We like to humanize the absolute, not to mention our gods or our creator God. The notion of the absolute becomes too much for us to handle when it is beyond the ability of our mind to represent it in some familiar form. As Xenophanes long ago pointed out (and it is still true today): “The lions, if they could have pictured god would have pictured him in the fashion of a lion; the horses like a horse; the oxen like an ox.”
Most humans are uncomfortable with any religion when it gets too esoteric; when it posits something mysteriously transcendental to human sensory consciousness. In the case of Buddhism—and to be frank—it is very esoteric which is much more than the average Asian or Westerner can sometimes tolerate. What is often preferred, instead, is pious pomp and a lot of ritual (although Asians and Western Buddhists aren’t exactly fain to admit this). In this vein, even sitting in meditation takes on a purely ritual form while the sitter is trying to appear genuinely introspective.
Looking through the Pali canon we find that the Tathagata (i.e., the Buddha), in The Parable of the Water-snake Sutta (i. 140), described himself as unknowable (ananuvejja. lit., not to be known). He says in this particular discourse:
“Monks, when a monk’s mind is freed thus, the devas—those with Inda, those with Brahmâ, those with Pajâpati, do not succeed in their search if they think: ‘This is the discriminative consciousness attached to a Tathagata.’ What is the reason for this? I, monks, say here and now that a Tathagata is unknowable (ananuvejja).”
We should not conclude from the Buddha’s words that there is no gnosis, so to speak, of the Tathagata. In fact, there is. But it is not something determinate for the senses as when we look at a painting on the wall and say, “That is a beautiful painting you have.” Such a sensory approach which hopes to see a trace of the Tathagata will never work. Nor can we mentally represent him since thought and imagination do not go far enough in the case of the Tathagata.
Unable to view or know our Buddha with our all-too-human senses we go so far as to construct an artistic image of him in the form of a three dimensional statue. But before any image of the Buddha was constructed by ancient Greek artisans (yes, the Greeks were the first to make Buddha statues) the Buddha was represented by the “Wheel of Dharma” since he had awakened to the presence of the supernal Dharma. In fact, the Buddha said, “He who sees the Dharma sees me” (yo kho dhammam passati mam passati).
From an esoteric point of view, symbolically representing Dharma with a wheel, is meant to convey the idea that the Buddha (who is the Dharma) is the immanent mover. (We read else where that the Buddha turns the wheel of Brahma [brahmacakkam pavatteti, M. i. 71]) Dharma is thus an animative power we cannot see except to directly engage with it or the same, awaken to it. Something in line with this is found in this pericope from the Avatamsaka Sutra. “The Buddha’s power of mind and will turns the wheel of truth.”
Trying to overcome the habit of mentally representing the absolute, i.e., Dharma, is very difficult. Just as much, we want our Buddha to appear human even though the real Buddha is the Dharma. But then when he becomes too human, Buddhism becomes something it was never intended to be.
seems to me that the message is, Buddha is completely human and to look for something else is delusion.
Posted by: Craig Daniels | February 07, 2010 at 10:30 AM