from heaven or that is created by itself and that will
transmigrate or proceed straight away either to heaven or hell after
death. The Buddha taught
that what we conceive as something eternal within us is merely a
combination of physical and mental aggregates or forces make up of body,
sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness.
These forces are working together and change in every moment of
life. However not many people could
be able to understand such profound theory and the belief in Soul or
Self is rooted so strongly in their minds that they cannot imagine why
the Buddha did not accept the belief of Self.
We find the Buddha’s analysis about the Self in the Dhammapada: ‘When
through insight a person sees
When through insight a person sees All
fabrications are impermanent
All fabrications are painful Then
in pain he turns away
Then in pain he turns away This
is the path to purification.’ (277)
This is the path to purification.’ (278) ‘When
through insight a person sees All
fabrications are non-substantial Then
in pain he turns away This
is the path to purification.’ (279)[21] To defend his argument of the
non-existence of a higher self, the Buddha explains the law of Dependent
Origination which is based on the principle: ‘When
this is, that is This
arising, that arises When
this is not, that is not This
ceasing, that ceases.’
This
law emphasizes that all phenomena in this universe are relative and do
not arise independently. For
example, we see the flame of an oil lamp.
Without the oil and a wick, the flame cannot burn.
When the oil and the wick are present, the flame exists. When either of these two is absent, the flame will cease to
burn. This example
illustrates so clear about the conditions of everything in this world. So Buddhism rejects the idea of a creator or god in heaven
who creates or punishes and rewards all living beings. Buddhism concerns mainly how to end the suffering and the
practical path by individual’s efforts to reach Nirvana here and now,
not an illusionary of the promised paradise somewhere else.
Although
there is some different thoughts between Buddhism and Hinduism, both
religious schools all focus on one destination: that is the way to
Nirvana, to Self-Realization, to Enlightenment, to the cessation of
suffering, free from Samsara. They
all think that some sort of awakening will occur to those who are
disciplined and practice diligently enough to achieve the state of
blissfulness. They all
believe that this state of awakening transcends reality, and that it
cannot be described through the limitations of human words.
‘The
person who has traversed this difficult, muddy path – the bewilderment
that is the swirl of becoming- the meditator who has crossed over,
reached the other shore, free from desire, free form doubt, not
grasping, unbound, that one I call superior.’ (414)[22] IV.
Conclusion The Buddha said ‘Go forth, O Bhikkhus, for the good of the many, for the happiness of the
many, out of compassion for the world, for the good, benefit, and
happiness of gods and men.’ Introducing Dhamma (the
Buddha’s Teachings) to others, Buddhist monks and nuns have never
tried any means to attract, to lure or to convert anyone into Buddhism.
Instead they have tried to explain logically and practically the
real nature of human and universe according to Buddhist theory so that
people can escape suffering and establish Nirvana rightly in their
present life. Also,
Buddhist missionaries give their full support to other religious
missionaries of other faiths if their idea is to help people to a right
religious way of life. We,
Buddhist disciples, are happy to see the progress of other religions
truly helping people live in harmony, peace and understanding.
Like water of thousands rivers which runs towards the sea,
although different methods but religions all have one true destination
leading all living beings beyond the other shore of the perfect wisdom
and real happiness. Bibliographie ·
Bailey,
Grey ed. 2003. The
Sociology of Early Buddhism. Cambridge
University Press ·
Crim,
Keith. 1989. Dictionary
of World’s Religions. Harper&
Row Publications ·
Dhammananda,
K. Sri. 1993. What
Buddhists Believe? The
Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation ·
J.W,
Johnson. 2003. The
Bhagavad Gita. Oxford
University Press. ·
Minor,
Robert. 1986. Modern
Interpreters of the Bhagavad Gita. State
of New York University ·
Wallis,
Glenn. 2004. The Dhammapada- Verses on the Way. Modern Library Edition ·
www.modcam.com/blog/cat2
[1] www. Hinduwebsite.com [2] Wallis, Glenn. 2004. The Dhammapada – Verses on The Way. Modern Library Edition. page 41. [3] Ibid. page 19. [4] Bailey, Grey & Mabbett, Tim. 2003. The Sociology of Early Buddhism. Cambridge University Press. page 196. [5] Ibid. page 196. [6] Wallis, Glen. 2004. The Dhammapada – Verses on The Way. Modern Library Edition. page 69. [7] Ibid. page 48. [8] Ibid. page 14. [9] Ibid. pp. 26 – 27. [10] Ibid. page 47. [11] Ibid. page 21-22. [12] Ibid. pp. 79-85. [13] Jonhson, W.J. 1994. The Bhagavad Gita. Oxford University Press. page 12. [14] http://www.modcam.com/blog/cat2. [15] Wallis, Glenn. 2004. The Dhammapada – Verses on the Way. Modern Library Edition. page 70. [16] Ibid. page 05. [17] http:// www.modcam. Com/blog/cat2. [18] Wallis, Glenn. 2004. The Dhammapada – Verses on The Way. Modern Library Edition. page 62. [19] Ibid. page 62. [20] W.J, Jonhson 2003. The Bhagavad Gita. Oxford University Press. page 24. [21] Wallis, Glenn. 2004. The Dhammapada – Verses on The Way. Modern Library Edition. page 59. [22] Ibid. page 83.
--------- |
