4. The Educational Implications of Buddhist Philosophy

Education^[1], in Pali tradition, may be derived from the term “Sikkha"^[2] generally, implying the educational process of learning, training instruction, acquisition, development and enlightenment. The term naturally includes the training of advanced morality, spiritual concentration, and knowledge or wisdom, and is always combined with the word 'Pada'^[3] in “Sikkapada”, i.e. educational code, which is normally known as “Sekhapatipada” i.e. a learner’s course. Such a continual process of educational concern has for its functional character of gradual training or instruction, gradual practice or performance and gradual progress (anupubbasikkha anupubbabikirika anupubbapatipada), gives a learner a correct, noble lead in the various spheres of life and an insight into affairs, teacher him how to act rightly and how to live successfully and happily, and lead him to all-round progress, prosperity and welfare, to the development of a good personality with perfect knowledge and behavior, and finally to the end of suffering-salvation.

Education requires for its maturity and success of three complementary modes or factors, viz. The primary mode of literary or academic scholarship in the Buddha’s body of teachings (Pariyatti–competence-accomplishment), then the practical mode of what has been academically learnt and remembered by trying and putting these teachings into habitual practice (patipati-practice, performance), and finally the skillful mode of penetration, realization and mastery of the truth (Pativedha)^[4]. Three appropriate sources may serve to explain the above standpoint;

(1) Being well taught, a learner will understand, store up, remember, resolve upon, familiarize, ponder over in his mind and fully realize in theory (ditthiya) of those teaching, which are lovely in the beginning and at the end viz the sayings, psalms, catechisms, songs, solemnities, speeches, birth-stories, marvels and miscellanies, then he sets on living in accordance with those leaching, and thereby he may well be called a really learned man who realized the truth (Dhammannu).

(2) He investigates and scrutinizes the meaning of the lessons taught and remembered, then he approves of them and wishes them to arise in him, doing so he, in whom zeal has sprung up, is actively engaged, then he examines, then he endeavours, and finally he realizes with all his faculties of the truth by penetrating it with full comprehension.

(3) A learner, who has been taught well and guided well, come to know the text of the doctrine with its meaning and purpose, applies his thought to it as he has heard and learnt (Yathãsutam Yathãpariyattam), sustains protracted meditation on it and habitually contemplates it in his mind, grasps some object of concentration well, thinks it out well, thoroughly keeps it in mind and thoroughly penetrates it by the virtue of wisdom.

In its highest sense, the Buddhism ideals of educational hold that a person remains a learner of a pupil (Sekha), until he has attained the perfection of educational faculties of morality, of concentration, of wisdom, of emancipation and of insight and vision of emancipation. He is obliged to train himself and lives wanting to learn, because he has not attained the state of perfection (Arahantship), but is triving after such a state. One, who is an adept, perfect, completely educated, is no longer required to train him and will be known as “asekha." "Alas! I still remain but a learner, one who has yet to work out his own perfection” the venerable Ãnanda said to himself, “and the Master is about to pass away…..” A person, even if he may be and academic expert (Sumedha), who hears and learns much from the texts by heart (bahusutta susikkhita), is bound to the practice of what has been heard and learnt while following the right path and to the observance of the moral precepts (silavatupapanna), he is but a “learner”.

After the Buddha’s Nibbana, the venerable Mahakassapa appealed to the assembly of the monks to select and accept the venerable Ãnanda for the purpose of convening the First Council^[5] (Sangayana).

“Honour sirs, this Ananda, though he still is a learner, cannot be counted as one who follows a wrong course of action, either through favoritism or hatred or delution or fear, he has largely studied (Pariyatta) the Norm and Law under the Lord…"^[6] Thus, the educational business, in its highest sense, aims at a man’s highest valve of life–the life of spiritual fulfillment, enlightenment and perfection, and a truely educated person is one who achieves his emancipation, -freedom from bondage.

As already indicated such a concern with education ceases for him who is perfect, who has destroyed his cankers, has lived the life, done whatever is to be done (by a sekha), shed the burden, attained his final goal…freed by perfect, profound knowledge–these things conduce both to his abiding in ease here and now to his mindfulness and clear consciousness. But there is no short cut to attain maturity and perfection in education, it must go on continuously and must be undertaken step by step from the lower to the higher level.

Just as a yeoman farm does not have such magic power or authority to make his crops spring up today, then be with ear tomorrow, and ripen on the following day, so one can neither force one’s own education to reach its maturity and one’s own mind to be emancipated today or tomorrow. It is just due season and proper condition that make one experience one’s education maturity and one’s emancipation, as one is to undergo one's educational course constantly and gradually^[7]. Therefore, one should be really keen and deeply desirous of continually undertaking one's own educational venture.

For this purpose, one, with a faithful mind, should go into the presence of a teacher, pay homage to him, lend one’s ears and hear the doctrine, then one should remember it, test its meaning, approve of it after satisfactorily testing its meaning, desire for it, make an enthusiastic effort to obtain its weigh and discriminate it, striving, weighing, and discriminating one should realize and penetrate the truth itself with one’s own experience. With this as an example, we can say that an educational effort means a continual process of life-long experience: the experience to acquire, cultivate, develop, widen, deepen and heighten. It is a process in each individual’s progressive development, a gradual process of continuous growth and reconstruction of life’s valve, which manifests itself in the creation of a capable, good and efficient character and the perfection of an educated person as such.

The Buddha advocated and indeed recommended,“being educated”, especially in moral, intellectual and spiritual education. Oldenberg observed that “the mode of thinking of the world in which the Buddha lived, moved in the paths: for it all weal and woe depend on knowledge and ignorance is the ultimate root of all evil, while the sole power that can strike at the root of this evil, is knowledge … Emancipation, therefore, above all is knowledge, and the preaching of this highest aim can be nothing less or more than the exposition of this knowledge. It may be recalled that “knowledge" here means knowledge and realization of the truth, higher spiritual knowledge^[8].

According to the Buddha, people who live without education and without being trained in good behavior would be like blind buffaloes wandering in the forest. Some people in this world are, however well established and fair to grow, namely those who are wisely educated in knowledge and good behavior along the path of virtues.

A man with little education grows old day by day, like an ox; his body size grows increasingly, but not his knowledge. A man who is wise, well-educated and of high intelligence, does not consider the harm either of himself or of others or of both alike, he keeps thinking on the good of himself, of others or of both alike, and of the whole world. Of the five sorts of power or strength, the power of wisdom or intelligence is held to be the best, of the fare types of growth, viz. The growth of relatives, wealth, reputation, and of wisdom, the last one is reckoned the best and of the three kinds of eye, namely the physical eye (mangsacakkhu),^[9] the divine eye (dibbacakkhu), and the eye of wisdom (pannaacakkhu)^[10], the third one is regarded as the best, leading a person to the highest insight and success in life and finally to emancipation from all ills. “By education (sikkha) some ideas arise,” said the Buddha, “and by education again others pass away.” To be educated is said to be an “auspicious thing” (mangala) in that it brings about a creative power, and serves as the means for abondoning what is unprofitable and for creating, developing and achieving what is profitable, in that it leads to welfare and well being both for oneself and others, and in that it is a cause and means for gradually realizing and attaining the ultimate aim of life. A well-taught, well-trained, well-educated noble disciple is one who abandons what is unprofitable and blamable and increases what is profitable and blameless. He keeps himself pure and free from doing evil things.

It is clear from the Buddhist position that “goodness is a function of intelligence," wrote Rhys Davids “as beauty is of health. That is, knowledge is purified and justified by good behaviour and vice versa, where there is good behaviour, there is knowledge and where there is knowledge, there is good behaviour^[11]. The upright man possesses knowledge and the wise man possesses good behaviour and the achievement of knowledge and good behaviourr characterizes the personality of the best man. Therefore, intelligence combined with discipline may be concieved as the matto, the motive, the purport and the standard of the Buddhist educational ideal. To overcome ignorance and to subdue bad conduct, a learner must be earnest effort to acquire knowledge and good behaviour in their proper perfection.

Since the achievement of knowledge and its influence on good behaviour are highly values, the Buddha, who is reported to have had a thorough knowledge of all things, together with the perfection of good behaviour, advocated an educational life in which one strive to know, see, attain, realize and comprehend what is not known, seen, attained, realized and comprehended.

Such and achievement is inevitably associated with and conditioned by the first two elements of individual culture. Morality and concentration. The Buddha admonished the venerable Kassapa, who was dissatisfied with, disinterested in and about to give up his educational effort thus: “think, Kassapa, if an elder monk, or a monk of middle standing…. or a novice is not desirous of education, nor speaks in praise of undertaking it, and if he neither incites other monks who do not desire it to undertake it, nor speaks according to the facts and at the proper time, in praise of those who are desirous of education of these monks. I utter no praise. Why? Because others would keep company with then thinking: “The Master speaks in praise of them and these would come to share their wrong views, and if they would have done so, it would be to their loss and pain for many a day. Therefore, I never utter in praise of those (who live uneducated)^[12].

The Buddha’s high recommendation of education and its value, besides serving as the means to many good things of life as well as to salvation as mention above, also shows his interest in the preservation, subsistence and spread of Buddhism itself. There are four things., said to contribute to the support, to the non-confusion, to the not vanishing away, and to the preservation of saddhamma, i.e. Buddhism.

(1) The monks get the text by heart that is rightly taken, with words and sense that are rightly arranged, so that their meaning may be easy to follow.

(2) They are easy to speak to and possessed of qualities, which make them easily speak to (which make them able to preach Buddhism to) other, they are also tractable and capable of being educated.

(3) Those who are of wide knowledge and versed in the doctrines know the Norm and Law and their summaries by heart and dutifully handed on a text to others, thus, when they pass away the text is not cut down at the root, but it will have something to stand on.

(4) Those senior monks do not abundance, are not lax, do not take the lead in backsliding, they direct their effort to reach the unattained, to win the goal. So the generation that follows will depend upon their view. “Therefore, you all to whom I have made known the truths that I have myself realized," the Buddha exhorted his disciples, “come together harmony and rehearse, all of you together, those doctrine and do not quarrel over them, but compare meaning with meaning and phrase with phrase, in order that this pure religion may last long and be perpetuated, that it may continue to be for the good and happiness of the great multitudes, out of compassion of the world, to the welfare and well-being to the divine and human beings^[13].

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Education is the process of facilitating learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, and habits. Educational methods include storytelling, discussion, teaching, training, and directed research. Education frequently takes place under the guidance of educators, but learners may also educate themselves. Education is commonly and formally divided into stages such as preschool or kindergarten, primary school, secondary school and thencollege, university or apprenticeship., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education,accessed 9/1/16

[2]:

Anguttara Nikaya, Vol.1. p.229.

[3]:

Patipada = mode of practice; modes of progress to deliverance.

[4]:

Bhikkhu P.A. Payutto, The Pali Canon: What a Buddhist Must Know, p.9.

[5]:

Bhikhu P.A.Payutto, ibid. pp.12-13.

[6]:

Ibid. pp.11-12.

[7]:

Ch. Venkata Siva Sai, Buddhist Education: Theory and Practice, p.57.

[8]:

Verdu Alfonso, Early Buddhist Philosophy, p.85.

[9]:

The Physical eye which is exceptionally powerful and sensitive.

[10]:

The eye of wisdom,Wisdom-Eye. Cakkhu: The Five Eyes of the Blessed One: (1) Mangsa-cakkhu: the physical eye which is exceptionally powerful and sensitive. (2) Dibba-cakkhu: the Divine Eye. (3) Panna-cakkhu: the eye of wisdom; Wisdom–Eye).(4) Buddha-cakkhu; the eye of a Buddha; Buddha-Eye). (5) Samanta-cakkhu: the eye of all-round knowledge; All seeing Eye; omniscience). Nd. 235.

[11]:

Ibid., p.95

[12]:

Apadana (Khuddakanikaya) Maha Kassapa Part I, p.33.

[13]:

Apadana (Khuddakanikaya) Anyakoņdańńya, p.49.