7. Religions of Man - Zen Buddhism

this is national Educational Television a program distributed by the educational television and radio Center [Music] the religions of man with dr. Houston Smith you [Music] [Music] for the past two weeks we have focused our attention on the founder of Buddhist we sketched his life we noted the problem that he faced his approach to this problem and the hard core of the answers he came out with the middle way the Four Noble Truths the Eightfold Path tonight in our concluding session on Buddhism we turn to Buddhist history we aren't fundamentally interested in history as such in this course facts dates figures but there are some things in Buddhist history which do interest us for the insight they provide into man and his religious outreach what it is that works in the realm of the Spirit and what does not work it is in this spirit then that we turn this evening to look at some of the main features in the historical development of Buddhist and when we turn to Buddhist history in this spirit the thing which hits us in the face right away is that Buddhism splits religion it would seem religions are always playing the Jews in the first century divided as to whether to be followers of Christ or not the Christian Church divides into the Eastern Orthodox branch in the Western Branch the Western Church for its part divides into Roman Catholicism and Protestantism and Protestantism keeps on dividing if we turn to Islam usually called Mohammedanism we find there too very early a basic split coming between the Sunnis and the Shia's as we shall be seeing on a later program well the same thing happens in Buddhism before a century has passed after the founders death Buddhism has begun to split the seeds of sysm have been shown and are already German now the interesting thing is why this split occurred why did the Buddhists divide and the answer is that they divided over questions over which people have always divided how many questions are that really divided men such that no matter where you ask them whether you ask them in India or Lapland or Canada no matter when you ask them whether you ask them in the 4th century BC or in the 20th century AD wherever you ask them you find people taking sides opposite sides on these questions well how many are there not a great many I would imagine but there are a few and I want to suggest 3 to you right now incidentally after this program it might be interesting for those of you who are listening together in a living room to ask these questions to yourselves and see if you come out with agreement or disagreement my guess would be that if we could have the totals we would find far more split living rooms on these questions than United with which is simply another way of saying that if you had been Buddhists back in the 4th century BC the same split would very likely have occurred and we would have two branches of Buddhism to talk about the seat but now what are these basic questions these three that we're going to look at one of them is the question of whether man is independent or related there are some people who have a very strong sense of their individuality they feel that every man makes his own life and if he gets anywhere with his life it will be by virtue of his own hard work and doing I heard someone just last week saying I was born in the slums I didn't know my mother she died before I came of age to know her my father was a drunkard my brothers and sisters they all went to the dogs I was the only one that came through don't tell me she continued don't tell me it was environment I grew up in the slum don't tell me it was heredity I came from a family of Junkers no every person comes through by virtue of their own action man is essentially independent and then on the other hand you find on the other side of the fence people who say well yes but not basically true we're divided from one another by a few feet of space but this isn't the important thing the iceberg in the Arctic to are separated by stretches of sea but we're told that underneath the sea these icebergs are in the main related in a common attach to a common ice floe so with human being so to the eye wear separately basically the words of Paul were true we are members one of another - such as extent that if I were to do damage to you actually it would be as though I were doing damage to a member of my own body of course the classic expression of this view one of the most beautiful is John Donne sonnet no man is an island unto himself and ending of course with those beautiful words when the funeral Bell is tolling send not to ask For Whom the Bell Tolls it tolls for thee well here is one question on which people split now there's another one and this applies to mankind as a whole does mankind as a whole stand alone in the universe is he involved in a universe which is basically neutral to him some say yes some say no for those who say that he is on his own they say that life developed out of a chance colocation of material particles it had an incredibly long time billions of years to do this mankind has come into being by accident and whether he advances from this point on now depends on his own will on his own reason his intelligence and self effort man essentially stands alone in the universe others say no we didn't come into being by accident there are forces of support which have brought us into being and will help us in our advance in the future if only we make ourselves open to these in flooding ties and encourage man has an unpayable indebtedness to the universe the religious concept for this view is the progress is not by self effort alone it is also by grace now let me just show you how people divide on this a few years back Julian Huxley came out with a book here's the title man stands alone basically this view and the book hadn't been out hardly any time at all when another book appeared and what was the title of that well you can just you could predict it before it appears this thesis was answered by the alternative thesis man does not stand alone another one of the basic questions that people disagree about now third finally we can ask the quest and what is the best part of man and always whatever group you're in you'll find some that hold out for the head and some that hold out for the heart there was a question that used to be posed would you rather be respected or loved we'd hope we wouldn't have to have the choice but suppose you had to take one or the other which would you take basically it's the same division in Outlook well some people the highest faculty in man is wisdom for others the highest faculty is love or compassion the highest outreach of theme now here we have in the answer the opposing answer to these three questions the heart of the difference between the two branches of Buddhism well positions always get names attached to them very soon and these did too so let's turn now to the names of these two great schools of Buddhas this school named itself first and they chose the nicest name they call themselves Maha Jana ma H a let me stop right there because these words tend to look strange but actually they're not as strange as they seem maha where have you heard that Gandhi what was he called Mahatma and what did that mean the great soul this is a word for great or law and then the last half of the words why Age am a Jana Jana means a rat a bard a vehicle of transport something which takes you across the seas of life to where you want to go and so bhai Jana means the great vehicle or we might say the great rack well once the Mahayana had preempted that word there was nothing left for the Hinayana they were told they were called as a nickname to start with in the Yanis age I and a and that means little and then again why eggs and a Hinayana the little raft and Mahayana the great wrath now let me just add two more points of difference between them and we'll have the two schools clearly outlined before the Hinayana group tended to keep Buddhism as a religion for monks they stressed the difficulty of the way after all if you're thrown on your own reason and your own effort the problems are life are difficult and if you're completely on your own it amounts to pretty much a full-time job and that's the way they saw it a religion for a monks who were giving their full-time to it so let's put full-time on this side the Mahayana s' made more concession to the laymen the man who was involved as a family with a business who is interested in religion but couldn't give his full-time to it they said that's all right religion is for you too and they welcomed the layman and translated religion over into terms which the layman could follow while pursuing his other duty so here we put part-time and then finally one last difference what is the ideal type the highest type which deserves our imitation and the Hinayana said the highest type is the our ha age our H a P the our Hawk is a man who is aiming for his own spiritual enlightenment and steadfastly devoting all his efforts to attaining it but he's on as old as they say he wanders loan as a rhinoceros the other type however attaching to the idea of relatedness held up the ideal of the Bodhisattva the oth is 80 feet deep the Bodhisattva is the person who comes right to the point of enlightenment but voluntarily then turns his back on enlightenment to come back and spend his days his ears the ages even in helping other people refusing to enter into enlightenment until he can take all others with the ideal of the Bodhisattva is brought out in the story of the four Wayfarers going across the desert they come to a strange enclosure with high walls and they hear scientist sounds of great joy within they wonder what's behind the wall there happens to be a ladder going up one of the four climbs up the moment he looks over he gives a shriek of joy and jumps over leaving the other three just as much in the dark as ever as the what's inside so they send up a second the same thing happens the third the same thing happened but when the fort climbs the ladder and sees the joys within the compound rather than jumping over himself he comes back down the line a ladder and goes back across the desert to his fellow man to tell them of this destination which they can all come to this is the ideal of the Bodhisattva and it becomes really the dominant factor in the imagination the religious imagination of the Mahayana Buddhist it's the Bodhisattva is depicted in many forms many ways here is a Chinese representation Quan Yin very very beautiful seated in the posture of royal ease with the hand outstretched in benediction the face the whole body serene and composed with a slight hint of a smile on the lips here then is the great divide between the two branches of Buddhism Hinayana the little raft Mahayana the big breath what happens and the answer is that Mahayana wins Mahayana not completely there's still lots of Hinayana surround but proportionately Mahayana makes by far the greatest games why well partly I suppose because of the appeal of compassion the appeal of grace but there is also another factor a historical factor and that is the very early in the game Mahayana received the support of a king it converted a king and that always helps it helps particularly if it converts the king who is the greatest king the country has ever known as in this case turned out to be so the man's name was ahsoka we don't study of him in the West but we octave he is one of the most impressive figures in the history of royalty in ancient India ahsoka stands out like some Himalayan peak clear against the skull he was one of the greatest humanitarians of all times no ma nerd has done more for his people than ahsoka did for his in order to bring to them the Karuna the compassion which the great wrath the Mahayana taught we don't have time this evening to go into the projects the social service project which he accomplished he interests us particularly because it was due to him that Buddhism moves beyond India ahsoka took buddhism as an indian set and he turned it into a world religion he was not only one of the greatest missionaries of all time he was the first man in history who thought of the idea of World Missions all men he said are my children well with this emphasis the missionary aspect of Buddhism gets underway at first it pushed west as far as the egypt and up to syria but later on following Asoka's life it pushes mainly east like a wall and virtually blankets all of East Asia in the end the Hinayana takes over the southern part and if we were to draw our outlines we would include Burma Siam Indochina and then down to Malaya and Sumatra and Java and orange salon as the territory in a Jana Buddhism Mahayana for its part neppo the best China Japan Korea Manchuria Mongolia this becomes the basic area of Mahayana India in India strange to tell in India Buddhism dies out or more accurately it becomes absorbed back into the Hinduism from which it emerged now as Buddhism went east the Mahayana movement which covers by far the greatest territory it split into a number of sects some of these emphasize learning meticulous study of the texts some of these emphasized faith some of them emphasized intuition we won't have time to go into these but I do want to spend the rest of our moments this evening on one phase of Buddhism Zen Buddhism we note this partly because it's one of the great living religions of Japan today and this is the only time in our series we'll have a chance to mention Japan explicitly but for another reason then is felt by most to be the purest form of Buddhism in the East today and some would say the purest form of spirituality but that turns out to be a personal opinion in any event it has exercised particularly in recent years of pure fascination for the West it is light urbane sophisticated a strange we will be trying to enter into some of these factors a little bit in the moments that are left the first what does Zen Buddhism try to achieve it belongs to the intuitive sects of Buddhism and that means that it scorns reason religion for it is a matter of experience of basic intuitive experience and words cannot tap this experience words they say are like fingers pointing to the moon and as as far distance from the real thing as the finger is from the moon to which appoints reasoning no reasoning imprisons the mind now here's where Zen Buddhism is as far removed from the West as anything could be because we slay our stress on reason and logic we pride ourselves on our ability to think things through but for the Zen Buddhist reason is a prison house not one bit better than that it can finds us and holds us in rather than leading us on to the truth it follows then that one of the tasks of the Zen Buddhist is to break through this prison of the rational intellect and the way it goes about doing this is really to sort of poke fun at the reason it wants to sweep the mind free of its confidence in reason as taking us through to the ultimate inside and in order to do this it devoted adopts a device known as the co an KOA in which is really a kind of paradox it doesn't make any sense at all rational the closest thing I think we have to it perhaps is the shaggy dog story in the West maybe you some of you will recall the shaggy dog stories that we're going around well they go around from time to time the Coen is a shaggy dog story with a humor taken out of it that's about the best way I can say it let me give you an example this is the sound of the clapping of two hands what is the sound of the clapping of one now don't tell me that one hand can't clap if you say that it indicates you have an advanced very far and you can go back to the end of the class let me suggest another when to one of the leading Zhen Masters said let me take an illustration from a fable a cow goes through a window the horns the body the legs pass through easily only the tail cannot pass through why can't it well you say that's not rational but the point is that that's just the point what zen is trying to do is to poke fun at the intellect to baffle to excite to exhaust the mind to build up a kind of pressure of the intellect until in the end through the paradoxes the whole rational structure collapses and then in that moment they look for the flash of insight which is something like catching the point of a joke which you haven't gotten before when suddenly you see it and the illumination comes through what have you got when you get there well you have to be very cautious here they say Zen never tells it only hints because the words must not confuse be confused with the thing so from our point of view it only teases it tantalized but these things I think we can say Zen is close to everyday experience you must find it not in withdrawal from the world but rather in involvement you must see this world in its divine ordinariness everything much the same and yet transformed into something different the ego too must be broken through and in the end you come to a total acceptance of life I wish there were more time but this brings us to our clothes in our brief survey of Buddhism we began in India we have ended in Japan we began 2500 years ago with one man who woke up under a bow tree we break off tonight with 500 million men and women riding the big raft and the little raft towards salvation what do they find in Buddhism for those who ride the little raft Buddhism is basically a rousing challenge to self-reliance ever in their ears they hear the words of the our hot work out your own salvation with diligence but for the vastly greater multitudes who ride the big breath the appeal is very different for them the appeal is symbolized in the Bodhisattva the savior who voluntarily renounces enlightenment in order to return and help others to attain me who vows never to enter into Nirvana until the grass itself has become enlightened the vow of such a person was described in the 7th century AD by an Indian poet as follows may I quenched with reigns of food and drink the anguish of hunger and thirst may I be in the famine at the ages end their food and their drink I would be a protector of the unprotected a guide to the Wayfarers a ship a dyke a bridge for those who seek the further Shore a lamp for those who need a land a bedroom for those who need a bed I would be a suitor of all the sorrows of the world is it to be wondered then that Buddhism has been called a religion of in compassion [Music] [Music] religions of man is produced by Washington University and ket C channel nine the st. Louis educational television station and production Center [Music] the preceding program was distributed by the educational television and radio Center this is national Educational Television

Channel: Vedanta Video

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Keywords: Vedanta, religion, god, karma, meditation, ramakrishna, vivekananda, brahman, hindu, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam

Id: 8AbYTJYn02U

Length: 29min 58sec (1798 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 29 2020