Kerry
Trembath, Sydney, March 2000
This is the edited text of
a talk given on Sunday 26 March 2000 to members of the Indonesian Buddhist
Association at the premises of the Buddhist Council of New South Wales,
Eastlakes, Sydney, Australia.
In
other gatherings where the focus has been on how much the world's major
religions have in common, I have spoken about the many similarities and areas
of agreement between Buddhism and other world religions. These common threads are very important, and
should be frequently called to mind.
Religious belief and practice should never be the basis for intolerance,
discrimination, or social discord. But
it is also important to remember that there are many ways in which Buddhism is
different from other world religions, and it is on these differences that I
wish to focus today. My hope is that
this will help us all to be more aware of what it really means to be a Buddhist,
and that our increased understanding of our own beliefs and practices will help
us in our interactions with other members of our community whose beliefs and
practices are different.
The
first and most obvious way in which Buddhism differs from theistic religions
such as Christianity and Islam is in relation to belief in a supreme
being. The Buddha rejected the concept
of an omniscient and omnipotent creator god as both unthinkable and unnecessary. Buddhists do not deny the existence of
various gods or deities, which we call devas.
However these beings, although living in heavenly abodes with many
refined pleasures, and possessed of powers beyond those of human beings, are
not eternal gods. They are still
subject to passing away and to rebirth according to their kamma. Buddhists do not attach any particular
importance to devas, and we do not believe that they can help us to attain
liberation, as that can only be done through our own efforts.
Buddhists
do not believe that the world was created by a god, or that the world
necessarily had a beginning at all.
Buddhism teaches that there are innumerable worlds that come into
existence, decline and break up over immeasurable periods of time, and that
this has been happening countless numbers of times and without beginning.
Buddhists
do not believe there will be a sudden or apocalyptic end to the world, brought
about by the intervention of divine forces.
The world will wind down and break up eventually, but this is to be
expected in accordance with the natural laws of the universe.
Furthermore,
the Buddha cautioned us about not wasting our time in speculations about the
nature of the universe. To the Buddha,
the world is nothing but samsara, a cycle of repeated birth and death for those
still trapped in samsara. This is
mirrored in the repeated arising and decay of worlds, but the interdependence
of all things makes it pointless to single out any one point or event as the
beginning or end. The important thing
for us who are living in samsara is to work towards our liberation from
suffering.
It
follows from the above that Buddhists do not believe in revelation, where the
wishes and commands of a supreme being are communicated to the world through
sacred writings or a holy book, often through the inspiration of a prophet.
The
Buddha is not considered to be a prophet, as he did not claim to be inspired by
a supreme being. He made it clear that
what he taught he had discovered for himself, and that it was possible for
others to follow the path and discover the same truths for themselves.
Buddhists
accept that the texts that contain the Buddha's teachings were written down by
his disciples, who were human beings and therefore capable of error. The Buddha's words were recorded after his
passing away, first by memory and recitation, and only later in writing. Buddhists are not expected to believe
something just because it is written in a Buddhist text. They are encouraged to put the teachings
into practice in their daily lives, from which they can validate them by their
own direct experience.
Buddhists do not accept the existence of an essential self or
soul that continues as an entity after death.
We believe that there is nothing in this world or any other world that
is eternal or unchanging. The
individual person is comprised of a constantly changing pattern of matter and
energy. However we do not subscribe to
a strictly materialist or humanist view that our existence ends at death. Our past actions condition our present,
which in turn conditions our future, even beyond death. Our kamma therefore conditions whether or
not we are reborn, which of the realms of existence we will be reborn into, and
what kind of existence we will have. As
in the case of speculations about the nature of the universe, the Buddha
regarded speculation about the soul as a useless distraction from the urgent
task of working towards our liberation.
Buddhists
do not believe that our actions are judged by a supreme being as being either
sinful or meritorious according to whether they are consistent with the wishes
and demands of the supreme being. We
believe that all our intentional actions (kamma) have consequences (vipaka),
but the law of kamma is an impersonal natural law that operates without
reference to a lawgiver. At a practical
level, this means that Buddhists agree with other world religions that we are
responsible for the consequences of our actions, and that such consequences
will be experienced whether in this life or the next.
Buddhists
do not seek forgiveness for their actions from a supreme being. We will inevitably bear the consequences of
our actions, and we cannot be absolved from those consequences by any external agent
such as a supreme being. We do not
believe that another individual, human or divine, can redeem us, ie can atone
for our wrongdoings by an act of sacrifice and suffering. Only by changing our own present behaviour
can we influence the consequences we will experience in the future.
Buddhists
do not believe in an eternal heaven or hell.
We believe that after death rebirth can take place in any of a number of
different existences, including a heavenly realm and a hellish realm, but existence
in these realms is temporary, just as it is in this world.
A
belief in rebirth has been found in other religions and philosophies. But the Buddhist belief in rebirth is
different in significant ways from the belief in reincarnation or transmigration. A belief in transmigration requires the
belief in a soul that is reborn as another being, but Buddhism has rejected the
existence of an eternal soul.
Reincarnation requires us to believe that an individual's personality,
memories and other attributes can be carried forward after death and be reborn,
but Buddhism teaches that all the constituents of our existence become
dissolved at death and that only our clinging to life and our kamma connect us
from one life to the next.
Venerable
K. Sri Dhammananda, What Buddhists Believe, Buddhist Missionary Society, Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia, 4th edition, 1987.
Venerable
S. Dhammika, All About Buddhism, Buddha Dhamma Mandala Society, Singapore,
1990.
John
Snelling, The Buddhist Handbook, Rider, London, 1987.