Sermon 3: Honor and Respect

He of respect nature who
Ever the elders honors
Four qualities for him increase:
Long-life and beauty, happiness and strength.

(Dhp. 109)

Today, in this explanation of the Dhamma taught by Lord Buddha, a very well known stanza of the Dhamma has been chosen. This stanza is recited thousands of times everyday in Thailand. It is one of several used by Bhikkhus, or Buddhist monks, when they chant the well-wishing for householders after having received from them some gift, perhaps of food or perhaps of one of the other requisites of life given by lay people to Bhikkhus.

This stanza is heard with devout concentration by lay-people who have done an action, such as giving, which is called Punna or that good which purifies the mind-stream of the doer. The listening to this stanza with a purified mind can be of great fruit, of great advantage. This is not because the stanza itself is magic or itself bestows holiness or blessings, but because of the general advantages which anyone may reap by listening intently to words of wisdom.

This hearkening to wisdom when the mind is calm and filled with faith and the joy of having worked that which is wholesome, is itself another act of wholesomeness, another beneficial deed. Should one then be so much impressed with the advice given in this stanza that one sets out to practice in the same way in one's own life, why then there is still a further increase in Punna as Lord Buddha assures us, a fourfold fruit to be expected from reverence and humility: "Long life and beauty, happiness and strength".

Much is thus to be gained from wholesome actions such as giving, in the first place, while more benefit may be reaped from listening to the words of truth which are the Dhamma. But, one might say, people hear these words of well-wishing in the Pali language and so do not understand them.

Such an objection might apply to other chants heard less frequently, but so often is this verse heard by house-holders that its meaning is clear even to those who have never studied Pali, while the four advantages at the end would not be difficult to understand even for people coming from remote villages.

In the ten ways of making Punna, reverence and humility are listed fourth, following the three main headings of Giving, Morality and Mind-development. Without the aspect of humility, indeed, why would one realize that any training at all was necessary? Why would one undertake to be generous, to live an honest and upright life or to practice in such a way that one's understanding and penetration of the truth of Dhamma is deepened?

Is it not that one feels dissatisfied with one's present experience and comes to acknowledge that most of the trouble lies in oneself, not in the outside world? This is humility. When one has this, one may discover others who have gone further along the Path and can therefore offer good advice about one's life and how to live it. When this advice is appreciated, one becomes grateful and feels that one has learnt something of value.

Thus one comes to respect a teacher for his wisdom and the help given. And giving respect one reaps a fine harvest of Punna, especially when the one respected has reached to the end of Dhamma, or at least one who is striving upon the Path. All these benefits the proud man misses. He will not even meet with good teachers, or if he does so, he is unable to benefit himself by their instructions. In those books of Dhamma-similes called "Trees and Water" which have been translated from Tibetan, we read: "Just as a branch adorned with good fruits is bent down beneath their weight, so a wise man's mind adorned with all good qualities is bent downwards with humility and calm and knows no pride.

(But) just as the fruitless branch of a fruit-tree has the nature to grow aloft; so the head of a haughty man is always held high, for his heart is not humble." Who loses and who gains? The humble man has a mind pliable, workable, and therefore is able to learn in his life and profit richly from experience. Alas, for the proud man! He cannot bear the though that others might know more, be worth more, so how can he learn? In India at the time of Lord Buddha, it was the upper castes in society who were proud.

The kinsmen of Gotama himself, known as the Sakiya clan of warriors, were famous for their pride. They were humbled only by an exercise by Lord Buddha of his supernormal powers. Even then their pride proved to be their undoing for they gave a half-caste slave-girl in marriage to the prince of a neighboring kingdom, not deigning to give any maiden of full Sakiya blood.

Vidudabha, the prince in question, when he discovered the Sakiya's deception, vowed to wash their moot-hall with their own blood, a slaughter which he carried out in full when he became king. In their case, pride indeed came before a fall! Or one might think of a Brahmin’s pride, one of the Bharadvaja clan who showed no respect either for his mother or father, nor teacher, nor eldest brother. Because of his unbending pride he was nicknamed ‘Pridestiff'. When he went to see Lord Buddha, he first resolved that "If he will talk to me, I will talk to him, if not, I will not speak to him."

It is not surprising that Gotama did not speak to him and when this happened he thought to return home. At this juncture, Lord Buddha with his faculty of discerning the minds of others, spoke to him, showing Pridestiff that his mind was like an open book: "Then Pridestiff thought, ‘The Samana Gotama knows my thoughts!" and there and then he fell upon his face at the Exalted One's feet..." Then the gathering were astonished. ‘Sir, it is marvelous; sir, it is wonderful! For this Pridestiff shows no respect to mother or father, or to others, yet he utterly prostrates himself in this manner before the Samana Gotama."

When Pridestiff had taken his place again, he asked the following questions in verse, of the Exalted One:

"To whom should pride not be express?
Who should one treat with reverence?
Who should one offer honor and respect?
Who is it good to worship well?

To which the Exalted One replied:

For mother and for father too, likewise
For eldest brother, for teacher, for
The Brahmin and those of the yellow robe:
For these is one to cultivate no pride,
These should one honor these should one
revere, to these if one shows reverence it is well.
The Arahants, unstained, become quite cool,
And having done what should be done,
Pride perished as to the goal they crossed.
To them beyond all others homage pay."

(S.i. 177-178)

This was the taming of a proud Brahmin, a circumstance much to his advantage since he went for Refuge to the Triple Gem and then became a devoted lay-follower. How few are the opportunities of this sort for proud person?

Lord Buddha frequently recommends to Bhikkhus that their minds should be as lowly and as humble as that of candala-boy. Now the candalas were (and are) one of the names given to outcaste groups in India and since they were everywhere despised and forced to do the most menial work, having to bear with the harsh words and blows of others without reply, so the simile is very apt. Pride after all is the increase of the feeling ‘I am", it is the process of ‘I-making' and its results in people adopting all sorts of views about their ‘selves' and ‘souls'. Humility, and the reverence resulting from it, shows the decrease of pride and will be very helpful in appreciating the true nature of this mind and body, after viewing them as ownerless and empty of a self to which they belong, for renouncing them as owned and so to the seeing of Nibbana. How, from a practical point of view, can one start upon this Path which will lead one to Peace? In the story of the Pridestiff above, we notice that he "utterly prostrated himself". This act of prostration is commonly seen to this day in Thailand: children prostate to their parents and teachers, while all lay-people respect Bhikkhus in this way and likewise pay homage to the Buddha-images.

Among those in the robe, novice or ‘samaneras' prostrate to Bhikkhus, as do young Bhikkhus to their seniors in the Sangha, while all alike respect in this way the Sangharaja or Patriarch. Everyone, ordained oar lay, prostrates in remembrance of the Lord Buddha before the Buddha-images. However great in worldly position and power, even kings in Buddhist lands have always honored the feet of the Buddha-images and those of their own teachers. Everyone has thus a chance to pay reverence and thus to increase the wholesome in his own heart.

Now why is it that prostration should promote humility and thus be a way of showing reverence? When one considers the human body, its most important sense organs together with the brain are contained in the head. It is the area where experiences are assembled together and the world is thought of as ‘out there' while I, the knower, am ‘in here'.

The head with its sense-faculties is thus a wonderful place for ‘I-making', for egoism. In prostration, it is this splendid piece of apparatus, which is lowered to the ground. From being on the top of all the body, it finds itself below the body and level with the feet. Is it a wonder that the mental stain of pride is offended by this and feelings arise which relate to not liking prostration?

Pride is always at the root of these and causes people to put out a ‘smoke-screen' of why it should not be done! This prostration is one way of showing respect.

Another is by placing the palms in ‘anjali', an action that in other systems of faith is connected with prayer. In Buddhist Teaching, however, respect is the reason for it and the one who benefits is he who pays respect. People sometimes think both with regard to prostration and to anjali that these actions are, so to speak, for the benefit of whatever is on the ‘receiving end', be it a Buddha-image, a Bhikkhu or a senior member of the family. But this is to misunderstand the reasons for making these gestures, for besides outwardly showing respect, inwardly there is by such action, the growth of reverence and humility.

Now we are considering here "He of respectful nature whoever the elders honors". A person like this does not perform the outward modes of respecting just because it is said to be the right thing to do, or just because of habit. In showing respect in every way, he does so mindfully and is thus aware of the real reason why respect should be shown:-- the lessening of the mental stain of pride and the increase of humility. To be eager to forward one's training in the Way of Dhamma is the mark of the sincerely good person who by his striving overpasses the conventionally good attitude. Of such a one it is said: "Hour qualities for him increase", that is to say, his deliberate actions by way of body, speech and mind are kamma and the fruits that are reaped by him are these four which are results of his actions. These results (vipaka) or fruits of kamma (phala) are: Long life and beauty, happiness and strength." Each of these four qualities of a reverent person has an immediately obvious meaning as well as one, which is not so easy to see.

Let us examine them one by one. First we have ‘long-life'. Most people wish for long-life, that is to say, they crave for life and fear to die and only when this life becomes too miserable and horrific, do people release their craving-grip and wish to die. Long-life sounds good when one is young, craving experiences and having good health. To one already old and perhaps sick, long-life may look different. It puts one in mind of that intrepid voyager Gulliver who after his visit to laputa came upon a land where occasionally ‘immortals' were born. He goes on to rhapsodize at length upon the advantages that these fortunate being must posses. Unfortunately, he assumes that they have ‘everlasting youth', which it, turns out, is not the case. They are condemned to an everlasting life of abject misery. It should be understood, then, that when Lord Buddha said that this was one of four qualities enjoyed by a reverent person, he meant the sort of long-life in which there is continual growth in Dhamma.

Unprofitable long-life is illustrated in this verse:

"Just as the ox grows old
So this man of little learning,
His fleshiness increases
But his wisdom does not grow."

(Dhp. 152)

Long-life is for use, to one's great good and advantage and anyone who practices in this way, practices also for the good of other people. The second quality is ‘beauty'. The Pali word is very difficult to translate into English because of its varied meanings. ‘Vanno' can mean beauty, complexion and from this comes to signify caste and social position.

Here we will take it to mean beauty. It is the beauty which increases upon the face of anyone who customarily performs deeds which are wholesome and who is careful to avoid evil doing. Lord Buddha has explained how ugliness is the result, sometimes from a previous life, of anger. Is not the angry person intensely ugly? He thereby stamps himself with ugliness. The evil kamma of anger bears the resultant, which is unwelcome, of ugliness. In the same way, the kamma of reverence bears its fruit in beauty of countenance and graceful manners. But as everyone knows, though most people try to forget, physical beauty is impermanent, it is eroded away through old age, it is liable even to sudden and calamitous change in the case of accidents, and so forth.

When pointing out beauty as one of the fruits of reverence, Lord Buddha is not only referring to the very impermanent body. In this teaching of Dhamma, inward beauty of the pure mind is pointed out as excelling by far mere physical attractiveness. Indeed, Lord Buddha has said that not half but all of the holy life consists of this sort of beauty. It is the beauty of a trained mind, one which is workable, one from which the strangling creepers of the passions of Greed, Aversion and Delusion have been chopped away.

It abounds in beautiful qualities such as mindfulness, gentleness, contentment, peace, concentration and joy. It is grown cool and never becomes a stumbling-block for others but instead is full of compassion and helpfulness. This is truly an advantage from the practice of reverence.

Next we come to ‘happiness'. Happiness is commonly analyzed into that arising due to pleasant bodily feeling and that experienced through pleasant mental feelings. It is worth nothing that many feelings do arise--pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Only the Arahant who has got beyond kamma can determine about his feelings: ‘Let this one be pleasant, let this one be unpleasant.' Although we cannot yet determine feelings in this way, what we can do is to ensure an increase of pleasant, happy feeling. Everyone actually desires just this, but few people go about increasing happiness for themselves and others in the right way. Instead of thinking that increased and varied sense stimulation is the path to happiness.

Happiness is the fruit to be expected in all cases when the wholesome has been done. It may be reaped immediately, or only after some time depending upon the other sorts of kamma, which are fruiting at the time. Reverence is specially sure to produce happiness since in showing that one respects others and has humility oneself, one promotes harmony and good understanding with others.

How indeed can pride ever give happiness? The proud person is himself dissatisfied while others are made miserable by him. Reverence, not power and pride, not force and might, is a key to unlock the door of peace both for oneself and for the world at large. Lastly, there is ‘strength'.

This could be interpreted as meaning physical strength but this is not really intended. The strength resulting from reverence is an inward strength.

It is the ability to overcome obstacles in life, to be able competently to deal with all the affairs and problems, which present themselves; in such a way that wholesomeness is promoted while evils is lessened. Strengths or powers as they are usually called, are in Buddhist training, five in numbers and although these cannot be explained in detail here, still they may be mentioned: Confidence, energy, mindfulness, collectedness and wisdom.

It is not surprising that from sincere acts of reverence, these basic factors upon which the whole Buddhist training is based, increase and come to fruit.

Suffice it to say here that the person who has actualized reverence is strong, not weak; he is developed, not lacking in qualities, and he is able, not unable, to cope with the flow of life. When we again hear this stanza, so full of profound and useful Dhamma, we should remember its application to our lives. It is precisely for this reason that the Light of the Three Worlds has said:

"He of respectful nature who
Ever the elders honors,
Four qualities for him increase
Long-life and beauty, happiness and strength."

EVAM

Thus indeed it is