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THURSDAY. AUGUST 29. 13WJ
MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE. MEDFORD. OREGON
iittist Scholars Distressed fey Recent Fiery
uicioes
By LOUII CAMEL!
United Prox Iatecaaliorml
Within the past two
months, our monks and a nun
have burned themselves to
death in South Viet Nam to
dramatize Buddhist griev
ances against the regime of
President Ngo Dinh Diem.
Their immolations have
caused many newspaper read
ers in the West to associate
Buddhism with fiery self-destruction.
This is an ironic turn of
events, and very distressing
to Buddhist scholars outside
South Viet Nam.
These scholars say that
nothing could be further from
the true spirit of Buddhism
than to take a life even
one's own life in a polit
ical quarrel.
Buddhism traditionally has
been a gentle and unworldly
religion, disdainful of polit
ical concerns. One of its basic
tenets is an extreme "rever
ence for life." Buddhist
monks even strain the water
they drink to make sure they
do not accidentally ingest
and cause distress to some
small living thing.
Buddhist scholars say that
suicide cannot be squared
with the teachings of the faith
even if it is prompted by
noble and unselfish reasons.
Ancient Faith
Buddhism has no central
authority which could rebuke
Vietnamese monks for un
Buddhist tactics. A lack of
formal organization is charac
teristic of this ancient faith.
No one even knows for sure
how many Buddhists then:
are in South Viet Nam. Est
imates range from 20 to 80
per cent of the population,
which totals 15 million.
Buddhism comes in almost
as many varieties as Christ
ianity . . . counting all of its
sects and subdivisions, in
cluding the one called Zen
which currently is enjoying
a vogue among Western beat
niks, there are about 150
million Buddhists in the
world. The main centers of
Buddhism today are Japan,
Korea, China, Mongolia,
Tibet, Ceylon, Burma, Thai
land, Laos, Cambodia and
Viet Nam.
There are relatively few
Buddhists in India, where the
religion originated 2,500
years ago as an offshoot of
Hinduism.
Dreised in Rag
Its founder was an enor
mously wealthy Indian prince,
Siddhartha Guatama, who
was born about 560 B.C. in a
northern province about 100
miles from Benares. Legend
says Guatama had three pal
aces and 40,000 dancing girls
to amuse him. But he learned
early in life lhat luxury did
not lead to happiness. When
iin was about 29 years old, he
abandoned his sumptuous life
as a prince and went into the
forest, dressed in rags, to seek
enlightenment in the solitary
life of a Hindu ascetic.
No one ever practiced mor
tification of the flesh with
greater dedication than Gua
tama. He fasted, eating one
bean a day, until his spine
could be seen through his
shrunken stomach. But he
found no answers to his ques
tions about life, and conclud
ed lhat extreme asceticism
was no better than luxury as
a pathway to happiness.
After six years of futil
searching, Guatama seated
himself one evening beneath
the shade of a fig tree nea
the village of Gaya in north
east India. He vowed that he
would sit there until he saw
the light.
Poisoned Mushrooms
According to Buddhist scrip'
tures he remained for 49
days. He emerged from this
experience as the Buddha, or
"the enlightened one. For
the next 45 years, he walked
from one Indian village to
another, sharing his new in
sights with all who would
listen, and founding an order
of monks to pass on his mes
sage. He died at the age of
80 after eating some poisoned
mushrooms that had . gotten
into a dish by accident.
Buddha's original teachings
constitute a philosophy of life
rather than a religion. He
taught that human life is
characterized by suffering
and the basic cause of suffer
ing is "tanha," a word which
is often translated as "desire"
but which actually connotes
selfish craving, the tendency
in every person to seek his
own private happiness.
To break free from slavery
to "tanha," Buddha said men
must follow "the eightfold
path" of. right knowledge,
right aspiration, right speech,
right behavior, right occupa
tion, right effort, right think
ing and right absorption.
Under each of these eight
headings, he laid down rules
for rigorous self discipline.
Buddhists were forbidden to
lie, steal or kill any living
creature, including animals
and insects. They were al
lowed to cat only what they
could bog, and then just
enough to keep the body alive
and functioning. Alcoholic
beverages and sex relations
were strictly forbidden.
Ecitatic Union
Buddha said this monastic
way of life, if earnestly prac
ticed, would eventually lead
to "nirvana." Exactly what
he meant by this much-abused
term is hard to determine
New Law To Go Into
Effect on Tuesday
Salem -UIPH- A new 1 a w
making many social security
recipients ineligible for un
employment insurance bene
fits will go into effect Tues
day, Employment Commis
sioner David H. Cameron re
minded today.
The law, adopted by t h e
1963 legislature, provides that
unemployed persons eligible
to receive social security ben
efits shall be presumed to
have withdrawn from the la
bor force and shall not be el
igible for unemployment ben
efits, unless the individual
can show he was not volun
tarily withdrawn from the la
bor force and is a bona fide
member of the labor market.
Educators Expected
At November Event
Salem -Educational leaders
from every slate in the union
will visit Oregon in November
when state superintendents
of public instruction and
members of their staffs arrive
in Portland for the annual
meeting of the Council of
Chief Slate School Officers.
State Superintendent and
Mrs. Leon P. Minear, mem
bers of the Oregon state
board of education, and their
wives will be the official
hosts of Ihe meeting, which
will be held Nov. 17 through
21.
This will be Ihe first time
the Chief State School Offi
cers have met in Oregon, ac
cording lo Dr. Minear, who
said members of the council
accepted his invitation to hold
the meeting in Portland in or
der to observe at first hand
the Oregon program for im
provement of education and
significant changes which
have been made in the role
of the slate department of ed
ucation as a result of the pro
gram. The Chief State School Of
ficers will visit the state de
partment of education in Sal
em Friday. Nov. 22. Approx
imately 150 people are ex
pected for the meeting.
Dennis the Menace
' f
r iilllHin,,,."---
from his authenticated say'
ings. At times, he seems to
think of nirvana as a state
of nothingness, a final blot
ting out of human individual
ity and hence of the selfish
cravings which cause suffer
ing. At other points, he speaks
of nirvana in terms com
parable to those which a
Christian mystic might use to
describe ecstatic union with
God.
It is sometimes said that
Buddha was an atheist, be
cause there are no direct ref
erences in his teaching to a
personal God. But his silence
on this subject seems to have
derived mainly from a de
cision that he would avoid all
theological "specul a t i o n s"
with which Hinduism was al
ready rife and concentrate on
teaching a way of life.
Dr. Huston Smith, professor
of world religions at Harvard,
points out in his authoritative
book, "The Religions of Man
(Harper & Row) that all of
the things which Buddha
tried so hard to keep out of
his movement-including meta
physics, creeds, rituals and
superstitions-came "tumbling
in with a vengeance" after
the founder's death in 480
B.C.
Whole Pantheon
Today the austere philos
ophy of Buddha is preserved
primarily by the so - called
"theravada" monks of Burma,
Ceylon, Thailand and Cam
bodia. The popular Buddhism
of other countries worships
Guatama as a divine savior,
and admits a whole pantheon
of other gods.
Like Christianity, popular
or "mahayana" Buddhism
places great emphasis on com
passion and human brother
hood. Room has been made
for prayer and ritual, and sal
vation is something man re
ceives by divine grace, rather
than something he must earn
by rigorous self-denial. Lay
men as well as monks can
hope to reach nirvana, which
in mahayana Buddhism
sounds rather like a primitive
Christian version of heaven.
Real Truth
Zen is a special case. It
developed in China in the
6th century A. D., and by the
12th century had reached
Japan, where it took root and
still flowers. The heart of Zen
is the conviction that real
truth can never be expressed
or understood in verbal for
mulae, but can only be direct
ly experienced through a flash
of intuition or enlightenment
called "satori." To drive home
the futility of reason as a
road to truth. Zen masters re
quire their disciples to spend
endless hours working on
"koans" or nonsense problems
to which there is no rational
solution.
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