The Buddhist Catechism Part 18

A. The will, its exertion, mental development, and discrimination between right and wrong.

379. Q. _Our Scriptures relate hundreds of instances of phenomena produced by Arhats: what did you say was the name of this faculty or power?_

A. _Iddhi vidha_. One possessing this can, by manipulating the forces of Nature, produce any wonderful phenomenon, _i.e._, make any scientific experiment he chooses.

380. Q. _Did the Buddha encourage displays of phenomena?_

A. No; he expressly discouraged them as tending to create confusion in the minds of those who were not acquainted with the principles involved. They also tempt their possessors to show them merely to gratify idle curiosity and their own vanity. Moreover, similar phenomena can be shown by magicians and sorcerers learned in the _Laukika_, or the baser form of _Iddhi_ science. All false pretensions to supernatural attainment by monks are among the unpardonable sins (_Tevijja Sutta_).

381. Q. _You spoke of a "deva" having appeared to the Prince Siddhartha under a variety of forms; what do Buddhists believe respecting races of elemental invisible beings having relations with mankind?_

A. They believe that there are such beings who inhabit worlds or spheres of their own. The Buddhist doctrine is that, by interior self-development and conquest over his baser nature, the Arhat becomes superior to even the most formidable of the devas, and may subject and control the lower orders.

382. Q. _How many kinds of devas are there?_

A. Three: _Kamavachara_ (those who are still under the domination of the pa.s.sions); _Rupavachara_ (a higher cla.s.s, which still retain an individual form): _Arapavachara_ (the highest in degree of purification, who are devoid of material forms).

383. Q. _Should we fear any of them?_

A. He who is pure and compa.s.sionate in heart and of a courageous mind need fear nothing: no man, G.o.d, _brahmarakkhas_, demon or deva, can injure him, but some have power to torment the impure, as well as those who invite their approach.

[1] Sumangala Sthavira explains to me that those transcendent powers are permanently possessed only by one who has subdued all the pa.s.sions (_Klesa_), in other words, an Arhat. The powers may be developed by a bad man and used for doing evil things, but their activity is but brief, the rebellious pa.s.sions again dominate the sorcerer, and he becomes at last their victim.

[2] When the powers suddenly show themselves, the inference is that the individual had developed himself in the next anterior birth. We do not believe in eccentric breaks in natural law.

APPENDIX

The following text of the fourteen items of belief which have been accepted as fundamental principles in both the Southern and Northern sections of Buddhism, by authoritative committees to whom they were submitted by me personally, have so much historical importance that they are added to the present edition of THE BUDDHIST CATECHISM as an Appendix. It has very recently been reported to me by H. E. Prince Ouchtomsky, the learned Russian Orientalist, that having had the doc.u.ment translated to them, the Chief Lamas of the great Mongolian Buddhist monasteries declared to him that they accept every one of the propositions as drafted, with the one exception that the date of the Buddha is by them believed to have been some thousands of years earlier than the one given by me. This surprising fact had not hitherto come to my knowledge. Can it be that the Mongolian Sangha confuse the real epoch of Sakya Muni with that of his alleged next predecessor? Be this as it may, it is a most encouraging fact that the whole Buddhistic world may now be said to have united to the extent at least of these Fourteen Propositions.

H. S. O.

FUNDAMENTAL BUDDHISTIC BELIEFS

I Buddhists are taught to show the same tolerance, forbearance, and brotherly love to all men, without distinction; and an unswerving kindness towards the members of the animal kingdom.

II The universe was evolved, not created; and its functions according to law, not according to the caprice of any G.o.d.

III The truths upon which Buddhism is founded are natural. They have, we believe, been taught in successive kalpas, or world-periods, by certain illuminated beings called BUDDHAS, the name BUDDHA meaning "Enlightened".

IV The fourth Teacher in the present kalpa was Sakya Muni, or Gautama Buddha, who was born in a Royal family in India about 2,500 years ago. He is an historical personage and his name was Siddhartha Gautama.

V Sakya Muni taught that ignorance produces desire, unsatisfied desire is the cause of rebirth, and rebirth, the cause of sorrow. To get rid of sorrow, therefore, it is necessary to escape rebirth; to escape rebirth, it is necessary to extinguish desire; and to extinguish desire, it is necessary to destroy ignorance.

VI Ignorance fosters the belief that rebirth is a necessary thing.

When ignorance is destroyed the worthlessness of every such rebirth, considered as an end in itself, is perceived, as well as the paramount need of adopting a course of life by which the necessity for such repeated rebirths can be abolished. Ignorance also begets the illusive and illogical idea that there is only one existence for man, and the other illusion that this one life is followed by states of unchangeable pleasure or torment.

VII The dispersion of all this ignorance can be attained by the persevering practice of an all-embracing altruism in conduct, development of intelligence, wisdom in thought, and destruction of desire for the lower personal pleasures.

VIII The desire to live being the cause of rebirth, when that is extinguished rebirths cease and the perfected individual attains by meditation that highest state of peace called _Nirvana_.

IX Sakya Muni taught that ignorance can be dispelled and sorrow removed by the knowledge of the four n.o.ble Truths, _viz._:

1. The miseries of existence;

2. The cause productive of misery, which is the desire ever renewed of satisfying oneself without being able ever to secure that end;

3. The destruction of that desire, or the estranging of oneself from it;

4. The means of obtaining this destruction of desire. The means which he pointed out is called the n.o.ble Eightfold Path, _viz._: Right Belief; Right Thought; Right Speech; Right Action; Right Means of Livelihood; Right Exertion; Right Remembrance; Right Meditation.

X Right Meditation leads to spiritual enlightenment, or the development of that Buddha-like faculty which is latent in every man.

XI The essence of Buddhism, as summed up by the Tathagatha (Buddha) himself, as:

To cease from all sin, To get virtue, To purify the heart.

XII The universe is subject to a natural causation known as "Karma".

The merits and demerits of a being in past existences determine his condition in the present one. Each man, therefore, has prepared the causes of the effects which he now experiences.

XIII The obstacles to the attainment of good karma may be removed by the observance of the following precepts, which are embraced in the moral code of Buddhism, _viz._: (1) Kill not; (2) Steal not; (3) Indulge in no forbidden s.e.xual pleasure; (4) Lie not; (5) Take no intoxication or stupefying drug or liquor. Five other precepts which need not be here enumerated should be observed by those who would attain, more quickly than the average layman, the release from misery and rebirth.

XIV Buddhism discourages superst.i.tious credulity. Gautama Buddha taught it to be the duty of a parent to have his child educated in science and literature. He also taught that no one should believe what is spoken by any sage, written in any book, or affirmed by tradition, unless it accord with reason.

Drafted as a common platform upon which all Buddhists can agree.

H. S. OLCOTT, P.T.S.

Respectfully submitted for the approval of the High Priests of the nations which we severally represent, in the Buddhist Conference held at Adyar, Madras, on the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th of January, 1891 (A.B. 2434).

j.a.pan . . . . . ( Kozen Gunaratana ( Chiezo Tokuzawa Burmah . . . . . U. Hmoay Tha Aung Ceylon . . . . . Dhammapala Hevavitarana.

The Maghs of Chittagong . . . Krshna Chandra Chowdry, by his appointed Proxy, Maung Tha Dwe.

BURMAH

Approved on behalf of the Buddhists of Burmah, this 3rd day of February, 1891 (A. B. 2434):

Tha-tha-na-baing Saydawgyi; Aung Myi Shwebon Sayadaw; Me-ga-waddy Sayadaw; Hmat-Khaya Sayadaw; Hti-lin Sayadaw; Myadaung Sayadaw; Hla-Htwe Sayadaw; and sixteen others.

CEYLON