THE DHARMA OR DOCTRINE
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Olcott, Henry Steel
A. A rich man may expend lakhs of rupees in building dāgobas or vihāras, in erecting statues of Buddha, in festivals and processions, in feeding priests, in giving alms to the poor, or in planting trees, digging tanks, or constructing rest-houses by the roadside for travellers, and yet have comparatively little merit if it be done for display, or to hear himself praised by men, or for any other selfish motives. But he who does the least of these things with a kind motive, such as love for his fellow-men, gains great merit. A good deed done with a bad motive benefits others, but not the doer. One who approves of a good deed when done by another shares in the merit, if his sympathy is real, not pretended. The same rule applies to evil deeds.
160. Q. But which is said to be the greatest of all meritorious actions?
A. The Dhammapada declares that the merit of disseminating the Dharma, the Law of Righteousness, is greater than that of any other good work.
161. Q. What books contain all the most excellent wisdom of the Buddha's teachings?
A. The three collections of books called Tripitakas or "Three Baskets".
162. Q. What are the names of the three Pitakas, or groups of books?
A. The Vinaya Pitaka, the Sutta Pitaka and the Abhidhamma Pitaka.
163. Q. What do they respectively contain?
A. The first contains all that pertains to morality and the rules of discipline for the government of the Sangha, or Order; the second contains instructive discourses on ethics applicable to all; the third explains the psychological teachings of the Buddha, including the twenty-four transcendental laws explanatory of the workings of Nature.
164. Q. Do Buddhists relieve these books to be inspired, or revealed, by a Divine Being?
A. No; but they revere them as containing all the parts of that most Excellent Law, by the knowing of which man may break through the trammels of Samsāra.
165. Q. In the whole text of the three Pitakas how many words are there?
A. Dr. Rhys-Davids estimates them at 1,752,800.
166. Q. When were the Pitakas first reduced to writing?
A. In 88-76 B.C., under the Sinhalese King, Wattagamini, or three hundred and thirty years after the Paranirvāna of the Buddha.
167. Q. Have we reason to believe that all the discourses of the Buddha are known to us?
A. Probably not, and it would be strange if they were. Within the forty-five years of his public life he must have preached many hundreds of discourses. Of these, in times of war and persecution, many must have been lost, many scattered to distant countries, and many mutilated. History says that enemies of the Buddha Dharma burnt piles of our books as high as a coco-nut tree.
168. Q. Do Buddhists consider the Buddha as one who by his own virtue can save us from the consequence of our individual sins?
A. Not at all. Man must emancipate himself. Until he does that he will continue being born over and over and over again—the victim of ignorance, the slave of unquenched passions.
169. Q. What, then, was the Buddha to us, and all other beings?
A. An all-seeing, all-wise Counsellor; one who discovered the safe path and pointed it out; one who showed the cause of, and the only cure for, human suffering. In pointing to the road, in showing us how to escape dangers, he became our Guide. He is to us like one leading a blind man across a narrow bridge over a swift and deep stream and so saving his life.
170. Q. If we were to try to represent the whole spirit of the Buddha's doctrine by one word, which word should we choose?
A. Justice.
171. Q. Why?
A. Because it teaches that every man gets, under the operations of unerring KARMA, exactly that reward or punishment which he has deserved, no more and no less. No good deed or bad deed, however trifling, and however secretly committed, escapes the evenly-balanced scales of Karma.
172. Q. What is Karma?[4]
A. A causation operating on the moral, as well as on the physical and other planes. Buddhists say there is no miracle in human affairs: what a man sows that he must and will reap.
173. Q. What other good words have been used to express the essence of Buddhism?
A. Self-culture and universal love.
174. Q. What doctrine ennobles Buddhism, and gives it its exalted place among the world's religions?
A. That of Mitta or Maitreya—compassionate kindness. The importance of this doctrine is moreover emphasised in the giving of the name "Maitri" (the Compassionate One), to the coming Buddha.
175. Q. Were all these points of Doctrine that you have explained meditated upon by the Buddha near the Bo-tree?
A. Yes, these and many more that may be read in the Buddhist Scriptures. The entire system of Buddhism came to his mind during the Great Enlightenment.
176. Q. How long did the Buddha remain near the Bo-tree?
A. Forty-nine days.
177. Q. What do we call the first discourse preached by the Buddha—that which he addressed to his five former companions?
A. The Dhammacakka-ppavattana sutta—the Sūtra of the Definition of the Rule of Doctrine.[5]
178. Q. What subjects were treated by him in this discourse?
A. The "Four Noble Truths," and the "Noble Eightfold Path". He condemned the extreme physical mortification of the ascetics, on the one hand, and the enjoyment of sensual pleasures on the other; pointing out and recommending the Noble Eightfold Path as the Middle Path.
179. Q. Did the Buddha hold with idol-worship?