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This unfortunately is the price that the Buddha-Dhamma had to pay
for logicians par excellence, who in their eagerness to exhibit
their dialectical skill conveniently let slip the clear and unequivocal
teaching of the Buddha on the matter of individual deliverance from
suffering. At verse 55 of the Dhammapada (this is only one instance
among many) the Blessed One says:-
Appaka te manussesu, Ye jana paragamino
Athayam itara paja, tiremevanudhavati
" Few are there amongst men who
go Beyond (Nibbana) the rest of mankind only run about on this bank
(world existence where passions dominate).
(Trsl. by the Ven'ble Narada Maha
Thera)
The Mahayana Buddhist philosophers do not speak of a vicarious salvation.
They say that the Buddha was a human being who lived for men (did
not die for men) and passed away as a human being. But they argue
that He has not yet attained Nibbana. He and His Arahats (those
who have been already saved) are in Sukhavati awaiting the event
till all beings are saved to enter Nibbana together.
I have so far attempted to show that Buddha-Dhamma is not a religion
in the sense of absolute resignation to the will of a divine power,
unseen, unknown and unknowable, on whom one is asked to obey without
question and pay pooja; nor does it accommodate in its Teaching
substituted salvation en masse, nor does it state anywhere in the
Buddhist Canon of universal salvation as advocated by the Mahayana
Buddhist School of philosophy.
The Buddha-Dhamma is a teaching founded on ethical earnestness,
absolute integrity of moral character is a sine qua non for the
training of mind to elevate it above sense desires and evil unwholesome
things! To gain the acme of perfect poise of mind, and thus penetrate
phenomenal existence to see: its impermanence, its imperfectness
and its impersonality. Hence the Buddha-Dhamma is to be realized
by one's own self by following the middle Path is indicated by the
Shower of the Way. This done, its purpose is over and the Arahant
stands on the Further Shore secure from the Floods (ogha) of: sense-desire,
of becoming, of false views and of ignorance.
The quotation from the Majjhima Nikaya with which I prefaced this
Essay concludes with the words: "kamma as refuge" (Kamma
patisarana). The accent is on the word sarana, meaning refuge. Undoubtedly
it refers to the refuge obtained through wholesome actions (kusala-kamma)
which can arise only in a wholesome consciousness (kusala-citta)
which again with detachment from sensual desires lead to tranquility
and to wisdom. It is through purity of word, purity of deed and
purity of livelihood that one can gather wholesome actions or kusala-kamma,
the prerequisite to the Walk to the Supreme (brahmacariya). It is
for this reason that kamma is one's refuge (sarana). It is, also
for this reason that the first book of the Abhidhamma Pitaka, the
Dhamma-sangani examines different types of consciousness in the
light of wholesome things ( kusala-dhamma) unwholesome things (akusala-dhamma)
and indeterminate things (abyakata-dhamma). END <<Back
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