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Buddhist Monk's Act Arouses Curiosity
By Louis Cassels
By burning himself to death, a Buddhist monk in Viet Nam has drawn worldwide attention to a revival of fervor in one of the ancient religions of Asia.
Buddhism, which comes in almost as many varieties as Christianity, now has about 150 million followers in Japan, Korea, China, Mongolia, Tibet, Ceylon, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Viet Nam.
Twenty years ago, students of world religions were calling Buddhism a moribund faith. But as a traditional religion of the East, it has received a powerful stimulus from the wave of nationalist feeling that has swept over Asian countries since World War II. Its come-back as a popular religion is dramatized by the current controversy in Vietnam, where Buddhists are bitterly protesting against alleged persecution by the government of President Ngo Dinh Diem, a Roman Catholic.
Buddhism is sometimes called "Hindu Protestantism." It originated in India 2,500 years ago as a protest or reform movement within Hinduism.
ONE OF ITS varieties, called Zen, has attracted a small but articulate following among Western intellectuals.
No one ever practiced mortification of the flesh with greater dedication than Gautama. He fasted (eating one bean a day) until his spine could be seen through his shrunken stomach. But he found no answer to his questions about life, and concluded that extreme asceticism was no better than luxury as a pathway to happiness.
ITS FOUNDER was an enormously wealthy Indian prince, Siddhartha Gautam, who was born about 560 B.C. in a northern province about 100 miles from Benares. Legend says that Gautama had three palaces and 40,000 dancing girls to keep him amused. But he learned early in life that luxury did not lead to happiness. When he was about 29 years old, he abandoned his sumptuous life as a prince and went into the forest, dressed in rags, to seek enlightenment in the solitary life of a Hindu ascetic.
After six years of futile searching, Gautama seated himself one evening beneath the shade of a fig tree near the village of Gaya in northeast India. He vowed that he would sit right there until he saw the light.
ACCORDING TO Buddhist scripture, he remained for 49 days. He emerged from this experience as the Buddha, or "The Enlightened One." For the next 45 years, he walked from one Indian village to another, sharing his new insights with all who would listen, and founding an order of monks to practice his precepts and pass on his message. He died at the age of 80 after eating some poisoned mushrooms that had gotten into a dish by accident.
Buddha's original teachings constitute a philosophy of life rather than a religion. He taught that human life is characterized by suffering, and the basic cause of suffering is "tanha," a word which is often translated as "desire" but which actually connotes selfish craving, the tendency in every person to seek his own private happiness.
Tuesday, July 23.1963 Summer Session Kansar
Buddha said this monastic way of life, if earnestly practiced, would eventually lead to "nirvana." Exactly what he meant by this much-abused term is hard to determine from his authenticated sayings. At times, he seems to think of nirvana as a state of nothingness, a final blotting out of human individuality (and hence of the selfish cravings which cause suffering). At other points, he speaks of nirvana in terms comparable to those which a Christian mystic might use to describe ecstatic union with God.
To break free from slavery to "tanha," Buddah said men must follow "The Eightfold Path" or Right Knowledge, Right Aspiration, Right Speech, Right Behavior, Right Occupation, Right Effort, Right Thinking and Right Absorption.
It is sometimes said that Buddha was an atheist, because there are no direct references in his teachings to a personal god. But his silence on this subject seems to have derived mainly from a decision that he would avoid all theological "speculations" (with which Hinduism was already rife) and concentrate on teaching a way of life.
UNDER EACH OF these eight headings, he laid down rules for rigorous self-discipline. Buddhists were forbidden to lie, steal or kill any living creature, including animals and insects. They were allowed to eat only what they could beg, and then just enough to keep the body alive and functioning. Alcoholic beverages and sex relations were strictly forbidden.
DR. HUSTON Smith, professor of world religions at Harvard, points out in his authoritative book, "The Religions of Man" (Harper & Row), that all of the things which Buddha tried so hard to keep out of his movement — including metaphysics, creeds, rituals and superstitions — came "tumbling in with a vengeance" after the founder's death in 480 B.C.
Today the austere philosophy of Buddha is preserved primarily by the so-called "theravada" monks of Burma, Ceylon, Thailand and Cambodia. The popular Buddhism of other countries worships Gautama as a divine savior, and admits a whole pantheon of other gods.
Like Christianity, popular or "Mahayana" Buddhism places great emphasis on compassion and human brotherhood. Room has been made for praver and ritual, and salvation is something man receives by divine grace, rather than something he must earn by rigorous self-denial. Laymen as well as monks can hope to reach nirvana, which in Mahayana Buddhism sounds rather like a primitive Christian version of heaven.
Zen is a special case. It developed in China in the 6th Century A.D., and by the 12th Century had reached Japan, where it took root and still flowers.
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Four Assistant Professors Appointed
Four men have been appointed assistant professors in the department of mathematics with full-time teaching duties.
They are Gunther W. Goes, who for two years has been a fellow for the National Research Council of Canada at the University of Western Ontario; and three who earned the Ph.D. this year, John H. Harris, Joe L. Mott and John a Pfaltsgraff.
mathematics camp for high school students. The others will report in September.
HARRIS HAS been teaching in the summer session and Mott has been assisting with the science and
Goes earned the Ph.D degree in 1958 from the Technische Hochschule in Stuttgart, Germany. He was a National Science Foundation fellow at Northwestern University in 1959-60 and assistant professor at DePaul University in 1960-61.
Ph.D. in 1963, both from Illinois.
Harris earned the B.S. degree in engineering physics from the University of Illinois in 1959 and the M.S. in mathematics in 1959 and the
Mott earned the B.S. degree in chemistry in 1958 from East Texas Baptist College, the M.S. in mathematics from Louisiana State University in 1960 and the Ph.D. in 1963, also from LSU.
Pialtzgraf received the A.B. degree from Harvard College in 1958, the M.S. in 1961 and Ph.D. in 1963, both from the University of Kentucky.
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