Was the Buddha a Negative Thinker?
Remember the story about about the turning point of Siddhartha Gautama's life? He saw four things that troubled him - an old, sick man, a corpse, a beggar and an ascetic. Deeply depressed by these sights, he sought to overcome old age, sickness and death by living the life of an ascetic. And so he abandoned his former life, forgot about his wife and his parents and went forth to seek the truth with nothing but the clothes on his back.
If there was a positive thinker walking with him, I think this is what he would have said to Gautama.
The old man
He would say to Gautama, "Be happy, at least you are better off than the one about to be cremated today."
The sick man
He would say, "Be happy, at least you have a chance to show compassion to him and make merit."
The corpse
He would say, "Be happy, at least you are alive to enjoy this fine day."
The beggar
He would say, "Be happy, at least you come from a well-to-do family and have no shortage of food at home."
The ascetic
He would say, "Be happy, at least you are spared of having to think too much."
And if he was positive-minded, he would say, "Yeah, I am grateful for what I have. I will not let these things sadden me."
So I've been wondering about this for a while.
If Gautama was a positive thinker who found contentment in every shortcoming in his life, would he have any reason to walk down the path to enlightenment?
As I understand it, enlightenment is about escaping life's bondage rather than embracing its positiveness or negativeness.
Do you think positive thinking, while being a necessary sugar to make the coffee drinkable, can also inhibit the desire to search for truth?
9 comments:
To be honest, I actually too do not quite comprehend the reason of Buddha leaving everything and everyone behind in the mission to seek for truth. I would never do such a thing, which I thought to be kind of cruel if you ask me.
Maybe that is why I am not Buddha... =P
As for your question, I say Yes. Being positive might be good, but it is also what causes one to live in ignorance at times. If Buddha chose to be positive and be contented with his life, nobody would ever understand the meaning of life.
I am not saying thinking positively is a bad thing to do. But at times, it may prevent one to see things with full awareness. Of course it is not impossible to have a clear mind and to be able to think positively at the same time. But it is definitely not as simple as said and only a few is capable to do so.
What if.... to think negatively and positively at the same time? Have your coffee with total bitterness first and then adjust the taste with alternatives available.
LOL.. You may ignore the last part. It is just a random thought. LOL
Yeah, leaving home is a tough concept. I've been wondering about that myself. Could it be why monks don't get married?
I think there's 'real' positive thinking and 'fake' positive thinking. The fake one is when you say dinner was great to justfy the big hole it made in your wallet. Its a distraction technique. Deep down, the dissatisfaction remains.
I actually think our ability to feel dissatisfaction is key to the process of enlightenment. Maybe its unique to humans, I dunno, but dissatisfaction gives you the motivation to find something better, explaining why Guatama left home. If we're all happy and contented, we will never move. Positive thinking is harmless but if it makes us stagnant, then I think we have a problem. Specifically with the law of entropy.
Some day when we're more enlightened, we'll understand there's no good or bad, no positive or negative. There's only action-consequence. When our minds are clouded by ignorance and attachment, we won't be able to see it. Purifying the mind will blow the clouds away.
What a difficult question? Damien. My head is cracking. To tell you the truth, I dunno how to answer this question cuz you have changed the history. Hahaa! Sometime I feel you know the answer as you are well versed in buddhist teaching .
Well, I will try & share what I have learn. If Buddha did not encoutered the four sight, he would not try & seek the answer to solve the suffering in this world. He would forever enjoy life & living comfortably with the wife, 500 consort, with no worries, sickness & old age as the father had already closed all these sight. Its sound negative & cruel that he leave his wife & newly born child. But without Buddha effort of seeking the truth, we will never know Buddha teaching since over 2000 years ago until now. So it is a positive action as he sacrifice his family & kingdom for the sake of everyone else in his search the cause of suffering & to know God.It’s a big sacrifice & selfless action but his motive it’s a good action. He knows eventhough he leave his throne & wife, there are still someone that can take care the throne, the wife & family will care the child. The wife might be sad but someday she will understand & the family is financially stable. Unless, the family is poor & there’s no one that care, I think he would not take this action.
Anyway the wife actually is also the former wife of Buddha past life incarnation. So they know each other since long time ago. Buddha has many time an enlightened master & king in his previous past life incarnation. So his mission at that time is destined to be like that. At last the wife & son also joined Buddha as practitioners. After they die, they live in high heaven & Buddha has other mission to do too, probably in others planet.
So there is not much suffering though it looks like suffering . It just how the work has been done.
Positive thinking & drinking coffee+sugar will not inhibit the desire to search for truth as long as we found an enlightenened master. Anyhow you know drinking too much coffee+sugar is not good for health as it is very acidic.
Enlightenment means inner awakening & is the process of knowing what is greater than life….,knowing God & knowing your own greatness. There’s no different whether a person become monk/nun, single or married in the process of gaining enlightenment. The difference is in how you handle it.
Escaping life’s bondage towards enlightenment is easier for monk/nun as they are able to leave home & devote wholeheartedly their life to serve God. They don’t have much problem compare to lay person. Their motive is very ideal but that doesn’t mean a lay person cannot achieve enlightenment. It’s just how it is handle.
A lay person has more bondage eg family, husband/wife, children, boyfriend/girlfriend, society…etc. So its very difficult & take a longer time to attain enlightenment. That’s why the monk/nun choose not to get married. They feel satisfied alone. Another reason is also they couldn’t handle the marriage lifesytle which not many people can handle it. But not everyone is destine to be monk/nun as their journey is quite lonesome & some people couldn’t handle too. But wearing a rope of monk/nun clothes is not a guaranteed of finding the truth as this is more a inside things. So outer appearance do sometimes deceives us. But as long as they practise & found a true enlightened living master that can guide them, then its easier for them.
Marriage couple have larger life’s bondage cuz it’s bind people due to attachment to couple, children, family ties..It’s fun but more trouble. Maybe b’coz they have children later on. More work to do. Their path of enlightenment is rather difficult, slower & longer. However, that doesn’t mean married people cannot achieve enlightenment & find God, as long as they love, respect each other, take care of the family,live in harmony,raise their children properly, serve society,do their responsibilities…etc & practice spiritualy under the guidance of true living master. They are courageous & willing to handle marriage lifesytle. If they have children, they have to be a good parent & good teacher so that the children will also practise spiritually & become a better person. It’s not good only if they use it as a means to indulge in physical enjoyment. But most people when they got married, they are too concentrated on their partners & its difficult to concentrate on God.That might be a problem too. But marriage is like a partnership & if each other practise spiritualy, meditate together & reminding the self nature inside, then it’s a good relationship. A spiritual couples may look attach but they are not very attach to each other, not the clingy type, give space to each other, not very attach to sensual pleasure & practise the same ideal, then they may discover enlightenment.
Escaping life’s bondage among single is much easier compared to marriage couple. Single has more freedom & they avoid married is b’coz they also couldn’t handle marriage well, dislike to be tied down & needed their freedom. But that doesn’t mean single don’t have problem. Their problem is lesser than a married person. Just maybe more lonesomeness.However, single has more privilege in finding the truth as they choose a short cut road of enlightenment. Again their path is much easier compared to marriage couple if they practise under a guidaince of a true living master.
Dear Damien,
Good question. For me personally, when Gautama saw these four things, he saw Life for exactly what it was. A transient and fleeting moment in the vastness of eternity. In that moment, he must have questioned the purpose of his life.
1. Why are we born?
2. Why do we age?
3. Why do we grow ill?
4. Why do we die?
And he found his answer. Was his answer was the correct one? Who knows?
There are many kinds of thought. The type of positive thinking you mentioned are along the lines of 'Ignorance is Bliss'. It may make life palatable ... but for me, it's akin from running away from the realities of life.
Rgds
@stella
I'm just a beginner with a lot of questions. I'm sure people in Sunday school ask questions like mine all the time. The trouble is I'm too busy watching cartoons on Sunday morning, hehe.
The Buddha had two tough decisions to make - first, whether to leave his family. Second, whether to become a Pacekkabuddha or a Sammasambuddha. Pacekkabuddhas go off quietly to enlightenment. They don't teach people or form sanghas. Sammasambuddhas are the opposite. They teach their knowledge so others can achieve enlightenment. Its much like the Chinese version of the Bodhisattva, except Chinese Bodhisattvas refuse to go into enlightenment until everyone else has reached enlightened. Just imagine if there were 2 Bodhisattvas left on earth. One would insist, "After you!" and the other would also insist, "No, after you!" LOL.... Who will go first? ^_^
Anyway, at first Gautama refused to teach. It was after his disciple bugged him that he said okay, he'll teach.
You're right, wearing a monk or nun's robes does not guarantee one could find the truth. In fact a number of them go around asking for money. Some drive their BMWs and I've seen pictures of monks fighting with rival monks until blood comes out of their mouths. And of course you have the Shaolin whom some wonder if they've brought more suffering to the world of martial arts than peace.
Singlehood has its advantages but if you are truly determined to look for something, I don't think marriage or singlehood will stop you. Okay, maybe you might wanna think twice about abandoning your child, otherwise the cops could come after you for child dumping.
@avatar
When people go to a funeral, most would say, "Ooh, I'm so glad its not ME." ^_^
Gautama may have had the right answer after seeing the four sights, or he may not but I think the key thing was how it woke him up. Apparently our six sense doors can trigger a similar alarm. This might sound strange but some zen Buddhist teachers would suddenly give a single whack of the cane to their disciples as they meditate. Sometimes, it causes an awakening.
Personally, I do not think its possible to find your way to the ultimate state without appreciating the dissatisfaction of life (samsara). By that I mean experiencing it, contemplating its nature and its origins and cessation. So with certain types of positive thinking, you could end up missing the train.
Damein. I don’t blame you that u ask questions. Sorry for what I feel. Just sometime I have difficulty & no idea how to explain to people. My english is not very good. Most often I’m lazy to give comment. I prefer people to give me the answer. ha hah. Sometime I really don’t know the answer cuz I haven’t finish stuying the countless spirituals books, lectures, dvd, scripture, other religion,past master, sages, scholar....etc. I just delaying it most of the time.
What solution do i take if I have problem n want to find the answer? Normally, I will refer Master’s spiritual book & just flip a page n I will mostly find the answer or refer the net. Listen to my master’s lecture too, helps me to solve my problem, curiousity, humanity knowledge, heavenly wisdom,…etc. Lastly, Meditation also help me to find the answer after sometime if my concentration is good.
Eventhough u are a beginner with a lot questions but your understanding is already not bad. Maybe b’cos u know how to find the source. My knowledge in Buddhism is not very deep. I did study Theravada Buddha teaching in the Buddhist temple for only a year that was just only saturday or sunday. Wanted to further study Mahayana as people said mahayana has more to learn but I do not know mandarin characters. But never mind, with my master guidance now, I have a better understanding of buddhist teaching (learn what the most important). I do love buddha life story, his past life story, some dhammapada story, sutra n so on but my understanding is not that profound & I’ve forgotten most of them.
Some buddha teaching is very deep or the saying of ananda recorded from buddha teaching is sometime very confucing & hard to understand.
Before learning buddhism, I use to have this question why life is so much suffering which I think most us do think that way. And so has Avatar questions about the four questions. Yeah Buddha do found the answer or else He wouldn’t found the great Enlightenment. From my understanding ( I think I’ve said it many times)the purpose of life or why are we born is to know our greatness, realizing god, to know god, to go back to the kingdom of god or to realize the other part.
Sometimes people refer it as the real nature, real self, true nature, true self, Buddha nature, Kingdom of God or the real face. knowing God means knowing our own greatness, knowing the whole cosmic power of which we ourselves are a part. So, therefore our body is very precious b’cos whithin this sits the master or buddha nature. In the Bible, its also say -- Know you not that you are the temple of God & Almighty God dwells within you, or the holy spirit is the same thing. Its just that we don’t know where the key is & we have locked this house for a long time & we’ve forgotten that we have this treasure ( inside). So, the so-called true master is the one who can help us to open the door & show us what originally already belong to us. Then we need to practise(meditation) & blessed the world.
In scientific terminology it is call “wisdom”(Buddha nature) or 95%of the capabilities that we have not used. Scientist have proved that we only use 5% of our wisdom of our brain capacity. The one who use 100% of his wisdom or intelligence is the Buddha,Jesus Christ, Lao-Tze, Krisna or Mohammed or whoever you believe has the greatest brain power in our world.
So everyone is the buddhas as say by buddhist scriptures. Its just that most people have not developed/awakened their buddha nature & it is still sleeping.
I think the zen poem (from your recent post buddhism source) does reflect buddha nature as shown below:
All sentient beings are essentially Buddhas.
As with water and ice, there is no ice without water;
apart from sentient beings, there are no Buddhas.
Not knowing how close the truth is,
we seek it far away
--what a pity!
Hakuin Ekaku Zenji
If you want to be free,
Get to know your real self.
It has no form, no appearance,
No root, no basis, no abode,
But is lively and buoyant.
It responds with versatile facility,
But its function cannot be located.
Therefore when you look for it,
You become further from it;
When you seek it,
You turn away from it all the more.
- Linji
Why do we grow ill is also a warning to tell that we should return to God. Illness is a blessing actually, as it can clean some of our karma. I suppose why do we get old & die is to tell us life is ephemeral & we need to practice self realization thru right method of meditation under a guidance of a true master/guru. If we do not practise, then we will trap in this transmigration circle, forever come here again & again to complete our lesson & we can never have liberation.
Hi Stella, you've probably spent more time in spiritual study than I have. I'm just a part-timer. Maybe my problem is I like to understand why things happen when everybody else would prefer to accept them without thinking. Everyone tells me thinking too much is no good. Haha.
The way I see it, we will keep coming back in circles to this life until we learn our lesson. The fact that we're here today simply means we haven't learnt our lesson.
You seem devoted to your teacher. I was devoted to mine (my martial arts teacher who was also my spiritual teacher) but he had passed away, so I'm on my own now and trying to learn all this stuff from the net.
Its alright to understand why things happen if we needed to know how to solve a problems or clear our doubts. People prefer to accept things as it is without thinking b’coz it’s simple & less using the mind. I think thinking too much is also due that we could not find the answer that we want to know. Spiritual study do help us to find the answer.
There’s one old movie, perhaps you have seen it called “Groundhog day”(1993) play by Bill murray does depicted repeating learning our lessen until we realize the right things to do. It’s a comedy film.
I don’t know whether I’m devoted to my teacher or not b’coz the teory, precept or teaching is easy to say & study but the doing part or practical side are sometimes hard to do or practise. Most of the time I think I’ve fail my test or make mistakes. So I’ve to stand up again & relearn the lesson again. Well, I do trust my teacher & try to be as devoted as I can. It’s not easy but I just try my best. The 14 precepts of TNH does look very noble & it’s a good precepts too. Again, the practicing part is not easy but that doesn’t mean it cannot be done. I’ve never dream of gaining any great enlightenment cuz it’s not an easy tasks but as long as I can be liberated & wherever God wants to put me is fine for me.
Have never thought of having a teacher too but I feel I’m very lucky to have a great teacher when I’m lack confident in life. Just like finding a diamond. Buddha does helps too but Buddha is no longer here & He’s assign to do other things. But we need a living teacher to talk, ask questions & guide us. Not every teacher has affinity with us. This or that teacher maybe right for me but may not be suitable for other people. But if we are sincere we will find a good teacher. There’s a saying “when a disciple is ready, the teacher will appear.” This saying is also mention in your buddhism source under spiritual teacher.
Just like you have affinity with your martial art & spiritual teacher that have help & guide you I suppose. Do not feel sorrow that your teacher had left you cuz our soul never dies. A good teacher like him will definitely go to a better place in heaven. Your poem “A tribute to sifu”(from your other blogs) is very nice written. Sound like the” Karate kid” movie. Does your kung fu techniques similar to Bruce lee, Jacky chan, Jet lee, Sumo Hung or Wong fei hung ? Most of the martial art actor or movie is very hilarious especially Jacky chan. I think the martial art need a lot of endurance & concentration to practice the movement & techniques. If their concentration is somewhere else, they could not perform well the kung fu. Assuming if there’re a thieve or someone attack you, can you really defence yourself? Touch wood! It’s not true. ok. Hahah!
Hi Stella, to answer your question, Bruce Lee studied in the same clan taught by my grandmaster Ip Man so yes I studied the same style. You may not know it but the style was originally created by a woman and is actually quite effeminate when done in slow motion, LOL. Of course Bruce was from an much earlier generation. I learnt from one of grandmaster's pupil descendents.
So far I've never had the need to use the physical part of martial arts (they won't even let the weapon guan dao on the plane) but I use the mental part every day. Its not to subdue others but to subdue myself. Self discipline is good to have in whatever you do.
Yes I have watched Groundhog Day. People actually live their lives like that - from place to place, life to life, going through the same things a million times. Some people get better. Some get worse. Most are trapped in the cycle, not knowing how to get out.
Its good that you have a live teacher to learn from. Lucky you. For this leg of my journey, I travel alone, without a live master. I may find one later in life but at this point, I'm tryin to see what I can pick up on my own.
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