Buddhist Teachings: Why Changing the World Around Us Starts by Changing Our World Inside Us.

By Adrian Chan-Wyles

The Buddha’s philosophy is a systematic and logical set of guidances that are designed to empower an individual in the development of their minds.

This is so that the state of ‘inner freedom’ is achieved regardless of outer circumstances.

That is to say that the Buddha’s teachings are designed solely to change the inner terrain of the mind, rather than the outer structures of the State, civil society or contemporary culture.

This is an interesting proposition, that has to be compared with other systems that advocate ‘outer’ change as a means to solve humanity’s psychological suffering—change the outer world, and the inner workings of the mind will change accordingly.

If the outer conditions that comprise a State, civil society and prevailing culture is so disposed, the corresponding psychological structures required in the mind of an individual (that enable a successful existence within such a set of outer circumstances), will be formed from the birth of the individual, thus ensuring a certain mind-set suitable for such a society.

The Buddha’s philosophy teaches that the human mind corresponds to the outer world by creating the reflective psychological structures of greed, hatred and delusion.

These structures are created in all human minds, regardless of the structure of the outer society they happen to live in.

For the Buddha, the changing of the outer circumstances of the State, civil society and culture does not change the propensity for the inner generation of greed, hatred and delusion, and further suggests that human beings live more than once, carrying their particular karmic burdens from one existence, into another.

Outer circumstances simply become a set of karmic pre-determinates that are the product of delusion created in the mind. Therefore, it follows that no particular set of outer circumstances are free from being karmic constructs, even if certain outer situations might, for very practical reasons, be considered preferable to other sets of circumstance.

Relatively speaking, existing in different lifetimes, in various times and places, incarnate human beings experience a plethora of social circumstance that might include primitive communal living (tribal), early Greek democracy and totalitarianism. It may include Italian fascism, Soviet communism, Chinese communism, Spanish anarchy, Nazism, British imperialism, European and USA-style democracies, and various forms of theocratic rule, including the Indian caste system, Christianity and Islam, as well as the Tibetan Buddhist State, etc.

In all these—and many other states of social organisation—the Buddha teaches that greed, hatred and delusion lie at their base, and that this base is the human mind.

This is not to say that the accomplishment of ‘inner freedom’ has no plausible effect upon the outer world, but that rather this is missing the point of inner development. If the world is a manifestation of the mind, when the Mind Ground is fully realised, all things are permanently transformed from the perspective of the enlightened mind, even if physical hardships still remain.

On the other hand, the Buddha interfered in worldly events when such interference had the potential to save lives.

He taught his followers to adjust themselves to their prevailing circumstance and although the ordained Sangha lived a life free of the social constraints of the caste system, so-called lay-Buddhists had to apply the Buddha’s teachings whilst fulfilling the prevailing social requirements that existed in State law. The ordained Sangha occupied certain ‘holy spaces’ granted them by the king. Such spaces, (Sangharama), were exempt from secular law, taxation and military conscription.

Many holy men were granted such spaces by a king seeking good karma for himself and his realm—the only condition being that the holy man does not teach his disciples to undermine the State itself. In such cases, the grant of exempted holy land was immediately withdrawn and the community subjected to the full strength of secular law, usually with the charge of treason, etc.

Early Buddhism, therefore, seldom, if ever clashed with political power as such a clash would have resulted in the removal of social conditions that allowed for successful spiritual training and the freeing of the mind.  In a very real sense, the granting of a holy space within society freed the Buddha from the necessity to preach a philosophy of open social revolution, although he did say that the gods were less important than human beings, and that the caste system is delusional in essence.

It must also be remembered that the Buddha pursued his own enlightenment on his own and without the benefit a holy social space per se.

Although he tended to live in forests, his lay-disciples often lived with their families in urban areas. Of course, a corrective outpouring, set to balance what might be viewed as a one-sided practice can be found with the example of Vimalakirti—a fully enlightened lay-follower of the Buddha.

The point is that the Buddha offered free instruction to all without discrimination, and believed that enlightenment was attainable by all.

Indeed, even in his lifetime, many lay people (male and female) attained enlightenment, regardless of their social circumstance. It is not the changing of outer circumstances as such that is important to the Buddha (although this can obviously be helpful for spiritual purposes), but rather that in the enlightened state the perception of physical matter is transformed and the delusive dichotomy of subject-object is thoroughly uprooted.

Although the world may seem the same and that nothing seems to have happened, in fact, everything has changed forever. This suggests that outer circumstance do not have to appear to change if it is to be perceived as ‘different.’

The intellect as it is, can not solve what seems to be a riddle, or an utterance of an illogical nature.

The apparent absurdity is summed-up in the question that asks how can outer circumstance change, but appear to be the same?

If it is the case that outer circumstances are not transformed through the enlightenment experience, then nirvana simply becomes a quieted state of mind that exists in opposition to a physical world in which it has little direct contact with.  The problem with this state is that as a mind exists within a body that has senses, and that as a human being is more than a ‘mind,’ it follows that a mind, (‘quiet’ or otherwise), can never be out of contact with the body it inhabits.

Therefore, the world that surrounds the body.

The enlightenment experience must include a state of consciousness that sweeps through the mind, body and environment, yet simultaneously renders such designations as ‘mind,’ ‘body’ and ‘environment’ thoroughly redundant and meaningless.

This attainment effectively creates a completely new way of viewing the world that has no intellectual relevance for the unenlightened mind. In this respect, the concept of Buddhist inner freedom equates completely with the notion of outer circumstantial transformation in a manner that the unenlightened mind can not conceive.

Simply changing outer circumstances might well create better and fairer living conditions. This idea is not disputed. But such changes, although carrying the immense potential of positive social transformation, do not necessarily ‘enlighten’ the minds of those subjected to them.

The Buddha seems to be saying that regardless of whatever social system or regime an individual inhabits, greed, hatred and delusion remain implicit human psychological traits that must be uprooted through a proper and correct meditation practice.

It is an interesting speculation to consider what would be the case if a being were born into a society that had no wont, and did not create the social conditions for inner greed; that did not separate beings into arbitrary and unjust social divisions (and therefore did not give a foundation for hatred to arise). Or to have a society that provided a perfect education system, an exposure to which did not allow delusion to arise.

Societies that have arisen to date have been structured in such a way so as to be beneficial to some and derogatory to others. There has not been a society as of yet, which could be described as perfect.

Historically, all outer expressions of the organisation of human interaction have been imperfect. In this respect, the Buddha’s system of philosophy is centred around the individual accessing a totality of ‘being’ through the development of the mind. Although this may appear as a pure idealism that conquers a pure materialism, this (dualistic) notion is mistaken.

Terms such as ‘idealism’ and ‘materialism,’ although descriptively useful in the formulation of ideas, nevertheless, lose all descriptive validity in the nirvanic state—which is nothing other than ‘ordinary mind’ thoroughly realised, so that the apparent (and false) barrier between ‘mind’ and ‘matter’ is transformed into a totality of being.

The peculiarity of the Ch’an tradition is that it stands at the fully transformed position, and draws all else into the same enlightened state. It does not negotiate or compromise with delusion.

Without a living example of this transformed, meaning ‘enlightened’ position, there can be no Ch’an tradition.

Adrian Chan-Wyles (Shi Da Dao) received personal and academic instruction for 16 years under the guidance of the eminent British Sinologist Richard Hunn (1949-2006), in the lineage of Ch’an Master Xu Yun (1840-1959) and Charles Luk (1898-1978), and studied the subjects of Chinese Ch’an Buddhism, Daoism, Book of Change (Yijing) studies, Confucianism, and Chinese language and translation skills. He is the current Custodian of the Richard Hunn Association for Ch’an Study (RHACS), and the Spiritual Director of the International Ch’an Buddhism Institute (ICBI).

 

Editor: Daniel Scharpenburg

Photo: DollfacedLynne/Tumblr

*republished with author’s permission Original Source

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