Why choose Buddhism?---4

Why choose Buddhism?---4

Bhikkhu Dhammavaro

The Sangha

Many people throughout the world called themselves Buddhists, but very few of them know the meanings. Many of them are Buddhist just by convenience, or through some kind of social acquaintance, not through understanding. We need to understand our religion rationally, not to follow blindly like a parrot, or follow one's own prejudices, or the persuation of friends, but to follow after the teachings of the Buddha; adhering to the Dhamma-Vinaya (doctrine or discipline) as one's paramount guide, without bending to convention or social custom. In Buddhism if we want to know if our practice is right or wrong, good or bad, worthy of respect or not, we should check it against the eight standards set by the Buddha, these are:--

1. If it leads to passion,
2. If it leads to suffering,
3. If it leads to more defilement,
4. If it leads to greater ambition,
5. If it leads to discontent,
6. If it leads to social gathering,
7. If it leads to laziness,
8. If it leads to be a burden on others:

We should follow Buddhism according to what it was originally expounded by the Buddha, not as what is practiced by the masses. If our religious practice coincides with these eight forms of behavior, then it is not considered the doctrine or discipline of Buddha. We should abandon it as soon as it appears.

The monks’ responsibility is to guide the lay people. Unless we train and conduct ourselves properly, the Buddhism will decline. Lay men (upasaka) and lay women (upasika) will stumble upon obstacles and engage themselves in wrong behavior. Monk and novices will become careless, and miss out on the flavor of the Dhamma. There are three aspects of it;

1. Listen or study the scriptures.
We need to follow the original teaching contained in the scriptures, in order to gain the benefits from the texts, we can listen to teaching by the experienced teachers of the ordained sangha members or the well-learned lay persons, then we will appreciate the value of the scriptures and try to practice them.

2. Practice the dhamma.
We need to put what we have heard and understood those Dhamma into practice, the practice of morality, the practice of mental tranquillity and the practice of insight meditation. If we don’t practice it, it would be like a spoon in a good soup not able to taste its good flavor. Only through dhamma practice one can hope to gain realization.

3. Attainment
The Sangha has two types: the ordinary sangha and the holy or ariya sangha. The ordinary sangha is anyone who has yet to attain including the ordained sangha. The holy sangha is composed of the four pairs or eight types of ariyas (attained sangha--- cattãri purisa yugãni attha-purisa-puggalā): the one Approaching Stream-winners, Stream-winners; the one Approaching Once-returners, Once-returners; the one Approaching Non-returners, Non-returners; the one Approaching Stainless, and finally the Stainless.

(1). Stream-winners: those who have reached the first level of realization towards Nibbana, the most they will be reborn only seven more times among the human or the celestial beings. They have developed enough tranquillity and insight for the Path, and they have awakened their mind of true insight on all mundane and transcendental phenomena. They have cut through three of the fetters (samyojana) that keep living beings in samsara.

These fetters are:
a. Sakkaya-ditthi: the view of the body together with its properties, aggregates, and sense organs as self or belongs to self. Stream-winners have totally destroyed this wrong view. They see them simply as physical phenomena arised from kamma.
b. Vicikiccha: doubt and uncertainty about the practices of the holy path.
c. Silabbatam-paramasa: attachment to rites, rituals and ceremonies, thinking that they are good for the holy path.

In Samyuttha Nikaya, there is a Silavanta Sutta in which a monk asked Sariputta: “What things, friend Sariputta, should be attended to correctly by a monk who is a Stream-winner?” The Venerable Sariputta answers that it is the five aggregates of grasping that should be correctly attended to by a Stream-winner, as impermanent, suffering, and not-self. ” We should know that our suffering is deeply rooted with attachment to these five aggregates. For a stream-winner he has closed off completely the four states of deprivation (apaya), and will not be reborn in hell, the asuras, or the hungry ghosts, or among the animals.

(2). Once-returners: those who have attained the second level of realization will be reborn once more in the world. Once-returners have cut off the three fetters like the Stream-winners, but have also reduced the amount of desire, anger, and delusion in their mind.

(3). Non-returners: those who have attained to the third level of realization will never again return to the human world. When they die they will be reborn in the Anagamin worlds of the Pure Abodes, and will attain Nibbana there. The Non-returners have abandoned all five of the following fetters:
a. Sakkaya-ditthi.
b. Vicikiccha.
c. Silabbatam-paramasa.
d. Kamaraga: passion and delight caused by sensual desires and sensual objects.
e. Vyapada (Patigha): irritation and displeasure caused by anger.

(4). Stainless (Arahants): those who have attained to the highest level of realization have reached the state of deathlessness, free from all defilements. Their ignorance, craving, and the tendency to accumulate non virtuous deeds have ended. The Arahants have abandoned another five fetters of the holy path. These fetters are:

f. Ruparaga: craving for form realm existence.
g. Aruparaga: craving for formless realm existence.
h. Mana: self pride in conceiving oneself as this or that.
i. Uddhacca: restlessness and distraction of the mind, carried away by own thoughts, and too much thoughts on discernment.
j. Avijja: ignorance is normally defined as not knowing the four Truths: not knowing suffering, the cause of suffering, its abandoning, and the path to its abandoning. The Blessed One said: “With the arising of cankers (āsava) there is the arising of ignorance' (MN. 9).” But the Blessed One added: “No first beginning of ignorance can be perceived, Bhikkhus! Before which ignorance was not, and after which it came to be. But it can be perceived that ignorance has its specific condition (idappaccaya).” (AN. X, 61)

Avijja means also not knowing the way we are, not recognizing our past and thus become engrossed in it; not recognizing our future and falsely dreaming about it; not recognizing the present and live without mindfulness. Therefore the delusion with regard to all these three times is called avijja. We are just the product of all physical and mental phenomena.

In the Majjhima Nikaya the Blessed One said: “O Bhikkhus! Even this view (Dhamma)
Which is so pure and so clear, if you cling to it, if you fondle it, if you are attached to it,
then you do not understand, that the teaching is similar to a raft, which is for crossing over and not for getting hold of."

These ten fetters, all Arahants have cut absolutely, freeing themselves from every sort of bond, so that their hearts are brilliant and dazzling, like the moon in a cloudless sky.

The virtues of the Sangha are subtle, deep, and hard to perceive. If we don't understand this, we would not be able to see how beneficial the Sangha is. As we don't know this the Blessed One said we are like a blind person. That is why the Sangha is Puññakkhettam lokassati, the field of merit for the world.

When we follows the path fully, it will come to a point when we are relying on ourself only, which is why the Blessed One said: “The self is its own refuge, for who else could be refuge?”