Positive and Negative sides of the Human Life
Somparn Promta
(An
Interview Given to an International Monk Student at
Dear
Venerable,
I
think the essence of the questions that you have posed to me can be summed up
in one sentence: what is my idea concerning the teaching of the Buddha about
two kinds of things that people, including you and me, must experience in their
life? We call these things in the Pali word as
the Loka Dhamma.
I think we do not need to consider the detail of this doctrine as it is well
known among Buddhists. During the recent years, I have found myself that one of
the best ways in answering this kind of question is to let my stream of
consciousness flow and feel the things that I need to understand and talk about
it freely. I would like to apply this in answering your questions.
Yesterday,
I have a lecture at
In
mathematical system, we have two kinds of number: positive and negative numbers.
the numbers 1-9 are the positive numbers in a sense
that we can touch the real existence of them with sense perception. We understand
when a man says that “I have three cups of coffee.” But people might not understand
when a man says that “I have zero cup of coffee.” Exactly, what we
understand from this saying of the man is that he does not have any cup of
coffee. So, if Zero means “do not have” we understand. But the Buddha tries to
convince his disciples that the number Zero has its quantity and quality, and
this kind of quantity and quality has some utility not differently from the
quantity and quality of 1-9.
I myself have tried to understand the philosophy of Zero in Indian (and Buddhist) philosophy for a long
time. It seems that my personal interest goes to the part which is beyond
mathematical world of the Zero. Deep thought, imagination, contemplation, and
intuition are needed to understand what is the meaning of Zero or “not having”
as said.
One
thing that I would like to say with Venerable is that as I have noticed myself
for years, suffering of some people comes from a very
simple fact that they have a lot of unnecessary things in their life. Wealth at
some level is not necessary at all. So, the man who has this kind of
unnecessary wealth is clear to have no peaceful life and this comes from the
very simple truth of universe which states that happiness is the thing that
will happen when there is the balance between necessary and unnecessary things
in our life.
Certainly,
the Buddha has said that poverty is a source of suffering in the life of human
beings. And the Buddha encourages people to overcome poverty by the right
effort. But I do not think that Buddhism encourages us to accumulate
unnecessary wealth. Not having is a kind of value like having. Some
Western political thinker says that freedom does not come from having alone. Sometimes
freedom will occur in our life when we do not have something. Note that I
do not interpret the teaching of Buddha as the morality of thought (good and
bad are in our mind alone). I am talking about the teaching of the Buddha as
morality in the real life and the real world.
For
some Buddhists who like to understand that the teaching of the Buddha stresses our thought, they would say you should make more
and more money and use the wealth in making merits. This is a kind of the
interpretation of Buddhist teaching which is based on the concept of having. I
do not reject this understanding. But we know that besides teaching the
doctrine of having, the Buddha also teaches the doctrine of not having. Making
merits in the view of the Buddha at some level can be said to be unnecessary
thing like the unnecessary wealth. And every unnecessary thing is alike in that
they give us the burden and bondage. Finally I think Buddhism is the religion
of freedom, and freedom means not being a slave of anything in the universe
including goodness. The Buddha and his arahant
disciples are not the good persons. They are the free persons!
August
25, 2019