Psychology of Buddhism. Monograph
.pdfIf we realize that suffering is at the core of our existence, and not the property of the outer world, we will be able to put an end to it.
It is impossible to eliminate suffering if we delegate the responsibility for it to the outside world and to other people. We are used to accusing other people, fate, God or some other power of our suffering, we blame them and seek revenge. Only when we realize that we are the source of suffering, we will be able to uproot its cause.
We are the cause of our own suffering. Our desires contradict the laws of existence. It is not within our power to change the law of dependent origination, anatman, dukkha and anitya; the only thing we can do is to change our desires, thus we will have another purpose, achievable and close to reality.
There are five roots of suffering: Avija, Sankhara, Tanha, Upadana and Kamma-
bhava.
Avidya (or Avija, “ignorance”) is the major cause of false desire. It is also called a mania for self. We think that we have a permanent, unchangeable nature, which makes us look at the world from the egocentric point of view of our desires (tanha). The European idea of permanent ego fills us with a strong desire to live in a permanent world with permanent delights, which is unattainable. That is why all we get is frustration, suffering and despair.
Sankhara (“mental dispositions”) is aspiration for the desirable, caused by karma. It is the fruit of illusions about Ego-consciousness. It gives rise to consciousness (vinnyana) and psycho-physical organism (namarupa), which use senses as instruments of satisfaction of desires (tanha). If desires are satisfied, one develops attachment (upadana) to the objects that have served as the source of satisfaction. If desires are not satisfied, they grow stronger. One feels antipathy, mental opposition and disgust (patikha, dosa) to things that prevent him or her from achieving the desirable. Thus, lobha (greed) and dosa (hatred) are the two sides of one and the same power, i.e. tanha (desire, craving). While attachment (upadana), regardless of its origin, whether it is greed or hatred, keeps us within the circle of life. Suffering is caused by the attachment to such a way of life, attachment that is reproduced again and again. This is the law of karma, the law of behavior and activity. It is our will, our passionate desire and our organism that creates the world we live in. Thus, tanha (desire), an implicit form of upadana (attachment), is the cause of the continuous process of striving (kama-
bhava) towards the desirable form of existence, in accordance with the individual level of
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development with laws inherent in it, which create the constant change of mental and bodily elements.
When the knowledge is attained, suffering comes to an end. Ignorance and false desire is the theoretical and practical side of one and the same phenomenon. The empty abstract form of false will is ignorance, while realization of ignorance is false will. In real life they form a single whole. Desire causes suffering. What we desire is impermanent, changeable and subject to death. The impermanent nature of the object of our desires causes disappointment and regret. All pleasures are impermanent, their source is impermanent, and their goals are impermanent.
Buddhist doctrine considers consciousness and will so closely connected that it does not differentiate between them. One and the same word is used to define thought and will –
“cetana”. Exercise of thought is seen as preparation for purification of heart and will. Ignorance of the truth is the prerequisite for life. Following the Upanishads tradition, where the eternal corresponds to bliss, while the transient corresponds to suffering, Buddhism declares that truth, freedom and happiness are eternal and unchangeable, but the world of birth, aging and death is subject to suffering.
If we did not consider objects and states of existence in terms of possession and egoistic pleasure, we would not have suffered from their change or disappearance. On the contrary, changes would have made us happy in many ways, either because they liberate us from unpleasant states and objects, or because they represent potential experience, lead to insights into the nature of things and thus provide us with more opportunities for liberation.
If the world was absolute and unchanging, if our life was the same forever, it would not be possible to achieve liberation. Thus, it is not the “world” and its transient nature that causes suffering, but our attitude to it, our attachment, our thirst, our ignorance.
Ignorance, avidya, should not be viewed as the “root cause”, the metaphysical cause of existence or cosmogonic principle, but rather as the condition, which determines the development of our life and which is responsible for the present state of our life and consciousness. Therefore, paticca samupada (“dependent origination”) cannot be defined as “causal connection” (although many scholars use this term), but rather “conditioned connection”, the formula of conditioned origination. It reflects dependent origination,
interconnection between individual components, which can be equally represented both as
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simultaneous and successive events, as every single phase comprises the whole process, whether it is the fruit or the seed. Ignorance is not the “cause” of consciousness (vinnana) or it karmic causes (sankhara). Feelings (vedana) are not the “cause” either of thirst (tanha), or of subsequent experiences. But where there is thirst, there is feeling. And where there is feeling, there is awareness. However, if there is consciousness, caused by thirst, it is always accompanied by ignorance.
Paticcasamupada, The Law of Dependent Origination, reads as follows: Dependent on ignorance (avijja paccaya) arise activities (sankhara). Activities arise consciousness (vinnana).
Dependent on consciousness arise mind and matter (Nama-rupa). Dependent on mind and matter arise the six spheres of sense (salayatana). Dependent on the six spheres of sense arises contact (impressions, phassa).
Dependent on contact (i.e. the contact of sense organs with corresponding objects) arises feeling (vedana).
Dependent on feeling arises craving (tanha).
Craving arises attachment (upadana).
Dependent on attachment, the process of becoming arises (Kamma).
Dependent on the process of becoming, rebirth arises (jati).
Dependent on rebirth aging and death arise (jara-marana); together with sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, despair (soka-parideva-dukkha-domanassupayasa).
As Lama Anagarika Govinda writes, although the chain looks like a closed circle, the order of links can be different, every link can be combined with any other one ( as it is done in the “Patthana”); the emphasis changes, but the essence remains the same. For example, “vinnana-paccaya sankhara” is as true as “sankhara-paccaya vinnaya”, or “tanhapaccaya sankhara”, etc.
Thus, here we deal not with a temporal or logical causality, but with a living, organic relationship, a simultaneous correlation, every link of which can be placed next to any other one; each link is a kind of a simple average of all others, comprising its past and all of its possible futures. From the methodological point of view, it can be defined as a nonlinear system determinism.
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That is why every link in the chain of dependent origination is removable. It is not bound up with “reasons belonging to the distant past”, moreover, it has nothing to do with the future, in which consequences of these reasons can one day be exhausted. This is the only path to liberation, as there cannot be another way to exhaust causes, which inevitably manifest themselves, having been accumulating from time immemorial.
The idea that the fruits-consequences of all our acts and deeds, every single one of them, whether they have mental or physical nature, have to be partaken of, that every trivial act, every slightest spiritual movement, liking or disliking, make us more and more entangled into a most complex net of fate, is, without doubt, the most horrible image, that has ever been evoked by human spirit, or more precisely, by human intellect.
Only the process of conceptualization and concretization of connections of fate was able to fabricate the blind necessity of mechanical regularity, ignorant of our innermost being. Mechanical laws are applicable only to the inanimate, motionless “things” or conceptual units, i.e. to mental abstractions, but not to the living, growing, developing organisms, which represent units only in terms of their continuity (santana) and karmaprocess (kamma-bhava). It does not mean that the law of dependent origination cannot be used in psychology; it means that it can be used in a limited and modified form and under certain conditions (25).
The law of dependent origination (Paticca Samuppada) corresponds to the Noble Eightfold Path, devoid of both the extreme of absolute necessity (which contradicts the idea of free will and moral responsibility) and the extreme of blind chance, which would make development and progress impossible.
Using material things and spiritual values, people consider them to be real and permanent, that is why they want to possess them and enjoy them. Desires create the chain of struggle for existence and make the process of life go on. They are stimulated by ignorance and lead to volitional actions, which form karma. This process can take either passive or active form. The active side of existence is possible when dharmas are excited and result in a karmic effect, which is generated by consciousness. Consequently, where there is no consciousness, there is no karma. That is why involuntary actions do not affect karma.
According to the law of dependent origination, the process of karma is endless:
“every living being has its karma, it is its property, heritage, cause, relative, refuge. It is
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karma that brings living being into low or high states”. As volitional actions are motivated by desires, the latter determine the character of karma and thus continually renew and maintain the process of reincarnation.
Karma is rather a philosophical category than a physical one. It is not limited in time and space; being the result of the flow of consciousness, it belongs to the sphere of ethics. There can be cosmic, national, family or individual karma. It can be defined as the law of retribution or the law of ethical causation, according to which everybody reaps what he has sown. In terms of its function, karma coincides with the law of dependent origination.
Figuratively speaking, life is like a river, its bed is formed by karma. The river’s life is sustained by thousands of little streams (desires), which contain both pure water (good deeds) and dirt (bad deeds). Discarding the dirt or absorbing it, the river may change its future karma (but not the present one) and reincarnate into a transparent mountain stream or a stinking river, the bed of which will be again defined by karma (this is an allegory, as karma is made up only by conscious actions).
Refraining from bad deeds, or on the contrary, making them, people create their own good or bad future karma. But even good deeds and intentions cannot save from reincarnation and, consequently, do not liberate us from suffering, as good deeds are also caused by desires. Thus, every living being is subject to suffering, and nobody can avoid it. Some Buddhist claim that the Buddha was the only one to achieve nirvana... .
2.5.3. The Third Noble Truth: “There is the Cessation of Suffering”
Let us live happily, without hate amongst those who hate. Let us dwell unhating amidst hateful men.
Let us live happily, in good health amongst those who are sick. Let us dwell in good health amidst ailing men.
Let us live happily, without yearning for sensual pleasures amongst those who yearn for them. Let us dwell without yearning amidst those who yearn.
Let us live happily, we who have no impediments. We shall subsist on joy even as the radiant gods.
Dhammadapa 197-200
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(translation taken from www.unification.net)
The third Noble truth seems to contradict the first and the second one, as the truth about suffering in general is seen as the most important distinctive feature of Buddhism. Complete eradication of desires, both good and bad, corresponds to the state of nirvana, when the chain of birth and death is broken and man is excluded from the never-ending process of reincarnation. The Third Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering (dukkha nirodha) is a complete antithesis of the first two ones.
Nirvana is the ultimate goal of existence of all living beings. The state of nirvana has different interpretations in different Buddhist schools, it depends on their understanding of the nature of dharmas.
According to the Theravada school, dharmas at rest are outside of the life process, outside of the “wheel of life”. These dharmas are incomprehensible, it is impossible to describe them. That is why, describing nirvana, theravadian Buddhists use negation: the unborn, having no origin, having no structure, undying, imperishable, and free from disease, sorrow and impurities.
The Madhyamaka tradition considers dharmas to be the product of unenlightened person’s sick mind. And as dharmas are mere products of imagination, emptiness is the only reality and there is no difference between the real world and nirvana. Every enlightened person becomes aware of this truth, it becomes his only reality, his nirvana, all other things being an illusion.
Some of the northern Buddhist schools claim that the visible world is the product of consciousness, which corresponds to the absolute, while nirvana is attained by accumulating pure consciousness with the help of religious practices and meditation.
In spite of the differences, all schools agree that nirvana is not a self-destruction, it is liberation from one’s own “Self”, a complete extinction of emotional activity. It is the highest good.
The criterion used to define on which stage you are on your way to nirvana is joy. Every step towards nirvana is accompanied with ever increasing joy. The more you free yourself from greed, hatred and ignorance, the greater your feeling of happiness is. That is why “nibbana” (nirvana in Sanskrit), is called the highest good: “nibbanam paramam
sukham” (Dhammapada, p. 203-204).
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We have already described how Buddha experienced nirvana under the Bodhi tree.
According to “Mahavagga”, after his Awakening, Buddha remained in the state of ecstatic bliss for seven days.
In my opinion, the word “ecstatic” is not quite correct, as it is usually associated with intense emotional excitement. Ecstasy (from Greek ekstasis – “to be or stand outside oneself”), is the highest degree of excitement, enthusiasm, sometimes bordering on rage, morbidness and madness. Ecstasy is associated with Dionysus, with unbridled sensuality
“outside oneself”.
Buddha’s ecstatic state does not coincide with the peculiar state of mind, which is associated in Neo-Platonism and Christian mysticism with the possibility of merging with God through the sharpened sense of perception or concentration on the image of God.
It would be more correct to call it “instasy”, i.e. a quiet contemplation, a more disciplined, systematic state, which stays within one’s mind. This state makes it possible to integrate the subject (the person who is thinking) with the process of thinking and thoughts. A deep meditation on the truth, or instasy, happens when the three components merge with each other, forming a single whole.
I do not think that what Buddha experienced was a state free from emotions. It was not a passive indifference or imperturbability, but an absolute calm, ataraxia, the state to which, according to the Stoics, philosophers have to strive for. Ataraxia means mental tranquility, serenity attained by sages, which certain Greek philosophers considered to be the dominant value.
The Buddha’s state can be described as ataraxia+, as in addition to serenity
(absolutely positive spiritual equanimity) he also felt the bliss of perfect harmony.
In terms of emotions, his instasy can be described as being quietly touched- delighted-joyful and contemplative.
Buddha’s instasy was of Apollonic character, which made it absolutely calm and clear, free from selfish motives, going beyond the sphere of Self and beyond the everyday consciousness.
Nirvana is a quiet uninvolved instasy, touchedness by being dissolved in existence, going beyond the boundaries of Self-satisfaction; bliss, penetration of the clear individual
consciousness into the laws of Reality. Nirvana is a peak state of human consciousness, it is
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a state in which gradations in the tints of thoughts and feelings, mind and soul are extremely subtle, almost unnoticeable.
Nirvana is a blissful awareness of unity, sameness, unchangeability and harmony.
“Having rejected joy and suffering, having rejected the old grief and idleness, I was in the fourth dhyana; joy and suffering reduced to dust, I reached the stage of transparent clarity, equanimity of consciousness. But even the bliss that arose in me could not fetter my mind”. Thus Buddha described his experience.
2.5.4. The Fourth Noble Truth: There is the Eightfold Path Leading to the
Cessation of Suffering
Bhikshus, whether there is the arising of Tathagatas or not, this element remains, the fixedness of things, the order of things, that all formations (samskaras) are impermanent. A Tathagata fully awakens to this truth, realizes it. Having fully awakened to it and realized it, he tells, teaches, proclaims, establishes, reveals, analyses and clarifies that “all conditioned things (samskaras) are impermanent.”
Bhikshus, whether there is the arising of Tathagatas or not, this element remains, the fixedness of things, the order of things, that all formations are suffering. A Tathagata fully awakens to this truth, realizes it. Having fully awakened to it and realized it, he tells, teaches, proclaims, establishes, reveals, analyses and clarifies that “all conditioned things (samskaras) are suffering.”
Bhikshus, whether there is the arising of Tathagatas or not, this element remains, the fixedness of things, the order of things, that all things (dharmas) are not self. A Tathagata fully awakens to this truth, realizes it. Having fully awakened to it and realized it, he tells, teaches, proclaims, establishes, reveals, analyses and clarifies that “all things (dharmas) are impermanent.” (“The Discourse on the Natural Orders”, Anguttara Nikaya, 3.134)
dharmafarer.googlepages.com
The Noble Eightfold Path is closely connected with Buddha’s search for nirvana. If
we want to get a clear picture of the Path, we will have to analyze his own experience.
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Ascetic practices and yoga alienated Buddha from the feeling of joy and happiness. He began to see them as a danger, as something to be avoided. When he finally realized that such an attitude was fruitless, he remembered how he meditated under the rose-apple tree when he was a child; he remembered that it brought him the feeling of deep, inner bliss. It helped him to overcome fear.
He decided that from that time on he would take care of his exhausted, neglected body, so that he could use joy as a newly found miracle cure, which would help him to achieve liberation. Unlike ascetic brahmins, who considered acetic suffering to be the only way to freedom, Buddha claimed that the joy of meditation is one of the most important means of achieving nirvana (25).
Thus, it is the feeling of being touched and joyful that shows that you are on your way to nirvana. The feeling of joy remains even when you are being in the state of deep inner concentration, which appears once you have overcome the feeling of pleasure, pain, or any other emotion. Joy is dissolved in the sublime state of clarity and serenity, which Buddhists call nirvana.
In order that the readers, used to the European school of psychology, have a clearer picture of the strategies of achieving nirvana, we will distinguish and discuss three main types of joy and bliss.
The first type of joy is the most familiar one - physical joy and bliss (kayika suhka), namely: physical health and sensual pleasures (food, drink, movement, sex, etc.).
The second type corresponds to mental happiness (kamavacara-somanassa): satisfaction of intellectual and emotional needs. They are individual and limited ( art, science, reading, perception of beauty, the joy of knowing and understanding, the joy of creating and discovering, etc.);
The third type is the pure happiness or bliss ( cetasika sukha), devoid of selfish interests and individual limitations, the pleasures that comes from delighting in other people’s well-being (mudita) and allows to go beyond worldly experience into the sphere of spiritual and ethical values (lokuttara).
It is evident that Buddha was aware of all of three forms of pleasure. When he reached the third, the highest degree of happiness, he faced the problem of describing the
path he had taken, the path from everyday consciousness to overworldly bliss.
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The way to liberation from suffering and karmic bonds is the Noble Eightfold Path, which consists of right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.
The word “noble” is synonymous with “aristocratic”, “renowned”, “well-bred”, “lofty”, “dignified”, “decent”, “brave”, “selfless”, “generous”, “honest”, “holy”, “moral”, “spiritual”, “blue blood”...
The Eightfold Path is “noble” in the sense that it is extremely rare. There are a lot of smart, stupid, rich, poor, beautiful, ugly, arrogant, young and old people. There are a lot of workers, farmers, intellectuals, monks and the new rich. At the same time noble, spiritual people of high moral standards are exceptionally rare.
We can assume that it would be more correct to use the word “righteous”; it is all the more adequate if we take into consideration the Christian traditional use of this word. But even “righteous” is not absolutely correct. The word “right” (as in “right view”, “right intention”, etc.) leads to misunderstanding, as according to the binary European way of thinking, where there is “right”, there is “wrong”.
It would be more correct to interpret “Samma” (in Sanskrit “samyak”, which is usually translated as “noble”) as “full”, “holistic”, “all-inclusive”. Thus, on the one hand, it indicates the rightness, the predefined character of the Buddhist Path; on the other hand, it means that it is holistic and organic, which ideally should cover all the aspects and levels of human beings.
2.5.5. Noble Eightfold Path
How to achieve the highest level of integration, liberation, nirvana? The Fourth Noble Truth, the truth of the path (marga) leading to the end of suffering, that is to nirvana (arya ashtanga marga), answers this question. The path consists of eight steps.
1. Right view (samma ditthi) consists in the right understanding of suffering, its causes and ways that can be used to eliminate it.
At this stage, one has to master the Four Noble Truths and other basic Buddhist concepts, they have to become the basis of one’s motivation. The right, all-inclusive, holistic
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