One day, when he was asked, Please, Lord, tell us what is the highest bliss? Now, you think there was a simple answer, but it was not. He said it depends on the people, what is for them the highest bliss. For some people, well, it may be to sit at a television screen, or to other people it may be to see a football game, and to other people it may be something more. But if you speak of people in general, the conception of what is bliss is very, very different. And so the Buddha gave a very detailed description of the different levels through which we have to go and how we can attain finally the highest stage. And as an example for the way in which he taught, I have selected the Mangala Sutta. The Mangala Sutta means the Sutra on Bliss. It is written originally in Pali,

[01:03]

but it is something very fundamental, and I think it would be worthwhile to discuss it more in detail. This style might be interesting also for you, even if you don't know the language. He said, that means many people, many gods and men, came to the Buddha and asked him, what do you think is the highest bliss? And then he answers. And that is a very, very interesting answer because it gives a complete social idea of the different levels of consciousness from the lowest to the highest. And so he said, first his answer was, That means not to serve fools, but to serve wise men.

[02:11]

That is the first thing. To give honor to him to whom honor is due. That is the highest bliss. At the moment, at the lowest level, you can at least follow the example of those who are worthy of conduct and of wisdom. In the second verse, he said, which means to live in a good country and to, what you may call it, to live a good life and to have accumulated merits of one's previous life. At least one has good character. That is the highest bliss. It is a great thing because due to our good deeds in a former life and good thoughts in a former life,

[03:12]

we shall be able to follow a good life in this very life. Now the next is, That means much learning, learning in skill, but learning in skill and to be of sweet speech. That means one should know how to use one's speech in a pleasant way. That's my very important point, that before we can start about anything in the way of morality or of anything else, we should be able to speak in a way that people are not offended. It is not sufficient to say, oh, one should only say the truth. I know many people, when they say the truth, they want to insult somebody. But the Buddha said, please speak the truth, but only when it is necessary.

[04:13]

Unnecessary truth we do not need. And I think this is a very sound advice. And he says, even if you say the truth, say it in a pleasant manner, not in a criticizing and unpleasant manner. This is one of the first rules of life. Then the fourth level. Now, that means we would say father and to support father and mother. No, he says to support mother and father, because in India it is the mother who is more important than the father. And therefore it is always said, Mata Pito, that is mother and father to support. And to support one's children and one's wife. That is one great thing, and to lead a good life.

[05:14]

So this, he says, is in the ordinary sense a very happy life. But nowadays naturally people think to support one's family is of an unimportant issue, but I think that all early civilizations were based on the family. First of all the reverence for the mother and the father. Then the responsibility for one's children and one's wife. And this in itself, if people can do that, that is already a great step forward, because now they are no more concerned with their own personal happiness, but already with the happiness of others. And then in the fifth stage, or in the sixth stage rather, this is really extended, and they say, the next thing is, Dhanancha, Dhammacharyacha, Nyatakanancha Sangaho, Anavajjani Kamani, Ettamangala Bhutan. That means to give to others,

[06:15]

and to support if possible one's own family at least, those who are next to us. And to know something of the Dharma, something of the higher wisdom, even though we may not understand yet, but if one is interested in higher values, then this here, the giving, is one of the most important things, because it releases you from the narrowness of selfhood. Also in the Paramitas, you will remember, it is always said that the first Paramita is the Dana Paramita, the giving. People who are not able to give are bottled up, they are incapable for any other step. Now in the fifth, on the seventh stage, for the first time, the question of ethics is revealed, that is, Arati Virati Papan, Nyatakanancha Sangaho, Apamadocha Dameso,

[07:17]

Ettamangala Bhutan. It means to resist, to resist evil in the most honest way, and to do good deeds and so on, that is already for most people the highest happiness. And then, this is the same, I forgot, in the second line, he also mentions Nyatakanancha Sangaho. Now that is very important. He doesn't say that drinking as such is bad, but he says, do it with restraint, don't get ever drunk. And this, I think, this attitude of Buddhism is reflected in the fifth sila, in which any kind of mind-changing drugs or alcohol or anything is regarded

[08:18]

to be bad for Buddhists. I mean, you know that in Buddhism there is nothing forbidden, but it is assumed that as Buddhists we should refrain from taking things which deprive us of our mental presence. So this kind of moderation is already the seventh and very important step. Then in the eighth step he says, and here the higher form of ethics becomes effective. Respect, humility, contentment and gratitude, to listen, to listen to religious talk from time to time, this is the highest place. So that is, I think,

[09:18]

very characteristic of Buddhism, and I think especially in Japan, I noticed that gratitude plays an enormous role. And I think the first thing which people have to learn is gratitude. From that all the things, all the other virtues will follow naturally. So this here is the eighth stage. In the ninth stage it is said, Now, in this verse I am particularly interested in this, but maybe most people don't notice it. He says, from time to time, to see recluses or religious people. Now, samana means perhaps more.

[10:19]

Samana is a class of religious almost ascetics or religious wanderers, I would call it. That's perhaps the better word. Not necessarily that they are devoted to asceticism, but they are people who didn't lead a house life, but in the beginning, and this is historically very important, in the beginning the Buddha speaks not of bhikshus, he speaks of samanas, or in Sanskrit, sramana. Now, sramanas, as I told you before, is a particular, what I might call a particular sect of religious people who roamed all over India. And they roamed all through the centuries. They are even now to be found, they were found in the Buddha's times, they were found before the Buddha, they were found before the Aryans entered India, and probably they go back to the pre-Vedic age,

[11:22]

that means to the time of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, which had been discovered in the Indus Valley only a few years ago. It is shown, it is proved that there was a very high civilization because India was invaded by people from the northern parts of Central Asia, who also invaded Europe, and who were simply called Aryans, or rather who called themselves Aryans, because Aryan is actually an honorable title, honorary title. It means the noble ones. Naturally, everybody calls himself noble. And especially if people invade another country, they will always say that they take the excuse that they are of a higher culture and they bring their culture to somebody else. But in this case it was quite the opposite. India had already got a very high culture and the Brahmanic or Vedic culture was superimposed.

[12:23]

And those people who did not accept the rules of the invaders, they were either called by the invaders Shudras, that means untouchables, but in reality they themselves called them Samanas or Shramanas. That means Shramanas were those wandering monks who followed the ancient religion of which the Buddha already spoke when he said that Buddhism is not my own invention but is a religion which existed thousands of years ago. Nobody knows when it began. But I am only one of them to renew it. Another thing, if you have read the Dharmapada, the Dharmapada in Pali, there you will find that the same reference of the Shamanas or Shramanas. Even there, the Bhikshus are called first Shamanas. That means the Buddha

[13:23]

did actually not begin with a monastic religion but he collected around him people, I mean of religious mind who wanted to follow him. But he had no intention to found any monasteries or any particular special ideas. In fact, in his days, there were no ceremonies, there were no forms. If somebody wanted to enter the Sangha, as we later on call it, that means the religious community, he simply said, come, finished. He was initiated. So the mere saying come meant that he was accepted. So later on, he developed very intricate ceremonies which may be necessary because if you have a religious community, then finally you have also to look after the social conditions. You have to look after

[14:23]

housing, you have to create rules how the people would live together, rules of behavior, rules of eating, rules of everything. But this all came later. And again, the proof of this is in one of the last sermons of the Buddha, when he was about 80 years and he felt that his end was near. He called all his followers and he said to them, if you don't want to follow the rules which have been set up, the monastic rules, I release you from them. The only thing you have to do is to follow the Dharma. If you want the rules, you can keep them, but if you don't want the rules, it is up to you to decide which rules you want to keep and which rules you think are not necessary. So he was very, very liberal. And it was more or less his followers who stuck to the rules

[15:25]

and who finally found that the rules were actually more important than the teaching. If you know something of the Pali or Sanskrit canon, you will find that the so-called Vinaya is probably regarded as the most important part. But the Vinaya is actually that part which contains the monastic rules and among them also something about the teaching. But if you go to the sutra, for instance, like Majjhima Nikāya, Diga Nikāya, and so on, in Sanskrit or in Pali, there you find the words of the Buddha himself. Naturally, these words cannot have been all reported verbatim. Many things may have been added, many things have been also left out, maybe. But you can, if you carefully study the old texts, you find immediately what is genuine and what is not. Because the Buddha was very clear, very direct, and his speech was so rhythmic,

[16:27]

I would say, he would find many repetitions, but those repetitions were absolutely necessary at a time when there was no writing. I mean, there was writing at the Buddha's time to some extent, that means a few scholars could write Sanskrit. But the Buddha said, I am speaking to the people, and therefore I will not speak in Sanskrit, I will speak in Pali, the language of the people. Or rather, the Magadhi, the province in which he lived. Pali is the next, the written form of Magadhi. So therefore, the Buddha said, if you want to translate or to remember my discourses in Sanskrit, you may do so, you may translate them into your various popular languages. I have no objection, but I speak the language to which I am interested. I will not only speak to scholars, but to the people in general. So therefore, in the Pali Canon, as well as in

[17:28]

the early Sanskrit Canon, so much of the original speeches is remembered. Nowadays we can reconstruct his life and his ideas and many other things. And this is one of the sutras, which later on have been put perhaps into a verse form, but they sound rather genuine. Because, even if the Buddha has not used the same words, at least he has used the same language. And we can recognize the main points of his teachings. Now, in the ninth verse of this sutra, he says, he says here that one should continue to be contentment. Now, I mentioned it already,

[18:30]

the translation. In the tenth verse, he says, It is only in the tenth stage that he mentions anything of the Dharma. He says, the happiest people are those who have recognized the Four Noble Truths, and who are striving to realize Nirvana. So there, for the first time, we begin to understand the teaching. But before we can understand the teaching, we have to go through all these various stages of life. And then he says, if you have studied these Four Noble Truths, I will speak about them. If you have realized the Four Noble Truths, and if you are striving after Nirvana, then he says, And this

[19:44]

gives actually a picture of the evolved person. He says, So, to be a Buddhist is not to adhere to any particular idea or teaching, so much as to find that inner contentment and the inner strength of mind, the unshaken mind, the mind who is not disturbed by suffering, and the mind who feels happy not because he has no suffering, but because he has overcome it. He is the master of it. And so then, in the end, we come to the last stage. That is the 12th. That means, those

[20:52]

who have fulfilled these conditions, they are safe all around. Nothing can happen to them because they are liberated. And there we have the end of the Mangala Sutta. And I think you will see that it is very beautiful also in form. I read to you the original words, not because I expect you to understand them, but at least you can get a feel of the beautiful rhythm of the language. I think one can hardly imagine the language of the Buddha if you read now, for instance, David's, he gave a very good translation. He is a very great scholar, no doubt, or other people. But in order to bring out a book on the teachings of the Buddha, they have left out all the repetitions. They have just shortened them. But the repetitions are actually the most beautiful part of it because it is not a repetition,

[21:53]

it is a rhythmic form of speech. And as I said before, because the general public was not able to read or to write, they had to memorize all these speeches. And by building them up in a rhythmic form with many repetitions, people could remember them. If you ever have read a complete discourse of the Buddha, it will be difficult to forget it. And so it came about that after about 400 years, when the whole book of the Tripitaka was carried by the memory of the people from teacher to pupil and so on, after 400 years, it was put into writing. And therefore, when people nowadays quarrel about what the Buddha said or what he didn't say and so on, they forget altogether that the Buddha has never written anything and that we have to find out the general structure of Buddhism from the teachings which have come down through the ages.

[22:55]

And now this canon, which was just written in Pali and in Sanskrit probably around about the same time, I think even the Sanskrit canon may be slightly older, not because it goes back to an older time, but because in the beginning, people used to write only in Sanskrit. The few people who knew it. And then people remembered the Pali and wrote the version also in Pali. Then afterwards, about 1,000 years later, more than 1,000 years later, the Tibetans translated all the old Sanskrit canon into Tibetan. And it became a huge book of 108 volumes. And another about 120 volumes of commentaries, because in the meantime, so many commentaries were written in sub-commentaries and sub-sub-commentaries. For instance, the Dhammapada, which is a very beautiful, simple work, poetic work,

[23:57]

has got its so-called Atakata, which means its commentary. And for each verse, there is one story connected with it, which explains how the verse came into being. But even in the Dhammapada, if you look carefully, you will find that certain parts go certainly back to the Buddha. But there may be also a few of the verses are embellishments and are done by later generations, still in the same spirit, but still they are very readable, whatever they are. But we have got, as you know, many translations of the Dhammapada into Tibetan, into English, into French, into German, into I don't know how many languages. And I think you will find in English, there must be at least half a dozen different translations. And if you see them side by side, you wonder how you get to the different expressions.

[24:58]

And therefore, I think if we want to study the Dhammapada, we really go back to the original. Because the way, how it is expressed, if you translate it literally, then it is not poetry. If you make it poetical, then it is not literal. So you are between the two extremes. it is a very difficult thing. For instance, I will give you an example. The first verse begins, Now this verse has got, I think, as many different translations as there are words. First of all, how to translate it? It means actually, the mind is the forerunner of all things. And

[26:02]

yeah, mind. Now in English, we say mind. I remember just now another translation in which it is said, the heart is the forerunner of everything. Well, both translations are right. Because mano means as well heart as well as mind. Because practically all Asiatic people have the idea that the mind is located in the heart, not in the brain. So that makes a vast difference. You see, if you in any European language, if you see the mind, you think naturally of the brain. And if you think of the brain, you think it is more or less a kind of merely sophisticated idea. But if you see heart, then you think only of the emotion. But the heart is the seed, both of emotion and of thought. But of thought in a very

[27:05]

more personal way. And therefore I think that the version, if we know that the idea of mind is to be located in the heart, is really meaning something much deeper than our brain thoughts. You see, a man may have got wonderful thoughts in his brain. If he has no heart, he is useless. So therefore the Buddhist thought that means what we call in that case thought, at the same time intention, volition, that is something which is a formulation which has been derived from our deepest feeling. And so if we see the world from that point of view, we have to discard the greater part of our so-called logic. And that you can see. If you read about the Buddhist logic, we have not yes and no. The world is not divided into two sections. But you have

[28:10]

got yes and no and yes and no and yes without no. That means either yes and no or you have neither yes nor no. That's right. That means that's a four-fold logic. And if we come nowadays to the recognition of scientific truth, we find out that in physics our logic is not applicable at all. Heisenberg himself told me. He said it is impossible in our European logic to explain any physical fact. Because the physical fact is that the cause can become after the effect instead of the effect after the cause. It means the time element is completely absent. And we have got what I would call synchronicity of events. And a complete reversal sometimes. Sometimes it is here, sometimes not. But it is so that it is, in other words, in scientific terms, it is indeterminate.

[29:11]

So therefore you must understand that even the Pratikyasamutpada in Buddhism, that means the so-called causal nexus, in the Buddha's time it was never regarded as a logical hypothesis. But he says you can exchange all the different parts. And Narayana is very clearly shown that the formula has to be understood in a quite different sense. That means it shows only the possible succession but not the necessary succession. So therefore now I come to the central point. The question may arise what is Buddhism? What is actually the fundamental idea of Buddhism? And here I want to show you this figure here. The Buddha had a thesis and an antithesis.

[30:15]

The thesis was well, we are suffering and that's why we try to come to the antithesis, which is liberation or happiness. Nobody can deny the fact of suffering. But now the next question which is to be put is not sufficient to see that they are suffering. We have to know what is the cause of suffering. Every doctor will first ask a person that is sick what is the cause? He diagnoses it. So therefore we have got here suffering as thesis and happiness and the cause of suffering as antithesis. On this side we have the different stages in which suffering appears. The antithesis is this here. That means of the

[31:16]

antithesis, we have happiness and the cause of happiness. The suffering and the cause of suffering happiness and the cause of happiness. And this makes the four noble truths.

[31:27]

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