There are many books on Buddhism, and to produce a new one almost demands an apology. Yet most of them deal with the dead past, and Buddhism is a living religion which is showing remarkable powers of revival and adaptation. This is a movement of so great significance that I hope this small volume may prove of value, not only to missionaries but to all sympathetic students of a religion which has played an immense part in the world's history, and which is still a dominant influence in the lives of scores of millions. During twelve years of somewhat intimate study of Buddhist countries I have found that while there is much that is degenerate there is much that is very noble, and the object of this little book is to estimate the living forces of the religion rather than to emphasise its weaknesses. It is at once more scientific and more worth while to look at the strong than at the weak points of a religion, and there is an increasing school of missionary thought which believes in building the Christian Church of Asia upon the great foundations laid through so many centuries. Not only is it true that God has not left Himself without a witness amongst these peoples; it is even truer that during the long and on the whole noble history of the expansion of Buddhism His Spirit has been at work. I am convinced that any who really study this remarkable chapter in human history will come to this conclusion, if they have any belief whatsoever in a meaning in history and in a Divine Providence.
The missionary amongst Buddhist peoples should aim at studying all that is noble and of good repute, whilst of course he will not shut his eyes to what is degenerate and unworthy, and inasmuch as an increasing number of missionary teachers are doing me the honour to consult me as to the method of approach to their Buddhist friends, I venture to dedicate this small volume to them as a token of hearty sympathy in the noble work that they are doing in seeking to fulfil the age-long purposes of God. I think that many of them agree with me that already a nobler form of Christianity is being produced on Asiatic soil than that which we have brought thither, and it may well be in the providence of God that a new and splendid era of Church History is opening up as these responsive and religious peoples of the Orient are captured by the Gospel of Christ. In spite of the failures of Christendom and of our divided Christianity the whole of Asia reverences the historic Jesus, and from her contact with His Spirit is at once reforming and revivifying her ancient faiths. This process is of immense significance and her best spirits, even when they do not call themselves Christian, are frank to confess how much they owe to Him and how much there is in their old faiths which will need to die in order that they may live again, purified and deepened. That Asia is increasingly becoming Christian in its standards of thought and conduct is evident to any unbiased observer, and one of the most remarkable proofs of the authenticity and originality of our faith is this—that it is at once reforming and fulfilling the ancient faiths of Asia. What it did with the religions of Rome and Greece it is already doing with the nobler religions of the Orient; and true missionaries of Christ are at work upon a task of incomparable dignity and significance.
These brief sketches are based upon ten years of intimate association with Buddhists in Southern and Eastern Asia.
Inasmuch as I have only been on the borders of Tibet I have not written here of Tibetan Buddhism. It is very degenerate and so mixed with Tantric Hinduism as to demand separate and different handling: it is very clear that missionary work is urgently needed to free the people of Tibet from a tyranny which is unworthy of the great name of the Buddha.
BERKELEY, January, 1922.
1. AT THE GREAT PAGODA IN RANGOON
(a) A Monastic School
(b) Its Moral Teaching
(c) Its Religious Instruction
(d) The Importance of the Monks as a Class
(e) Women at Worship
2. THE RELIGIOUS VALUES OF EVERYDAY BUDDHISM
(a) What Buddhism means for Burmese Women
(b) What it means for Burmese Men
(c) What it means for Burmese Children
(d) The Attitude of Burmese Students
(e) The Better Side of Burmese Buddhism
3. CHRISTIANITY'S OPPORTUNITY IN BURMA (a) The Burmese are truly Religious in Temperament (b) They tend to view Gotama as a Saviour (c) The Christian Heaven is more attractive than Nibbāna (d) Moral Conditions demand a Vital Christianity (e) Loving Social Service finds its own Way to the Heart (f) Christianity can dispel the Fear of the Demon World
1. ON A HILLSIDE NEAR KANDY (a) The Dullness and Superstition of Village Life in Southern Ceylon (b) The Themes of the Hillside Preacher (c) The Stolidity of his Audience
2. THE HOLD OF BUDDHISM UPON THE SINGHALESE (a) The Appeal of its Traditions (b) Its Work of Reformation (c) Its Leadership of Public Opinion (d) Yet Ceylon needs Christianity
1. IT ATTRACTS THOSE WHOSE FAITH IN CHRISTIANITY HAS CEASED
2. IT DEALS WITH HUMAN SUFFERING
3. IT OFFERS A WAY OF ESCAPE FROM PESSIMISM
4. ITS GREAT FOUNDER CALLED HIMSELF A "PHYSICIAN OF SICK SOULS"
5. IT CULTIVATES A SENSE OF THE WORTHLESSNESS OF TEMPORAL THINGS
6. ITS CONCEPTION OF BLISS IS REALISABLE IN THIS LIFE
7. IT IS A RELIGION OF ANALYSIS
8. IT HAS FINE ETHICAL TEACHINGS, e.g.
(a) The Four Noble Truths
(b) The Eight-fold Path
9. IT NOW PRACTISES PRAYER
10. YET IT TEACHES STOICAL SELF-MASTERY RATHER THAN DEPENDENCE ON
GOD
11. IT HAS TWO STANDARDS OF MORALITY: ONE FOR MONKS, ANOTHER FOR
LAY FOLK
12. IT GIVES WOMEN A LOWER PLACE THAN MEN
13. SUMMARY
1. MODERN BUDDHISM DIFFERS FROM THE THEORETICAL BUDDHISM OF GOTAMA
2. THE CENTRAL EMPHASIS OF BUDDHISM VARIES IN THE THREE SOUTHERN
COUNTRIES
3. SOME QUALITIES DESIRABLE IN MISSIONARIES TO BUDDHISTS
(a) A Genuine Sympathy
(b) A Sense of Beauty and of Humour
(c) Strong Christian Convictions
(d) A Desire to appreciate Fresh Truth
4. A GREAT OPPORTUNITY
1. At the great Pagoda in Rangoon.
Let us visit the great Shwe Dagon pagoda in Rangoon, one of the living centres of the Buddhist world, where amidst a splendid grove of palms and forest trees the golden spire rises high above a vast platform crowded with shrines and images of the Buddha. Far below is the teeming city bathed in golden light, and humming with life; here all is still save for the rustle of leaves and the tinkling of innumerable bells upon the great pagoda pinnacle, and the shouting of a class of boys in the monastery school near by.
(a) A Monastic School.—Some two score of them are seated round a kindly old monk in his faded yellow robe. And all are shouting at the top of their voices repeating in unison certain words, of whose meaning they do not seem to think!
(b) Its Moral Teaching.—As we draw near we realise that these are phrases from a popular Buddhist book known as Mingala Thot, a summary of the Buddhist beatitudes, which describe the happy life of the Buddhist layman. First they shout a word of Pāli[1] and then a word of Burmese, and lastly the whole phrase. There are twelve verses, of which the following is typical:—
"Tend parents, cherish wife and child,
Pursue a blameless life and mild:
Do good, shun ill and still beware
Of the red wine's insidious snare;
Be humble, with thy lot content,
Grateful and ever reverent."
Many times must these phrases be droned through before they are learned by heart, but gradually their meanings sink in and simple explanations and grammatical notes by the teacher help his class to understand as well as to learn. These moral maxims still exert a powerful influence for good.
(c) Its Religious Instruction.—Another favourite lesson is a short summary of the excellent qualities of the "Three Jewels" of Buddhism—the Buddha, his Order of Monks, and his Law or teaching; and another celebrates eight victories of the Buddha over enemies temporal and spiritual. Having mastered these preliminary books, the boys will learn the chief Jātakas, a strange medley of folklore dressed up in Buddhist guise, and purporting to be stories of the various sacrificial existences of the founder of Buddhism, Sākyamuni, before he became a Buddha. Buddhism is not only a body of moral teachings, but a religion with an elaborate system of beliefs, which makes very great demands upon the faith of its worshippers, and some of these beliefs are embodied in these stories of the former lives of the Buddha. Others are conveyed in legends and hymns, in popular summaries and proverbial sayings universally known and used by the people.
(d) The Importance of the Monks.—This class of boys around the old monk represents an educational system which covers all Burma and has unbounded influence. It is an amazing fact that there are almost two monasteries to every village. While this constitutes an enormous drain upon the resources of the country, since all the monks retire from its active industrial life, and live upon the alms of the laity, it has, on the other hand, made Burma one of the most literate of all the lands of the East, with a larger percentage of men who can read and write than modern Italy. So great is the power of the monks that all boys, before they can be regarded as human beings, must undergo a form of ordination. It is not strange that some of them are caught by the lure of the monastic life and the glamour of the yellow robe: yet most of them, after a short experience, go back to the world.
The young shin or novice, who chooses to stay in a monastery, may in due course be admitted to ordination. At that time, dressed in princely robes, he celebrates the sacrifice of the founder of Buddhism, Sākyamuni, in leaving his royal state to become a mendicant. His head is shaved, his gorgeous clothes are taken away, and henceforward he is clad only in the yellow robe of the Buddhist monks, an order older, more widespread, and more picturesque than any other religious order in the world. He has "taken refuge in the Three Jewels," and now takes up the regular life of the monk. He goes out daily with a group of others to collect food for the monastery; he attends to the various needs of the older monks and carries on the simple household tasks assigned to him. A large portion of his time must be given to studies, until he has a good working knowledge of the three "Baskets,"[2] i.e. the Discipline, the Narratives or Dialogues, and the Higher Religion, which make up the Buddhist canon. In course of time he may himself become a teacher.
Let us turn again to the shrine. The great sun is going down and the pagoda, splendid in the sunset as it changes from gold to purple and from purple to gray, and then to silver as the glorious moon rises, is thronged with devout worshippers. The monk prostrates himself before the jewelled alabaster image of Buddha. He seems unaware of the people around him, who honour him as a being of a superior order; or, if conscious of them, it is with a sense of his own aloofness. "Sabbā Dukkhā" (all is sorrow) he is murmuring: "Sabbā Anattā" (all is without abiding entity). Mechanically the lay-folk repeat with him the words which have been for twenty-five centuries the Buddhist challenge to the world, calling it away from the lure of the senses and the ties of family and home.
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