Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism by Peter Marshall Read Free Book Online Page B

nation-shaking’ implications. 15
    Buddhism was originally an Indian religion, founded in the fifth century BC by Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha (the enlightened one). Buddha found the cause of evil in this world to be ignorance which encourages a person to try and satisfy his or her desires. Craving, whether for possessions, wealth, power or status, inevitably brings suffering and pain. But there is a way out. The four ‘Noble Truths’ which Buddha taught may be summed up as: ‘(a) the omnipresence of suffering; (b) its cause, wrongly directed desire; (c) its cure, the removal of the cause; and (d) the Noble Eightfold path of self-development which leads to the end of suffering.’ 16
    To avoid suffering it is therefore necessary to overcome one’s ego and eradicate all desire. To escape the painful cycle of rebirth in this world of illusion or
maya
, the individual must also try and become enlightened and realize that he or she ultimately has no self. Only by recognizing that
sansara
, the wheel of life, is
nirvana
, nothingness, will a person achieve complete liberation.
    In the beginning Buddhism was principally restricted to ethics and meditation exercises. It began to spread in India five hundred years prior to Christ and separated from Hinduism by rejecting the scriptures, rituals and social system. It eventually split into two separate branches, one becoming more rationalistic, formalized and scholastic (Theravada) and the other more mystical (Mahayana). By 1200 Buddhism had practically disappeared in India, but became well established in Sri Lanka, Tibet and Thailand.
    While institutional Buddhism has been ready to support inequalities and tyrannies, the disaffiliation, voluntary poverty and traditional harmlessness of practising Buddhists express a strong libertarian sensibility. Snyder has found in the practical systems of meditation developed by Mahayana Buddhism a powerful means of liberating individuals from their ‘psychological hang-ups and cultural conditionings’. He also believes that Buddhist Tantrism, or Vajrayana, offers probably the finest and most modern statement of the ancient view that ‘man’s life and destiny is growth and enlightenment in self-disciplined freedom’. 17 But it was in its Zen form however that Buddhism developed its libertarian potential to the fullest. 18
    Zen Buddhism developed in China after it was brought from India in the sixth century. During the following five hundred years, the Chinese called the school Ch’an. It reached Japan in the twelfth century where it came to be known as Zen. Here two main sects developed, the first Rinzai, which carried on the ‘sudden’ technique of the founder, and the second Soto, the more gentle way.
    Zen has rightly been called the ‘apotheosis of Buddhism’. 19 It is uniquely iconoclastic, attempting to reach truth and enlightenment by ultimately transcending the use of concepts, scriptures, and ritual. Where Theravada Buddhism became neatly arranged and systematized, with its twelve-fold chain of Causation, Zen adepts see in the Buddha the first rebel: ‘The Buddha was not the mere discoverer of the Twelvefold Chain of Causation,’ Suzuki informs us, ‘he took the chain in his hands and broke it into pieces, so that it would never again bind him to slavery.’ 20 The familiar props of religion are thrown away. The four central statements of Zen are:
    A special transmission outside the Scriptures;
    No dependence upon words or letters;
    Direct pointing to the soul of man;
    Seeing into one’s nature and the attainment of Buddhahood. 21
     
    Traditionally Zen aspirants have learned from a teacher. He is usually called master, but more in the sense of schoolmaster than lord. His task isto help them break out of their everyday perceptions and intellectual habits. Buddhist monks are therefore exemplars, not intermediaries between the individual and God like Christian priests. They may carry sticks and not be averse to