III. Some Expressions of the Ethical Spirit of Buddhism
Introductory
Buddhism has been called the Christianity of the Orient. Like Christianity, it has been a great moralizing force in history. Its ethical ideal has been just such a factor in the moral life of the East as the ethical ideal of Christianity has been in the moral life of the West.
To portray even in scantiest outline the influence of this ideal upon the different peoples who have accepted it as their standard of goodness, or whose moral codes have felt its modifying effects, would lead us far beyond the limits of our work. In what follows we shall aim at nothing more—after having first remarked the ethical kinship of the Buddhist reform with other contemporary reform movements—than to note briefly the practical outworkings of the ideal in three or four departments of the moral domain.
The ethical relationships of the Buddhist reform
We shall understand best the import for the moral evolution of humanity of that remarkable revolution in Brahmanic India which resulted in the establishment of Buddhism throughout the peninsula and in other countries of the Far East, if we first notice its ethical kinship with other reform movements which, about the close of the sixth pre-Christian century, make a dividing line in the inner histories of so many of the progressive societies and cultures of that age.[287]
In Greece Pythagoreanism was rising. This movement was in its essential spirit a social and moral reform. It was an attempt to introduce a true ethics in Greek city life, and to find a basis for morality in the deep intuitions of the human soul.[288]
In Israel the Isaiah of the Exile was proclaiming the loftiest ethical doctrines ever taught by Hebrew prophet, and in his interpretation of the moral government of Yahweh was scattering the seed from which was to spring up a new ethical life among men.
In Persia the great teacher Zarathustra (Zoroaster), with like vision of moral things, was declaring to the followers of Ahura Mazda that what God requires of men is purity of purpose, truthfulness in word and act, and unceasing warfare against evil within and without.
In China the Master, Confucius, reaffirming the teachings of antiquity, was inculcating essentially the same truth—that the sum of true morality is reverence, obedience, and right living.
It probably would be unhistorical to suppose that there was any actual connection between these several ethical or religious reform movements in these widely separated lands. They are brought together here merely that they may be used to interpret one another in terms of ethical progress, and that they may bear witness to the substantial oneness of the expressions of the moral faculty of man in response to the same or similar intellectual and social stimulus.
The ethical content for the masses of Buddha’s message
The question naturally arises, How could Buddha’s dismal doctrine of annihilation as the ultimate aim and end of moral striving—for this dogma was undoubtedly one of the fundamental principles of primitive Buddhism—ever have been received by the multitude as a word of consolation and hope? What is there of ethical authority or appeal in such a doctrine to constitute it the motive force in a great popular moral reform? The answer is that although Buddha himself probably believed that death for the perfect man meant absolute extinction of being, nevertheless he lay no emphasis upon this part of his world philosophy. He knew very well that it would be a hard doctrine for many to receive, and when questioned about it he was reticent. It was his other doctrine, the way in which one may escape painful rebirths, upon which Buddha laid the stress of his teaching. And here his simple word to the people was this: Be gentle and merciful and just; get rid of all impure and craving desires, and then at death, instead of suffering some painful rebirth, you will be reborn into a happier condition here on earth or in some other world. In a word, he said, Follow after goodness and it will be well with you.
To be able to understand how this simple word should be received with such enthusiasm by the multitude, we need to bear in mind how hard the way of escape from painful rebirths had been made by the Brahmans. They had taught the people that salvation was possible only through ritual and ceremony, through costly offerings to the gods, through the payment of liberal fees to the priests, through penances and ascetic practices.[289] Thus the way of deliverance had been made so hard that few could follow it, and so unethical that it left the heart cold and the conscience unsatisfied.
The situation was like that in Judea when the greatest of the prophets, in opposition to the teachings of the scribes and Pharisees who were laying upon men’s shoulders a burden of ritualism too heavy to be borne, declared that man finds salvation not through ritual or sacrifice, but through humility, obedience, and love—and the people heard him gladly and followed him, because his yoke was easy and his burden light.
So was it in India. Buddha interprets anew to men the divine message that all which is required of them is purity and justice and tenderness toward all creatures. The spirit of the heavy-burdened multitude witnesseth with the spirit of the Prophet that this is indeed a true and divine Word; and Buddhism, with its ethical enthusiasms and fresh hopes, marks a new era in the moral evolution of the peoples of the Eastern world.
Monasticism as an ethical expression of Buddhism
In explaining the different degrees of moral attainment possible to the Buddhist, we spoke of the monastic ideal of virtue. This part of Buddhist ethical theory has left a deep impress upon practical morality in all those lands into which the faith of the Buddha has spread. Monasticism has been, and is still to-day, just such a dominant factor in the moral life of all Buddhist communities of eastern Asia as it was in the moral life of medieval Christian Europe.
The causes that fostered the upgrowth of the system in the East were essentially the same as those that fostered its development in the West. Among these causes a prominent place must be assigned that feeling of world-weariness to which we have already more than once referred, a feeling evoked by the burden and ache of existence. It was this predisposition of spirit that caused the doctrine of renunciation of the world preached by the disciples of Buddha to appeal with such persuasion to multitudes throughout all the Eastern lands.
We may stop to note but one of various points of difference between Buddhist and Christian monasticism. The latter, in general, recognized the ethical value of labor. This feeling found expression in various forms of activity among the monks, particularly in agricultural labor and in the work of the scriptorium. It was this which not only helped to keep life in the Western monasteries morally wholesome for a period, but which also made the monastic system such an efficient force in the conquest and redemption of the waste lands of Europe and in the upbuilding of Western civilization in the early medieval age. Now Buddhist monasticism never recognized the moral value of work.[290] Useful labor had no place among the requirements of the monastic ideal. Here doubtless is to be sought one cause of that lamentable moral degeneracy into which the monastic communities soon fell in almost all the lands whither Buddhism was carried by the missionary zeal of its early converts.
Practical effects of the animal ethics of Buddhism
We have seen that under the Buddhist system the whole animal and insect world is brought within the domain of ethics. Buddhist morality has gone to a greater extreme here than any other ethical system, excepting that of Jainism. The inculcating of this sympathy with all living creatures has developed one of the most attractive traits of the Hindu character.[291] But the extreme emphasis laid upon this branch of ethics by Buddhism, Jainism, and modern Brahmanism or Hinduism has had practical consequences of a very serious nature. The scruple in regard to killing animals, even harmful creatures, has cost India millions of human lives. It has been a contributory cause of the country being overrun with dangerous animals, such as tigers and venomous snakes, which destroy many thousands of human beings annually, and has even fostered the propagation of forms of life which are now known to be effective agents in the spread of infectious diseases like the bubonic plague.[292] Nothing is surer than that at this point the ethics of Buddhism must sooner or later feel the modifying influence of Western science.
The Buddhist spirit of toleration
As an efficient force in promoting a spirit of the broadest toleration, Buddhism holds a unique place among the great religious and ethical systems of the world.[293] An edict of the Buddhist Emperor Asoka, dating from the third century B.C., inculcates the practice of toleration in these words: “A man must not do reverence to his own sect by disparaging that of another man for trivial reasons. Depreciation should be for adequate reasons only, because the sects of other people deserve reverence for one reason or another.”
The spirit of this imperial edict has been obeyed wherever the word of the Buddha has prevailed. “There is no record known to me,” writes Rhys Davids, “in the whole long history of Buddhism, throughout the many centuries where its followers have been for such lengthened periods supreme, of any persecution by the Buddhists of the followers of any other faith.”[294]
Disesteem of the military life
Like Confucianism, Buddhism in its spirit and its ethical teachings is, as we have seen, absolutely opposed to the spirit of militarism in every form. Doubtless it has been a potent force in fostering among the peoples of eastern Asia an anti-military spirit and in creating a disesteem for the warlike qualities of character.[295] From one land—the Tartar land of Thibet—it has banished absolutely the war spirit and practically war itself.[296] “It has taken all the fierceness out of the Mongols,” and thus rendered useless the Great Wall built to check their raids into China.[297]
Softening effects on national character of Buddhist teachings
Buddhism has been well characterized as the incarnation of sympathy with suffering. Inculcating a morality of gentleness, instilling tenderness toward every living thing, it has exercised a softening influence upon the spirit and temper of every race that has received its teachings. We have in the preceding chapter noted its humanizing effects upon Japanese morality.[298] Even in India, where after a comparatively short period of supremacy it yielded sway again to Brahmanism, it left significant traces of its brief dominance in the deepened humanitarianism of the restored creed of the Brahmans, and in certain of those traits and dispositions of the native races which render truthfully descriptive the term “gentle Hindu.” “The land of meekness and gentleness,” were the words used by a native Hindu[299] at a recent Lake Mohonk Conference to express the ethical character of India.
Historical significance of the ethical unity created by Buddhism
There is deep significance for the moral evolution of the human race in this ethical propaganda of Buddhism. For just as Christianity has created an ethical unity among the nations of the Western world, so has Buddhism created a certain ethical unity among the races of the Eastern world. The historical importance of this lies in the fact that these two ethical systems, though differing in form and content, are in spirit essentially the same: both are moralities of universalism; both teach the brotherhood of man; both exalt the gentle[300] and self-denying virtues; both enjoin self-conquest; both inculcate the duty of universal benevolence.
Because of this moral kinship, the ethical conquests of Buddhism—and there is not a land in the Far East that has not felt its influence—are in a degree supplemental to those of Christianity in the West, and are thus an important step in the creation of the ethical unity of the world. India and Japan are both nearer to us ethically to-day than they would be, were it not for the modifying influence of Buddhist teachings upon the ethical spirit and temper of their peoples.[301]