God In The Buddha

By Kapila Abhayawansa -January 10, 2014

Prof Kapila Abhayawansa

Articles “God In Buddhism?” and “From Siddhartha Gautama to God” written respectively by Mr. Shyamon Jayasinghe and Dr. Jagath Asoka appeared in Colombo Telegraph gave me the idea to write something revealing the true nature of popular Buddhist practices. It seems to me that not only both writers but also many amongst us who criticize popular Buddhist activities fail to understand the complex nature, different dispositions and the levels of the understanding of the masses in the world. We cannot put all the people in one category due to diverse mental capacity of the people. There is no one single medicine for all the ailments. The Buddha has understood this situation of the world. He made use of different skillful means to take all the people onto one platform. Once, the Buddha proclaimed: “I do not say that one can win the final knowledge at the very beginning. It is had from a gradual discipline, a gradual mode of action and conduct”.  (na āyatkeneva aññārādhanam vadāmi. Apica anupubba-sikkhā anupubba-kiriyā anupubba-patipadā aññārādhanam hoti.-M.I.479).

Most of the Buddhists not only in Sri lanka but also in all the Buddhist countries irrespective of their traditions such as Theravada, Mahayana and Tantrayana perform popular religious activities in their day to day life. We cannot say that all such activities are based on wrong beliefs. It is true that people practice them with the blind faith without understanding their true values. Originally, such popular practices were introduced to the ordinary people by the Buddhist monks in order to keep them away from the unrighteous and bad activities which are harmful to both themselves and others (pāpā nivārenti) and to encourage them to cultivate Buddhist virtues such as liberality, generosity, gratitude, unity, collective responsibility, respect to the worthy ones and so on (kalyāne nivesenti). Usually, ordinary people are unable to grasp anything without an object or a symbol. Direct lessens of ethics or philosophy wouldn’t be fruitful on them. Moral sense can be implanted in their mind through the symbols. For an example, statue of the Buddha has been taken as an object for veneration as a means to be mindful on the virtues of the Buddha. It should be mentioned that early Buddhism recognizes mindfulness on the virtues of the Buddha (buddhānussati) as one of the meditation subjects. We have to understand original implications of all those activities although most of the people make use of them in the wrong way. I do not find anything wrong there if the people practice them grasping the virtues involved with them as a preparatory measure to reach the subsequent step on the path of wisdom acknowledged by the Buddha.

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