History as past ethics; an introduction to the history of morals

by P. V. N. Myers

II. The Ideal

The truth of the eightfold path

The ethics of Buddhism is summed up in the formula of the truth of the eightfold path.[277] The truth of the eight-membered way is this: the only path which leads to the quieting of pain is the eightfold holy path—right belief, right resolve, right speech, right behavior, right occupation, right effort, right thought, right concentration.[278]

The essence of all this expressed in familiar ethical phrase is that the demands of morality are right thoughts, right words, and right deeds. As the eight requirements are interpreted and expounded by Buddhist teachers, they demand a mind free from all evil passions and unholy desires (and, according to the thoroughgoing Buddhist, of every desire whatsoever)[279] and “a heart of love far-reaching, grown great, and beyond measure.” This is the path leading to deliverance from transmigration, this the path leading to the quieting of pain, this the path leading to the sweet rest and peace of Nirvana.

It will be worth our while to note with some attention some of the special primary duties and virtues which are included in these general demands of self-conquest and unmeasured love.

Particular virtues and duties of the ideal

One of the primary duties of the true Buddhist is to seek knowledge, for true knowledge, insight, is the cure for desire. This knowledge which quenches all craving thirst is best attained, so Buddha taught, through meditation.[280] One must meditate on the transitoriness of life, on pain, on death, on truth, on gentleness, on love. It was through profound meditation under the Bo tree that Gautama became the Buddha, “The Enlightened.”

Another cardinal virtue of the Buddhist ideal of character is universal benevolence. By no other ethical system has such stress been laid upon the duty of gentleness to everything that has life. The animal world is here brought within the sanctuary of morality and safeguarded by ethical sentiment. It is of course the doctrine of transmigration, which Buddhism inherits from Brahmanism, which gives animal ethics the prominent place it holds in Buddhist morality.[281]

Still a third requirement of the true Buddhist is toleration, which follows as a corollary from the virtue of universal benevolence. In the prominent place assigned this virtue in the ideal of character, Buddhism stands alone among the great world religions.

A fourth cardinal duty of the ideal is to make known to all men the eightfold way to salvation. Buddha’s command to his disciples was, “Go ye now and preach the most excellent Law, explaining every point thereof, unfolding it with diligence and care.” This is a duty which brings its own reward; for the exercise of compassion and charity produces that serenity of spirit which is the aim of moral striving; and hence nothing advances one more rapidly on the way to salvation than preaching the good tidings and laboring to lessen the sorrows and lighten the burdens of one’s fellow creatures. The moral requirement to preach to all the most excellent way made of Buddhism a missionary religion. In a few centuries after the death of Buddha devoted missionaries had spread the new faith throughout the Far East.

The different degrees of moral attainment

There are in Buddhism three grades of moral attainment. The lowest is that which may be reached by any one in the ordinary life. Through purity of thought and word and deed, through the exercise of universal kindliness, and by the fulfillment of every duty pertaining to his station in life, one attains such a degree of moral excellence that he may at least hope at death to avoid painful rebirth.

The second degree of moral excellence is that attained by the monk of Gautama’s Order. The idea of the Buddhist here is like that of the Christian respecting the monastic life. For centuries in the West the ascetic life was looked upon as more perfect than the ordinary life, and as the better and surer way to salvation. It is the same in Buddhist lands. The goal striven after, the extinction of unholy desires, the Buddhist believes is most quickly and surely reached by him who has rid himself of the cares and worries of domestic life, and withdrawn from all the distractions of the world.

The prime duty of the Buddhist monk is meditation, which takes the place of prayer in the code of the Christian recluse. Through following faithfully and patiently all the rules of the Order he may hope to attain such comparative perfection that at his death he will be reborn in some better state.

The third and highest degree of moral attainment can be reached only in the Arhatship. The Arhat is what we would call the perfect man. He is one who, like the Buddha, reaches a state of perfect insight or mental illumination and of perfect freedom from all desires[282] save the desire for Nirvana. This state is reached only through absolute renunciation of the world. He who would be perfect must leave all earthly pleasures behind, and calling nothing his own, with all appetites stilled, passionless and desireless, go out from home into homelessness.[283] In such a one karma becomes extinct, and for him there are no new births. “The living, moving body of the perfect man is visible still,” says Rhys Davids in explaining this state, ... “but it will decay and die and pass away, and as no new body will be formed, where life was, will be nothing.”[284]

The genuine altruism of Buddhist ethics

It is impossible to conceive a higher altruism than that inculcated by the higher thoroughgoing Buddhism. Since it denies the existence of the soul,—nothing save the seed (karma) of another but different life remaining at death,—when one strives to break the chain of existence, to make an end of the weary cycle of births, such a one is seeking good not for himself but for another. In the words of Dr. Hopkins, “It is to save from sorrow this son of one’s acts that one should seek to find the end.”[285] Thus orthodox Buddhism alone, of all the great ethical systems of history, refuses to sully virtue with promises of reward. Its morality stands absolutely alone, unsupported by the hope of recompense either in this world or in the world to come. “Buddhism alone teaches that to live on earth is weariness, that there is no bliss beyond, and that one should yet be calm, pure, loving, and wise.”[286]

Another thing especially noteworthy regarding the ethics of Buddhism is that it is the ethics of naturalism. “For the first time in the history of the world,” in the words of Rhys Davids, “Buddhism proclaimed a salvation which each man could gain for himself and by himself in this world, during this life, without the least reference to God or the gods, either great or small.” In this respect Buddhism is somewhat like the present-day socialism of the materialistic school, which ardently proclaims justice, equity, and universal brotherhood, but says nothing about God.