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Collected Essays of Bhikkhu Bodhi

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Collected Essays of Bhikkhu Bodhi DHAMMA REFLECTIONS Dhamma Reflections Collected Essays of Bhikkhu Bodhi Compiled by the Buddhist Publication Society To celebrate his 70th Birthday BUDDHIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY KANDY • SRI LANKA Buddhist Publication Society 54 Sangharaja Mawatha PO Box 61 Kandy Sri Lanka http://www.bps.lk First edition: 2015 Reprinted : 2017 Copyright (©) Kandy; Buddhist Publication Society. National Library of Sri Lanka - Cataloguing in Publication Data Bodhi, Bhikkhu Dhamma Reflections: Collected Essays on Bhikkhu Bodhi / Bhikkhu Bodhi; ed. by Nyanatusita Bhikkhu.- Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society Inc., 2015 BP 436.- 290p.; 24cm. ISBN 978-955-24-0413-9 i. 181.043 DDC 23 ii. Title ii. Nyanatusita Bhikkhu ed. 1. Buddhist Philosophy ISBN: 978-955-24-0413-9 Typeset at the BPS in URW Palladio Pali Printed by Samayawardana Printers Colombo 10 CONTENTS Message of Felicitation vii Introduction 1 Biography of Bhikkhu Bodhi 3 Notes 22 COLLECTED ESSAYS OF BHIKKHU BODHI 23 1. The Taste of Freedom23 2. Nourishing the Roots29 3. Mind and the Animate Order38 4. Merit and Spiritual Growth43 5. The Path of Understanding51 6. Two Faces of the Dhamma56 7. Vision and Routine58 8. Purification of Mind60 9. The Case for Study62 10. Dhamma Without Rebirth?64 11. Taking Stock of Oneself66 12. The Balanced Way68 13. A Look at the Káláma Sutta70 14. A Statement of Conscience74 15. The Vital Link76 16. A Remedy for Despair78 17. The Problem of Conflict80 18. The Quest for Meaning83 19. The Search for Security86 20. Self-Transformation89 21. Laying Down the Rod92 22. The Nobility of the Truths95 23. Refuge in the Buddha98 24. The Five Spiritual Faculties101 25. The Guardians of the World104 26. Tolerance & Diversity107 27. From Views to Vision111 28. The Living Message of the Dhammapada114 29. Association with the Wise125 30. Dhamma and Non-Duality128 vi Dhamma Reflections 31. Towards a Threshold of Understanding134 32. Walking Even Amidst the Uneven140 33. Meeting the Divine Messengers144 34. Dhamma and Globalisation147 35. Aims of Buddhist Education151 36. Subrahmá’s Problem154 37. To Live With Dignity158 38. Lifestyles and Spiritual Progress161 39. Better than a Hundred Years164 40. Two Paths to Knowledge168 41. Aniccá Vata Saòkhárá171 42. Navigating the New Millennium175 43. Two Styles of Insight Meditation179 44. Does Rebirth Make Sense?183 45. What Does It Mean To Be Enlightened?190 46. Spiritual Friendship196 47. Finding a Place from which to Start201 48. A Buddhist Social Ethic for the New Century206 49. A Buddhist Approach to Economic and Social Development221 50. The Changing Face of Buddhism232 51. Saògha at the Crossroads240 52. Promoting Buddhism in Europe249 53. The Good, the Beautiful, and the True267 MESSAGE OF FELICITATION The BPS is very grateful for all the good work that Bhikkhu Bodhi has selflessly done for it for many years. Although Bhikkhu Bodhi is no longer actively involved, the BPS continues to thrive through the hard work, commitment and vision of the current BPS editors, the BPS staff, the BPS Board of Management, and many volunteers. All these achievements have been built on what has gone before. It was the initial vision, wisdom and determination of its founding editor, Venerable Nyanaponika, fuelled by the great enthusiasm and dedication of Richard Abeyasekera, that created and sustained BPS through the first 26 years. It was then Bhikkhu Bodhi who nurtured it over the next 18 years with his gentle scholarship and dedication. That spirit continues to inspire everyone who is involved with the BPS today. It is therefore with deep gratitude and heartfelt thanks that we send our best wishes to you, Bhikkhu Bodhi. May you have a Very Happy 70th Birthday and May you share your gentle loving kindness with us many years to come Buddhist Publication Society Kandy, December 2014 INTRODUCTION his volume has been published by the Buddhist Publication Society to celebrate Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi’s 70th birthday. It comprises T almost all1 of the essays written by Bhikkhu Bodhi that were published by the Buddhist Publication Society. By bringing together these fifty-three essays published over a period of thirty years they can finally get the attention that they deserve. We are all well aware of Bhikkhu Bodhi’s erudite scholarship in his translations and studies of the Buddha’s discourses, but perhaps fewer of us are as cognisant of his skill in guiding us towards applying the Dhamma in everyday life. These fifty-three essays do just that. They reveal the depth and breadth of his ability to communicate the timeless teaching of the Buddha. They range from simple talks on how to incorporate the Dhamma into one’s daily life, to more complex expositions of the doctrine but still with that focus of relevance to today. The first of Bhikkhu Bodhi’s essays that BPS published was in the Bodhi Leaves series, entitled The Taste of Freedom, in 1976. Just as this essay was his initial introduction to the BPS readership, so it is the introductory essay in this volume, wherein the essays are in chronological order. Bhikkhu Bodhi’s next publication was a collection of four essays published in The Wheel Publication series, namely Nourishing the Roots: Essays on Buddhist Ethics in 1978 (Wheel Publication no. 259/260), which are next in this volume. The essays from the Buddhist Publication Society Newsletter come next. Soon after Bhikkhu Bodhi became the Editor of BPS in 1984, a position he held for eighteen years, he introduced this newsletter to accompany the mailings of publications to BPS members. These newsletters comprised an ‘editorial’ in the form of a Dhamma essay, a review or two of new Dhamma books from other publishers, other items of news deemed to be of interest to the members, and a study of the Buddha’s discourses. By the time Bhikkhu Bodhi retired from the position of editor in 2002, he had written some forty-two editorial essays, which form the bulk of this tribute. The essay “Dhamma and Non-Duality” was originally published in two parts; so were “Towards a Threshold of Understanding” and “Does Rebirth Make Sense?” The essay “The Living Message of the Dhammapada” was published in the Bodhi Leaves series in 1993. It has been put among the newsletter essays to maintain the chronological order of essays. 2 Dhamma Reflections Next comes the essays from Facing the Future: Four Essays on the Social Relevance of Buddhism, published as Wheel Publication no. 438/440 in 2000. The following essay, “Promoting Buddhism in Europe”, was published privately in Colombo in 2000, but has nevertheless been included since it complements the Facing the Future essays and was written in the same period. The last essay Bhikkhu Bodhi wrote as editor of the BPS, The Good, the Beautiful, and the True, was published in the Bodhi Leaves series in 2001. Just as we started this volume with Bhikkhu Bodhi’s first essay published in the Bodhi Leaves series, his last essay in this volume is also from this series, thus offering a fitting “final curtain.” Bhikkhu Bodhi also wrote several insightful in-depth studies on topics such as the Three Refuges and Dependent Arising that were published by the BPS in the Wheel Publications Series. Since these studies are too large too include here, they will probably be published together by the BPS as another volume that includes some of his other studies that were published in academic journals.2 BIOGRAPHY OF BHIKKHU BODHI o get to know Bhikkhu Bodhi better and to understand his motivation for writing these essays, we include a biography that is made up of T materials gleaned from various interviews and essays.3 Bhikkhu Bodhi was born in Brooklyn, New York City, on 10th December 1944 in a middle class secular Jewish family. His lay name was Jeffrey Block. He grew up in Borough Park, a Brooklyn neighbourhood that was then inhabited mainly by descendants of Jewish and Italian immigrants, and went to a public elementary school and a high school near his home. After high school he studied at Brooklyn College where he completed his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy in 1966. In an interview4 he recalls how he came to Buddhism while at College: “I had become interested in Buddhism in my junior year in college. While strolling in bookshops and looking at book titles somehow I became inter- ested in a few books on Buddhism that I could find there. I think this inter- est in Buddhism arose from the kind of surge or quest for some deeper understanding of human existence that was offered by the materialistic philosophy of modern American civilization, and I wasn’t satisfied with my ancestral Jewish religion, and also I didn’t find much long term value in Christianity. But I was drawn at an early period, say during my junior year of college to the religions of the east. “I began reading some of the Upanishads, Bhagavadgita, then I found in the bookshops books on Buddhism by D.T. Suzuki and Alan Watts, so they were mainly on Zen Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism. When I went to Claremont Graduate School my interest in Buddhism continued and I felt increasingly a deeper need to lead a spiritual life. At the same time I always had an underlying doubt or skepticism about any type of spiritual philoso- phy. “But finally I met a Buddhist monk from Vietnam, Venerable Thich Giac Duc, who was attending the same graduate school and living in the same residence hall in which I was living. I became friends with him, and I approached him as a teacher and from him I received my first instructions in Buddhism and meditation.” Elsewhere5 he tells the delightful story of his earlier first ‘encounter’ with a Buddhist monk, also Vietnamese, albeit from a distance: 4 Dhamma Reflections “In the first week of August, 1965, after finishing summer school, I set out to travel by car from New York to California.
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