Buddhism and the West | Page 5
Roger Gunter-Jones
Among these benefits is the fact that the experience of Emptiness (the essential aspect of enlightenment) is always psychologically liberating whenever it occurs and by whatever means achieved. It puts an end for the time being to the kind of dualistic opposition that normally exists between the inner and the outer man, between subject and object, and between self and other. Someone who is in a state of liberation brought on by the direct perception of Emptiness rejects nothing, judges nothing, and accepts all creatures and things just as they are.
According to Buddhism, this kind of openness and acceptance leads to the highest kind of love: selfless, impartial and all-embracing Compassion. This is the most important practical out come of the teaching. Unfortunately, the emphasis often given to Enlightenment in its noetic aspect tends to obscure its activity as Compassion, and may give the outsider the impression that a Buddhist sage is a rather cold sort of fish. But Buddhist Compassion and Enlightenment are the reverse and obverse of one and the same realisation; they cannot be separated. There is no perfect Compassion without Enlightenment or perfect Enlightenment without Compassion.The figure of the Buddha represents this perfect realisation; he stands before us symbolically as perfect Enlightenment and Compassion, and historically as the perfect example of a cool head combined with a warm heart. So far as the East is concerned, the doctrine of Love came into the world two thousand five hundred years ago with the Buddha and his teaching. At the level of practical activity Compassion is the Buddhist ideal.
Before the actual attainment of Enlightenment, this ideal is approached (that is to say, Compassion is cultivated) by means of meditation on the four "sublime states." These four states are: loving kindness, sympathetic sorrow, sympathetic joy, and impartiality. The practice of these states alone does not lead to enlightenment and is therefore primarily intended to train the as yet unenlightened Buddhist in the art of loving. The relationship between love and the fourth state — impartiality — is rather complex; how impartiality can operate as love is by no means obvious. Even if we take impartiality in its sense as serenity and equanimity it still sounds altogether too much like indifference. However, its role can be partly explained as a means for taking selfishness out of unenlightened love and altruism. It has also been suggested that through the practice of impartiality one becomes conscious of the underlying reality that is common to all creatures, and that this consciousness can then take the place of the normal dualistic and unenlightened "I-THOU" relationship. Some people may see in this suggestion a shadow of the idea that the "love of God" can serve as a basis for the love of persons. To this, however, it might be objected that in practice in everyday life it is better, and incidentally more difficult, to love people for themselves than for the sake of something else.
Whatever may be the valid logic of this problem of non-dualistic love, in Mahayana Buddhism impartiality is clearly defined as including loving kindness and sympathetic sorrow. Impartiality is said to ensure that one is equally compassionate to all as if they were — in the Buddhist simile — one's only son, and it is also said that impartial compassion is "the desire that comes of its own accord to do good to all beings without the least craving for their love." Does this sound improbable? Maybe. Certainly it cannot be proved logically that love becomes spontaneous when all the impediments have been removed. We cannot say whether the liberated consciousness is always charitable without choice, and therefore, incidentally, also without moral worth. Nor can we say that all individuals have the same capacity for warmth. Here, as in everything else, personal experience is not only the ground of verification but also the limitation, for we cannot know more about other peoples' feelings than we know about our own.
In the West we seldom make clear distinctions between all these different kinds of love. We use the term to designate a wide variety of feelings and attitudes. Also, through long association with a mawkish and sanctimonious kind of religiosity, the term used in a religious sense can make Westerners squirm with embarrassment. However, we do actually practise love in all four of its Buddhist categories. For example, we know loving kindness, which Buddhism defines as "the love a mother has for her child"; we also experience sympathetic sorrow in the misfortunes and sufferings of others, even though it may be seasoned with a little self-satisfaction, and perhaps occasionally with a pinch of malicious pleasure, as when the neighbour dents his much vaunted new car; and we can feel sympathetic joy at the success and happiness of others, though possibly combined with a certain amount of envy or resentment, except perhaps in the case of those dear to us or who, as in the case of children, are not in competition with us; and lastly, some of us may experience impartial compassion through taking part in some activity concerned with the "loving care of others," though this is often debased by some political or other kind of self-interest. But it is unlikely that any of these forms of love will be entirely free of all traces of the "l-THOU" relationship, not only because it is difficult to practise selfless, non-dualistic love, but also because in the West our theories about love actually encourage a dualistic relationship.
Although non-dualistic, impartial, Buddhist compassion as a form of love is obviously not unknown in the West, it is not widely understood or generally held before us as an ideal. Nevertheless, it is towards the realisation of this perfect form of love that Christianity and Buddhism both converge from their separate starting points and by means of their different systems. Concerning the relationship between Buddhist Compassion and Christian Love, Dom Aelred Graham says: "The Buddhist 'compassion,' it seems to me, has richer implications than all but the supreme form of Christian love. Christianity at the level of practice only rarely overcomes its theoretical dualism between man and God, and between man and man." And he suggests: "Perhaps the Buddhist and Christian ways of loving can meet if the emphasis is thrown on enlightened understanding rather than on benevolence."
According to Buddhism, as we have already noted, enlightened understanding rests upon the realisation of Emptiness. This realisation puts an end to the kind of duality that Dom Aelred Graham suggests can be an impediment in the practice of Christian Love. Perhaps, therefore, the Buddhist theory and experience of Emptiness will indeed prove to be, as suggested earlier in this discussion, the best part of the contribution that Buddhism can make to our Western religious culture.
However, we do not yet know whether the West will accept Emptiness as valid in theory and useful in practice. If it does accept it in principle, then it should note that the importance of direct personal experience can not be exaggerated. Without this experience, the contribution of Buddhism to Western culture may in the end prove ineffective, a mere intellectual gloss. To be really effective, the truth of Emptiness must not only be understood but must also be absorbed as an accepted concept of our Western consciousness through the personal experience and influence of a significant minority.
Buddhism in the West Series:
- Love, Compassion and Enlightenment
- In the Emptiness of Self
- Buddhist Religious Fact
- Buddhism in the West
- Religious Buddha Life
