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WHAT makes a School of
Buddhism esoteric rather than exoteric? Esoteric does not mean that
anything is kept secret from outsiders. It simply means what goes
on in the heart; an inner process. There is no reliance on Scriptures,
other people's authority, rituals, etc. Of course one studies the
Scriptures, of course one listens to people who have knowledge,
and of course one uses ritual as a skilful means if one is that
way inclined — but none of these is authority.
So — what can be relied on? The very fact
of enlightenment itself. The inner teaching passes on like a flame
from one person to another, and this has been happening from teacher
to pupil all through the ages. We call it the Transmission of the
Lamp. It is not the outward appearance of a teacher which is important,
nor the words he (or she) speaks, although he will naturally use
those suitable for the occasion — but, to what extent does
he demonstrate the Dharma?
The Buddha himself was a teacher like this. In
the Diamond Sutra he says:
Those who by my form do see
me,
And those who follow me by voice
Wrong the efforts they engage in,
Me those people will not see. |
This means that bodies and words are unimportant
in themselves; somehow we must penetrate beyond them to the Reality
shining through.
Therefore an Esoteric School will have, besides
the Scriptures, teachers with groups of pupils. Giuseppe Tucci expresses
it very beautifully:
| In Mahayana the teacher is
enabled, through living direct contact, to transmit the letter
and the spirit of the teaching, and to awaken the sparks out
of which blaze forth the fire of mystical experience. The bond
between master and disciple is a father-son relationship of
a spiritual kind, and as such incomparably more important than
the bonds of blood relationship. |
It may help us to understand the difference between
exoteric and esoteric Buddhism if we consider Col. Olcott and Madame
Blavatsky. They both formally accepted Buddhism in a ceremony in
Ceylon, a Theravada country, and Col. Olcott always remained true
to straightforward basic Buddhism, completely non-dogmatic and open
to truth as shown by any religion. He was President and looked after
the organizational side of the Society in its early days. Madame
Blavatsky, however, had also a training from Tibetan teachers of
a Mahayana Esoteric School. She was responsible for teaching and
making known the Ancient Wisdom and carried out her task, despite
all difficulties. She is the one who is our spiritual ancestor.
These Esoteric Schools follow THE GREAT WAY —THE
MAHAYANA. Those who accept Buddha-Enlightenment as a goal do their
best to follow the way, not only of the historic Buddha Gautama,
but of that which represents the enlightenment experience itself;
the cosmic Buddha, the archetypal being who has inspired all the
Buddhas of the past and will inspire all the Buddhas of the future.
Each person strives to attain enlightenment here
and now, in this very body. A monk once said to the Buddha:
| Wondrous, O Lord, that you say, 'You cannot
by travelling reach that place wherein there is no birth, no
ageing, no decaying, no dying, no rising elsewhere in rebirth.
You cannot by travelling come to such a place.' |
The Buddha replied:
| Even so. Nevertheless, my friend, I do not
say that without reaching the world's end an end of woe cannot
be made (for you can do it here and now). My friend, within
this very body, six feet in length, with its sense-impressions,
thoughts and ideas, I declare to you, are the world, the origin
of the world, and the ceasing of the world, and likewise the
Way that leads to the ceasing thereof. |
Each Mahayana School is identified by several
factors. The three main ones are: its own special oral tradition,
its writings, and its lineage. Every Mahayana monk can recite the
name of his teacher, his teacher's teacher, his teacher's grand-teacher,
his great-grand-teacher, and so on right back through the Indian
teachers to the name of Gautama Buddha. This, to him, is a guarantee
that his teaching comes to him in a true and direct line.
For the Buddhist this means close relationships;
not only has he dharma-brothers and sisters working under the same
teacher, but he knows who his dharma-uncles are, and his second
cousins twice removed. A close meaningful relationship exists in
both time and space. It is because of this relationship that I have
given you a map of our own genealogy.
Mahayana Schools have Scriptures in all languages
because the stress is on the possibility of enlightenment for everyone
— this means for ordinary men and women, as well as for monks
and nuns. To the wisdom of the basic teaching is added the compassion
of the Bodhisattva (after all, the Buddha did not leave us to enter
Nirvana as soon as he found wisdom; he had the compassion to stay
and teach afterwards). We all have a six-foot body, more or less,
and we all have experience of mind or consciousness; therefore each
of us has everything needed in order to attain enlightenment. Buddha-nature
is already present in each one of us. For the Mahayanist Nirvana
is not enough; whenever we experience any insight, great or small,
we must then bring back whatever little flickers of understanding
we can in order to help others.
There is a Cosmic Vow innate in the universe
which is a divine plan towards greater and greater consciousness
and understanding of the whole. Each human Buddha throughout the
ages has exemplified this innate yearning and vowed to perform his
part in bringing all living beings towards enlightenment. Any living
being, human or divine, who has also taken this vow is known as
a Bodhisattva. A BODHI-SATTVA is a very special kind of being and
we are struck with awe at the whole idea of a person for whom enlightenment
(bodhi) is the sole motive and essence (sattvd) of his being.
The idea of the Great Vow is perennial, but in
a historical context no such word as 'bodhisartva' nor any word
composed of similar elements occurs in all the volumes of Vedic
literature, nor in early Hinduism, nor Jainism. The word is purely
Buddhist, and it was first used by Gautama, the historic Buddha
himself, in reference to his own career before enlightenment.
Of course, the nature of the prince who would
become a Buddha was exactly as he had trained it to be. He had lived
numerous lives beforehand, training himself in compassion and wisdom,
always living the life of a Bodhisattva; each life enacting a new
aspect of compassion; each life resulting in a little more purification
of the elements of his being, and therefore a little more wisdom.
Until at last, mindful, compassionate and wise, he was born into
the life which was the fruit of his many eons as a Bodhisattva,
and culminated in the all-wise, all-compassionate state of Buddhahood
which still illumines the world.
Therefore a Bodhisattva is a being, human or
archetypal, whose essence is completely motivated by the wish for
enlightenment: not merely his own enlightenment, but universal enlightenment.
This is expressed as a deep commitment, or vow, which may take some
such form as:
| I will put all my efforts into gaining insight,
or wisdom, with the sole motive of helping all humanity. |
Or it may be a more poetic expression:
| I will not accept Nirvana until every blade
of grass is awakened to full consciousness. |
Each Mahayana School has its own form of commitment.
The more precise Tibetan form of the Vow, which of course Madame
Blavatsky took, and recited every day during her training, is:
I will attain omniscient Buddhahood for the sake
of all living beings. Just as all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of
the past have done, so must I engender the Thought of Enlightenment,
and train myself in each stage of the Six Transcendental Perfections,
for the sake of all living beings.
No wonder she gave us The Voice of the Silence!
For the likes of us there are three stages. At
first an ordinary person may become strongly motivated by the intense
desire to find wisdom in order to help humanity; then he perfects
himself by realizing his 'True Nature' to the highest degree possible
for man. During this long period of bodhisattva training, he works
steadily towards the moment of enlightenment until he can become
a Completely Awakened One, a Buddha, perfectly equipped to demonstrate
the Teaching for all who care to learn.
The whole experience of the Bodhisattva and his
Vow is the heart of Mahayana Buddhism. Especially important for
us is the idea of the ordinary person, here and now, in everyday
life, striving to tread the Path; perhaps having already made the
Vow — some of you have already done so. It is a matter of doing
one's best to carry it out, and steadfastly walking on when there
is failure. Or perhaps, in an earlier stage, at least trying hard,
and thinking: I will do my best, and be ready to make this earnest
intent to attain enlightenment for the sake of all beings, when
the time seems right.
The Family Tree referred to in the first part
of this article (see The Theosophist, Dec. 2002) is a direct line
leading to us. But how about all our other dharma-relationships?
How about all our cousins — Rudolf Steiner and his descendants,
Alice Bailey, Krishnamurti — many such offspring from the Adyar
Society; and all the break-off groups such as Point Loma and countless
others? How about all the unnamed offspring, the Vegetarian groups,
The New Age Societies, all the groups that have learned about karma,
rebirth and so forth, all related closely to us, and all sprouting
from this family tree?
To sum up, the aim of humanity in Esoteric Buddhism
is not to become perfect like a saint, but to become a whole, complete
being, wise and compassionate. First we must become fit to attempt
the Vow, and then we must do our best to keep it. The Living Force
behind this Universe has its own Commitment, or Vow, which is expressed
in evolution towards a higher level of consciousness. Our work is
to investigate the laws of Nature and the powers latent in man,
thereby becoming fit to join in the work as a whole.
Training for this is what we might call the Science
(or rather Super-Science), Metaphysics, of Enlightenment; and the
work consists of gaining wisdom; getting rid of hatred, pride, greed,
envy, and stupidity, to make room for sparkles of insight —
little peeps of reality.
I should like to remind us again of that saying
of the Buddha:
| My friend, within this very body, six feet
in length, with its sense-impressions, thoughts and ideas, I
declare to you, are the world, the origin of the world, and
the ceasing of the world, and likewise the Way that leads to
the ceasing thereof. |
What a wonderful thought — everything exists
in this very six-foot body right here! All we have to do is to discover
it! Or as Origen, the Christian mystic, said:
| Understand that you yourself
are another world in little, and have within yourself the sun
and the moon, and also the stars. |
Please, whatever else you do, do not think about
enlightenment as something you might attain in the future. It is
here and now, or not at all. Everything is here and now, it is only
that our limited minds cannot cognize it. All is present every where,
all of the time; and every single thing depends on every other thing.
All things are interdependent. Think of the radio — music vibrations
from concerts all over the world are all present in whichever room
or place you are reading this. Here and now are all the talks —
so much music and talking that it would be terrifying if we were
to hear it all at once. We think only of finding and tuning in to
one station at a time, but they all exist simultaneously. It is
necessary for us to do the same within ourselves, to become ultra-sensitive
and learn to 'tune in' with very fine adjustments. Such is all part
of learning to tread the Way.
References
1. Tucci, Giuseppe, The Religions of Tibet, p.
44.
2. Anguttara Nikaya 11.46.
3. Ibid.
4. Sermon on Leviticus, 5:2.
The followers of [the third and last reform,
by Tsong-kha-pa] are the Gelug-pa, or Yellow-caps. To this sect
belong the Dalai Lama and the Teshu [Panchen] Lama.... To it also
belong outwardly our two Masters. The people of this sect wear,
on great occasions, yellow robes, and curious high-pointed helmet-like
caps.
Talks
on the Path of Occultism, Vol. II
Miss Muriel Daw,
former Editor of the Buddhist journal The Middle Way, has studied
Buddhist teachings for many years.
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