CHAPTER 3

The Contribution to Humankind and
the World Made by Sdakyamuni's
Leaving Home and Attaining Enligfitenment

Now let us encapsulate the essential points of Shakyamuni's leaving home, attaining enlightenment, and disseminating his teaching. Overall there are five main points.

Establishing a Magnificent Array of Ways of Guidance, Shakyamuni Taught a Way to Govern Nations with Kindness and Compassion at Heart

Shakyamuni took into consideration the fact that he could have been a peerless hero and governed the whole Indian continent, but even though a hero may be able to conquer the world, he cannot conquer himself. What is more, human history is always in the process of change, and it is impossible to maintain a perpetually unchanging kingship. He wanted to establish a kind of cultural thought that could offer guidance for ten thousand generations; he wanted to conquer himself and fulfill the need to achieve inner wisdom, so he wanted to "detach from feelings and abandon desires, thus to be free from burdens," and consequently he left home to seek enlightenment.

His aspiration was in fact rewarded, and he set up a magnificent array of teachings as methods of guidance, thus winning the respect and reverence of countless generations of people in many nations of the world. In terms of the concept of economic value habitually used by modern-day people, the value of Shakyamuni's work as a perennial teaching for humanity cannot be compared with the value of his possibly having spent his life as a king or an emperor.

Based on the effects of the way of guidance he established, within a few hundred years there emerged the achievements of Ashoka, the great king of India, which constituted the most glorious page of cultured government in that country's history. This paralleled the way the doctrines of Confucius formed the cultured government of the early Western Han dynasty; but when I say paralleled, that does not mean they were the same. Something is connected with the spirit of developmental teaching in the Buddha's various ways of guidance, as well as in the models provided by the behavioral regulations of the Great and Small Vehicles of Buddhism, that corresponds to the Book of Rites in traditional Chinese culture, which also encapsules the basic spirit of the philosophy of human etiquette, social duty, and law. Since the time of the T'ang and Sung dynasties, whenever relatively objective scholars draw comparisons between Shakyamuni and Confucius, they recognize that if Confucius had lived in the India of his time, he would have done as Shakyamuni did, and if Shakyamuni had lived in the China of his time, he would have proceeded as did Confucius. As it is said, "For sages of the East and sages of the West, this mind is the same, this principle is the same, and the path is one."

Breaking Up India's Traditional Concept of Caste, Shakyamuni Preached Equality Extending to All Living Beings

Indian history has always been characterized by a very rigid concept of caste. Usually they speak of the first caste as the Brahmin, the traditional priesthood of Brahminism; the second caste is the Kshatriya, the warriors who traditionally held military authority; the third caste is the Vaishya, farmers, herders, merchants, and such people; and the fourth caste is the Shudra, those people involved in menial occupations. After Shakyamuni attained enlightenment, he energetically expounded the idea that the natures and forms of all living beings are equal. Not only did he recognize all humanity as being equal; he also recognized all creatures—whatever has flesh and blood and is conscious, even to the border of the divine and human—as belonging in the category of living beings: in terms of the substance of their basic nature, everyone must originally be equal. So people should not harm others with uncivil and malicious intentions, and at the same time they should not harm any living things out of selfishness.

Human and other living beings partake of the essence of suchness and so are fundamentally equal by nature; that is why everyone can become a Buddha by doing good and getting rid of evil. All living beings, celestial and human, can attain Buddhahood by doing good and eliminating evil. Although the terminology is different, this teaching derives from the same source as the Confucian principle that "the people are my relatives, beings are my companions" and the idea preached by the philosophers of Inner Design Studies that "everyone can be a sage."

The principle of Shakyamuni's teaching on the oneness of others and self, the doctrine of the equality of living beings, may be called an ideology of thoroughgoing egalitarianism that shines gloriously throughout past and present. At the same time he himself set the example. In the community of monks whom he personally guided in their studies, everyone was equal regardless of their social origins; only virtuous conduct was considered important.

Some may assume that once we speak of equality we will come to a point at which right and wrong are not distinguished, where good and bad are not divided. This is not to be misunderstood: what Shakyamuni spoke of was the basic equality of essence (substance) and form (function); when we arrive at the realm of equality, we still need the distinction between good and evil as well as the developmental exercise of doing good and eliminating evil. So the effort to get rid of evil and turn toward good, to depart from evil people and do whatever is good, is indeed an incomparably great virtue. There is no contradiction at all. This too is ultimately much the same in meaning, although different in expression, from the saying of Confucians that "wise kings got angry once and pacified the land."

Synthesizing the Doctrines of Transmigration Found in Ancient Indian Religious Traditions, Shakyamuni Set Up a Phenomenology of Life in Terms of Past, Present, and Future Causes and Effects, with Recurring Cycles of Six Courses of Existence

From the basic idea that "others and self are one, natures and characteristics are equal," and the methodology of doing good and eliminating evil, one arrives at the realm of "one suchness" and "equality," whereupon it becomes a matter of course to delve into the question of the source of the life of living beings. Shakyamuni used the method of generalization to array the species of life into kinds, dividing them into general categories known as the six courses of existence: the celestial course, the asura or antigod course (whose realm is on the border of the divine and the demonic), the human course, the animal course, the hungry ghost course, and the hellish course of existence.

Because of the differences in the amounts and degrees of good and bad in their thoughts and actions, all living beings immerse themselves in being phenomena of life right in these six courses. People can do good and be born in heaven, and they can also do evil and turn into animals or hungry ghosts, or even fall into hell. But if celestial beings forget goodness, stir their thoughts, and do something wrong, they can also turn into antigods, or even go off into other courses of existence. At this point it is recognized that the phenomena of the life of all living beings in this universe, those that are different and those that are the same, all interchange through the good and bad in a single thought formulated in the mind. This is similar to the Taoist theory of the evolving universe. (But note that similar does not mean entirely the same.)

So the good and bad in a thought, and the action of rousing the mind and stirring thoughts, build up the subtle bit by bit to develop into the manifestly obvious. So Shakyamuni formulated the theory of cause and effect in three time frames: past, present, and future. Past causes build up into present effects, and the implications of present causes will build up into future effects. So the future and the past are like an endless ring, and the expression of recurring cycles of transmigration refers to this cyclical movement. Then he set up a doctrinal system of past, present, and future causes and effects, with recurring cycles of the six courses of existence. This is similar to the concept of causes and effects of virtue expressed in the I Ching: "A home that accumulates goodness will surely have abundant felicity," and "If goodness is not accumulated, it is insufficient to establish one's name; if evil is not accumulated, it is insufficient to destroy one's person."

Shakyamuni Pioneered Views of the Universe and the World

Whenever the ancient religions and philosophies of India approached metaphysical problems, they naturally touched on the search for the meeting point of the celestial and the human. Although the ultimate ends of their ideas and doctrines all came down to getting into Heaven, the Heaven worshiped by each individual sect and school was different, with no unity among them, and in addition there existed a clash between ideas of monotheism and pantheism.

The doctrine of Shakyamuni synthesized the borders of the celestial and the human into three zones (the "three realms") called the realms of desire, of form, and the formless realm. The realm of desire stretches from the celestial inhabitants in the heavens of our solar system to the humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and denizens of hell below.

The expression "realm of desire" indicates that the life of the beings in this realm comes from craving (for sex and nourishment). Speaking in a broad sense, craving includes the pleasures of the five desires for form, sound, fragrance, flavor, and feeling. In a narrow sense, it involves the acts of smiling, looking, conversing, embracing, and touching.

The realm of desire has six levels of celestial realms; for instance, the one among them called the Traya-strimsha Heaven contains an array of thirty-three heavens that alternate in prominence according to the time. The human realm within the realm of desire is generally divided into the four sectors—east, west, north, and south. Our human world is in the southern sector known as Jambudvipa. The overall name of this world is Saha, which has a double meaning: endurance and sorrow. This refers to the fact that this world is full of sorrow, with much that is painful and difficult; and yet humans and all living beings not only can endure that sorrow, suffering, and hardship, but can diligently turn toward good, thereby becoming worthy of praise. If there were no sorrow or suffering in the world, we naturally could not distinguish good or bad. Fundamentally, there is no good or bad to speak of, so it should be the completeness of nature that is considered good; then nothing can be totally denied, and nothing can be praised.

Each of the celestial and human worlds in the realm of desire has a ruler. Beyond the realm of desire is the realm of form, where the beings experience only feelings and ideas, without desires. The beings in the realm of form can produce the fruit of life just by looking at each other and smiling in a meeting of minds. In that realm are eighteen levels of heavens corresponding to states of realization produced by beings cultivating the realms of quiet contemplation and meditative concentration. The highest heaven in the realm of form is called the Heaven of the Ultimate of Form, whose ruler is the god Mahesvara.

Beyond the realm of form is the formless realm, which is reckoned to have four levels of heavens. Those who have attained the fruits of practicing meditation are born in the formless realm where they have only mental consciousness; emotional desires do not exist for them. Finally, the one governing this whole domain of three realms is called the great god Brahma.

From this simple explanation it can be seen how Shakyamuni partitioned the spheres of the celestial and human into a general scheme of sixty heavens under the overall rubric of the three realms, all of which are still within the bounds of the recurring cycles of the six courses of existence. This cosmic world of three realms has an individual solar system as its primary unit. And stretching from the human world up to the sun and moon, and the heavens within the three realms, the realities and concepts of time have their own individual differences. For example, a day and night on the moon is equal to a fortnight in the human world; a day and night on the sun is equal to a year in the human world. Differentiated in this way, the time frames of the worlds of the cosmos are so many and so detailed as to be incalculable, but in sum it can be said that Shakyamuni's view of the universe was that of an infinitely vast cosmos.

In his worldview, with one solar system as a basic world system unit, a world system of a thousand solar systems was called a thousand-world system. A group of a thousand thousand-world systems was called a million-world system. A group of a thousand million-world systems was called a billion-world system. Shakyamuni said that in this limitless, boundless cosmos there are innumerably many such billion-world systems, as many as there are grains of sand in the Ganges River. When from this perspective we look back upon the tumultuous agitation of lustful beings in the human world, it appears pathetically small and trivial.

Shakyamuni expounded his view of the cosmos in terms of three realms containing billions of world systems, thus synthesizing the various ancient Indian religious and philosophical concepts of the divine and the human. He also opened up the domain of the heart of human knowledge, reaching worlds inaccessible even to astronomy and mathematics, and in the other direction analyzing matter all the way to the subatomic level, entering so deeply as to reach the ultimately formless and signless subtlety. Thus he made it hard for the contents of the philosophical thought of any school, past or present, to compare with his for richness and completeness.

Shakyamuni Synthesized a Metaphysical Ontology

The controversies of ancient Indian religious philosophies and various sects of philosophical thought with regard to the source of life in the universe are not only a welter of diverse doctrines without a unifying agreement as to what is right, but they also each construct a system of doctrine based on logic. These doctrines, however, never go beyond the bounds of theism and atheism, monism and pluralism, idealism and materialism.

In reality, if we sum up the most basic and fundamental searches of human culture throughout the world and its history, they are still not beyond these few questions. For thousands of years the human race has addressed the question most personal to humankind itself, the question of the source of life: from religion to philosophy and from philosophy to science, humanity has been seeking, wandering in bewilderment, arguing and debating. When you look at it, it is really a great parody of human culture.

In the search for the truth about the universe, human life, and life in general, each ancient Indian religious philosophy had its own views and its own methods of gaining peace of mind and defining its fate, and each thought it had already attained the ultimate way to pure liberation. Some thought the final union of the soul with the great Brahma is the supreme Way; others thought extinction of desires and thoughts is the ultimate. Some considered the Great Way to be maintaining the clarity of the soul without using sense awareness, keeping spiritual awareness without using thought. And then there were also those who believed that when a person dies it is like a lamp going out, so the real truth is just to see to enjoyment of pleasure in the present. Some even considered themselves to already have attained the nirvana that is the realm of ultimately pure liberation. There were so many various opinions that they cannot all be mentioned.

Addressing these problems as he expounded his teaching, Shakyamuni drew his conclusions through a process of synthesizing, harmonizing, and adapting. He considered all phenomena in the cosmos having life to be born of a combination of causes and conditions, without any single ruling function therein: they come into being when the conditions arise, and disappear when the conditions are gone.

So the highest (or ultimate, or primal) function of the life of the cosmos is that in which mind and matter are the same substance. If you look at it from the point of view of religious concepts, or from the angle of the sacred, it could be called Buddha, or God, or Lord, or Spirit, or some other transpersonal spiritual sacred epithet. If you look at it from the angle of reason, it could also be called essence, or mind, or principle, or natural law, or the realm of reality, and so on. If you look at it from the angle of conceptions customary among humankind, you could also call it something like a spiritual body, in the sense of an inexhaustible spiritual body at the root source of life. In sum, speaking in terms of substance, it has emptiness as its substance; speaking in terms of characteristics, the forms of all that exists in the cosmos are its characteristics; speaking in terms of function, all actions of all things and all beings in the cosmos are its function.

Metaphorically speaking, it is like an ocean: the waves arising in the ocean water are like the worlds of the cosmos produced by causes and conditions; while the bubbles of foam on the waves are like the individual bodies of living beings, each with its own particular form produced by causes and conditions. Although the phenomena of the waves and the bubbles have their individual dissimilarities, they are never apart from the single inherent nature of water. But a metaphor is just a similitude, not the essence of the thing itself.

Living beings, because they cannot experientially arrive at the ultimate end of the fundamental substance of their own nature, thus abandon the root and pursue the branches, each clinging to their own views, their own knowledge, considering it to be the ultimate. Thus it is that sentient beings rest on their own subjectivity to formulate different knowledge and opinions of the world.

But in reality, subjectivity and objectivity both belong to the discriminating function of thinking consciousness; and the knowledge and perception of thinking consciousness itself functions in dependence on the causes and conditions of the body and the material world, so they themselves are unreal and cannot sufficiently determine the existence or nonexistence of truth. If only people could practice meditation with the thinking consciousness in their own minds quieted, gradually they could realize that the functions of body and mind are changing and inconstant, like the world of phenomena, deceptive and unreal. Seeking progress step by step from this point, analyzing layer by layer, finding out all about human nature and the nature of all things, arriving at the unique body of suchness in which body, mind, and the cosmos are calm and unperturbed, not dwelling in existence, not falling into voidness, one can then realize the primal and ultimate truth of the cosmos and human life.

Shakyamuni called that "true suchness," or the "nirvanic essence," or the "essence of the matrix of the realization of suchness," or "come from suchness." In a broad sense, these are different names for the basic substance of cosmic life. Therefore he recognized that it is not ultimately true to call it either void or existent. There is only one way, which is to arrive at physical and mental stillness and silence, and then seek realization within this stillness and silence. However, that basic substance of cosmic life is inconceivable. "Inconceivable" is a technical term used in the context of methods for cultivating realization; it means that the object cannot be arrived at by ordinary conscious thought or deliberation. So this term "inconceivable" is not to be misunderstood as meaning "unthinkable."