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Leave the rituals and head for Nirvana
Today is Navam Poya
By Chula Ratnatunga
A learned American bhikkhu now in Sri Lanka described how, when he was preparing for his ordination, lay Buddhists vied with each other to provide him with his robes and wherewithal. He found it strange that they preferred the second hand "merit" to be gained by helping another on his way to Nirvana, to their taking this path themselves. The American bhikkhu was clear on his mission - it was Nirvana, and he hoped to attain it in his present life.

I have to admit that his comment was valid - most of us do think of Nirvana as something extremely difficult, a distant goal to be achieved, if at all, in some future birth. This is not surprising when you consider the kind of religious education the average Buddhist receives. Let us examine the single case of a devout Buddhist. His name (not real) is Kumara.

Kumara belongs to a devout Buddhist family and is deeply immersed in Buddhist activities. He can recite the whole maha-piritha from memory, goes to temple frequently, and observes the eight precepts on poya days. He does social work, and has no vices to speak of. He told me his greatest wish is that when he dies, he would be reborn into a good Buddhist family where he can continue being a good Buddhist. He does not think he can achieve Nirvana in the foreseeable future.

Kumara's pirivena education had taught him to accept and not to question. In contrast, the Buddha had instructed his disciples to critically examine his dhamma and accept it only if they found it suitable. Kumara has not given much thought to the Buddha dhamma. He accepts anicca (impermanence), dukkha (sorrow) and anatta (delusion of self) through faith, not by conviction. He accepts rebirth as a fact, because the Buddha had said so, but doesn't know its mechanism. He thinks the eternal cycle of life, death and rebirth is just an unpleasant fact of life that we must put up with. His Buddhist education had not included meditation.

The Buddha has said that the sole way (ekayamo maggo) to the dhamma is through meditation - one cannot appreciate its core concepts by intellect alone. For instance, anicca says nothing is permanent but there are many phenomena that do seem permanent - for instance waves in the sea coming shoreward in endless succession. Can a happy person who has not known suffering accept that overall, life is dukkha? The hardest of all is anatta (delusion of self) - can you convince yourself that you don't exist? The reason why the American bhikkhu was clear on his mission was that he had understood the Buddha dhamma through meditation and study.

Kumara has been fortunate in life so far. He is reasonably well off, and lives a simple life with few "wants". He is happy and content and believes this is because of his past good karma. He expects his current exemplary Buddhist life to see him through into a good rebirth. He even expects to keep moving upscale, rebirth after rebirth. It is not surprising therefore, that he has no sense of urgency about reaching Nirvana.

Whether Kumara will actually realise his expectations depends, of course, on his past karma. Karmic returns are unpredictable, and karma goes a long way back, so Kumara lives in a kind of fool's paradise. Since there is no steady state in sansara - everything keeps changing - and rebirth makes life endless, the chances of Kumara's present status quo being maintained even through his next birth cannot be known. At any time, a strong karmic reaction, or some chance wrong action or a stray evil thought at the time of death, could put him on a downward slope. The real dukkha is seen not so much in one's current suffering but through the awful realization that because of rebirth, there is no end to life and therefore no escape from its vicissitudes. It is this realization that triggers one's urge towards breaking out of the life-death cycle and reaching out for Nirvana.

Therefore, the mission of a Buddhist who knows the dhamma can only be Nirvana and nothing short of it - and if one has a goal then one must have some sense of urgency about reaching it. So the question arises: "What is one going to do about it?"

The answer at first sight seems to be "do as the Buddha's disciples did" - renounce worldly possessions and take up a monastic life. One cannot expect a person with job and family to do this but I know that several retired persons with no family commitments have done so. There are also Buddhists like me, who know their mission but lack the courage right now to face the rigours of an austere life in a forest hermitage. A bhikkhu who was once a bank executive and is now very advanced in the practice of the dhamma, told me how he started.

He said he started by practising sila consciously - that is, by observing the five precepts not just through discipline but also by achieving a mindset in which he genuinely wanted to observe them. He practised mettha continuously in his daily activities. He paid less attention to current affairs and dropped out of Buddhist activities. He cut back progressively on his social activities.

With these unnecessary distractions out of the way, he was able to spend the time so gained contemplating the dhamma, and in meditation. He told me why he had no qualms about having done this.

He said religious observances and the cultural and social aspects of Buddhism do have an important place - the very existence of the sasana depends on the efforts of zealous Buddhists. But a stage is reached at which one has to choose between "Buddhism" and the "Buddha dhamma". If one feels a strong urge to follow the path leading eventually to Nirvana, one has to give up religious observances, leave Buddhist activities in the capable hands of others, and step aside.

He agreed that it is not easy to drop practices of a lifetime but the Buddha, in his time had none of these religious practices. The Buddha regarded all rites and ceremonies as distractions and agreed to the chanting of pirith only with reluctance. Preaching at Savatthi, the Buddha explained to a man from Rajagaha why he was not making progress in the dhamma. He put it this way: "Knowing the way to Rajagaha and just repeating it over and over again will not get you any closer to it - you must start walking towards it." His emphasis had always been on the practice of the dhamma.

Let me quote just two pronouncements the Buddha made. He said, "Do not venerate me by worshipping me or my image - the best way to venerate me is to practise the dhamma." He also listed ten fetters that need to be shed to free oneself from the eternal cycle of rebirth - the third of these is "belief in the efficacy of rituals and ceremonies”. What the Buddha asked his disciples to do was to learn the dhamma, practise the dhamma and teach the dhamma. One can therefore drop religious observances and start meditation with a clear conscience.

To readers who have not yet started on meditation I can say that it is not as difficult as is often made out to be, but it does need intense and continuous effort for at least a week to get things rolling.

The effort is worthwhile because study, contemplation and meditation are the keys that access the dhamma. There are many books available on the subject and once you get going you reap tangible benefits almost immediately. They say you don't necessarily have to climb to the summit of Everest - the view from the foothills is quite fantastic. So it is with meditation.

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