Buddhist Rituals Today Daya Dssanayake
Daya Dissanayake
"It has been an inevitable phenomenon in the history of religion that whenever a religion was newly introduced to a culture, its adherents assimilated it and adapted it in ways that harmonized with their own social and cultural needs. In the case of Buddhism this has happened in every country to which it spread, and Sri Lanka is no exception. The core doctrines of Buddhism, such as the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path,
dependent arising, etc., often proved too abstruse and elevated for the ordinary populace to apply to their own religious lives. To satisfy their devotional and emotional needs, they required a system of outward acts, communally shared, by which they could express their devotion to the ideals represented by the Dhamma
and absorb these ideals into the texture of their daily experience. This was how the "great tradition" of canonical Buddhism came to be complemented by the "small tradition" of popular Buddhism consisting of the rituals and ceremonies discussed in this booklet." A. G. S. Kariyawasam wrote in his preface to 'Buddhist Ceremonies and Rituals in Sri Lanka' (1996).
Even though Kariyawasam presents the ceremonies and rituals as of the Theravada tradition and that Sri Lanka is considered the home of 'pure Theravada Buddhism', often today an outsider studying our rituals would find it difficult to isolate the Theravada practices and separate it from the Mahayana and Hindu practices which have crept into them. Among most lay devotees, probably there is no special interest to identify and differentiate such encroachments.
Reading Kariyawasam, we begin with 'Initiation'. It has become the practice for a person to become a Buddhist. He admits that there is no ceremony or ritual of initiation, and that the practice has become to recite the formula of the Three Refuges and the Five Precepts. There is no initiation
because Buddha Dhamma is not a religion, and only a religion needs initiation. The Five Precepts could be observed by anyone of any faith, without compromise. The words Buddhist, Jain or Hindu were coined by Europeans, because they understood only Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Colonel Olcott had 'converted' to Buddhism on May 25th, 1880, at a ceremony at the Wijeyananda Temple in Galle. However, he is reported to have said later, that he would not have observed the Five Precepts nor remained Buddhist ten minutes, if he had been compelled to accept a single dogma. "Our Buddhism was that of the Master-Adept Gautama Buddha". He was discriminating between the false Buddhism of the Sinhalese people, which was in his view modern, debased, sectarian and creedal, and his was ostensibly true Buddhism ancient, pure, nonsectarian and nondogmatic. (Stephen Prothero)
The grandest conversion to Buddhism by this 'initiation' was that of Babasaheb Ambedkar and the 400,000 Indians of the scheduled castes, on October 14th, 1956, as described by Sangharakshita.
As Dr. E. W. Adikaram always said, reciting the Five Precepts once should be enough for a life time. We need not keep on saying that we would not do these wrong acts. Also why do we have to recite such negative promises? If necessary we should be able to recite Five Positive promises, for our own good and for the good of mankind and all life on earth.
Offerings are considered as a very common practice in the worship of the Buddha. The etymology of the word 'Puja' has been traced back to Dravidian 'Pusai, 'ceremony done with flowers to god'. Prof. M. M. J. Marasinghe explains that the concept of 'Puja' is not found tin the original Tripitaka.
Followers of Vedic Dharma offered flowers. "That man who is in a state of purity offers flowers to the deities finds that the deities become gratified with him, and as a consequence of such gratification bestow prosperity upon him"
Eighty four thousand offerings (of light or flowers) was probably started during the time of Saddhatissa in honour of eighty four thousand sections of the Dhamma (Dhammakkhanda).
Tree worship also did not come to our country with Buddha Dhamma. A banyan tree and a Palmyra tree were worshipped at the western gate of Anuradhapura during time of Pandukhabaya In India tree worship has a very long past, with the Asvatta or the Pipal tree had been
worshipped even during the Indus civilization. Marasinghe assures us that Buddha had never mentioned a "Bodhi" tree, anywhere when referring to his attainment of the status of Buddha. Even if the Bodhi tree is to be venerated, it is with gratitude for providing shelter for the Buddha and not to seek blessings or help.
In Bihar and the lands where Buddha had lived, the rainy season had been the South West Monsoon, from around June to September. There had been mendicant monks in India for many centuries before the time of the Buddha. When the followers of the Buddha Dhamma received ordination as
Bhikkhus, they too had left their household life and income and depended on the lay devotees for all their needs. They roamed around the country, on foot, carrying the teachings of the Buddha. The monsoon was a time they had to confine themselves to a shelter, because the heavy rains, impassable muddy pathways and floods prevented them from travel.
The monks used the monsoon period for meditation and also preaching to the lay devotees in the neighbourhood. At the end of the rainy season, by the end of September or early October, when they were ready to move out into the world once again, the devotees offered them a robe and other basic
necessities for their journey. This probably was the origin of the Katina puja. This practice has continued in every country, where the Buddha Dhamma spread. However, the time of the rituals remained as per the rainy season in North East India, and not as per the seasons in each country, and the rains were never a hindrance for travel or for accommodation.
In our country at the time when Buddha Dhamma arrived, the major settlements were in the North Central Province where the monsoon occurred from around October to December, but the Rainy Retreat would have been observed during the driest months of the year, and just before the rains commenced. This practice is continued
even today, in the regions where the rainy season is during the Vassana time or not. Today monks do not travel on foot, except in some of the very remote villages, but almost all monks have their permanent residence, and sometimes compelled to reside in two or more temples due to their studies or employment in educational institutions.
Even though some of the temples in our country have their own sources of income, some of it coming down from the times of the Sinhala kings, the monks are still dependent on the lay devotees for their needs and sometimes all the festivals are arranged and controlled by the rich devotees, either with the misbelief that the more they spend more would be the merit they gain, or to gain social and recognition.
Today the Katina puja observed in our country, and by the diaspora Buddhists living in the western and more affluent countries, has become another instance of "Commodified Buddhism". This could probably be the western influence where Mammon has become more powerful than God and consumerism has become the new religion
.
It is time for us to consider adding another Noble Path, Samma Paribhojana, Right Consumption, even for the rituals, like the Katina. Ven. P. A. Payutto wrote, "Right consumption is the use of goods and services for true well-being. Wrong consumption arises from tanha; it is the use of goods and services to satisfy the desire for pleasing sensations or ego-gratification. These two processes - reducing tanha and encouraging chanda - are mutually supportive. When we are easily satisfied in material things, we save time and energy that might otherwise be wasted in seeking objects of tanha."
Jonathan Watts and David R. Loy wrote in 'The Religion of Consumption: A Buddhist Perspective', "With the market perpetually designing new 'needs' for the individual, the terms 'need' and 'want' have become virtually synonymous." The old definition of a 'need' was something that you have to have and a
'want' was something you would like to have. Today advertising, specially in visual media, has brainwashed people to believe that their 'wants' are their priority 'needs'. That is also the reason for the Gandhian statement "The world has enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not for every man's greed" also become redundant, because 'need' and 'greed' too have become synonymous.
Watts and Loy also wrote, "Through the ever-increasing domination of 'market' values like competition and hyper-individualism, the principal way of relating to the world comes through the acquisition and conquering of things and people. With the market perpetually designing new 'needs' for the individual, the terms 'need' and 'want' have become virtually synonymous. Poverty has taken on a purely quantifiable meaning of material underdevelopment."
We have carried this consumerism into the temple too. We want 'our temple' to have the best Katina puja, the best vahalkada, the most expensive golden fence around the Bodhi, the tallest Buddha statue. We want the monks in our temple to be the best dressed, and have the best facilities.
Are we giving into our tanha, when we perform our rituals today? Are we expecting to gain greater merit by offering the most expensive robes and other luxuries to the monks? Are we tempting the monks to confuse their needs and their wants? Are we exploiting the power or advantage we have over the monks through their dependence on the devotees of the temple?
During the Vassana season and the Katina, instead of having all night Pirith on public address systems disturbing the entire neighbourhood but with noone listening to the Pirith, instead of having daily sermons and pujas, we could have more practical, more sensible discussions among the monks and the
laity, about the way we could live the, way shown to us by the Buddha. We could read and try to understand the message in the Tripitaka, and how to follow the guidance in today's world, where modern technology and so-called development has changed not only our way of life, but our mindset and our
thinking leading to more and more violence. We have to understand the realities of today, the guise in which Mara is tempting us today, not by sending his daughters to tempt us, but sending all the temptations through Mara's sons running the advertising campaigns in the electronic media and the latest social media.
If we are to make 'dana' to be true gifts, let us use the funds and our resources to narrow the gap between the haves and have-nots, to alleviate the hunger and suffering around the world, while more than half the food produced goes waste or is over-consumed. Let us live by the Noble Eightfold Path, not with the tanha to gain merit and a better life after death, not with the 'desire' to attain Nibbana, but with the genuine intention following the path shown to us by the Buddha.
We have to retain our ancient rituals and practices to some extent, as it has become a permanent part of popular Buddhism. But we should consider how we could adapt our rituals, in keeping with the times, but within the teachings of the Buddha. We should identify our needs and wants and try to understand why we are
performing these rituals. Then let us perform them in the most nature friendly manner, without over-exploiting our natural resources, without hurting a single living creature. Let every act we do in the name of Buddha Dhamma be peaceful and useful. In conclusion let me quote:
"Then those who perform rituals shout with one voice, 'Alas, this must be the enemy. He is not the saviour we expected. He is attacking all the traditional rituals we have been carrying out for generations. He is an enemy making us denounce the worship, performing ritualistic offerings before the tombs
built over the remains of the First Master, and before His statues and paintings. He is ignoring the brands we have marked on the backs of the member of our societies. he is the enemy. We have to attack him. We have to expose his faults. We have to show his path is wrong.' They begin a futile protest. They try to
strengthen their society, praying for a future saviour." from the 'Amuthu Kathawak' (A Strange Story) by Ven. Balangoda Ananda Maitreya thero, published in the Wesak Supplement of the Swadeshamitraya, Buddhist Era 2474 (May 11, 1930)
