BUDDHISM IN THE EYES OF INTELLECTUALS
Venerable K. Sri Dhammananda
ABOUT THIS PUBLICATION
Buddhism is a great religion which enlightened humanity twenty-five centuries ago and released from all bondages, superstitious practices. It is a scientific religion. Gotama the Buddha is honoured today by every cultured and intelectual man irrespective of whatever religion he may profess, while the founders of most of the other religions are honoured only by their followers. Not only those who belong to some religions but also so-called free thinkers respect this world honoured Supreme Enlightened One. From the historical point of view there never lived any other Teacher who has ever given so much religious freedom as well as due credit to humanity. Before the advent of the Buddha, religion had been owned and monopolised only by a certain section of the society. The Buddha was the Teacher in history who indiscriminately opened the gate of religion to each and every man society. The Buddha has advised his followers to cultivate and develop the latent power of man and showed him how to make the best use of his willpower and intelligance without being a slave to an unknown being to find eternal hapiness which He proclaimed to the world through His own experience but not through therories, mere beliefs and traditional practices. His teaching is such that anyone can practise it without having any religious brand.
To compile this book I have selected various statements made by eminent philosophers, scholars, historians, scientists, writers, religious dignitaries, social reformers and politicians who are well-known to the modern-world as most intellectual people. Among them many are non-Buddhist and free thinkers. According to them, Buddhism is the most practical and rational religion which will apeal to scientific knowledge and which really can do a better service to mankind if the followers practise this religion properly.
It therefore gives me great pleasure to present these valuable quotations extracted from various books and articles. Whatever may be the opinion of those who have given Buddhism the topmost place in the religious field, the compiler by quoting them, does not mean to belittle other religious beliefs, for the idea of publishing this book is not to show the superiority of Buddhism over other religions but on the contrary to reflect the unbiased views expressed by various intellectuals.
All the captions to the statements in this book were given by the compiler.
1.Sri Dhammananda
25.11.1992 – B. E. 2536
Fundamental Teachings of The Buddha
“Gentleness, serenity, compassion, through liberation from selfish-craving – these are the fundamental teachings of the great Oriental religion of Buddhism.”
- A. Burtt, “The Compassionate Buddha”
Well Built Bridge
“Buddha Dharma is like a bridge well built of flexible steel, it gives a little to wind and water, it adapts itself to changing circumstances, but at the same time it has secured foundations and offers a safe way to the Deathless, to Nirvana.”
Phra Khantipalo, “Tolerance”
To Awake the Human Heart
“Surely the mysterious East, that fertile mother of religions, has given us in Buddhism a true revelation, since it makes known to us the moral beauty and purity that lies in the deep of human nature needing no other divinity than that which abides in the human heart to awake them into living glory.”
Charles T. Gorham
Nothing to surpass Buddhism
“Buddhist or not Buddhist, I have examined every one of the great religious systems of the world, and in none of them have I found anything to surpass, in beauty and comprehensiveness, the Noble Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths of the Buddha. I am content to shape my life according to that path.”
Prof. Rhys Davids
Buddhism does not lead us to a Fool’s Paradise
“Buddhism is realistic, for it takes a realistic view of life and of the world. It does not falsely pull us into living in a fool’s paradise, nor does it frighten and agonize us with all kinds of imaginary fears and guilt-feelings. It calls us exactly and objectively what we are and what the world around us is, and shows us the way to perfect freedom, peace, tranquility and happiness.”
Ven. Dr. W. Rahula
The Buddha’s Mission
“The mission of the Buddha was quite unique in its character, and therefore it stands quite apart from the many other religions of the world. His mission was to bring the birds of idealism flying in the air nearer to the earth, because the food for their bodies belonged to the earth.”
Hazrat Inayat Khan, “The Sufi Message”
A cosmic religion“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description.”
Albert Einstein
Buddhism will remain unaffected
“The doctrines of Buddha Dhamma stand today, as unaffected by the march of time and the expansion of knowledge as when they were first enunciated. No matter to what lengths increased scientific knowledge can extend man’s mental horizon, within the frame work of the Dhamma there is room for the acceptance and assimilation of further discovery. It does not rely for its appeal upon limited concepts of primitive minds nor for its power upon the negation of thought.”
Francis Story, “Buddhism as World Religion”
Joyful religion
“Buddhism is quite opposed to the melancholic, sorrowful, penitent and gloomy attitude of mind which is considered a hindrance to the realization of Truth. On the other hand, it is interesting to remember here that joy is one of the seven ‘Factors of Illumination’, the essential qualities to be cultivated for the realization of Nirvana.”
Ven. Dr. W. Rahula, ‘What the Buddha Taught’
Challenge to other religions
“It is Buddhism as we find it actually recorded, not a hypothetical primitive system, which still forms a challenge to other religions.”
Bishop Gore, “Buddha and the Christ.”
No assumption in Buddhism
“It is a glory of Buddhism that it makes intellectual enlightenment an essential condition of salvation. In Buddhism morality and intellectual enlightenment are inseparable from one another. While morality forms the basis of the higher life, knowledge and wisdom complete it. Without a perfect understanding of the law of causality and transformation (Pratityasamutpada), no one can even be said to be truly moral if he does not possess the necessary insight and knowledge. In this respect Buddhism differs from all other religions. All monotheistic religions start with certain assumptions, and when these assumptions are contradicted by the growth of knowledge it increase sorrow. But Buddhism starts with no assumptions. It stands on the firm rock of facts, and can therefore never shun the dry light of knowledge.”
Prof. Lakhsmi Narasu, “The Essence of Buddhism”
Buddha has seen deeper than modern idealists
“Gautama got rid of even that shade of a shadow of permanent existence by a metaphysical tour de force of great interest to the student of philosophy, seeing that it supplies the wanting half of Bishop Berkeley’s well-known idealist argument. It is a remarkable indication of the subtlety of Indian speculation that Gautama should have seen deeper than the greatest of modem idealists. The tendency of enlightened thought of all today all the world over is not towards theology, but philosophy and psychology. The bark of theological dualism is drifting into danger. The fundamental principles of evolution and monism are being accepted by the thoughtful.”
Prof. Huxley. “Evolution And Ethics”
Religious Revolution
“Twenty-five centuries ago India witnessed an intellectual and religious revolution which culminated in the overthrow of monotheism, priestly selfishness, and the establishment of a synthetic religion, a system of light and thought which was appropriately called Dhamma – Philosophical Religion.”
Anagarika Dharmapala, “The World’s Debt to Buddha”
A Plan for Living“Buddhism is a plan for living in such a way as to derive highest benefit from life. It is a religion of wisdom where knowledge and intelligence predominate. The Buddha did not preach to win converts but to enlighten listeners.”
A Western writer
Come and See
“Buddhism is always a question of knowing and seeing, and not that of believing. The teaching of the Buddha is qualified as Ehi-Passiko, inviting you to come and see, but not to come and believe.”
Ven. Dr. W. Rahula, ‘What the Buddha Taught’
Religion of Man
“Buddhism will last as long as the sun and moon last and the human race exists upon the earth, for it is the religion of man, of humanity as a whole.”
Bandaranaike, Former Prime Minister of Sri Lanka
A Buddhist is not a slave to anybody
“A Buddhist is not a slave to a book or to any person. Nor does he sacrifice his freedom of thought by becoming a follower of the Buddha. He can exercise his own free will and develop his knowledge even to the extent of attaining Buddhahood himself, for all are potential Buddhas.”
Ven. Narada Maha Thera “What is Buddhism”
Life by principle
“Buddhism taught a life not by rule, but by principle, a life of beauty; and as a consequence, it was a religion of tolerance. It was the most charitable system under the sun.”
Rev. Joseph Wain
Buddhism would remain
“Buddhism would remain what it is even if it were proved that the Buddha never lived.”
Christmas Humphreys, “Buddhism”
Modern Problems
“To read a little Buddhism is to realize that the Buddhists knew, two thousand five hundred years ago, far more about our modem problems of psychology than they have yet been given credit for. They studied these problems long ago and found their answers too.”
Dr. Graham Howe
Mind Training
“We hear much nowadays of thought-power, but Buddhism is the most complete and effective system of mind-training yet placed before the world.”
Dudley Wright
New race
“The Buddha created a new race of men, a race of moral heroes, a race of salvation-workers, a race of Buddhas.”
Manmatha Nath Sastri
First Missionary
“Buddhism is the first missionary religion in the history of humanity with a universal message of salvation for all mankind. The Buddha after his Enlightenment sent out sixty-one disciples in different directions asking them to preach the doctrine for the weal and welfare of mankind.”
Dr. K.N. Jayatilleke, “Buddhism and Peace”
No forced conversion
“It was never, however, the Buddhist way to proselytise – in the sense of forcing ideas and beliefs upon an unwilling audience, much less to exert pressure of any kind, or any kind of flattery, deceit or cajolery, to win adherence to one’s own point of view. Buddhist missionaries have never competed for converts in the marketplace.”
Dr. G.P. Malalasekara
Ultimate fact of reality
“Here it is necessary to draw attention to another unique feature of the religion of the Buddha, namely, that it is the only religion of any religious teacher, which is the outcome of a consistent philosophy, which claims to tell us about the ultimate facts of existence and reality. The religion of the Buddha is a way of life resulting from the acceptance of a view of life, which is said to be factual. His philosophy is not without an account of the nature of knowledge.”
Dr. K.N. Jayatilleke, “Buddhism and Peace”
No fanaticism
“Of Buddhism alone can it be affirmed it is free from all fanaticism. Its aim being to produce in every man a thorough internal transforming by self-conquest, how can it have recourse to might or money or even persuasion for effecting conversion? The Buddha has only shown the way to salvation, and it is left to each individual to decide for himself if he would follow it.”
Prof. Lakshmi Narasu, “The Essence of Buddhism”
Buddhism and other faiths
“Buddhism is like the palm of the hand, the other religions being the fingers.”
The Great Khan Mongka
Buddhism is not a melancholy religion
“Some people think that Buddhism is a dark and melancholy religion. It is not so; it will make its followers bright and cheerful. When we read the birth stories of Bodhisatva, the future Buddha, we learn how He cultivated the Perfection of patience and forbearance. It will help us to be cheerful even in the midst of great troubles and to take delight in other’s welfare.”
Ven. Nanatiloka, a German Buddhist Scholar
Buddhism and social welfare
“Those who think that Buddhism is interested only in lofty ideals, high moral and philosophical thought, and ignores any social and economic welfare of people, are wrong. The Buddha was interested in the happiness of men. To him happiness was not possible without leading a pure life based on moral and spiritual principles. But he knew that leading such a life was hard in unfavourable material and social conditions.
Buddhism does not consider material welfare as an end in itself; it is only a means to an end – a higher and nobler end. But it is a means which is indispensable, indispensable in achieving a higher purpose for man’s happiness. So Buddhism recognizes the need of certain minimum material conditions favourable to spiritual success – even that of a monk engaged in meditation in some solitary place.”
Ven. Dr. W. Rahula, “What the Buddha Taught”
Example from Asoka
“Turn to Buddhism, and you will read that Asoka not only preached a lofty morality but exercised the power of kingship in a manner that shames our modern sovereigns of other faiths.”
Geoffrey Mortimer, A Writer in the West
Fixed Principles
“It will not be possible even today in regard to Buddhism that it is worn out because it is rooted upon certain fixed principles that can never be altered.”
Gertrude Garatt
Dhamma is the Law
“All the teachings of the Buddha can be summed up in one word: “Dharma”. This law of righteousness exists not only in a man’s heart but it exists in the universe also. All the universe is an embodiment or revelation of Dhamma. The laws of nature which modern science has discovered are revelations of Dhamma.
If the Moon rises and sets, it is because of Dhamma, for Dhamma is that law residing in the universe that makes matter act in the ways studied in physics, chemistry, zoology, botany and astronomy. Dhamma exists in the universe just as Dhamma exists in the heart of man. If man will live by Dhamma, he will escape misery and attain Nibbana.”
Ven. A. Mahinda
Persecution
“Of the great religions of history I prefer Buddhism, especially in its earliest forms, because it has had the smallest element of persecution.”
Bertrand Russell
Appreciation of Buddhism
“Although one may originally be attracted by its remoteness, one can appreciate the real value of Buddhism only when one judges it by the result it produces in one’s own life from day to day.”
Dr. Edward Conze, A Western Buddhist Scholar
Knowledge is the key to higher path
“Without sensuous pleasure would life be endurable? Without belief in immortality can man be moral? Without worship of a God can man advance towards righteousness? Yes, replies the Buddha, these ends can be attained by knowledge; knowledge alone is the key to the higher path, the one worth pursuing in life; knowledge is that which brings calmness and peace to life, which renders man indifferent to the storms of the phenomenal world.”
Prof. Karl Pearson
Fortunate Buddhist
“How fortunate are the humble followers of the Buddha who have not inherited the fallacy of infallibility of any revealed book from the very beginning.”
Ven. Prof. Ananda Kaushalyayana
Buddhism and Rites
“Buddhism is thus a personal religion, and there is little room in it for ritual and ceremony. An act done with an idea of one’s own conditioning ceases to be a rite. Much of the seemingly ritual of present-day Buddhism, when seen thus are really not rites.”
Dr W.F. Jayasuriya “The Psychology & Philosophy of Buddhism”
Saviour
“If the Buddha is to be called a ‘saviour’ at all, it is only in the sense that he discovered and showed the Path to Liberation, Nirvana. But we must tread the Path ourselves.”
Ven. Dr W. Rahula, “What the Buddha Taught”
No force
“To force oneself to believe and to accept a thing without understanding is political, and not spiritual or intellectual.”
Ven. Dr W. Rahula, “What the Buddha Taught”
Respect other religions
“One should not honour only one’s own religion and condemn the religions of others, but one should honour others’ religions for this or that reason. So doing, one helps one’s own religion to grow and renders service to the religions of others too. In acting otherwise one digs the grave of one’s own religion and also does harm to other religions. Whosoever honours his own religion and condemns other religions, does so indeed through devotion to his own religion, thinking “I will glorify my own religion”. But on the contrary, in so doing he injures his own religion more gravely. So concord is good: Let all listen, and be willing to listen to the doctrines professed by others.”
Emperor Asoka
A genuine pride
“A religion or a way of life is judged not merely by the truths it proclaims but also by the change that it brings about in the life of its followers. So far as this test is concerned Buddhism has a record of achievements in which we can take a genuine pride.”
- Valisinha. General Secretary, Maha Bodhi Society, “Buddhist way of life”
Unconsciousness
“It can also be said that India discovered the unconsciousness earlier than the Western psychologists. For them the unconscious consists in the totality of the impressions which slumber in the individual as the inheritance from his previous existence. The buddhist technique of meditation, which is concerned with the latent forces, is thus a fore-runner of modem psychoanalysis, of autogenic mental training, etc.”
Prof. Von Glasenapp, A. German Scholar
Rational analysis
“Buddhism is the only great religion of the world that is consciously and frankly based on a systematic rational analysis of the problems of life and of the way to its solution.”
Moni Bagghee, “Our Buddha”
Enemy of religion
“There is little of what we call dogma in the Buddha’s teaching. With a breadth of view rare in that age and not common in ours he refuses to stifle criticism. Intolerance seemed to him the greatest enemy of religion.”
Dr. S Radhakrishnan, “Gautama The Buddha”
Sectarianism
“Most neophytes of some other religions are controlled by their Guru and are forbidden to read the scriptures, doctrines, magazines, booklets and tracts of other religions. This very rarely happens within Buddhism.”
Phra Khantipalo, “Tolerance”
The Five Precepts
“These five precepts, indicate five arterial directions in which the Buddhist self-control is to be exercised. Thus, the first rule calls upon him to control the passion of anger, the second, the desire for material possessions, the third, the lust of the flesh, the fourth, cowardice and malevolence (the causes of untruthfulness) the fifth, the craving for unwholesome excitement.”
Edmond Holmes, “The Creed of Buddha”
Man who achieved a great victory
“One of the first scholars to begin the work of translating the Pali Literature into English, was the son of a well-known clergyman. His object in undertaking the work was to prove the superiority of Christianity over Buddhism. He failed in this task but he achieved a greater victory than he expected. He became a Buddhist. We must never forget the happy chance which prompted him to undertake this work and thereby make the precious Dhamma available to thousands in the West. The name of this great scholar was Dr. Rhys Davids.”
Ven. A. Mahinda, “Blue Print of Happiness”
Human destiny
“Over great areas of the world it still survives. It is possible that in contact with Western science, and inspired by the spirit of history, the original teaching of Gotama, revived and purified, may yet play a large part in the direction of human destiny.”
- G. Wells
Parliamentary system borrowed from Buddhism
“It is probable that the tendency towards self government evidenced by these various forms of corporate activity received fresh impetus from the Buddhist rejection of the authority of the priesthood and further but its doctrine of equality as exemplified by its repudiation of caste. It is indeed to the Buddhist books that we have to turn for an account of the manner in which the affairs of the early examples of representative self-governing institutions were conducted. It may come as a surprise to many to learn that in the assemblies of Buddhists in India 2500 years and more ago are to be found the rudiments of our own parliamentary practice of the present day.
The dignity of the assembly was preserved by the appointment of a special officer – the embryo of “Mr. Speaker” in our house of commons. A second officer was appointed to see that when necessary a quorum was secured – the prototype of the Parliamentary Chief Whip, in our own system. A member initiating business did so in the form of a motion which was then open to discussion. In some cases, this was done once only, in others three times, thus anticipating the practice of Parliament in requiring that a bill be read a third time before it becomes law. If discussion disclosed a difference of opinion the matter was decided by the vote of the majority, the voting being by ballot.”
Marquess of Zetland, former Viceroy of India, “Legacy of India”[1]
[1] http://www.buddhanet.net/budintel/buddhism/index.htm
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