scriptures written in the Pali language, that are divided into three sections, called the Tripitaka, which means “three baskets,” because the palm-leaf manuscripts on which these sutras were eventually written down were carried around in baskets, and three baskets of these palm-leaf manuscript volumes composed the Buddhist scriptures.
However, in the evolution of these scriptures, the Buddha himself wrote nothing, nor did his immediate disciples. It is very important to remember that all Indian scriptures were, for many centuries, handed down orally. We have no clear guide as to their dates, because in handing down an oral tradition you are not always likely to preserve historical landmarks. Suppose we are talking about a certain king, and the name of this king will mark a historical point. In an oral tradition the name of the king is likely to be changed every time the story is told, to correspond to the king then reigning. Things that do change, that have a historical rhythm like a succession of kings, will be changed in handing down the oral tradition. But things that do not change, such as the essential principle of the doctrine, will not be altered at all. So remember that the Buddhist scriptures were handed down orally for some hundreds of years before they were ever committed to writing, and that accounts for their monotonous form.
Everything is numbered; there are four noble truths, eight steps of the eightfold path, ten fetters, five skandhas, four brahma-viharas or meditation states, and so on. Everything is put in numerical lists so as to be memorized easily. Formulas are constantly repeated, and this is supposed to aid the memory. It is obvious that those scriptures of the Pali canon, when you really sit down and read them, have a certain monotony because of mnemonic aids, but also that, in the course of the time before they were written down, many monks spent wet afternoons adding to them and adding things in such a style that no inspired person would ever have said them. They have made commentaries on commentaries, and lots of them had no sense of humor. I always loved the passage where the Buddha is giving instructions on the art of meditation and he is describing a number of things on which one could concentrate. A commentator is making little notes on this and has made his list of things on which you could concentrate, like a square drawn on the ground or the tip of your nose or a leaf or a stone, and then it says, “or on anything.” The commentator adds the footnote, “but not any wicked thing.” That’s professional clergy for you, the world over.
This sort of thing has obviously happened. But this accumulation, with attribution of one’s own writings to the Buddha, is not done in a dishonest way. It would be dishonest today with our standards of literary historicity and correctness. It would be very wrong of me to forge a document and pretend that it was written by some very venerable person, say by D. T. Suzuki or by Goethe. But centuries ago, both in the West and in the East, it was considered quite immoral to publish any book of wisdom under your own name, because you, personally, were not entitled to the possession of this knowledge. That is why you always put on any book of wisdom the name of the real author, that is the person who inspired you. In this way, it is perfectly certain that Solomon never wrote the Book of The Wisdom of Solomon. But it was attributed to Solomon because Solomon was an archetype of the wise man. In the same way, over the centuries, when various Buddhist monks and scholars wrote all kinds of sutras, or scriptures, and ascribed them to the Buddha, they were being properly modest. They were saying that these doctrines are not my doctrines, they are the doctrines that proceed from the Buddha in me, and therefore they should be ascribed to Buddha. And so over and above the Pali canon, there is an enormous corpus of scriptures written originally in Sanskrit and subsequently translated into Chinese and Tibetan. We have very inadequate manuscripts of the original Sanskrit, but we have very complete Chinese and Tibetan translations.
It is primarily from Chinese and Tibetan sources that we have the Mahayana canon of scriptures, over and above the Theravada canon written in the Pali language. Pali is a softened form of Sanskrit. Whereas in Sanskrit one says “nirvana,” in Pali one says “nibbana.” Sanskrit says “karma”; Pali says “kamma.” Sanskrit says “dharma”; Pali says “dhamma.” It is a very similar language, but it is softer in its speech and articulation. It is a general feeling among scholars of the West today that the Pali scriptures are closer to the authentic teachings of the Buddha than the Sanskrit ones. With our Christian background and approach to scriptures, the West has built up a very strong prejudice in favor of the authenticity of the Theravada tradition as against the Mahayana tradition.
The Mahayanists have a hierarchy of scriptures, the first for very simpleminded people. Next are about four grades, going progressively to the scriptures for the most insightful people. They say that the Buddha preached these to his intimate disciples first. Then slowly, as he reached out from the most intimate group to others, he came down to what is now the Pali canon, as the scriptures for the biggest dunderheads, but the ones he preached first were not revealed until long, long after his death. So the Mahayanists have no difficulty in making a consistent story about the fact that the scriptures in Sanskrit represent a level of historical evolution of Buddhist ideas that, from our point of view, could not possibly have been attained in the Buddha’s lifetime. But they say that the latest revealed was actually the first taught to the inmost disciples.
We have to make allowances for these differences in points of view, and not entirely project Western standards of historical and documentary criticism onto Buddhist scriptures, because it is in the essence of Buddhism to be a developing process in dialogue. The initial steps of the dialogue are in the presumed earliest records of Buddhism. In the Four Noble Truths, it says that the problem that Buddhism faces is suffering. This word duhkha, which we translate as “suffering,” is the opposite of suhkha. Suhkha means what is sweet and delightful. Duhkha means the opposite, the bitter and frustrating. Mahayanists explain that the Buddha always taught by a dialectical method. That is, when people were trying to make the goal of life the pursuit of suhkha, or the pursuit of happiness, he counteracted this wrong view by teaching that life is essentially miserable. When people thought that there was a permanent and eternal self in each one of us, and clung to that self, in order to counteract this one-sided view, the Buddha taught the other extreme doctrine, that there is no fixed self in us, no ego. But a Mahayanist would always say that the truth is the Middle Way, neither suhkha nor duhkha, neither atman nor anatman, self nor nonself. This is the whole point.
Once R. H. Blyth was asked by some students, “Do you believe in God?” He answered, “If you do, I don’t. If you don’t, I do.” In much the same way, all Buddhist pedagogy is specifically addressed not to people in general, but to the individual who brings a problem. Wherever he seems to be overemphasizing things in one way, the teacher overemphasizes in the opposite way so as to arrive at the middle way. So this emphasis on life as suffering is simply saying that the problem we are dealing with is that we hurt. We human beings feel pretty unfairly treated because we are born into a world arranged so that the price we pay for enjoying it, for having sensitive bodies, is that these bodies are capable of the most excruciating agonies. Isn’t that a nasty trick to play on us? What are we going to do about it? This is the problem.
When the Buddha says, “The cause of suffering is desire,” the word translated as desire might better be something like “craving,” “clinging,” or “grasping.” He is saying, “I’m suggesting that you suffer because you desire.” Then suppose you try not to desire, and see if by not desiring you can cease from suffering. You could put the same thing in another way by saying to a person, “It’s all in your mind. There is nothing either good or ill, but thinking makes it so.” Therefore, if you can control your mind you have nothing else that you need control. You do not need to control the rain if you can control your mind. If you get wet it is only your mind that makes you think it’s uncomfortable to be wet. A person who has good mental discipline can be perfectly happy wandering around in the rain. You do not need a fire if you have good mind control. But if you have ordinary, bad mind control, when it is cold you start shivering because you are putting up a resistance to the cold; you are fighting it. But don’t fight it, relax to the cold, as a matter of mental attitude, and then you will be fine. Always control your mind. This is another way of approaching it.
As soon as the student begins to experiment with these things, he finds out that it is not so easy as it sounds. Not only is it very difficult not to desire, or to control your mind, but there is something phony about the whole business. This is exactly what you are intended to discover—that when you try to