Buddhism 101

by Arnie Kozak

  FIVE HINDRANCES TO SPIRITUAL PROGRESS

  Obstacles on the Path to Enlightenment

  The actions described in the Five Precepts can be seen as hindrances to practicing and living an awakened life. In addition to the Five Precepts and the ten unwholesome actions, the Buddha also discussed the Five Hindrances to spiritual progress.

  The Five Hindrances are:

  1. Doubt

  2. Desire

  3. Ill Will

  4. Restlessness and Compunction

  5. Sloth and Torpor

  As you practice mindfulness and meditation you will become aware of each of the Five Hindrances arising in your mind. You will doubt that what you are doing is meaningful and worthwhile. Don’t you have a million other better things to do? What is so important about just sitting here? All manner of desire, including sexual fantasies, will come up to distract from your object of meditation. You will deal with anger, hatred, and ill will as you dwell on the people and situations in your life. Restlessness and anxiety will arise, and you’ll want to get off the meditation cushion. Sloth and torpor will make you sleepy and will make you want to watch television rather than examine your own mind.

  OVERCOMING HINDRANCES

  Each of these hindrances is something to work through. They can be looked at as gifts that further progress along the Path. Right effort is needed to counteract them. You must exert effort to cut through these resistances, just as the Buddha sat through Mara’s assaults under the Bodhi Tree. Don’t take them personally.

  Khema

  * * *

  Ayya Khema, a noted Buddhist author of twenty-five books, became ordained as a Buddhist nun in Sri Lanka in 1979, when she was given the name of Khema, which means “safety.” In 1987, she coordinated the first international conference of Buddhist nuns in the history of Buddhism, which resulted in the creation of the worldwide Buddhist women’s organization, Sakyadhita. In New York City in 1987, she became the first Buddhist to ever address the United Nations.

  * * *

  It is important not to become entangled in the hindrances. Don’t over identify with them. Everyone goes through them. See if you can observe these feelings and watch them arise and watch them pass. As Ayya Khema said in When the Iron Eagle Flies, “Cessation of suffering is not due to the fact that suffering stops. It is due to the fact that the one who suffers ceases to exist.”

  THE FOUR IMMEASURABLES

  Limitless Abodes

  Buddhism makes goodness an explicit virtue and aspiration. Goodness is embodied in what are known as the Brahma Viharas or the Limitless Abodes or the Four Immeasurables. These include lovingkindness or loving friendliness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. Together they comprise what might be considered emotional intelligence.

  The Buddha felt these qualities arose naturally when one realized the Four Noble Truths. These qualities are, in a sense, outcomes of living a Buddhist life. When you realize the causes of suffering and seek to overcome them, these qualities can come through. Each of them has at its core a lack of self-preoccupation. When you can give up your obsessive preoccupation with “I, me, and mine” a lot of energy is left over to devote to others in the form of lovingkindness, compassion, and rejoicing in their good fortunes. When there is no longer a self to protect, equanimity shows up in its place and you can confront any situation with an even and unperturbed mind. Each of these qualities has a “near enemy,” a quality that seems like it but is not, and a “far enemy” that is its opposite.

  LOVINGKINDNESS (METTA)

  The Buddha said, “You can search through the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” In lovingkindness, you seek to generate feelings of safety, peace, well-being, and freedom for yourself, loved ones, strangers, and even your enemies. The near enemy to lovingkindness is an affection that is motivated by selfishness. The far enemy of lovingkindness is enmity.

  COMPASSION (KARUNA)

  Karuna is an ability to bear witness to suffering without fear. It is to be empathetic with a quality of openness, spaciousness, and stillness. Compassion requires the courage to see what is present and a willingness to hold it in your heart. It is a form of nonjudgmental care of yourself and others. When you are fully present with another you are in a compassionate posture. The near enemy of compassion is pity or sympathy. The far enemy of compassion is cruelty.

  SYMPATHETIC JOY (MUDITA)

  Mudita requires you to relinquish judgment and comparison, and to rejoice in the success and happiness of others, to appreciate the happiness of others. Mudita is an antidote to jealousy, envy, craving, and resentment, all of which are the far enemies of mudita. Mudita is nonselfish, nonattached optimism. Mudita balances karuna by preventing brooding; karuna balances mudita by avoiding sentimentality or ignorant optimism. The near enemy to mudita is exuberance, an excited state of mind that overlays a sense of attachment.

  EQUANIMITY (UPPEKHA)

  Upekkha is usually translated as “equanimity.” This translation captures an important aspect of this state, which is a calm, tranquil mind in the face of any circumstance, even the most challenging ones. Upekkha can also be translated as “interest,” and this interest is how you get to be tranquil during a painful situation. When you are interested in something you are paying more attention to it than to your own painful story about it. Equanimity brings a wise acceptance to every situation. Indifference is the near enemy of equanimity. It’s not just dissociating from unpleasantness that gets you there, it’s clear seeing. Being attached through craving and clinging is the far enemy of equanimity.

  KARMA

  The Nature of Responsibility

  Karma is one of the fundamental concepts of Buddhism. A good grasp of the meaning and implications of karma will help you to appreciate the liberating potential of the Buddha’s teachings. Karma is about responsibility—taking it and understanding how one thing affects another.

  POPULAR MISCONCEPTIONS OF KARMA

  Karma means “deed” or “action” in Sanskrit. However, action is not substituted for karma because karma carries much more weight than the simple understanding found in action. Karmic actions can be behaviors as well as thoughts and emotions.

  Karma is one of the most popular and perhaps least understood concepts in Buddhism. There are multiple ways to consider karma. One way is “local” karma: actions in the present (including mental actions) that have an impact on future experiences. Another is “remote” karma: actions performed in this lifetime that have an impact on future rebirths. Remote karma, of course, depends on the idea of rebirth, which may be an alien idea to many people in the Western world. From a scientific perspective, there is no evidence for rebirth, and the Buddha emphasized local karma in his teachings because it was not necessary to invoke the idea of rebirth to understand the importance of karma. Your direct experience can reveal the working of local karma. What you think now will affect how you feel later. What you do now will bear fruit at some future point in time. This is different from universal balance, that is, “you reap what you sow,” which is a common misconception of karma.

  Here are some of the most common misconceptions about karma.

  Misconception: Karma Is Retaliation from an Outside Force

  How many times have you heard someone say, “She has bad karma,” referring to someone who has had a run of bad luck. In the West, karma has often been interpreted as being equal to the principle of “an eye for an eye”—the retaliatory principle that you are punished with the same punishment you inflict on another. However, this is a misunderstanding of the Buddhist meaning of karma. According to the Buddha’s teaching, you are not made to pay for past mistakes, nor are you rewarded for your past good deeds—rather you are what you do or intend to do. More to the point, karma is the process by which your actions shape your life.

 
Santideva

  * * *

  Santideva was an Indian Mahayana monk and scholar who studied at the renowned Nalanda University. He was born during the last half of the seventh century and was known for teaching the bodhisattva’s way of life.

  * * *

  Since the Buddha did not acknowledge the presence of a theistic power, karma would not be associated with an external, objective judge. In the words of Santideva (a seventh- and eighth-century Buddhist teacher), “Suffering is a consequence of one’s own action, not a retribution inflicted by an external power . . . We are the authors of our own destiny; and being the authors, we are ultimately . . . free . . .”

  Misconception: Karma Involves All Actions

  Karma only involves intentional actions. Therefore, if you were to step accidentally on a spider, you would not invoke karma. You unintentionally killed the spider but there was no intent to hurt the spider.

  However, if you decide beforehand that you are going to kill the damn spider that is living in the garage and stomp on it with malice aforethought, you will experience the karmic ramification of an action that is laced with hatred and aversion. If you understand karma as one moment conditioning future moments, you can see the interdependent chain of cause and effect. When your mind is clouded by aggression this will generate particular effects. When your mind is occupied by peace this will generate its own particular effects. This effect will be on your own mind and will influence your behaviors that, in turn, will affect others.

  * * *

  “It is mental volition, O monks, that I call karma. Having willed, one acts through body, speech or mind.”

  —The Buddha

  * * *

  It might be helpful to set aside notions of “good” and “bad” karma because this distinction just creates confusion and reinforces misconceptions. Instead, think of skillful and unskillful actions. If you remember that actions include behavior and mental actions (thoughts, feelings, and images that you intentionally engage with and nurture), you will discover that certain actions lead to beneficial results; that is, you feel good and others around you feel good.

  If you walk down the street smiling, you will feel good and others around you will feel good. This is acting skillfully (“good karma”). You will also discover that certain other actions lead to harmful results; that is, you feel bad and others around you feel bad. If you yell and criticize and kick the dog, you will be lost in feeling bad, later experience regret, and adversely impact those around you. This is acting unskillfully (“bad karma”). Acting from the three fires of greed, hatred, and delusion is unskillful; while acting from their opposites—generosity, kindness, and wisdom—is skillful.

  KARMA AS THE ETHICAL CENTER

  In Buddhism actions matter. And, therefore, karma serves as an ethical compass for your life. Karma is not a complicated concept. It is as simple as this: what you do, what you say, and what you feel will have an effect.

  Effects of Actions

  You can taste the effects of some types of karma right away; whereas other karmic actions will bear fruit at some point in the future. Karma points to the realization that everything is interconnected in some way.

  But your actions have much greater effect than one day’s span. Karma is a process of constant change. If you do skillful acts now, you can change your later karma. For Buddhists, the belief in karma is a guiding moral compass. However, do not worry or obsess on past actions. Take care of your life today. Live in the moment and change the present. Thereby you can change the future as well.

  Traditionally, Buddhists would undertake their lives in a way to maximize their skillful karma by generating merit. They do this by donating food to begging Buddhist monks, donating money to the monastery, and doing good deeds. If you live your life in accordance with the Buddhist teachings and moral principles, you will automatically be on the way toward generating merit and limiting unskillful or destructive karma.

  Whatever the ultimate truth of karma and rebirth, it can’t hurt to live a good life that seeks to limit harming others and that seeks to be less selfish and more generous (in fact, research suggests generous people are happier). Another important consideration about karma is that not all suffering is the result of karma. Local conditions (for instance, a high temperature and internal conditions, such as a viral infection) have nothing to do with your karma. It is only through deep wisdom (prajna) that you would be able to know which bits of suffering are due to past karma and which are due to local conditions.

  KARMA AND REBIRTH

  In the traditional Buddhist view of the world, moving between lives and rebirths is not a random act but is determined by the actions in your current life. In this manner, you would be the heir to your own actions. As Peter Harvey says in An Introduction to Buddhism, if you commit acts of hatred—violent acts, such as murder, rape, incest, or bodily harm—you will be reborn into a life in hell. Here again the question arises whether this hell is meant literally or metaphorically. Unskillful or unwholesome actions of hatred and aggression leave one in a state that is very much like hell.

  On the night of the Buddha’s enlightenment he is said to have remembered 100,000 past lives. How is such a statement to be interpreted? How critical is a belief in rebirth to the early teachings of the Buddha? The cultural milieu of ancient India during the Buddha’s time involved a vast and colorful universe of gods and goddesses. The Buddha speaks of gods and devas in his sermons, but he did not see them as godlike in the common idea of gods. These gods were trapped in samsara just as humans.

  Rebirth is a fertile metaphor. It is not necessary to believe in rebirth to be a Western Buddhist or to derive benefit from the Buddha’s teachings. On the one hand, as a metaphor, rebirth is a potent concept about the cycles of experience that occur right here and now. On the other hand, Tibetan Buddhists take the concept of rebirth literally and base much of their culture, beliefs, and rituals on this possibility.

  Book of the Dead

  * * *

  The Tibetan Book of the Dead is a classic of Buddhist wisdom on the process of dying. It colorfully portrays the Buddhist cosmos and what to expect in death and rebirth and how to influence this process. It has become an influential text in the Western world for helping people to cope with death and dying.

  * * *

  Whether metaphorical or actual, “rebirth” occurs in every moment during this lifetime. When you breathe, your breath goes through a cycle of birth and death. As you move through life, you go through cycles of thought and emotion; everything is constantly changing. This is the cycle of becoming, and when characterized by greed, hatred, and delusion leads to never-ending cycles of suffering. The goal of Buddhist practice is to become liberated from these cycles of becoming that infiltrate every moment of life.

  THE BUDDHIST CONCEPT OF REBIRTH

  Like a Candle Flame

  If there is no self and no soul, then you may be wondering: what is it that experienes rebirth? How can karmic fruits be carried into a next life? According to those who believe in rebirth, the personality of “me” and “mine” does not persist, but the mental energy, or samskara, is what Buddhists would say persists in the form of impersonal consciousness. That energy is what, for instance, the Tibetan Buddhists believe takes rebirth.

  However, if human birth is considered to be precious and rare, you might be wondering what the universe was doing for billions of years before human beings evolved. The idea that human life is precious seems a bit humanocentric given the vast expanse of geological time where humanity is but a blink (unless this notion of linear time is dispensed). Again, the issue is whether you can derive benefit from the Buddha’s teaching without having to take these ideas literally. The answer is a resounding yes.

  How Long Is Buddhist Time?

  * * *

  The Buddha is said to have remembered ninety-one kalpas of time. A kalpa is an enormous amount of time. For example, if there was a mountain that reached many miles into the sky, and that mountain w
as made of pure granite, and once every one hundred years that mountain was stroked with a silk cloth held in the mouth of a bird, then a kalpa would be the time it took to wear the mountain away to nothing.

  * * *

  However, the notion of rebirth may be congenial to you. The Buddhist notion of rebirth is different than other concepts of reincarnation that you may be familiar with. Since there is no personal essence, “you” cannot take rebirth. Something carries forward but it is not your personality or “soul.” You can think of it like a candle flame. One candle flame can light another candle. The flame “passes” to the next but has a unique identity. Within the system of birth and rebirth, there are many worlds and many ways in which one could be reborn—endless worlds and endless ways to be reborn.

  Whether conceived of as actual rebirths or rebirth into the next moment, these cycles involve not only human births. A person is not necessarily born as a human in every lifetime. There are also animals, spirits, gods, titans, and the inhabitants of hell. The early Buddhists rejected the Hindu caste system, so in rebirth it was possible to move from a god to a human, an animal to a god. There was no safety in reaching a higher life form. Every life form was subject to death and therefore rebirth. Most Buddhists in the Western world would take these realms and forms to be metaphorical or mythical.