Buddhism presents us with a particular orientation in the world. Another word for this broad sense of orientation in the world is cosmology. <\/span>It seems that what unites Buddhist throughout history and geography is this shared cosmology: a cosmology in which we find \u201can ethically oriented \u201csamsaric\u201d cosmology coexist[ing] with an ethically oriented \u201cBuddhic\u201d cosmos brought into being by the achievements and teachings of the Gautama Buddha.\u201d (1) Enough with teaching the Dharma<\/a> [this is the Buddha thinking to himself] Those dyed in lust, wrapped in darkness \u201cFortunately,\u201d writes Swearer, \u201cBrahma Sahampati intercedes on behalf of the world by pleading with the Buddha: \u201cThe world will be lost, the world will perish, since the mind of the Tathagata, accomplished and fully enlightened, inclines to inaction rather than teaching the Dharma.\u201d Upon hearing Brahma\u2019s plea, the Blessed One \u201cout of compassion for all beings surveyed the world with the eye of a Buddha\u201d and decided to teach the supreme truth he had attained in his enlightenment.\u201d<\/p>\n Swearer concludes that, \u201cThe story demonstrates that although priority is given to the wisdom of enlightenment, the most complete expression of Buddhahood includes the compassion that motivates the Buddha to teach the dharma to a suffering humanity.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Swearer\u2019s reading of wisdom having priority over compassion, while common, is both outdated and problematic. For instance it raises the obvious question, \u201cdid the Buddha not have compassion before his chat with Sahampati?\u201d<\/span> In his discussion of this question, Damien Keown (1992, The Nature of Buddhist Ethics, <\/span>pp.72-76) finds that, \u201cThe Buddha\u2019s moral concern was not a consequence of his enlightenment: it preceded it and, indeed, motivated it.\u201d (p.73). This conclusion is supported by Aronson in Love and Sympathy in Theravada Buddhism<\/span> and argued against by Jones, \u201cTheravada Buddhism and Morality\u201d (JAAR 1979).<\/p>\n While still a matter of some dispute, further analysis of the Buddha\u2019s awakening suggest that these two aspects must be fully realized (in fact, complete wisdom is none other than compassion and vice versa), and that textual preference of one over another was likely for pedagogical reasons. This particular instance was likely one of many cases in which aspects of the existing Brahmanic worldview were turned in service of a new Buddhist supremacy. We could go into further depth with the usefulness and difficulties of these analyses, but for the sake of time we will now simply look at a discourse from the P\u0101li Canon that brings wisdom and compassion as well as ethics and meditation together into a single sphere. (the Karaniya Metta Sutta)<\/p>\n <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n 1. Cosmology, Frank E. Reynolds & Jonathan W. Schofer in Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics, (2005), p.121.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n 2. For instance as early as F. Max M\u00fcller, see Sully, James (1891) Pessimism: A History and A Criticism, pp.37-38.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n
<\/a>
What that means is that the Buddhist, starting with the historical Buddha himself 2500 years ago, sees the cosmos from two standpoints (to borrow Kantian language). The first standpoint is normal everyday life, dominated by the eight worldly conditions (<\/span>a\u1e6d\u1e6dha lokadhamm\u0101<\/i><\/span><\/span>): gain and loss, fame and disrepute, praise and blame, pleasure and pain<\/span>. But the Buddha elucidated (we could say introduced but that would be incorrect) a path to freedom from all of these, or at least freedom from the \u201chedonic treadmill\u201d of craving that goes with the former and the mental anguish that tends to accompany the latter. This \u201cBuddhic\u201d or awakened standpoint is said to be one of perfect mental clarity, understanding of the \u201ctrue nature\u201d of all things and thus freedom from getting upset with life\u2019s natural ebb and flow.<\/span> The Buddha and his awakened followers, the arahats<\/span>, still ate, slept, and had illnesses and died. Yet the difference between them and the unawakened has often been described both in terms of what they lacked<\/span>, (greed, hatred, delusion) and what they had <\/span>in terms of simple awareness along the lines of: \u201cwhen they ate they were aware of themselves eating, when they walked they were aware of themselves walking, when they felt pain they were aware of feeling pain<\/span>.\u201d Thus we find the two very different standpoints within Buddhism.<\/span> Scholars who accuse Buddhism of being overly pessimistic and world or life-denying tend to look only at the former, \u201csamsaric\u201d perspective,(2) and those who find Buddhism to be overly dry and detached have probably only been exposed to the latter, \u201cBuddhic\u201d perspective.(3) A subtle example of the supposed tension between the two perspectives is found in a recent work by Donald Swearer. We begin with the canonical account of the Buddha just after his awakening: (4)<\/p>\n
That even I found hard to reach;
For it will never be perceived
By those who live in lust and hate. <\/p>\n
Will never discern this abstruse Dharma
Which goes against the worldly stream,
Subtle, deep, and difficult to see. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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