R Chandrasoma

The Tathāgata was a Seeker of the Truth before his enlightenment – and his career as the Great Expositor was preceded by a dialectical interaction with the leading saintly intellects of the day. The Jaina Teachings provided the initial stimulus for his path-breaking spiritual innovations and the Brahaminic wisdom of the day was an everpresent background against which he set his revolutionary teachings on Anatta and Anicca. The point to stress is that he was a quester of the truth before he turned discoverer of the path. The earnest Buddhist Pilgrim or Devotee of today is faced with a puzzling choice – must he, like the Great Teacher, seek the truth before adopting a creed or Follow the Path that  the Enlightened One had discovered and luminously set forth for the good of all? Seemingly all established religions set forth a path that must be traversed before the attainment of that spiritual and moral excellence that is the necessary pre-requisite for a fulfilled life. Must it not be conceded, however, that a huge gulf separates the Seeker from the mere Follower? As that Modern Sage Krishnamurti puts it ‘Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley. If you would attain to the mountain-top you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices’.

We say all this because the Buddhists of Sri Lanka are fast becoming Path Followers and that questing metaphysical spirit – the desire to know the truth through personal endevour – has all but gone. Earnest seekers of the Truth must tussle with the enemy of ignorance by reviewing all pretenders to this truth – including those beliefs and systems of thought that seem greatly at variance with the enthroned beliefs of their own religion. In this day and age Science is religion’s chief adversary – and for a sincere Buddhist to set aside or overlook this high achievement in secular matters is not merely odd but perilous. In our country contrariness is equated with the heretical and to hew to a well-known path of lofty indifference to anything outside the professed orthodoxy seems to be the accepted wisdom – the wisdom of only looking backwards.   Orthodox Monks of the Sinhala Tradition speak glibly of Heavens and Hells –  glorious Abodes for the Worthy and Punishment Centres of extraordinary cruelty for the Wicked. This phantasmagoric vision of ethical re-balancing in distant worlds is an acient but  childish dream – but it persists in the kind of debased folk-Buddhism that the masses  are made to believe. In the latter, Karmic Merit is treated as a transferable commodity and placatory ‘poojas’ for the gods play a foremost role in the pious endevours of the lackadaisical Buddhist masses of our country.  Above all, an Ecclesiastical Brotherhood of Renunciants – the Monks – now play the role of the Exclusive Interpreters of the Doctrine (Saerdotalism). Religious Services – not the pursuit of the Sacred Truth – is at the heart of the new orthodoxy. That this is a truly lamentable metamorphosis of a great religion that has illumined the lives of countless millions will be conceded by all who treasure the truth as against the trumpery of a show-piece public religion for the masses. A concluding word on Buddhism – it is an awakening to transcendence – the aqustion of a spiritual vision that makes the worldly and mundane a distraction in the great task of being one with the Absolute. (Nirvana)