In a lovely manga I've been reading, the Solo Mountain Climbing Girl, near a three thousand meter summit making and having coffee, asks: "I wonder ... 'why is the mountain beautiful/no matter who lays their eyes upon it?'" (A haiku.)
In the next panel she replies to herself, "You are allowed to ask, but you are not allowed to answer ... to limit nature's splendors with words would be foolish." [sip, sigh]
The first three of Siddartha's Four Sights* are: an old person, a sick person, and a corpse. From these he drew the conclusion that drastic measures might have to be taken to avoid these unavoidables, so he took his hint from the fourth sight, that of a meditating sadhu, and left home.
These sights and their significance stick with him over time:
I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.
I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape having ill health.
I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.
All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.
My
actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences
of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.
-- Upajjhatthana Sutta (“Subjects for Contemplation”)
So far, so good. He's seen entropy and its inevitability. He also experienced the unsatisfactory path of the self-abnegating sramana.
He and I, raised in different cultures, may not have quite the same take on why one does whatever one does next. Buddha, or certainly nearly all his followers then and since, clearly thought there was some kind of afterlife with rewards and punishments, though he denied the unchanging soul depicted in his natal Brahmanic faith.
The legends do seem to show Buddha expecting his new monks to be able to keep to the path of non-harm as soon as they have accepted his positive instructions on how to live. On finding that they would need guide rails, he reluctantly provided them.
Bodhidharma mentions, almost in passing, that precepts are already implicit in awakened behavior: "Buddhas don't keep precepts. And buddhas don't break precepts." But I think we will all agree the bar is high on that one. Perhaps something more alarming was required by a society already steeped in its own juices -- and still is.
The idea of hell is even enshrined in the Sotoshu's basic statement of faith, stated as applicable to all laypersons and priests (and made up of quotes cut and pasted from Dogen), the Shushogi:
When there is a spiritual communication of supplication and response, devas, humans, hell dwellers, hungry ghosts, and animals all take refuge.
I personally have no reliable data confirming an afterlife or multiple lives, and little if any basis for speculation on these matters. As such, I have no notion of extinction as a goal for escaping the wheel of karma. Per Occam's Razor, I try to ascertain if what I see and do in this life will fill the bill for what I might call the "yearning to do well."
Concerning teleology and eschatology, then, I am allowed to ask, but not allowed to answer ... to limit reality's splendors with words risks entangling myself further in the vines of delusion.
Even without the carrot and stick of heavens and hells, we notice how it feels to treat others well or badly, within our circumstances and cultural touchstones. For me, Buddha's admonition to ground my actions in wisdom resonates with my understanding that to assist in slowing inevitable entropy, while ultimately futile perhaps, is nevertheless exactly that which is ethical.
This entails attempting a drastic reduction in environmental and social harm (as perceived), as way opens. I have elsewhere compared Buddhism with Permaculture, to try to elucidate ways and means.
Everything is "emptiness." But it may be that wise actions help empty out the emptiness of greed, anger and ignorance through a disciplined process of subtraction.
Simplify, simplify, simplify. Simply fail, again and again, to reach into the world with greedy hands.
Hence the various stories in which teachers and abbots say "when eating, just eat. When walking, just walk."
-- shonin
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| Kinhin. Ango, 2025 |
*Actually this story is originally told of an earlier Buddha, Vipassi, who is said to have lived long ago. It's not told of the young Siddhartha Gautama until centuries later, but, as Siddhartha himself is said to have said, Buddhas tend to follow similar timelines.