A Comparative Religious Study:
Theravāda Buddhism and Monotheism Part 2
Wong Weng Hon
Truth Realization
God is the knowledge of eternal Truth identical in all esoteric religious traditions. Nevertheless, God can be intuitively discerned or realized by the Certainty’s Eye. God-realization or gnosis is, in fact, self-realization of the eternal Truth of salvation within and without the mind. Only God-realization can engender genuine faith which generates love and fear of God. Love of God is the love of living in the knowledge of Truth of Unity or Non-duality’. Fear of God is the fear of punishment or retribution for having lived in the knowledge of untruth.
It is just akin to the teaching of the Buddha in the first principle of deliverance – the annihilation of self or ego from the ordinary mental consciousness. Whoever perceives God or Truth of Insubstantiality or Unity eliminates the false notion or superimposition of self or ego which does not exist in the first place. In monotheistic religions, this illusive self or ego is designated as a lower or animal self. Self or ego is the mother of sins or unwholesome actions. Whoever worships self or ego does not worship God truly or discern the truth of Insubstantiality. Worshiping God or discerning Insubstantiality is synonymous with the annihilation of self or ego in oneself. Annihilation of self or ego is designated as ‘fanā’ in Islamic Sufism. It is popularly known as the perfection of wisdom (prajñāpāramitā) of chan or zen in Mahāyāna Buddhism. It is the exposition of the ātman-Brahman equation of the Vedānta tradition of Hinduism.The ātman is synonymous with Dharmadhātu or Tathāgatagarbha expounded in the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra. The climax of spiritual attainment is known as the living attainment of cessation (samāpatti nirodha) in the Theravāda tradition. This summit of spirituality is known as the emptiness of emptiness( Śūnyatā-Śūnyatā) in Mahāyāna tradition. This peak of spirituality is designated as annihilation of annihilation (al-fanā’ al-fanā’) in the Islamic Sufi tradition. It is the highest spiritual attainment which is beyond all religions. The spiritual Perfect Man dwells in this state of wisdom in the mundane world in which his mind is just like a clean mirror unsullied by myriad images appearing in and disappearing from it. The Perfect Man is the perfect image of God. An Arahant or a Bodhisattva is a perfect image of the Buddha. The al-insān al-kāmil is the perfect image of Allah. Buddha or God is the Truth of Insubstantiality. The Christian Saint is the perfect Image of God. The Avatar is the perfect image of Brahman. Succinctly put, the Perfect Man is a self-redeemed person.
Self or ego conceals absolute essence of God or Buddha-nature. True worship of monotheism is to defeat self or ego to see God or the eternal Truth of Insubstantiality or dependently co-arisen Unity or Non-duality. True Buddhist practice is to annihilate self or ego to unveil the our original self which is the True Self. The ordinary self is the false self.
To remember God and to fear God is to relinquish self or ego from dominating one’s life. Remembering and fearing God constructed upon the foundation of discerning the Word of God are the practices of the believers from moment to moment. Without the believer’s continual practices of rememberance and fear of God, God can not save the believers. This philosophy is reflected in our general knowledge that God only saves those who save themselves; God merely help those who help themselves. The believers ought to listen regularly to the sermons. He ought to regularly read and understand the scriptures. He ought to perform prayers. He ought to restrain from committing evils. He ought to do good helping and benefiting others. He ought to meditate to purify his mind. All these are works of cultivation or practices.
For the Theravādins, the continuous practice of four foundations of mindfulness and clear awareness obliterate the false self or ego to purify and redeem the mind. The ‘Sati’ connotes mindfulness and rememberance. Mindfulness is alertness not to grasp upon the notion of self or ego which is illusive and unreal. Rememberance is the clear awareness that self or ego is mere illusion.
I have personally heard from a Christian friend of mine dogmatically asserting that a believer is saved by the grace or external power of God not by personal works (doing good). He erroneously believes that mere trust or faith in God will save a Christian without works. He does not see that love for God must be transformed into love of others too. Mere love of God without love of others is not sufficient to earn salvation. God commands that one must love others just as he loves God.
Mutualism
Yes, God is All-loving or All-merciful. He can forgive the sins of the believers. But if the sinners do not sincerely and conscientiously repent, God cannot forgive the sinful. In addition, God will punish the sinful on the day of judgment. The moral law of causality is universally applicable to all human beings. What you sow, so shall you reap! To assert that human works do not save the believers but only God’s grace is the sole Savior has erroneously marginized the role played by the believers. Anyway, such a dogmatic assertion is made only by the unsaved believers. The unsaved believers are the carnal men. He directs and empowers all his life activities according to his individual wills but not according to the wills of God. There is a distinction between a carnal believer and no-carnal believer. A Christian is saved only when his or her life is directed and empowered by Jesus Christ or the God. A carnal Christian whose life is directed by self or ego cannot be saved by God.
Correspondingly from Buddhist perspective, the carnal men are karmatic men whose karmas are directed and empowered by ordinary consciousness of self or ego. The liberated Buddhists are cankerless men. Their activities are cankerless because they are directed and empowered by pure and infinite consciousness (Theravāda tradition) or the Buddha-mind (Mahāyāna tradition).
Faith of a believer and God as Savior are heavily and dogmatically emphasized in monotheistic religions. Faith ensues from a believer. The saving power of a Savior comes from God. The saving or emancipating power of God (His preachings or the scriptures ) must be complemented by the genuine faith of a believer supported by his or her godly actions or virtues – love of neighbours including the enemies. The faith of a believer must be manifested in terms of works or virtues supported by proper apprehension of the Word of God. The actions of a Christian must concur with the teaching of the gospel of church.
The faith is witnessed through one’s love for neighbours just as one loves himself or herself. It is even more effectively witnessed from one’s Love for the enemies too. Loving God is living the knowledge of Truth. It is translated into loving neigbours and enemies in real-life practice. Such love can only be manifested after discerning the Truth of God. The love of God and the discernment of Truth correlate intimately. It is motivated and supported by religious wisdom – the discernment of Truth. When one loves his neighbours like himself or herself and love the enemies without aversion, this practice of non-discriminative is parallel to the practice of the power of equanimity. The power of equanimity is executed through the four establishments of mindfulness.
Love of neighbours like loving our ownselves and the unpleasant enemies seem to go against the stream. Generally, we love ourselves much more than loving our neighbours and enemies. The enemies are usually hated. If one can love even one’s enemies, self or ego is uprooted as aversion has been destroyed. Having annihilated self or ego, the saved believer is born of God. There is new birth called self-redemption. Self-redemption is to die before one dies. It occurs at the centre of the heart. God is then at the throne of his or her life. Divine power dominates his or her life entirely. When the false self dies, the new self is born.
Evil thoughts, improper sexual relations, theft, murder, greed, hatred, malice, envy, slander, arrogance, conflicts, drugs, stupidity and other fallibilities of human life vanish from the life of this saved believer. This is the true meaning of salvation for all esoteric religions.
Is there any distinction from the teaching of Buddhism? There is no distinction as far as moral restraint, virtue and mental purification are concerned. A liberated Buddhist will not transgress the precepts as his or her moral restraint and virtue are perfected. He ceases to kill, steal, abuse sexually, speak untruthfully, speak divisively, speak harshly, to gossip, to be greedy, to hate and to be deluded. His mind is purified through the obliteration of self or ego grasping.
A Christian purifies his or her mind and receives the Holy Spirit of God by replacing the self-centred life with Christ-directed life. A Theravādin Budddhist purifies his consciousness through the execution of the four foundation of mindfulness. A Mahāyāna Buddhist purifies his or her consciousness by replacing the mind of a sentient being with the consciousness of the Buddha-mind by which the Dharmabody is manifested..
Monotheists are generally discouraged to worship idolatry except the God which is the only Truth. What is other than God is untruth. Buddhists are discouraged to reify or objectify the phenomenal world in terms of independent or discrete entities. Both recommendations are parallel because idolatry and phenomenal world are illusive and unreal in the ultimate sense. The multiplicity is cosmic illusion. We are not encouraged to worship illusion and unreality. We are admonished by to worship only the Truth. Furthermore, illusion and unreality arouse the arising of self or ego. Self or ego is denied in all religious preachings because it defiles the human consciousness and impedes salvation or liberation. This is the most important identity and congruence of all major esoteric religions. Purity of mind through obliteration of self centric ego conditions the soteriological goal of all esoteric religions.
Pure and Infinite Consciousness
The cornerstone of emancipation is annihilation of self or ego. When a Buddhist has abandoned self or ego, the insubstantiality of his or her five aggregates (designated as Buddha-nature in Mahāyāna tradition) is redeemed. He realizes Nibbāna – the complete mental appeasement. The consciousness becomes pure and infinite. In Christianity and Hinduism, when the holy spirit or divine consciousness permeates the entire body and mind of the believer, his mind also becomes infinite and pure. In Islamic Sufism, the annihilation of self or ego (al-fanā’) leads to the unity or union or complete absorption with the God (baqā-bi-Allah).
Therefore, Nibbāna, the holy spirit, and divine consciousness and Fan’ā or baqā are synonymous as each of them engenders pure and infinite consciousness. Pure and infinite consciousness eliminates the ordinary consciousness directed by self or ego just as water eliminates fire. Mahāyāna tradition designates this pure and infinite consciousness as Dharmabody, the Buddha-mind or Emptiness (Śūnyatā). Zen Buddhism designates it as No-mind (extinction of ordinary mind). The Tibetan Buddhists names it as ‘Dzogchen’ meaning’ ‘Great Perfection’ (Mahā Siddhi) The Hindus designate this released consciousness as Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Taoists call it ‘Tao’. Both Buddhism and Upaniṣads designate this as Nirvāṇa. Sufism, which is similar to Zen’s meditational objective to annihilate self or ego, labels it as ‘Fanā’. ‘Fanā’ means ‘Annihilation’. The mainstream Islam names it as ‘Baqā’ which connotes complete absorption or union with God. The complete absorption or union is the entrance into the door of non-duality or unity.
Complete absorption or union with God pertains to the intimate relationship between the servantship of a believer and the lordship of God. Both ways are functionable: The annihilation of self or ego (Fanā’) leads to love of God (Baqā). Love of God leads to annihilation of self or ego. Annihilation of self or love of God generates the same result: the emergence of perfect person in knowledge and conduct. The perfection of a human being by self-rectification of the mind to actualize self-redemption is the function of all religions.
In the Confucian classic of ‘Great Learning’ (大學), ethical cultivation is aimed at rediscovering the Truth - the innate supreme virtue of Man (ming ming te明明德). It also asserts that penetrating wisdom (格物致知) leads to self-rectification of mind (心正). Self rectification of mind leads to self-cultivation (修身/德行) or supreme character formation. Self-cultivation leads to the harmonization of family(齊家) ( group or association). Harmonization of family leads to good governance (國治) of a nation or state. ‘Great Learning’ is pragmatic as it links discernment of human innate nature with proper moral conduct.
In fact, psychological ethics is original pragmatic function of all esoteric religions which,in actuality, preach the relationship between human psychology and ethics known as the right knowledge of human engineering. Right knowledge of human engineering is the acquiring the knowledge of ultimate Truth (知之至也) through intuition. When Pope Benedict visited the United States in April, 2008, he designated the quest of Truth as the discovery of Truth.
Those dissimilar designations or appellations are immaterial. What is crucial is that they refer to the same Truth of the intrinsic supremacy of Man which crystallizes eternality or salvation. God Brahman or Kṛṣṇa and Gotama Buddha promulgate thus: Truth is one and not two (Ekaṃ sacaṃ na dutiyaṃ.). There may be many religious masters but there is only one Truth or Actuality of the empirical world. This is the principle of and Pantheism by which the dream of alliance of civilizations can be crystallized. The principle identical emancipation or soteriological requirement for both the Buddhists and monotheists is non-private ownership of any anything in the world. It is known as Insubstantiality (Anattā) in Theravāda tradition. From monotheistic perspective, the human beings are merely the trustees of God. Only God is the real owner of everything in the world. Thus, both religious systems reject the false notion of I or Mine. In short, both systems supports the Truth of Insubstantiality (Anattā) to reach eternality or deadthlessness.
In the Yodhajiva Sutta (AN4.181), non-proprietorship or non-ownership in any form is expounded thus: None of the five aggregates is I, myself or what I am. This is the denial of private ownership by anyone. (Be cautious: This is not the total denial of material life by anyone! This misinterpretation of the Word of saints has resulted in the persecutions of the saints by the authorities since time immemorial.. In other words, no one can discern Buddha or God through the conceit of I or mine. In fact, the fundamental Buddhist teaching of Insubstantiality or Non-self (Anattā) rejects any form of proprietorship. The universal unity of brotherhood of humanity can be discerned from here.
(To be continued in part III)
|
