Volume 2, Issue 8, page 11

Of Buddha, "The Man Who Woke Up — By RICHARD LUNDBERG
Humanity Lives in Dream World
HISM is indeed a fascinating
subject. There is so great a
depth of understanding to be
found there, and freedom to
choose which system one prefers.
If one is materialistic, there are
systems such as Zen for eliminating suffering. If one wants help
by a divinity, there are the
Bhodisatvas -- those who attained a high level
of serenity and then choose to return to the
world to help those in need of help. If Zen
is too difficult there is Amitabha of the Pure
Land.

And then there are the right and left
Tantras, which deal with mental phenomena,
and for those who dislike dealing with such,
one can dip into the Pali canon. This was the
original Shakymuni'a records. Shakymuni was
the wise man who became the historic Buddha.

Buddha means "The man who woke up". And
many others become Buddhas as they awaken.
This is the connection with Scientology. Both
Scientology and Buddhism teach that humanity
lives its life in a dream world, and that people can awaken to a better state in this life.
The means of awakening are varI us, as t1 e
types of people are various. But they all follow a "Path". The Path begins, or, more properly, one finds the start of the Path when one
becomes aware that the world has some quality
of illusion about it. This is not to say that
it is all illusion, or that everything is mental. Rather, there is the doctrine of the five
heaps. Everything in the universe can be divided into five heaps -- the skandas. They are
material (our physical body and possessions),
a feeling, a perception, an impulse, and lastly, an act of consciousness. The false belief
in individuality or personality is said to
arise from the invention of a "Self" over and
above the five heaps. Suffering arises because
things are out of joint, like a sprained wrist.
The Self would be a manifestation of the
sprain. It can be recognized wherever one
assumes anything is "mine", or that "I" am
anything, or that anything is "myself". For
example: Normally one says, "I have a toothache". This is a very unscientific way of
speaking. Neither "I" nor "have" nor "toothache" are among the ultimate facts of existence (the Dharmas). Thus, there is form -- the
tooth as matter. There is a painful feeling.
There is a sight, touch, pain perception of
the tooth. There are impulse reaction, resentment at pain, fear of consequences, greed
for physical well-being, etc. And there is
consciousness, awareness of all this. The "I"
has disappeared. It is not one of the ultimate events. If one says there is an "I", it
would be booked under consciousness or under
volitional reactions.

The analysis itself will not relieve
the toothache. For that greater knowledge and
self-discipline would be required. But one
must not regard the dharma theory as something
to be argued about. It is a practical method
of destroying, through meditation, those aspects of the common sense world that tie down
our spirit. It is therapy. But it is not a
cure-all. It is one tool which, used often
enough, enables one to view circumstances impersonally.

We get a habit of identifying ourselves
with all sorts of things which we are not. We
appropriate everything we see. We get into
wars and feuds over things we call ours but
which we can never own. I have a piece of paper called a deed to a house. But I do not own
that house. It can be taken away in momentsF
a careless match. Or body can be run over
by an imbecile in a Cadillac. The loss of the
house would be equally certain. If I cling to
the belief about the house, I can worry about
both possibilities and several hundred others
besides. The hold which belongings have on one
is weakened by the practice of moral rules,
such as advice to possess as little as possible, to prefer giving to getting, to cherish
poverty. Trance is also useful to shake the
reality of the sensory world.

Here is where I break with Scientology,
for Scientology works to arouse envy and fears
of others instead of oneness; and rouses a
greed for phenomena, such as exteriorization.

An example may be helpful. In "I Say
Sunrise", Talbot Mundy tells of people who
turn their backs to the sun, and see only
their own shadows. All they have to do is turn
around and face the other way. The phenomenal
world appears when we look at our mental shadows. The state of seeing the empty clearness
is called Nirvana and the normal waking state.
Nirvana is especially difficult for most people to understand, since Nirvana represents
Ultimate Truth, while a other truths are
relative to the observer. But our understanding of Nirvana is therefore a relative truth,
and we can never describe it as it is. The
:vatic can sense it, or have a feeling about
it, but always the distortion is present. So
the descriptions of Nirvana vary considerably.
It is very near, because it is within one's
own being, but it is far because it is difficult to tell where to look for it. Nirvana is
empty of phenomena, but it is also fullness,
for all phenomena springs from it, and is contained within i_t.

The Arhats, the followers of Shakyamuni,
pursue Nirvana, "lonely as a rhinoceros", and
those who ride the great raft of the Mahayana
go to the Samgha (the priesthood of monks) for
spiritual and even magical aid.

What I have outlined above are a few of
the central ideas in Buddhism to show both its
great freedom of thought, and a glimpse of
this mighty fabric which for 25 centuries has
captured the imagination of the majority of
the world's population.

Conze gives the broadest survey, but many
other writers have important s to say
about it. Suzuki wrote on Zen Buddhism.
have Mentor Pocket Book, entitled, "The Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha", by A. A.
Burtt, and about 20-odd Bhagavad Gitas have
been written. The Gita came along about the
time the Mahayana was starting and contains
material on the Prajnaparamita which, to me,
appears as some of he finest writing on the
subject. The Gita also provides an introduction to Shakti-ism and the Feminine or lefthand Tantra. (At least, some versions do.)
Madam David-Neel has authored several books on
Buddhism. Carl Jung, the noted psychologist,
makes many references to it. Evans Wentz deals
with the Tibetan offshoots, and there are Edwin Arnold, Rhys-David, and a very good one in
clear, simple language, called the "Message of
Asia" by Paul Cohel-Portheim.