6. The Main Teachings.
Buddhism has asserted the
following: life is suffering; the struggle
to maintain
individuality is painful. It asks: Why do we suffer? The
answer is, because of the transiency, the impermanence
of human existence.
There is no substance which abides
forever. Suffering is caused by desire,
since what we
desire is impermanent, changing, and perishing. These
desires are caused by ignorance. We are ignorant con-
cerning our true nature and the nature of the
universe
in which we live. And we may be freed from our
ignorance by
following the Path. Through the wisdom
which comes from reflection on the
transitoriness of
life, by following the Path taught by the Buddha,
everyone can attain Enlightenment, which charac-
terizes Nirvāṇa, the ideal state.
The teaching of Non-ego has been regarded as char-
acteristic of Buddhist thought. The Buddha clearly
told
us what the self is not, but he did not give any clear
account of
what it is. He did not deny the soul, but
was silent concerning it. He did
not want to assume
the existence of souls as metaphysical substances,
but
he admitted the existence of the self as the subject of
action in
a practical and moral sense. He seems to have
acknowledged that the true
self in one's existence will
appear in our moral conduct conforming to
universal
norms. To make clear the teaching of Non-ego, Bud-
dhists set forth the theory of the Five
Aggregates or
Constituents (skandhas) of our
existence. Individual
existence is made up of these Five Aggregates or
Con-
stituents as follows:
-
1) Corporeality or Matter (rūpa),
-
2) Feelings or Sensations (vedanā),
-
3) Ideation (saññā
in Pāli, saṃjñā in Sanskrit),
-
4) Mental formations (saṅkhāra in Pāli, samskāra in San-
skrit),
-
5) Consciousness (viññāna in Pāli, vijñāna in Sanskrit).
None of the Five Aggregates is the self or soul (attā
in Pāli, ātman in Sanskrit), nor can we locate it in any
of them. On
the other hand, as early Buddhism did
not deny the self in the ethical
sense, later Mahāyāna
developed the theory of
“the Great Self.”
We are always distressed by cravings, thinking that
there is something real
in satisfying these desires in
the mundane world. This mistake about the
true es
sence of reality is the cause of all the sufferings that
affect
our lives. Ignorance is the main cause from which
false desires spring.
Ignorance and false desires are the
theoretical and the practical sides of
one fact. So when
knowledge is attained and cravings are quenched,
suffering comes to end. This state is called
“Nirvāṇa,”
which means the
“cessation” of selfish desires or ig-
norance.
Between ignorance and suffering, Buddhist thinkers
found and formulated
several intermediate steps, and
this formulation was called
“Dependent Origination”
or “Origination
through Dependence” (Paṭiccasamup-
pāda in
Pāli, Pratītyasamutpāda in
Sanskrit). In
Mahāyāna philosophy this term came to
mean “Inter-
related Existence
of all Things.” It asserts that nothing
can exist separately
from other things, and that all
things are interrelated.
In ancient India, belief in rebirth or transmigration
was generally current,
and this conception was associ-
ated with the
doctrine of karma (meaning “act,”
or
“deed”), according to which good conduct brings
a
pleasant and happy result, while bad conduct brings
an evil result.
The karma committed with previous
intention will come to fruition, either
in this life or
in afterlives after death. However, the acceptance of
this belief by Buddhists gave rise to a difficult problem:
How can rebirth
take place without a permanent sub-
ject to be
reborn? The relation between existences in
rebirth has been explained by
the analogy of fire, which
maintains itself unchanged in appearance, yet is
differ-
ent in every moment. In order to
meet this vulnerable
point, some Buddhists later assumed a sort of
soul,
calling it by different names. This assumption gave rise
to the
conception of the fundamental consciousness
(ālaya-vijñāna) of the
Yogācāra (or Vijñānavāda)
school
in Mahāyāna.
