" စိတ္ကူးတုိ႔၏ ကြန္႔ျမဴးရာ အႏုပညာတုိ႔ရဲ႕ ေပါင္းစည္းရာ မိမိဖန္တီးထားတဲ့ ဒီဘေလာ႔ရပ္၀န္းေလးမွ မိတ္ေဆြအား ေႏြးေထြးစြာ ႀကိဳဆုိပါသည္...။

Sunday, October 30, 2011

နီတိမ်ားက ေျပာေသာ မီွရာေကာင္း

(ဘုရားေတာင္မွ အမွီရွိမွ ပြင့္သည္)

ေဂါတမဗုဒၶသည္ ေဗာဓိပင္ကို အမွီျပဳ၍ ပြင့္ေတာ္မူခဲ့သည္။ ေနာင္ပြင့္ေတာ္မူမည့္ အရိေမေတၱယ် ဘုရားရွင္လည္း ကံ့ေကာ္ပင္ကုိ ေဗာဓိပင္သဖြယ္ အမွီျပဳ၍ ဘုရားျဖစ္ေပလိမ့္ဦးမည္။ လူသားတို႔သည္ ဥပနိႆ အမွီသဟဲ ရမွ ၾကီးပြားခ်မ္းသာနိုင္သည္။ သာမန္လူသားမဆိုထားဘိ "ဘုရားရွင္တို႔ေသာ္မွ အမွီရွိမွ ပြင့္ေတာ္မူရသည္" ဟု ေရွးပညာရွိတို႔က မိန္႔ဆိုေတာ္မူၾကသည္။

မဟာရဟ နီတိ ၌ အမွီသဟဲ အေရးၾကီးပုံကို ေအာက္ပါအတိုင္း ဖြင့္ဆိုထားေလသည္။

ဂုဏီ သဗၺညုတုေလ်ာပိ၊ သီဒေတေကာ အနိႆေယာ၊

အနဂၣမပိ မဏိကံ၊ ေဟမံ နိႆာယ ေသာဘတိ။(မဟာရဟနီတိ)။

ဆိုလိုသည္မွာ- ေလာက၌ ဘုရားေလာက္နီးပါး ေတာ္သူ စြမ္းသူျဖစ္ပါေစ အမွီသဟဲမရွိ အားကုိးအားထားစရာမရွိ တစ္ေယာက္တည္းျဖစ္မူ နစ္ပြန္းပ်က္စီးျခင္းသို႔ ေရာက္နိုင္၏။ ဥပမာ အဖိုးမျဖတ္နိုင္ေလာက္ေအာင္ တန္ဘိုးၾကီးေသာ ပတၱျမားရတနာသည္ ေရႊကိုအမွီျပဳ၍ ေရႊပါမွ တင့္တယ္ေပသည္။ ပတၱျမားရတနာခ်ည္း သက္သက္ပဲထားျပီး ေရႊကိုအေဖာ္ အမွီသဟဲမျပဳပါက ေရႊမကြပ္ပါလွ်င္ သိပ္ျပီးအသုံးဝင္လွသည့္ ရတနာပစၥည္း ျဖစ္မလာနိုင္။ ေရႊကြပ္လိုက္ပါမွ ယင္းအဖိုးတန္ပတၱျမားၾကီးသည္ ပတၱျမားလက္စြပ္ ပတၱျမားနားကပ္ ပတၱျမားနားေဋာင္း ပတၱျမားလက္ေကာက္ စသည္ျဖစ္လာျပီး ပိုမိုအသုံးဝင္ တန္ဘိုးၾကီးပစၥည္းျဖစ္ကာ တင့္တင့္တယ္တယ္ ထည္ထည္ဝါဝါ လွလွပပ ျဖစ္လာေပသည္။

တနည္းဆိုရေသာ္ ပတၱျမားစစ္ပတၱျမားမွန္ျဖစ္ေသာ္လည္း ေက်ာက္ေသြးသမားေကာင္းတည္းဟူေသာ အမွီရပါမွ ပိုမိုေတာက္ေျပာင္လာနိုင္၏။ ထို႔ေၾကာင့္ပင္ ေရႊက်င္ဆရာေတာ္ၾကီးက ေက်ာက္ေသြးသမားဥပမာျဖင့္ တပည့္တို႔အား ဆံုးမေတာ္မူခဲ့သည္။ "တြင္းထြက္ပတၱျမားစစ္ျဖစ္ေသာ္လည္း ေက်ာက္ေသြးသမားက အကာကုန္ေအာင္ေသြးေသာ္မွ အေရာင္ထြက္၍ တန္ဘိုးရွိသည္၊ ပတၱျမားစစ္ႏွင့္တူေသာငါ့တပည့္တို႔သည္ ဥာဏ္ပညာ ဗဟုသုတရွိၾကေသာ္လည္း မာန္မာနတည္းဟူေသာ အကာကင္းမွ တန္ဘိုးရွိၾကမည္ျဖစ္၍ ေက်ာက္ေသြးသမားႏွင့္တူေသာ ဆံုးမတတ္ေသာ မွီရာ ဆရာသမားေကာင္းတို႔ကို ဆည္းကပ္မွီဝဲၾကရမည္။

လူတစ္ေယာက္ေအာင္ျမင္မွဳရသည္ဆိုရာ၌လည္း ယင္းေအာင္ျမင္မွဳ၏ေနာက္ကြယ္မွာ မွီရာေကာင္း အေထာက္ပံ့ေကာင္းေတြမရွိဘဲ မျဖစ္နိုင္ပါ။ ထို႔ေၾကာင့္လူတစ္ေယာက္၏ ေအာင္ျမင္မွဳမွာ ထိုသူဘယ္ေလာက္အစြမ္းထက္တယ္၊ ပင္ကိုယ္အရည္အခ်င္း ဘယ္ေလာက္ရွိတယ္ဆိုတာေတြထက္ သူ႔ကို ဘယ္သူေတြက ဝိုင္းဝန္းကူညီပံ့ပိုးေပးေနၾကတယ္ ဆိုတဲ့ အေပၚမွာလည္း မူတည္ပါေသးတယ္တဲ့၊ အဲဒါေတြကို လူေတြေတာ္ေတာ္မ်ားမ်ား ေမ့ထားမိတဲ့အခ်က္ပါဘဲ။ အင္ဒရူးကာနက္ဂ်ီကို သူ႔ေအာင္ျမင္မွဳရဲ႕ လွိဳ႕ဝွက္ခ်က္ေတြက ဘာလဲလို႔ေမးတဲ့အခါ သူေျပာတာက "ေအာင္ျမင္တယ္ဆို ကၽြန္ေတာ့ပတ္ပတ္လည္မွာ ကၽြန္ေတာ္ထက္ ေတာ္တဲ့လူေတြနဲ႔ ဝိုင္းရံထားတာကိုးဗ်"တဲ့။

ထို႔ျပင္ နီတိမွာ ဆက္လက္ဆိုထားသည္ကို ဆက္ရလွ်င္

အသဟာေယာ သမေတၳာပိ၊ ေတဇသီ ကိ ံ ကရိႆတိ၊

နိဝါတ သ႑ိေတာ အဂၢိ၊ သယေမဝ ဝူပသမၼတိ၊(နီတိ)။

မီးသည္ပင္ ေလတည္းဟူေသာ အေဖာ္သဟဲအမီွရွိမွ ေတာက္ေလာင္နိုင္၏၊ ေလအေဖာ္မရွိလွ်င္ အလိုလိုျငိမ္းသြားနိုင္သကဲ့သို႔ တစ္ေယာက္တည္း လူစြမ္းေကာင္း လုပ္လို႔မရ၊ တန္ခိုးအာဏာပါဝါ အစြမ္းသတၱိမည္မွ်ပင္ ၾကီးခ်င္ၾကီး ရွိခ်င္ရွိပါေစ အေဖာ္မရွိ တစ္ေယာက္တည္းျဖစ္လွ်င္ မည္သည့္ကိစၥကိုမွ် ျပီးစီးေအာင္ျမင္ေအာင္ လုပ္နိုင္လိမ့္မည္ မဟုတ္။

တစ္ခ်ိဳ႕က ဆိုၾကပါေသးသည္။ "ဒို႔က ႏြယ္လိုသူမ်ားမွီျပီး တက္လာတာမဟုတ္၊ ကိုယ္ထူးကိုယ္ခၽြန္နဲ႔တက္လာတာ" ဟု ဆိုၾကသည္။ ဤစကားကေတာ့ ကပ္ဖားရပ္ဖား မွီခ်ဴစားကာ ၾကီးပြားေနသည့္ သူမ်ားကို ကိုယ့္အားကိုယ္ကိုးသမားမ်ားက သြယ္ဝိုက္ေျပာသည့္စကားလည္း ျဖစ္နိုင္ပါသည္။ မည္သို႔ပင္ဆိုေစ ယင္းကိုယ့္ထူးကိုယ္ခၽြန္ ကိုယ့္အားကိုယ္ကိုးသမားမ်ားသည္ပင္ တနည္းနည္းျဖင့္ မွီရာေကာင္းရမွ ေအာင္ျမင္နိုင္သည္၊ ၾကီးပြားနိုင္တာျဖစ္ပါသည္။

မဟႏၱံ နိႆာယ ကတြာ၊ ခုေဒၵါပီတိ မဟာ ဘေဝ၊

ေဟမပဗၺတ မာပဇၨ၊ ေသာဝဏၰာ ကိရ ပကၡိေနာ။(နီတိ)။

တန္ခိုးရွိန္ဝါ ၾကီးမားသူကို အမွီရ၍ လက္ေအာက္ငယ္သားသည္လည္း တန္ခိုးရွိန္ဝါ ၾကီးသူျဖစ္လာနိုင္၏။ ေနရုမည္ေသာ ေရႊေတာင္ကို ေရာက္လွ်င္ ေက်းငွက္တို႔သည္ ေရႊအဆင္းရွိလာၾကကုန္သတဲ့။ ထို႔ေၾကာင့္ျမန္မာစကားပံု၌ အရွင္ေမြးေတာ့ ေန႔ခ်င္းၾကီး၊ ေရႊပင္နားေတာ့ ေရႊေက်း၊ ဟုပင္ဆိုထားသည္မဟုတ္ပါေလာ။

ကိုးကြယ္အားထားရာ သာသနာသည္ပင္ မင္းေကာင္းမင္းျမတ္မ်ားကို အမွီရပါမွ ပိုမိုေတာက္ေျပာင္ထြန္းလင္းနိုင္သည္။ "သာသနံ နာမ ရာဇာပဓာနံ"ံ(သာသနာဆိုတာ တိုင္းျပည္အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္သူ ဘုရင္မင္းတို႔ရဲ႕ ခ်ီးျမွင့္ေထာက္ပံ့မွဳက႑ဟာ အေရးၾကီးတယ္ ပဓာနအဓိကၾကတယ္။) ထို႔ေၾကာင့္ပင္ "သာသနာကို ရာဇာကူပင့္ ျမင့္ထက္ျမင့္၏။" ဟုဆိုထားေပသည္။ (Sasana could be developed with the support of good and righteous king) ။

လူသားအားလံုးသည္ ကိုင္းကၽြန္းမွီ ကၽြန္းကိုင္းမွီဆိုသလို အျပန္အလွန္ မွီခိုေနၾကရပါသည္။ ဆရာကလည္း တပည့္မွီရသလို တပည့္ကလည္း ဆရာကိုမွီရပါသည္။ ဆရာဒကာတို႔သည္လည္း အျပန္အလွန္မွီေနၾကရပါသည္။ "ဗုဒၶျမတ္စြာ သာသနာ ဆရာဒကာ ႏွစ္ျဖာပါမွ သာယာျဖိဳးေဖာက္ လြန္ထြန္းေတာက္လိမ့္။" ဆိုသည့္အတိုင္း ဆရာဒကာ ဟန္ခ်က္ညီစြာ သာသနာေတာ္ကို ထိမ္းသိမ္းေစာင့္ေရွာက္ဖို႔လိုပါသည္။

သာသနာမွာ မွီရာေကာင္းဆိုတာကေတာ့ ကလ်ာဏမိတၱအစစ္ကိုပဲ ဆိုခ်င္ပါသည္။ တစ္ေန႔ေသာအခါ အရွင္အာနႏၵာသည္ ေန႔လည္တစ္ပါးတည္း ေအးေအးလူလူ ကိန္းေအာင္းစဥ္ အေတြးေလးတစ္ခု ဝင္လာခဲ့ပါသည္။ ယင္းသူ႔အေတြးေလးကို ျမတ္ဗုဒၶအား ေလွ်ာက္ထားၾကည့္ခဲ့ပါသည္။ မိတ္ေကာင္းေဆြေကာင္း ဆရာသမားေကာင္း ေပါင္းမိျခင္းဟာ သာသနာအတြက္ ခရီးတဝက္ေရာက္တယ္တဲ့။

ျမတ္ဗုဒၶက အရွင္အာနႏၵာ၏ ဤအဆိုကို ႏွစ္ၾကိမ္တိုင္တိုင္ ကန္႔ကြက္ေတာ္မူခဲ့ျပီး "မာေဟဝံ အာနႏၵ၊ မာေဟဝံ အာနႏၵ၊ သကလေမဝ ဟိတံ အာနႏၵ ျဗဟၼစရိယံ ယဒိဒံ ကလ်ာဏမိတၱတာ"၊ မိတ္ေကာင္းေဆြေကာင္း မွီရာေကာင္းဆိုတာ သာသနာအတြက္ ခရီးတဝက္မက ခရီးဆံုးေတာင္ ေရာင္နိုင္နိုင္တယ္ အာနႏၵာ။ အဘယ္ေၾကာင့္ဆိုေသာ္ မိတ္ေကာင္းေဆြေကာင္းအမွီျပဳျပီး အိုနာေသေရး ဒုကၡေဘးအားလုံုးတို႔မွ လြတ္ေျမာက္နိုင္သည္ အာနႏၵာ။

ထို႔ေၾကာင့္ ဘဝသံသရာ ၾကီးပြားတိုးတက္ေရးသာမက သံသရာလြတ္လမ္းကို ေလွ်ာက္လွမ္းၾကကုန္ေသာ မိမိတို႔တစ္ေတြသည္ ဆရာေကာင္း သမားေကာင္း မိတ္ေကာင္း ေဆြေကာင္း မွီရာေကာင္း အခြင့္အခါေကာင္းမ်ား လက္လြတ္မဆံုးရွဳံရေအာင္ ၾကိဳးစားအားထုတ္နိုင္ၾကပါေစ ဟု ဆႏၵျပဳရင္း။

ေမတၱာျဖင့္

ေမ့သားလွ(ဇလဂၢ)

၁၃၇၃ ခု တန္ေဆာင္မုန္းလဆန္း ၄ ရက္

၃၁-၁၀-၂၀၁၁ တနလၤာေန႔

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

အျဖဴေရာင္ေငြအနားသတ္

(တိမ္တိုက္မည္မွ်ပင္ မဲမဲ အျဖဴေရာင္ေငြအနားသတ္ကေလးေတာ့ ရွိစျမဲ)။(နိုင္ငံျခား စကားပံု)

ဘဝသည္ ႏွင္းဆီပန္းေမြ႔ရာ မဟုတ္သည့္အတြက္ ေလာကဓံတရား၏ လွိဳင္းဂယက္မ်ားေၾကာင့္ နိမ့္ခ်ည္ျမင့္ခ်ည္္ စုန္ခ်ည္ ဆန္ခ်ည္ လူးလြန္႔ေနတတ္၏။ ဘဝပ်က္ခ်ိန္တန္လွ်င္ လူသားတို႔ ေတြ႔ျမင္ေနသမွ် ရွဳ႕ခင္းမွန္သမွ် အပ်က္ခ်ည္းပင္ ျမင္တတ္ၾက၏။ ေလာကဓံလွိဳင္းၾကီးမ်ားသည္ ေတာင္ၾကီးမ်ားပမာ ထိတ္လန္႔တုန္လွဳပ္ဖြယ္ရာ တလိမ့္လိမ့္မည္ဟီးကာ ေရာက္လာတတ္၏။ ဘဝအိမ္ကို ရစရာမရွိေလာက္ေအာင္ ရက္ရက္စက္စက္ ရိုက္ပုတ္လွ်က္ ဘဝ အကာအရံ တံတိုင္းမ်ားကိုလည္း မေက်နပ္သည့္အလား တျဖန္းျဖန္းရိုက္ပုတ္ခတ္ခံရနိုင္၏။

"သူတည္းတစ္ေယာက္၊ ေကာင္းဖို႔ေရာက္မူ၊ သူတစ္ေယာက္မွာ၊ ပ်က္လင့္ကာသာ၊ ဓမၼတာတည္း"ဆိုသကဲ့သို႔ ဘဝပ်က္လင့္ကစား ေတြ႔ၾကံဳခံစားၾကရေသာ ဘဝေလာကဓံမုန္တိုင္းမ်ား၏ အက်ိဳးတရားမ်ားကေတာ့ တစ္ဦးႏွင့္တစ္ဦး မတူကြဲျပားသလို တူညီခ်က္မ်ားလည္းရွိနိုင္၏။ သို႔ေသာ္ ဘဝကုသိုလ္ကံေၾကာင့္ ဘဝ၏ေနဝင္ညမ်ား အေမွာင္ဆံုးညမ်ားကို ျဖတ္ေက်ာ္ျပီး ေရွ႕ဘဝခရီးတြင္ ပိုမိုထိန္လင္းသည့္ညမ်ား ဘဝ၏သာယာအလွပဆံုးအခ်ိန္မ်ားကိုလည္း ေတြ႕ၾကံဳနိုင္ပါေသးသည္။ ထို႔ေၾကာင့္ "တိမ္တိုက္မည္မွ်ပင္ မဲမဲ အျဖဴေရာင္ေငြအနားသတ္ကေလးေတာ့ ရွိစျမဲ" ဟု နိုင္ငံျခားစကားပံုေလးက ေထာက္ခံခ်က္ေပးေန၏။

ကံၾကမၼာမုန္တိုင္းဝင္ေရာက္သရမ္းမွဳေၾကာင့္ ဘဝမွာရက္စက္ခါးသီးဖြယ္ အျဖစ္အပ်က္မ်ား ၾကံဳရေသာအခါ မိမိတို႔ဘဝေမွ်ာ္လင့္ခ်က္မ်ားလည္း ကင္းမဲ့တတ္သလိုလို ေအာင္ျမင္မွဳပန္းတိုင္ႏွင့္ ေဝးသေယာင္ေယာင္ထင္ျမင္တတ္ပါ၏။ သို႔ေသာ္ အဓိကလိုအပ္ခ်က္ကေတာ့ မိမိစိတ္ဓာတ္မ်ား တင္းထားဖို႔လိုအပ္၏။ ေယာနိေသာ မနသိကာရ အေျခခံျပီး အေကာင္းကိုလည္း ေမွ်ာ္လင့္ျပီး လတ္တေလာမွာ ဘယ္ေလာက္ပင္ ဆိုးသြမ္းပင္ေနပါေစ ေငြေရာင္အနားသတ္လို႔ေခၚေနသည့္ ေကာင္းကြက္ကေလးမ်ား ေကာင္းသည့္အခ်က္မ်ားကေတာ့ ဘဝမွာ ရွိလာစျမဲပင္ျဖစ္၏။

အခက္အခဲၾကံဳလာတိုင္း မိမိေမွ်ာ္လင့္ခ်က္ကိုေတာ့ ဘယ္ေသာအခါမွ မစြန္႔လႊတ္သင့္။ မိမိ၏ မွန္ကန္သည့္ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ ခိုင္မာသည့္စိတ္ဓာတ္မ်ားျဖင့္ ပန္းတိုင္သို႔ဆက္လက္ခ်ီတက္သင့္၏။ အမွန္တရားကိုလည္း ႏွစ္သက္ျမတ္နိုးဖြယ္ရာအျဖစ္လည္း လက္ခံယုံၾကည္ထားသင့္၏။ ေျဖာင့္မတ္မွန္ကန္သည့္ စိတ္ဓာတ္ျဖင့္ အေျခအေနေကာင္းတစ္ရပ္ကို ျမွင့္တင္နိုင္၏။ ေျဖာင့္မတ္မွန္ကန္ ပါးနပ္လိမၼာမွဳျဖင့္ ေအာင္ျမင္မွဳဆီသို႔ ဦးတည္ေစနိုင္၏။ မွန္ကန္စြာ ဆံုးျဖတ္နိုင္စြမ္းရွိဖို႔လို၏။ ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္မွန္ကန္သူသည္ တစ္ခ်ိန္ခ်ိန္မွာ မိမိလိုရာခရီး အထြဋ္ထိပ္သို႔ေရာက္ျပီး လူတြင္သာမက အထက္နတ္ေတြကပါ ေကာင္းခ်ီၾသဘာေပးမည္ မလြဲပါ။

အရွံဳးေပၚေနသည့္ ကုမၸဏီတစ္ခုမွာ မိမိတစ္သက္လံုး စာခ်ဳပ္ အခ်ဳပ္မခံရဖို႔ လိုအပ္ေပလိမ့္မည္။ ဆိုလိုသည္မွာ ေပါက္ေနတဲ့နဖူး မထူးေတာ့ျပီဆိုျပီး နံရံကုိ ထပ္ခါထပ္ခါ ေခါင္းနဲ႕မတိုက္သင့္ေပ။ "လဲရင္ထ အဲဒါဘဝ" ဆိုသလို လဲရာက ရုန္းကန္ထနိုင္ဖို႔ ၾကိဳးစားရမည္ျဖစ္၏။ စိတ္ကူးယဥ္ၾကည္နူးေနျခင္းထက္ ဘဝအျဖစ္မွန္ကို လက္ေတြ႔ရင္ဆိုင္နိုင္ျခင္းက ပို၍တန္ဘိုးရွိလွ၏။

ဘဝေလာကဓံအမ်ိဳးမ်ိဳးနွင့္ အရြယ္သံုးပါး ျဖတ္သန္းၾကရသူတိုင္းေတာ့ တစ္ဦးႏွင့္တစ္ဦးမတူၾက။ တစ္ခ်ိဳ႕က ငယ္စဥ္အခါ ပညာရွာခြင့္မရ ဆိုးမိုက္ေတေလခဲ့ေသာ္လည္း ဒုတိယ တတိယအရြယ္ေတြမွာ အျမင္မွန္ရျပီး ျပဳျပင္လာ၊ ေကာင္းလာတာကိုလည္း ေတြ႔နိုင္၏။ တခ်ိဳ႕က ပထမဒုတိယအရြယ္ေတြမွာ မိုက္ဇာတ္မခင္းခဲ့ၾကေသာ္လည္း တတိယအရြယ္ေရာက္မွ မိုက္ဇာတ္ခင္းၾကျပန္ေသး၏။ အရြယ္သုံးပါးလံုး ဆိုးမိုက္ေပေတေနကာ ဘယ္ေတာ့မွ သတိသံေဝဂ မရနိုင္လွ်င္ေတာ့ တကယ့္လူျဖစ္ရွံဳးလွ၏။ မိမိကိုယ္တိုင္ အဖတ္ဆယ္လို႔မရေအာင္ မမိုက္သင့္။ လူမိုက္ကိုေရွာင္ခြာ ပညာရွိမ်ားကို ေပါင္းသင့္၏။ လူမိုက္ဆိုသည္မွာေတာ့ သင္အမ်ိဳးမ်ိဳးအဓိပၸါယ္ဖြင့္ဆိုေကာင္းဖြင့္ဆိုနိုင္၏။ ယုတ္စြဆံုး မိမိ၏ေဆြမ်ိဳးရင္းခ်ာ ေမာင္ႏွမသားခ်င္းပင္ျဖစ္ေစကာမူ ထိုသူမ်ားကို လူမိုက္ဟု သင္ေကာင္းေကာင္းၾကီး စစ္မွန္ေသာအသိဥာဏ္ျဖင့္သိပါ ထိုသူမ်ားကို ဆက္လက္ေပါင္းသင္း ေရာယွက္ တြယ္ဖက္၍ မေနသင့္ပါ။ အႏၱရာယ္ကို တြယ္ဖက္ထားသလိုပင္ ျဖစ္တတ္၏။

ဆိုပါေတာ့ သင့္နားကို နာက်င္ေစသည္ဆိုလွ်င္ သင့္နားမွာ ပန္ဆင္ထားသည့္ စိန္နားကပ္ ေရႊနားေဍာင္းကိုပင္ တကယ္ေကာင္းတယ္ဟု ဆိုနိုင္ပါ့မလား။ ဆက္လက္ပန္ဆင္ထိုက္ပါသလား။ တမ်ိဳးတဖံု ျပဳျပင္ပန္ဆင္ဖို႔လိုေပလိမ့္မည္။ မိမိႏွင့္ မိမိပတ္ဝန္းက်င္ကို ထိခိုက္နာက်င္ေစေသာ လူမိုက္မ်ားကိုလည္း ေဝးေဝးကပင္ ေရွာင္သင့္၏။ မိမိကိုယ္တိုင္က အရြယ္သုံးပါးလုံးမွာ လူေကာင္းသူေကာင္းေတြအျဖစ္ သိကၡာသမာဓိရွိရွိ အမွန္တရားကို လက္ကိုင္ထားသူအျဖစ္ ရပ္တည္နိုင္ဖို႔ ၾကိဳးစားသင့္၏။ အရြယ္သုံးပါးလံုးမွာ လူ႔ေလာကကို အက်ိဳးျပဳနိုင္ရင္ေတာ့ အတိုင္းထက္အလြန္ တန္ခြန္ႏွင့္ကုကၠားဆိုသလို အင္မတန္ေကာင္းလွ၏။ ပထမ ဒုတိယအရြယ္ေတြမွာ မိုက္မဲခဲ့သည့္တိုင္ တတိယအရြယ္မွာေတာ့ သတိသံေဝဂရလွ်က္ လူ႔ေလာကကို အက်ိဳးျပဳသင့္၏။ ထိုသို႔ျဖစ္ပါက ဘဝအတြက္ ေငြေရာင္အနားသတ္ ေကာင္းျခင္းမဂၤလာေလးမ်ား ျဖစ္ထြန္းမည္သာတည္း။ ထိုသို႔မွ မဟုတ္လွ်င္ ထိုသူသည္ "အသက္ေလးဆယ္အရြယ္အထိ မိုက္မဲသူသည္ တကယ့္လူမိုက္စစ္စစ္" ဟူသည့္ သိုးေဆာင္း စကားပံုကဲ့သို႔လည္းေကာင္း၊ "ေသွ်ာင္(ေရာင္)ၾကီးလွ်င္ငိုက္၊ လူၾကီးလွ်င္ မိုက္" ဟူေသာ ျမန္မာစကားပံုကဲ့သို႔လည္းေကာင္း တသက္လံုးမိုက္ဇာတ္ၾကီးခင္းကာ ဘဝသံသရာလူမိုက္ၾကီးအျဖစ္ ဇာတ္သိမ္းဖို႔သာ ရွိပါေတာ့သတည္း။

ေမ့သားလွ-(ဇလဂၢ)

၁၃၇၃ ခု သီတင္းကၽြတ္လကြယ္

26-10-2011 Wed

Monday, October 24, 2011

Identification of Theravāda with Vibhajjavāda

In Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, the terms Theravada and Vibhajjavāda are identified as denoting the same form or pattern of Buddhism. In fact the term Vibhajjavāda is considered as the best qualifying word for Theravāda Buddhism. For the Buddhists, in these Buddhist countries, Buddhism is an analytical system, because it deserves to be designated as Vibhajjavāda. There is no other term which brings out the essential nature not only of Buddhism but also of the Buddha, as the Buddhists in the Southern tradition believe. In fact, the identification of Theravāda with Vibhajjavāda is based on the accounts of the Third Buddhist Council as documented in the Pāli sources such as the Commentaries on the Vinaya, the Kathāvatthu and the Great Chronicle of Sri Lanka. These three sources, the Samantapāsādika-aṭṭhakathā, Kathāvatthuaṭṭhakathā of Abhidhamma Piṭaka and the Mahavaṃsa, recorded the proceedings of the Third Buddhist Council in more or less the same language.

From the time of the third century B.C. up to now, the Theravāda tradition has believed that the most appropriate and meaningful terms for the Buddha Vibhajjavādī and for his teachings is Vibhajjavāda. I shall discuss this issue in details as available as sources of Pāli and other documents. It is said in the Mahāvaṃsa-one of the well known Pāli Chronicles of Srilanka—that on the seventh day, king Asoka, in order to find out who are the real monks, who are the true followers of Buddhism, got the community of the minks assembled at Asokārāma and summoned each group of monks in turn and asked this question “what is theory that the Perfectly Enlightened One reach? (kiṃvādī sammāsambuddho).

According to divergent views of monks, in response to this question those who believed in eternalism replied that the Buddha was an advocate of eternalism. Likewise those who propounded the theories of finiteness and infinitude, the eel wrigglers, casuists, those who professed theories of conscious existence, non conscious existence, neither conscious nor non conscious existence, annhilationists and those who professed Nibbana of this life also replied according to the views which they held. It was not so difficult for the king who had already learned the Dhamma to realize they were not Buddhist monks but heretics who belonged to other persuasions. The king gave them white garments and expelled all of them, numbering sixty thousand in all, from the community of monks. Next, the King summoned the remaining monks and asked the same question: What was the perfectly Enlightened One a teacher of? They said in reply, Great king He was Vibhajjavādī. On hearing their answer, in order to get this confirm the king asked Moggaliputta Tissa Thera, Was the perfectly Enlightened One Vibhajjavadī ? Yes, great king, replied the Thera. There upon King Asoka told the Thera, Venerable Sir, the Sasanā is now pure, let the fraternity of monks perform the Uposatha. At this assembly, numbering sixty thousand monks, Moggaliputta Tissa Thera recited the treatise called Kathavatthu in order to refute the heretical views.

According to this account, the Buddha is identified as the exponent of analysis and his teaching as the system of analysis. This is considered as the true nature of the Buddha and his teaching which distinguishes early Buddhism from all systems of religion and heretical views. That is how Theravāda came to be known as Vibhajjavāda. However, the Canonical references to the term Vibhajjavāda, do not conform exactly to this opinion which was very much loved and adhered to by the Buddhists in the Theravāda Buddhist counties.

The term Vibhajja is found in the context of the fourfold classification of questions occasionally found in the discourses. The four categories of questions are:

1. Pañho ekaṃsa vyākaraniyo(A question which should be answered categorically or surely)

2. Pañho paṭipucchā vyākaraniyo (A question which should be answered with a counter question.)

3. Pañho ṭhapaniyo (A question that should be set aside.)

4. Pañho vibhajja vyākaraniyo (A question which should be answered analytically.)

This classification shows that the Buddha did not always answer the questions analytically. His answer depended upon the nature of the question. A question which is to be answered categorically was never explained analytically by the Buddha. In the same way, a question to be answered by asking a counter question or a question to be kept aside was also not answered analytically. Therefore, analysis (vibhajja) does not single out the four ways of answering the questions in Buddhism. The Buddha does not say that this particular type of question is more important than other types. All types of questions are equally important according to the Buddha in this context.

The Aṅguttaranikāya observes that a person who does not answer categorically a question which ought to be answered categorically, who does not answer analytically a question which ought to be answered analytically, who does not answer with a counter question a question which ought to be answered with a counter question and who does not set aside a question which ought to be set aside- such a person is indeed not fit to debate or discuss with. Accordingly, the conclusion that can be arrived at is that the Buddha is Ekaṃsavādī, Patipucchavādi and Thapaniyavādi to the extent that he is Vibhajjavadī.

This conclusion is further corroborated in the Subhasutta of the Majjhimanikāya where the Buddha claims that he is a Vibhajjavādī. Subha, a young son of Brahmin Todeyya, approached the Buddha when he was at the Jetavana Monastery in Savatthi and asked the following two questions:

1. The only householders could accomplish meritorious deeds in a right, justice and good manner, not monks. What do you have to say about this?

2. The occupation or endeavour of householders produced great benefits whereas the occupation of the recluses brought little benefits. What do you have to say about this? Subha believed above two views.

The Buddha answered these two questions without subscribing to a categorical position. His answer, repeated twice in connection with the two questions runs as follows: Herein, O young man, I give an analytical explanation, I do not make, herein, a categorical assertion (Vibhajjavādo kho ahamettha māṇava nāhamettha ekaṃsavādo).In this answer, the key word or importance of the term “herein (ettha)” should not be overlooked because it points to the Buddha’s position and emphasizes his outlook. The Buddha’s answer specifies that he is an exponent of analysis (Vibhajjavadī) only in relation to the two questions that Subha raised.

The obvious indication here is that the Buddha may give categorical answers to various other propositions. In replying to Poṭṭhapāda, once the Buddha has said that I have taught and laid down doctrines of which it is possible to make categorical assertions and I have taught and laid down doctrines of which it is not possible to make categorical assertions. Therefore, it is not suitable or appropriate to think that the Buddha employed only the Vibhajjavāda methodology at all times in relation to all propositions, proposals, or suggestions. His answers varied depending on the nature of the questions. His statements were sometimes categorical and at other times analytical. Therefore, the Canonical evidence does not support the traditional claim that the Buddha can be branded as a Vibhajjavādin.

However, the claim was recorded in the Samantapasādika, Kathavatthuatthakatha and the Mahavamsa that the Buddha is a Vibhajjavadin and it cannot be ignored as historically untrue. The historicity underlying this claim seems to have been preserved in the Sanskrit and Chinese sources. In an eloquent article written on the subject by Professor Y. Karunadasa, the meaning assigned to the term Vibhajjavāda in the sources of Northern Buddhism is explained as follows: In the Abhidharmakosabhasya of Acarya Vasubandhu and in the Chinese version of Harivarman’s Satyasiddhisastra, for example, it is specifically stated that, among the Buddhists Schools, the Vibhajyavādins are those who give a qualified answer, a kind of conditional assertion, in respect of the proposition whether the so called dharmas or the ultimate elements of existence persist in all the three phases of time, past, present and future – a controversial issue which disturbed the Buddhist scholastic movement during and after the Asokan age. As to the names of the Buddhist Schools which are Vibhajyavadī, the texts differ. Among the names cited in the various sources, some names which relevant to the term Vibhajjavāda in some way or another, are Kasyapiyas, Prajnaptivadins, Mahisassakas, Ekavyavaharikas and Lokottaravadins. In his introduction to the French translation of the Chinese version of the Abhidharmakosabhasya, De la Vallee Poussin observes that in all probability the Theravadins, too, are called Vibhajjavādins because of the position they took in respect of this selfsame controversial issue. There is, in fact, much indirect evidence in the literary sources of the Theravadins themselves which can be adduced in support of this conclusion.

What is more, in the very account of the Third Buddhist Council, referred to earlier, there is an oblique, but unmistakable reference to the Buddhist controversy on time which, as we shall soon see, is not only the basis in relation to which Theravada came to be known as Vibhajjavāda, but also is the actual reason that led to the summoning of the third Buddhist Council. The historical circumstances and the doctrinal reasons which brought about this controversy as to the reality or otherwise of the elements of existence in the three phases of time, and the impact on the subsequent history of the Sasanā will become clear if we follow closely the history of Buddhist thoughts in the two centuries immediately preceding the Third Buddhist Council.

The following is a summary of the historical background that led the various Buddhist Schools including the Theravada, the heir apparent to the original Buddhism, to identify the Buddha as a Vibhajjavādin and Buddhism as a Vibhajjavāda. It is generally believed that the Abhidhamma came into existence as a systematic exposition of the Buddha’s teachings which existed in the form of discourses. The Abhidhamma while collecting and analyzing early teachings came forward with the theory of elements which is generally known as the Dhammavāda. According to this theory, only the elements of Dhamma exist in actual fact. Actually the Theravada Abhidhamma says that there is no individual. Only the Absolute Dhamma (paramattha dhamma) exists. Therefore, the existence of the individual became negated.

On the basis of this, the theory of elements was questioned since it seems to have denied the ethical responsibility and the continuation of life. If the individual does not exist there is no one to hold the responsibility of good and bad actions committed and there is no one to go from this life to the life after. Those who maintained this position organized into a separate School and seceded from Theravāda in the reign of King Bindusara, the father of King Asoka. This School became known as Puggalavāda. Since it was pioneered by the Elder Vatsaputra, this School was known as Vatsaputriya Nikaya too. The Puggalavāda was condemned as a substantialist theory. Without subscribing to the acceptance of the existence of individuals, an attempt was made to answer the problems that the Puggalavāda raised.

A result of this, endeavour was the discovery of a new methodology which came to be known as Sarvastivāda. It is believed that the Sarvastivāda School came into existence in the reign of King Asoka, the son and successor of King Bindusara. Since the elements exist in all three times, the Sarvastivādins maintained that the problems of ethical responsibility and continuation of life can be explained without resorting to the existence of the individual. The Sarvastivadins asked the question: Do the dharmas exist in all three times and answered categorically to the effect that they exist. Since the tri-temporal existence of dharmas provides a metaphysical dimension equivalent to the soul, there arose another School in the reign of King Asoka itself which answered the question: Do the dharmas exist in all three times analytically. This School was led by the Elder Kasyapa, hence it became known as Kasyapiya School. The position of the Kasyapiya School was that the past dharmas the effects of which have not yet actualized and the present exist; the past dharmas the effect of which have already actualized and the future do not exist. Since this explanation analyses the problem regarding the tri-temporal existence of dharmas without resorting to a categorical assertion in the affirmative or in the negative, it came to be known as Vibhajjavāda

Accordingly, the Abhidhammic analysis of elements gave rise to the emergence of three Schools which hotly debated the doctrinal position of the individual in the reign of King Asoka. This compelled the Elders belonging to the Theravāda to reinterpret their position in the background of the ideologies put forward by the Vastriputriyas, Sarvastivadins and the Kasyapiyas. This was carried out in the Third Buddhist Council by articulating the Theravāda position in the Kathāvatthu the first chapter of which is the Puggalakathā. Therein, the Arahant Moggaliputta Tissa Thera analyses the issue by taking it absolutely, with reference to space, time and to the factors into which the Absolute Reality (paramattha saccā) is finally explained. Since this analytical approach towards the controversy that had surfaced at that time, Theravāda too came to be known as Vibhajjavāda. As pointed out before, Vibhajjavada is a generic name which takes various Buddhist Schools into its scope even though it was considered as a personal designation of Theravada in the Pāli sources.

Thus, as above mentioned in this background of various theories of the existence of the Buddhist schools with regard to the doctrinal position of the individual, Theravada was forced to come out with its own theory. The third Buddhist council was convened to discuss these philosophical problems: Do the Dhammas exist in the past, in the present, and in the future? Theravadins said that this question deserves an analytical answer. This cannot be directly answered. They analyzed question in detail and gave their position which is recorded in the Kathāvatthu of the Abhidhamma Piṭaka. In that context of the tri-temporal existence of the Absolute Phenomena, the Theravada said that the Buddha was Vibhajjavādin and the Early Buddhism is Vibhajjavāda. Only in that context! It means that entirely Early Buddhism is not Vibhajjavāda. The most salient characteristic of the Buddha is not Vibhajjavādiī. Only in the selected contexts, the Buddha is Vibijjavādī and Buddhism is Vibhajjavāda.

Ashin Sutacaralankara(Research Scholar)

Department of Buddhist Studies

Nava Nalanda Mahavhara

(Deemed University)

Bihar, India,

References

1. VinA. I. 30ff; (Samantapāsādika Vinaya aṭṭhakathā)

2. Kathāvatthuatthakatha, PTS, 1889, pp.5-7;

3. Mahāvamsa, 5th chapter

4. Dighanikāya (=DN). III. 229;

5. Aṅguttaranikāya (=AN). II. 45

6. AN. I. 197

7. MN. II. 197

8. DN. I. 189-191

9. Kalyani, Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, 1983, pp. 9-10

10. Rockhill, W. W., Life of the Buddha, London, 1884, p. 91ff.

Masuda, J., Origin and Doctrines of Early Indian Buddhist Schools, Asia Major, Vol. II, 1925, pp.65ff.

11. Prof Oliver Abeynayake's 2006- M. A, Course Lecturer Notes of Pāli& Buddhist University of Sri Lanka,