Misinterpreting the Buddha

I was like a dash-board monk, and I still am, vibrating on my own spring of confusion while the fast-moving vehicle of life is being driven by the driver of the Nature. By the way, despite my situation as such, people say they enjoy the way I am, just like the one on the left, or the one on your car's dashboard. I'm happy that, despite the said situation of mine, I do manage to maintain some calm, so that, I'm happy on the dashboard. Yet, as an average man, I have to struggle to make sure I don't hit my head on the dashboard. The dashboard is both the grounds of Samsara (cycle of suffering) and of Nirvana (complete emancipation from the cycle of suffering). 

 

It happened to me years ago when I was a 15 year old novice monk that a man in his late sixties, apparently well-versed in religion, philosophy and logic, terrorized me on a crowed bus, Colombo-bound from Nittambuwa, Sri Lanka, by unilaterally challenging me in an argument over a specific problem. And what was that? According to him (and of course, according to great many a people including many Buddhists I've met) no karma, no Nirvana, no good and evil, no virtue, etc., can be out there, since nothing is truly existent. I was in trouble being child, helpless, as nobody on the bus could come to my rescue. (Poor me, as I saw myself the moment it happened, and lucky me, as I later on would see myself). 

I only did just one thing, I told him that I included him and all his logical arguments in the category of 'nothingness,' so that whatever he had been telling me was utterly bogus and surreal. I, now utterly helpless, enjoyed an innocent joy, as everybody laughed at the man. Whether or not it was dharmic to have joy at that point, I certainly did one thing. I made a vow to myself to find out whether what the man had kind of 'proved' was true or not. As I asked my Grand Master, the late His Holiness Wahakula Somananda Nayake Thera, he explained to me in children's language that the 'existence' and 'non-existence of the same thing is the source of the biggest ever problem people have ever got stuck with since the time of the present Buddha Gotama himself. In fact, a reasonable room within the Buddha's teaching has been occupied by his 'verbal answers' to question raised by many from all walks of life in his time, who basically wished a 'verbal solution,' despite the fact there were moments the Buddha responded with absolute silence, and would sometimes tell the answer is 'verbally limited.' And the problem still haunts in those, incapable of seeing that there is no such problem in terms of 'meditative wisdom' as opposed to 'philosophical speculation' or 'book wisdom.' 

 People in general don't still see that there is no problem. With a deep sense of sympathy to them, I must say they are not to blame, as that's how the ordinary minds of ours including that of average mine, are conventionally designed by the Nature. Please, pardon my relatively more difficult language here in comparison with my other writings, since this is the hardest ever problem ever to be comprehended by the  conventional mind.

According to the Anguttara Nikaya, a book of the Pali Canon, those who misinterpret Conventional Truth (Everything-is-existent) as Absolute Truth (Nothing-is-existent), and vise versa are the gravest misinterpreters of Buddha, yet to no insult to Buddha or his teachings or whosoever practicing or are concerned with the Dharma. Anybody is free to misinterpret the Buddha, and it's their freedom and problem. I thought it good to write on this out of metta (loving friendliness) toward whomsoever needing a short answer. 

By the way, let me tell you that since I made a vow to find some answer to the question the man raised on the bus, I thanked him mentally again and again, and I still and will do, for giving me a wonderful insight of investigation. 

While an absolute answer is impossible, as long as we are not awakened into the Truth of 'nothing-is-existent' and 'everything-is-existent,' there is an answer  that we can see, so that, we at least barely get the Buddha's teaching, and so that we kind of automatically properly interpret the Buddha, thereby we are trouble-free, as opposed to him who is trouble-free anyway. 

Sorry but I haven't purposely delayed answering, the above clarification is must-do. So, what's the answer?

Never to worry that there are two identical truths of the Conventional and the Absolute. Things are conventional or absolute based on our 'dassana,' or 'perspective' (to translate in plain language). For instance, An still-average I see my wrist watch as 'absolutely existent,' whereas the Buddha sees it as 'both absolutely existent and non-existent as well.' It depends on the 'way we see.' Another example that might make you a better sense is that a professional medical practitioner with a  deep knowledge in human anatomy would tend to rape his client/patient, whereas an illiterate, 'conventionally unprofessional,'  person with no knowledge in human anatomy whatsoever would see the ultimate meaninglessness of the conventionally meaningfulness of the human body, so that he has less or no attachment to the body (or self in general), thanks to his awakening he has earned not through philosophical/logical arguments and well-written books on the subject but through awareness in life that is generated through 'MEDITATIVE WISDOM.' 

By the way, don't get me wrong that I'm anti-book or anti-logic. We need them so as for us to have 'background wisdom.' I'm split as academic Upananda and meditating Upananda. (Academics, please, pardon me, you're practicing, too).

The moment I talked to His Holiness I still didn't get it, even though he repeatedly told me the undeniable necessity of meditation wisdom in addition to my 'book wisdom.' Later I would and so that be able to say:

"Wow! I can't put into book form the kind of sense of nothingness of the fullness of everything I get in meditation, while a thousand books on the subject  can't still give a satisfactory answer to the question of the twofold truth."

The said quotation of the Buddha from the Anguttara Nikaya is his 'experiential wisdom,' which still is our 'theoretical wisdom,' as long as we transform the latter into the former.

In a world where we can't even see the Conventional the way it is, how can we manage to see the Absolute overnight. Let's not worry, the moment we see the Conventional the way it is, there will be no Absolute to see the way it is, since we would have already seen it at the same time. You might have achieved it, whereas I still have a long way to go.

Most of you are still confused, I bet. Stop reading now, and let's meditate a moment, I don't need to continue to write this any longer either.

May the man of 'friendliness' who gave me wisdom by confusing me on the bus be well, happy and peaceful, wherever he is! If I meet him, I'll get stuck again, this time with no sufficient language to thank him.

By Upananda Thero Dedunupitiye