AS I WAS SAYING ............................... THE PLACE OF 'GODS' IN BUDDHISM

AS I WAS SAYING  ...............................
THE PLACE OF 'GODS' IN BUDDHISM

The Buddhist approach to gods' is something important for us, Buddhists, to study.

People normally put religions in different categories.

When people discuss religion, they often call Christianity, lslam, Hinduism and Buddhism the world's 'main religions' because a large proportion of the world's population believe in them.

But there's another way to categorise religions.

Except for Buddhism, all the world's main religions belong to one category. They are theistic. 

They believe in a creator God and they hold that salvation is gained only with the help of the creator God. ln short, the creator is a saviour and the teachings of theistic religions can generally be called theology.

However, Buddhism is different. The Buddha is not God, nor a messenger of God. He is not a creator. The Buddha has never talked about a creator God.

So people call Buddhism 'atheistic' and Buddhists are said to be 'atheists'. Buddhism, in this sense, falls into a separate category all by itself.

But is this classification correct? ls it accurate to call Buddhism atheistic and Buddhists atheists?

Atheists are people who object to religion on 2 main grounds. They believe that God does not exist and that there is no life after death. ln his best-selling book. 'The God Delusion', Professor Richard Dawkins called a belief in life after death 'wishful thinking'.

But what does the word 'atheist' actually mean?

The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary defines an ‘atheist' as 'someone who believes that God or gods do not exist '.

Here, it's important to bear in mind that, although the Buddha did not talk about a creator God, he certainly did talk about 'gods'.

lndeed, it's easy to forget that Buddhism as a religion, and Buddhists as a group of religious practitioners, may not even exist in the world today if not for a god called Brahma Sahampati.

Soon after the Buddha's enlightenment, he wondered whether he should teach the Dharma to the world. 

After all, the Dharma that he had realised was 'profound, hard to see, hard to understand, peaceful and sublime, to be experienced by the wise. But this population delights in attachment, takes delight in attachment, rejoices in attachment.'

It was then, as the story goes, that Brahma Sahampati appeared before the Buddha and persuaded him to teach.

Although the vast majority of humankind was ignorant and difficult to teach, there were a few, according to Brahma Sahampati, with 'little dust in their eyes' who could benefit from the Buddha's teachings.

And so, forlunately for us, the Buddha relented.

One of the things that the Buddha taught is that there is life after death, not only one life but countless lives.

According to Buddhism, until they gain enlightenment, sentient beings migrate in samsara, the cycle of birth and death, in 6 realms of existence - the realms of the gods, asuras (sometimes called 'titans' or'demigods'), human beings, animals, hungry ghosts and hell.

Here, I'm talking only about gods.

Buddhist texts mention 3 different types of gods'.

ln Pali and Sanskrit, the term used for 'gods' is 'deva'.

The 1st type of gods is uppatideva.'Uppati' means 'birth'. 'Uppatideva' is therefore a god by birth.

Who are these gods by birth?'

Here, we wander into a bit of culture or popular belief in which life after death is accepted. 

Generally, religious people, Buddhists and non-Buddhists, believe in heavens.

But 'heaven' here does not have the same meaning as in other religions. ln Buddhism, heaven is nothing but another world or universe. The Buddhist world is very big. The Buddha talked about thousands and thousands of universes.

ln those universes, there are plants like we have here on earth but maybe even better. People live happily. 

They experience happiness, better health and long life. And so, compared to our earth, these planets seem like heavens.

Thus those who are born in such higher planes of existence are considered gods by birth.

The 2nd category of gods is sammutideva. These can be termed 'accepted gods.'Certain kinds of beings are accepted or recognised by people as gods. Some people use the words 'conventional gods' or 'local gods'.

Chinese people will find this very easy to understand. ln China, there are many gods. lf we go back in history, these gods were once people who lived in certain provinces. They did good things for the benefit of people. They worked very hard to develop the areas in which they lived. They sacrificed themselves for the benefit of people. As a result, even though many people may have forgotten the origins of these accepted gods, they still respect or worship them as gods after many centuries. This is common not only in China, Japan, Sri Lanka and Tibet but even in Singapore today.

The 3rd category of gods is visuddhideva.

Visuddhi means 'purification'. lf you have studied Buddhism, you would know that there is a book called Visuddhimagga - The Path of Purification - written by the great Sth century monk, Buddhagosa. 

This is the meaning of the title of the book, the path towards enlightenment.

Visuddhideva is a person who has become a god as a result of purification. By purification, one can become a god.

Purification is the process of getting rid of all the defilements - ignorance, greed, anger and so on. ln Buddhism, we purify our minds by practising the precepts, the 10 Perfections and meditation.

So the Buddha attained the highest purification by getting rid of all his defilements. He became a god by purification.

So do all Buddha's, bodhisattvas and arahants.

ln contrast, the first 2 categories of gods - upattideva and sammutideva are what in Buddhism are called 'worldy gods'.

What is the difference?

Briefly, we can say that visuddhideva * Buddhas, bodhisattvas and arahants - have attained or are on the verge of attaining enlightenment whereas upattideva and sammutideva, lhe worldly gods, have not.

Many people pray to worldly gods to receive blessings for better lives, money, better grades for their children, safety and long lives.

But worldly gods are not able to guide us towards enlightenment and so, from a Buddhist point of view, praying to them is rather short-sighted or pointless.

The Buddha has become an icon of compassion and tolerance even to non-Buddhists around the world. There is no better illustration of this than the story of Upali.

Upali was a millionaire who wanted to be a disciple of the Buddha. The problem was that he already had a religious teacher who relied on him for financial support. Twice he made the same request and twice the Buddha refused. Only when, on his 3rd attempt, after the Buddha was assured that Upali's religious teacher would not lose his financial support, did the Buddha agree to accept Upali as a disciple.

And so, it is not surprising that the Buddha, in his compassion and tolerance, did not ban or prohibit practices such as worshipping of worldly gods by his followers.

Still, if we take our Dharma practice seriously, we should not lose sight of the fact that only the Three Jewels (the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha) are effective and genuine refuges.

There is a famous sutra in which the Buddha was engaged in a conversation with a curious man. The man was impressed with the calm and serene demeanour of the Buddha and wanted to know who or what the Buddha was. 

Was he a celestial being or a god? A magician, a wizard or a man?

The Buddha declined all these descriptions. He was simply, in his own word - awake.

This encounter is usually related by people to illustrate the enlightenment of the Buddha. As always, when replying, the Buddha was precise.

'Awake' is a simple description but it's a very meaningful one. Because if the Buddha was a supernatural being, then we, as ordinary human beings, could never hope to be enlightened like him.

lf, on the other hand, the Buddha was 'awake', then we are all merely 'asleep'. And being merely asleep, we can all wake up from our ignorance by following the footsteps of the Buddha.

And once human beings realise their full potential and become Buddhas, they surpass even the worldly gods who are still trapped in samsara. This is the great beauty and promise of Buddhism.

Reading the Buddha's answer to the curious man's question, a question mav crop up in your mind - if the Buddha was a visuddhideva, a god by purification, why did he deny that he was a god?

The sutra did not directly answer this question.

But my own educated guess would be that the Buddha knew that the curious man was not well acquainted with the Dharma. (lf he was well acquainted with the Dharma, he would not have asked the question in the first place.

What would have happened if the Buddha had agreed that he was a god? What impression would the curious man have gone away with?

The curious man would have gone away confused that the Buddha was no different from worldly gods.

And that would not have been very helpful in guiding the curious man on the path towards enlightenment.