Studies in the Middle Way by Christmas Humphreys

Author:Christmas Humphreys [Humphreys, Christmas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Ethnic Studies, General, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781136772726
Google: MW3aAAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-09-13T05:21:42+00:00

1 The Voice of the Silence

2 The Light of Asia.

IX

Buddhist Morality

SILA is a Sanskrit word which covers the field of morality, or ethics. When practised in relation to Dana, the art of giving, it forms the necessary self-preparation for Bhavana, the road to self-enlightenment by concentration, meditation and contemplation. Its relation to enlightenment is therefore intimate. As Professor Radhakrishnan puts it, ‘Truth can never be perceived except by those who are in love with goodness.’ For goodness, leading through the realm of good and evil, reaches the plane beyond all these illusion-born distinctions. The only barrier which holds us from ‘becoming what we are’ is self, and when the self, the temporary aggregate of passions, fears and prejudices, of hopes and personal desire, has died, even as a fire for want of fuelling, then right and wrong, and all other ‘pairs of opposites’ belonging to the realm of self, will also die.

Morality, then, is the way of the Good, until such time as good and evil are transcended, and it may be described as the common denominator of all religions, for though the systems of philosophy have generally diverged in the long road from the several Founders’ teachings, ethics, in the sense of moral principles, are found to be much the same. It may be said that the really good man will achieve the Goal as soon as those who tread the way of the true or the way of the beautiful, yet these are but aspects of a Middle Way, and ultimately all must develop every capacity of body, heart and mind before perfection is attained. A moral life alone will not lead to enlightenment, for only the purification of the mind will awaken Buddhi, the dormant faculty which must be wakened that the inward eye may see. The development of beauty, goodness and knowledge are so many preparations to that end, and each, in this life or some other, must be severally fulfilled.

The field of morality may be considered in its inner and outer aspects, the former, the development of moral grandeur or nobility of character, manifesting sooner or later as right action, the Karma Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita, or, as Professor Radhakrishnan calls it, the sanctification of daily life. The third to the fifth steps on the Buddhist Eightfold Path, right speech, right action and right livelihood, comprise the field of Sila, first with the negative ‘cease to do evil’, then with the positive ‘learn to do good’; and these, as already set out, enable the pilgrim of the Way to begin to ‘purify his own heart’, and so attain release from the fetters of his unreality.

As between the inner and the outer aspects of morality Buddhism insists on the former’s dominance. As is written in the Dhammapada, the Buddhist manual of morality, ‘All that we are is the result of what we have thought; it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts.’ In other words, character is thought and feeling

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