Cultures and Continents; 7; The Lotus and the Begging Bowl

The trees that grow in the forest of desire have their roots in suffering and strife, and their leaves are poisonous. Desire burns like fire and wounds like a sword. It is my lot to live in the silence of the woods. There, through meditation, my mind will find peace, and I shall know happiness. Does not the lotus grow and flourish, even amid the tangle of swamp flowers? So spoke the Buddha. Cultures and continents presents the lotus and the begging bowl. Buddhist art in Southeast Asia with Boyd Compton. Mr. Compton, authority on Southeast Asia, author and lecturer is a past fellow of the Institute of World Affairs.

The Buddha was a man and not a god. He was mortal and he died. His students, down to today, simply believed that his teachings go right to the heart of the human condition. Buddhism began 2500 years ago in Northern India as a simple reform movement in a country which was overrun with gods and supernatural beliefs. It was an austere system and it wanted no elaborate ritual. In the beginning, the followers of Buddha did not build great temples. They did not even make statues of the Buddha. As the centuries passed, Buddhists believed spread. Gradually a rich Buddhist culture emerged and with it an art of simple beauty and

vitality. Slowly, Buddhism began to absorb the rich folklore of the people. The parables and the magic of popular religion were included. They were used to reinforce and to explain basic Buddhist thought. Eventually, Buddhism vanished entirely from India and it took root abroad. The southern school, Teravata Buddhism, thrives today in Salon, Thailand, Burma, Laos and Cambodia. There, its lessons and its values literally saturate the life of the people. Buddhism is tolerant, warm and practical. These are also the main qualities of life among the people of Southeast Asia. There aren't managers to combine high spiritual aspirations with these simple human qualities. Their temples delighted Summerset Mall.

They are unlike anything in the world. It makes you laugh with delight to think that anything so fantastic could exist on this somber earth. They glitter with gold and white wash. The artists who developed them had the courage to pursue their fantasy to the limit. I fancy that art meant little to them. They desired to express a symbol. They knew no reticence. They cared nothing for good taste. And if they achieved art, it is as men achieve happiness, not by pursuing it, but by doing with all their heart, whatever in a day's work needs doing. In every town and village, the Buddhist temple is close at hand. In Bangkok alone,

there are nearly 400. The temples are places of reverence, but the Buddhist enters them with the sense of ease and respectful familiarity. The Buddhist comes to the temple to gain spiritual merit by performing simple acts. He kneels in front of the Buddha and silently recites a salutation. It may include these verses. Such is the Lord, worthy, omniscient, endowed with knowledge and virtue, incomparable charioteer to guide the people, teacher of

gods and men, enlightened and happy one. With my brow, I humbly worship the blessed dust of his feet. The believer may light incense and burn candles, or you may offer flowers. This massive flowers, fresh-yued, odorous and choice, I offer at the sacred lotus-like feet of the noble sage. Soon they will become discolored, maloderous and unlovely. So too, all component things, they pass away. Telling his beads, the Buddhist recites an unbearing formula, aneska-duta-anata, which

summarizes the Buddhist teaching. This knowledge is found in the writings and tradition of the man who was born in India twenty-five hundred years ago. He was the princidarta who came to be called the Buddha. The whole world is in flames. By what fire is it consumed? By the fire of lust, hatred and ignorance. By the fire of birth, old age, pain and death. The fire of lamentation, sorrow, grief and despair. Princy Darden lived a sheltered life of opulence and splendor. When he drove through the city in his chariot, cripples, old people and beggars were ordered off the streets. But the gods put an old man, worn out into crepid, right down in the path of the prince. For the

first time, the prince recognized human suffering, and eventually who turned away from the central life of his father's palace. He began to see all of life as suffering. He renounced material possessions and became the beggar of the ascetic. After six years of self-discipline and meditation, the prince won complete understanding of sorrow. He discovered the four noble truths. First, suffering is the inevitable condition of ordinary life. Second, the cause of suffering is found in desire and possessiveness and in craving. Third, a man can be released from suffering and attain Nirvana, a perfect state of equanimity in which craving and attachment are annihilated. The last noble truth is that the Buddha has shown a specific path to Nirvana. This is the eightfold path, which is formulated by the Buddha, and exemplified by his own life of understanding,

discipline, action and meditation. Man avoids the river of passions if he believes in the Buddha. He will escape the tempest of evil if he performs works of holiness. He will be left untouched by the storm of desires if he knows the sacred path that leads to deliverance. Buddhism is not primarily a religion of miracles and supernatural beings. It is an analysis of suffering and an exalted but practical method to help men release themselves from suffering. The wheel of life is inexorable. How miserable is the world that is born, grows old and dies, then is reborn again only to grow old again and die again, and man knows no way out.

Yet a man can change his fate by performing acts of merit. He can become an obler person in his next existence. The Buddhist monk is the personification of Buddhist doctrine. Monks preserve carefully the knowledge I have acquired and that I have taught you. Walk in the right path in order that the life of holiness may long endure for the joy and salvation of the world. He who falters not in the path of truth avoids birth, avoids death forever and ever avoids suffering. A person gains merit by paying homage to the monk, just as he would pay homage to the Buddha image. The monastic orders are not set apart from the life of the towns and villages.

At the age of 20, a man enters the monastery for three months of religious discipline. He can remain a monk, or he may return to his family, taking with him the lessons of the Monastery. When a young man is initiated into the monkhood, his head and eyebrows are shaved, and he is prepared to wear the monk's garments. He leaves his personal possessions behind. In the monastery, he spends his time in a round of prescribed activities. The discipline of monastic life is rigid, but it is self-imposed. Every morning, he is up before sunrise, and he and his brothers leave the monastery with

their begging bowls. They are dependent for food on the generosity of the people. It's an act of spiritual merit to provide food for a monk. The ritual of begging is hallowed, for it shows freedom from material possessions. The monks return to the monastery at the same time every day, and they enter the sanctuary to pray and recite. In the afternoon, the monk's schedule allows him to rest and to bathe. There are long periods of reading and meditation, during which the monk learns the doctrines of the Buddha.

He studies deeply into the scriptures. He learns about the specific acts and attitudes, which can release him from suffering and lead him to freedom. The monk is in no sense of priest, he is a seeker, and sometimes a teacher. Each of his actions, like those of any Buddhist, is designed to accumulate merit for himself and for others. But the monk has gone far toward wisdom, and devotes his whole time to its pursuit. The path is long and arduous. Enlightenment comes with age. Seriousness is the province of immortality, frivolity the province of death. The monk who would be serious shakes the evil law like the wind does the trees. He tears a sunder the bonds that bind him to the world. He is close to Nirvana.

Standing on the terrace of wisdom, released from all suffering, the serious man looks out over the multitude, as from the summit of a mountain, one might gaze upon the crowd in the plains below. The old monk might well be the model for a statue of the Buddha. The Buddha image is one of the most compelling conceptions of the asian artist. The image is reflective. A steer. Compassionate. It's filled with quiet enlightenment. If Buddhism dealt only with discipline, it would be hard to account for the hold it has on the

heart and emotions of Southeast Asia. After all, people do not seem to be sunken, sorrow, and suffering. The Buddhist doctrine of suffering does not refer primarily to unhappy occurrences. It simply teaches that ordinary men are bound to an end to cycle of birth, labor, striving, and death. The transient joys and sorrows of everyday life delay a man's search for inner freedom. He may indeed become a monk and spend a disciplined life in the quest for Nirvana. But the ordinary man does not sin in our sins. If he works towards salvation at a much slower pace and remains involved in the attachments of living. The Buddha had said,

Among the blue and white lotuses that flower in a pool, there are some that stay underwater, others that rise to the surface, and still others that grow so tall that their petals are not even wet. And in the world I see good men and evil men, some noble, some ignoble, some will understand me, others will not. But I shall take pity on them all. I shall consider the lotus that opens underwater as well as the lotus that flaunts its beauty. In popular ceremony, Buddhist values are taught with great liveliness. The water festival comes at the beginning of spring. The Buddha image is bathed. Young people visit their parents and elders to pay respects by touching them with water.

Three days of celebration fall. It's a noisy time, as young people douse each other with water and dance and parade in the streets. Traditional Buddhist painting and literature are vital and appealing. The Jodhika stories recount the Buddha's earlier lives, which continued for eons in the cycle of birth and rebirth. Others teach their children that in other lives the Buddha lived as an insect, snake, cat, or a rabbit,

an exemplary moral character. The last ten tales of the Jodhika deal with human virtues, and painting in Thailand has been devoted almost exclusively to these stories. These paintings are most often found on the walls of Buddhist temples. It's a rough and lively folk art, in one respect, but there's much fineness and delicacy too. A single painting may combine both these styles, just as Buddhism itself encompasses both the austere and the down to earth. The painting is not really meant to be seen as a whole. The eye wanders through the full sequence of the story, with its complex plots and sizable cast of characters. The favorite Jodhika is the last one, which deals with generosity. This is the virtue most prized in Thailand. Prince Fassantara was born with a virtue of generosity. As a child, he had given away the rich

ornaments of his cradle. A magic white elephant was entrusted to his care. The elephant had the power to make rainfall at will, and it brought good times to the kingdom and made the people contented. Fassantara was approached by visitors from the distant kingdom of Kalinga, which suffered from a terrible drought. He gladly gave them the magic elephant saying, it is little you ask, you could have asked me for my eyes or my flesh. Fassantara was driven into exile because of this generous act. In a richly gilded chariot drawn by fine horses, Fassantara and Madsi, his loyal wife, left the kingdom with their two children. But Fassantara gave the horses to some poor stranger. Then he ordered his wife and children to climb down from the chariot, and he gave it, too,

to a passing man who asked him for help. Fassantara and Madsi continued on foot, carrying the children. On they went through thick underbrush and festive with wild animals. The Chujuk, an evil greedy man, decided to take advantage of Fassantara's reputation for generosity. The Chujuk's wife, tired of housework, and threatened to leave him unless he provided her with servants. So the Chujuk sought out Fassantara to ask for his children as slaves. Fassantara had never given anything away before that was part of his own being. But he agreed, and the Chujuk took the children away. In the wilderness that night, the Chujuk slept high in a tree, safe from the dangers of the forest.

He left the children below, unguarded. But the guards took pity, and came to the children in the form of their parents, and sheltered them through the night. Not long afterwards, an old and feeble man appeared, and asked that Madsi be given to him for a servant. With heavy heart, Fassantara agreed. But the old man turned out to be a god, and told Fassantara that he had passed the last test of his generosity. Back at his father's palace, went Fassantara with Madsi. There they found their children, who had been rancid from the Chujuk by the king. The people welcomed them joyously.

The evil Chujuk died of gluttony. He had taken the ransom money and indulged himself in wine, women, and great quantities of food. Everyone finally gets what he deserves in the Jodhika tales. They have become the moral poetry of popular Buddhism. The more austere lessons seldom touch the people directly. But the rich examples of ordinary morality, of generosity, determination, perseverance, and loving kindness, these things come to them constantly in the popular art. There's little doubt that Teravada Buddhism has been the predominant force molding personal values in Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. But today we must ask ourselves whether Buddhism will continue to mold the character of young people who are entranced and awed by the wonders of the modern world.

Will Buddhism become nothing more than a sentimental concern at the periphery of life? The ritual art of Buddhism has been declining for decades. The young painter paints in the international style. The talented architect makes modern homes, banks, and schools. In the large cities, Bangkok and Rangun, traditional values seem less and less relevant to the important things going on. After all, what do these values have to do with the interest rate on loans, with efficient government, or with the development of science and technology? Still, there's some signs of a revival in Buddhism in Southeast Asia. It does not stress ceremonial art and ritual. It's mainly a movement of meditation and of study among young people and among overburdened officials. For centuries, Buddhism has had

a remarkable ability to survive. This is partly because it allows the individual so much free choice, partly because it appeals at so many levels of feeling and of thought. It's possible that a purified and even more practical form of Buddhism will emerge from the confusion of Southeast Asia today. It's possible that this essentially flexible and humane religion will flourish in new ways. This is NET, National Educational Television.