About Buddhism Religion

ecclesiastical authorities supported royal prerogatives and encouraged the population to obey and support the central authority. Although the power of the monarch was absolute, the king as a devout Buddhist was also expected to follow the precepts and could be reproved by the ecclesiastical authorities for unbefitting actions. Buddhism was one of the few restraints on the absolute power of the monarch.' Tales from the Life of the Buddha, the Jataka stories or the Five Hundred and Fifty Former Lives of the Buddha, and various sutra or teachings of the Buddha have provided much of the subject-matter and outlets for expression in the 

donations. Buddhist art unlike that of the post-Renaissance West, was not generally conceived as a vehicle of self-expression for the artist. Craftsmen were anonymous and were expected to follow various rules and formulae originally derived from Indian concepts of artistic expression. In creating a Buddhist icon such as a Buddha image, failure to observe the established norms would be deemed sacrilegious and render the object unsuitable for use in worship. The artist and the donor, propelled by a spiritual urge and the desire to perform a meritorious deed in their work of art, aimed at creating something 'symbolic' over and beyond the object, to embody the compassionate tranquility of the Enlightened One. While at first imported models were closely

Dharma Teaching, Law, Truth

There being no God in Buddhism in it is obvious that there can be little in the way of worship or prayer. It ought not to be necessary to state that Buddhists do not worship the image of the Buddha. They sit and fix their eyes on the Buddha's image to remind them of that great compassionate teacher and the way of salvation which he taught ; that practice is an aid to meditation and concen­tration. Prayer too is not addressed to anyone ; it is aspiration rather than communion or petition. The nearest approach to worship is found in the reverence which every Buddhist renders to the Three Gems
I go for refuge to the Buddha.
I go for refuge to the Dhamma (Law).
I go for refuge to the Sangha (Brotherhood of Monks).

We have already dealt fairly fully with the first of these objects of reverence in our consideration of the life and teaching of the Buddha. We have now to consider the other two. The Dhamma is the body of teaching handed down by the Buddha to his disciples. On his deathbed, before attaining to the final Nirvana, he told them that the Dhamma was to be their light and guide, and that the fulfillment of the Dhamma would be the highest way of reverencing himself. 'Whosoever, Ananda, be he brother or sister, lay brother or lay sister,'whosoever walks uprightly with the Dhamma-he it is that truly honors, reveres, respects, worships, and defers to the Blessed One in the perfection of worship.'

Buddhists in Myanmar or Burma have tended to identify this Teaching with the external law, written and contained in the Ti-Pitaka, the three 'baskets' of the Scriptures. These are : (I) Vinaya or Discipline, containing the rules of life, intended mainly for the monks. (2) The Sutta-Pitaka or Discourses, including the four longer books'The Dialogues of the Buddha, Further Dialogues of the Buddha, Kindred Sayings, Gradual Sayings, and a number of shorter ones of which the best known is Dhammapada or Verses on Dhamma. To the ordinary student of religion this collection is by far the most interesting of the three, though it does not make easy reading ; but patience will discover many gems of thought and religious insight. There is a good deal of repetition and a number of literary devices, which point back to an oral tradition, when the teaching was learnt by heart and handed down from one generation of monks to the next. All the main books in this section may be read in the English translations pub­lished by the Pali Text Society. (3) Abliidhanima, which describes the processes of thought and psychology of Buddhism. This is of a very metaphysical nature and makes more difficult reading still. Strangely enough this is the most popular of the three 'baskets' in Burma, suggesting that Burmese Buddhists are more interested in the metaphysical side than in the ethical or religious aspects of their religion.
To the serious Buddhist the essence of the Teaching, contained in the Scriptures, will consist of several strands. There will be the insight of the Buddha into the cause of suffering, and the way of release in following the eight­fold path ; there will be an appreciation of the Law of Causation and its working out in the law of karma'regarded from these aspects Buddhism is certainly a `gnosis', a way of knowledge and enlightenment. There will also be the ethical teaching of the Buddha, summed up for the ordinary man in the Five Great Commands, binding on every Buddhist. These are :
1. To kill no living thing.
2. Not to steal another's property.
3. Not to commit any sexual crime.
4. Not to speak what is untrue.
5. Not to drink intoxicating drinks.

The highly moral character of Buddhism is evident from these five general commands. The first and the last need some comment. Not only human life is sacred, but all life, that of animals and insects as well. This is a logical development of the belief in re-incarnation, that long recurring cycle of lives progressing from humble forms of life and lower standards of character, to that final existence in the world when all guilt has been purged away, the debt of karma fully paid, and from which is no return ; Nirvana has been reached.So theoretically all life is equally sacred, that of an insect or animal equally valuable with that of a man. But in practice Burmese Buddhists fall short of that ideal as indeed the adherents of any religion fall woefully short of their highest aspira­tions. Murder and violent crimes are sadly prevalent' murder is so common that a murder trial is dismissed in the newspapers with a short paragraph ; it is  not of front-page value as in the West.

Buddhism in Myanmar Burma

The crime statistics of Burma rival those of Chicago, so that fearless critics of their Burmese friends have said : 'Instead of exalting all life to the value of that of a man the result has been to value the life of a man no more than that of an animal or insect.' Yet the devout monk will strain his water lest he swallow a tiny insect, and the ordinary householder will allow every pup born to live and will refuse to put a pain-racked animal out of its misery. The fifth command too is interesting in its complete forbidding of the use of intoxicating liquor ; in the case of strict Buddhists this extends to the use of brandy for extreme cases of illness or exhaustion. The strictness is probably due to a practical understanding of human nature ; in the East generally speaking, if a man drinks at all it is not for fellowship or the stimulation of flagging energy, but to get drunk, to forget his worries and diffi­culties ; he has no idea of moderation. And in that case abstinence is safer than temperance. The ethical nature of Buddhism has been expressed in another way : 'To abstain from evil ; to fulfill all good ; to purify the heart' this is the teaching of the Buddha.' To point out the failure of Buddhists to live up to this high level is no valid criticism of the standards of the Buddha, any more than the confusion and failure of the West can be used as an argument against the teaching of Christ. In both cases it is a refusal to accept the highest standards or a failure to find the spiritual power necessary to put them into practice. If Christians lived up to the teaching of Christ, and if Buddhists put into practice the ethical teaching of the Buddha, both West and East would be radically different from what they are now. A beautiful practice in Buddhism is meditation on the four Brahinaviharas of inyitta (universal love or good­will), karuna (universal compassion), nzudita (joy in the prosperity and happiness of all), and upekkha (equanimity, indifference to the ups-and-downs of life, non-attachment to the things of this world). The object of this four-fold meditation is not only to produce these four states in oneself, but to radiate to all living beings good-will, coin-passion, sympathetic joy, unshakable poise. In the Suttas there is a lovely description of the whole duty of the Buddhist, and a version of this is known and loved by every Burmese Buddhist. It is called, Buddhism in Myanmar has a strong acceptance of tradition. Some of them claim a superiority for Buddhism because it has never been attacked by modern criticism in the way that Christianity has. This is only because the time has not yet come ; with the development of education and scientific thought the searchlight of criticism is bound to be turned on the Buddhism scriptures and traditions and by their own students, more.