Essential Themes of Buddhist Lectures
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EssentialEssential ThemesThemes ofof BuddhistBuddhist LecturesLectures Sayadaw U Thittilla HAN DD ET U 'S B B O RY eOK LIBRA E-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.buddhanet.net Buddha Dharma Education Association Inc. Essential Themes of Buddhist Lectures by Sayadaw U Thittila Essential Themes of Buddhist Lectures Sayadaw U Thittila Sukhi Hotu Sdn Bhd 1A-2 First Floor, Mayang Plaza Jalan SS26/9, Taman Mayang Jaya 47301 Petaling Jaya Selangor Tel 03 7062833 Fax 03 7062733 42V Jalan Matang Kuching 11500 Air Itam Penang Tel 04 8277118 Fax 04 8277228 This layout edition © SukhiHotu All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the Publisher. First edition – 3500 copies (1992) Revised edition – 3000 copies (1997) Book layout and cover art design by Hor Tuck Loon ISBN Email: [email protected] The contents that follow in this small publication comprise a collection of expanded notes prepared for unconnected individual talks on Buddhism giv en in the West by the author over the period 1938– 1983. They are not, therefore, subject matter nec essarily for consecutive reading. To give the differing teaching material and informa tion surrounding the main themes, repetition of phraseology in respect of the themes themselves is an unavoidable feature; thus each short article is here reproduced as originally conceived and with- out regard to any repetition. Essential Themes of Buddhist Lectures Sayadaw U Thittila 4 CONTENTS Part 1 INTRODUCTORY ARTICLES OR TALKS ON BUDDHISM 1 THE BUDDHA .......................................................... 9 2 THE BUDDHA AND HIS MESSAGE ............................... 18 3 WHAT IS BUDDHISM? ............................................... 22 4 BUDDHISM ............................................................. 27 5 THERAVADA BUDDHISM ............................................ 33 6 THE MEANING OF BUDDHISM (EXTRACT) ..................... 47 7 WHAT BUDDHISM MEANS TO A BUDDHIST ................... 51 8 BUDDHISM: THE PATH TO WISDOM (B.B.C. TALK 1948). 63 9 A SHORT HISTORY OF BUDDHISM .............................. 70 10 VESAKHA FESTIVAL .................................................. 77 Part 2 TALKS INVOLVING SILA IN PARTICULAR 11 BUDDHISM IN BURMA................................................ 86 12 B.B.C. EUROPEAN SERVICE GENERAL NEWS TALK........ 92 13 A BUDDHIST VIEW OF WORLD PEACE.......................... 99 14 WORLD FELLOWSHIP THROUGH BUDDHISM ..................105 15 PARAMI ...................................................................120 5 Part 3 TALKS INVOLVING SAMADHI IN PARTICULAR 16 THE MIDDLE PATH ...................................................129 17 BUDDHIST METTA.....................................................143 18 COMPASSION............................................................159 19 THE WAY TO NIBBANA...............................................165 20 MIRACLE .................................................................186 21 WHAT IS HAPPINESS?................................................189 22 THE FOUNDATIONS OF BUDDHISM...............................200 23 REALITIES ...............................................................205 24 HOW THE MIND WORKS ............................................211 25 MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.............................................216 26 JHANA TO INSIGHT....................................................231 27 STAGES OF PURITY AND KNOWLEDGE ..........................239 Part 4 TALKS INVOLVING PA¤¤A IN PARTICULAR 28 THE ABHIDHAMMA PHILOSOPHY..................................251 29 ABHIDHAMMATTHASANGAHA (SUMMARY TALK ON 16 CLASSES DEALING WTIH THE CITTA CHAPTER) .263 30 PATICCASAMUPPADA..................................................284 31 NIBBANA .................................................................302 6 Part 5 TALKS DEALING WITH BUDDHISM IN GENERAL 32 WHAT DID THE BUDDHA DO FOR THE WORLD?..............308 33 THE NATURE OF MAN AND HIS DESTINY (EXTRACT)........315 34 WHAT KAMMA IS ......................................................318 35 WHAT IS DEATH? .....................................................340 36 HOW REBIRTH TAKES PLACE ......................................347 37 WOMEN’S POSITION IN BUDDHISM...............................354 38 BUDDHIST BURMA ....................................................359 39 A BUDDHIST IN WARTIME ..........................................374 40 THE THREE REFUGES – TISARANA...............................377 41 WHAT BURMA IS DOING FOR BUDDHISM ......................383 42 THE SPIRITUAL BASIS OF ASIAN CULTURE ....................388 43 PALI AND BUDDHISM.................................................396 BIOGRAPHY OF SAYADAW U THITTILA ..........................400 7 Par t One Introductory Articles Or Talks On Buddhism Chapter One The Buddha Friends, The subject that I have chosen for this evening is ‘The Buddha’. Who is a Buddha? A Buddha is one who has at tained bodhi. By bodhi is meant an ideal state of in tellectual and ethical perfection which can be at tained by man by purely human means. In order to make clear how the Buddha attained bodhi, let me narrate a brief summary of the Buddha’s life. About 623 years before the Christian era, there was born in Lumbini Park in the neighbourhood of Ka pilavatthu, now known as Padaria in the district of modern Nepal, an Indian Sakyan prince, Siddattha Gotama by name. To mark the spot as the birth- place of the greatest teacher of mankind, and as a token of his reverence for him, the Emperor Asoka in 239 b.c. erected a pillar bearing the inscription, ‘Here was the Enlightened One born’. Gotama’s father was Suddhodana, king of Kapila vatthu, the chief town of the Sakyan clan; and his mother, who died seven days after his birth, was 9 Queen Maya who also belonged to the same clan. Under the care of his maternal aunt, Pajapati Gota mi, Siddhattha spent his early years in ease, luxury and culture. At the age of sixteen he was married to his cousin, Yasodhara, the daughter of Suppabud dha, the king of Devadaha, and they had a son named Rahula. For nearly thirteen years Siddhattha led the life of a luxurious Indian prince, seeing only the beautiful and the pleasant. In his twenty-ninth year, howev er, the truth gradually dawned upon him, and he realized that all without exception were subject to birth, decay and death and that all worldly pleas ures were only a prelude to pain. Comprehending thus the universality of sorrow, he had a strong de- sire to find the origin of it, and a panacea for this universal sickness of humanity. Accordingly he re nounced the world and donned the simple garb of an ascetic. Wandering as a seeker after peace he placed him- self under the spiritual guidance of two renowned brahman teachers, Alara and Uddaka. The former was head of a large number of followers at Vesali, and was an adherent of Kapila, the reputed founder of the Sassata system of philosophy, who laid great stress on the belief in atma, the ego. He regarded the disbelief in the existence of a soul as not tend- 10 ing towards religion. Without the belief in an eter nal immaterial soul he could not see any way of sal vation. Like the wild bird when liberated from its trap, the soul when freed from its material limita tions would attain perfect release; when the ego discerned its immaterial nature it would attain true deliverance. This teaching did not satisfy the Bo dhisatta, and he quitted Alara and placed himself under the tuition of Uddaka. The latter also expatiated on the question of ‘I’, but laid greater stress on the effects of kamma and the transmigration of the soul. The Bodhisatta saw the truth in the doctrine of kamma, but he could not believe in the existence of a soul or its transmigra tion; he therefore quitted Uddaka also and went to the priests officiating in temples to see if he could learn from them the way of escape from suffering and sorrow. However, the unnecessarily cruel sacri fices performed on the altars of the gods were re volting to his gentle nature, and Gotama preached to the priests the futility of atoning for evil deeds by the destruction of life, and the impossibility of prac tising religion by the neglect of the moral life. Wandering from Vesali in search of a better system Siddhattha went to many a distinguished teacher of his day, but nobody was competent to give him what he earnestly sought. All the so-called philoso- 11 phers were groping in the dark, it was a matter of the blind leading the blind, for they were all en- meshed in ignorance. At last Siddhattha came to a settlement of five pupils of Uddaka, headed by Kon da¤¤a, in the jungle of Uruvela near Gaya in Magadha. There he saw these five keeping their senses in check, subduing their passions and prac tising austere penance. He admired their zeal and earnestness, and to give a trial to the means used by them he applied himself to mortification, for it was the belief in those days that no salvation could be gained unless one led a life of strict asceticism, so he subjected himself to all forms of practicable austerities. Adding vigil to vigil, and penance to penance, he made a super-human effort for six long years until eventually his body became shrunken like a withered branch. His blood dried up, the skin shrivelled and the veins protruded, but the more he tortured his body the farther his goal receded from him. His strenuous and unsuccessful endeavours taught him one important lesson, though, and that was the utter futility of self-mortification.