Blessed are the birth-givers: Buddhist views on birth and rebirth

·期刊原文

Blessed are the birth-givers: Buddhist views on birth and rebirth

Miranda Shaw

Parabola

Vol.23 No.4

Nov 1998

pp.48-53

COPYRIGHT 1998 Society for the Study of Myth and Tradition

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THE FIRST NOBLE TRUTH TAUGHT by Shakyamuni Buddha is that life is
suffering. The Buddha also imparted that the four primary forms of
suffering are birth, illness, old age, and death. Taken alone, these
pronouncements set the stage for a life-denying tradition in which
birth is viewed as a descent into the vale of misery. However, these
negative assessments are more than counterbalanced by the Buddha's
central teaching that human life offers a unique opportunity to
discover the truth. The same potential for spiritual awakening is
not presented by birth as an animal, as a supernatural being, or
even as a privileged dweller in one of the heavenly realms. The
Buddha himself embodied the fruition of human potential: the
attainment of infinite knowledge, wisdom, and compassion. Therefore,
the belief that prevailed in Buddhism is that birth in human form is
a rare and precious event. In place of the lamentation that one
might expect, one finds that birth has been celebrated in numerous
ways in Buddhist art, myth, and philosophy.

The Buddhist celebration of birth first found expression in
exaltations of Queen Maya, the Buddha's mother. Some accounts
suggest that Queen Maya was on her way to her parents' home when she
unexpectedly had to stop and give birth in a forest. Other sources,
however, reveal that the queen sought out a sacred grove where all
the women of her lineage gave birth under the watchful care of the
grove goddess. The goddess created a suitable environment by hanging
jewels and flower garlands from the trees and making lotuses bloom
in all the ponds. She summoned the females of all species to bring
offerings to the foot of the tree where Buddha would be born. Queen
Maya bathed in a lotus pond and then grasped the branch of a fig
tree, which served as her midwife for the auspicious birth.

The Buddha was born from Queen Maya's right side. Scholars have
interpreted this as a negative motif, a sign that the womb is too
impure and defiling for a Buddha to inhabit. However, Buddhist texts
explain that a Buddha by nature causes no suffering and that this
was true from the very moment of his conception. Queen Maya
experienced no discomfort during her pregnancy, and her son
considerately emerged from her side so that the delivery would be
painless.

When the Buddha's mother died during the first year of his life, she
merged into the goddess of the sacred grove, It is Maya's image that
is enshrined in the temple at the site of the Buddha's birth in
Lumbini, Nepal. Women from surrounding villages have come here over
the centuries not to worship the Buddha, but to pray to the holy
mother for protection in childbirth and healthy children. They honor
her image with seasonal flowers and with red powder and vermilion
paste signifying the life-blood with which mothers animate their
children. Drinking water that has been poured over the statue is
believed to cure infertility. An archaeological record reaching back
thousands of years preserves the worshippers' handmade offerings of
terracotta beads, bracelets, miniature horses, and human figurines.
Despite the fact that one of the world's greatest religious leaders
was born here, worship at the site glorifies the mother who gave
birth, not the son who was born.

THE Flower Ornament Sutra (first-second century (C. E.), an early
Mahayana scripture, further exalts the Buddha's mother in passages
voiced by the goddess of the sacred grove, who witnessed the
nativity. In a poetic stream of visionary ecstasy, tine goddess
eulogizes the miracles that took place in Queen Maya's body,
beginning with an outpouring of brilliant healing light:
As Lady, Maya leaned against the holy fig tree, all the world
rulers, gods and goddesses... and all the offer beings... were
bathed in the glorious radiance of Maya's body .... All the lights
in the billion-world universe were eclipsed by Maya's light. The
lights emanating from all her pores... pervaded everywhere,
extinguishing all suffering... illuminating the universe.(1)
Queen Maya's womb attained cosmic proportions. Universes streamed
forth from her body, while everything in this universe was in turn
visible in her womb. All the worlds, lands, and Buddhas were visible
in each of her pores.

No stigma attaches here to the process of birth or to the womb. In
dualistic philosophies that separate mind and body, pure spirit and
impure matter, the female body and especially the womb are often
negativized as the gateway into the prison of matter. However,
according to the nondualistic Mahayana philosophy of emptiness,
birth and indeed all phenomenal arising is miraculous and illusory.
All things are born out of emptiness, shimmer momentarily in empty
space, and then dissolve back into the cosmic source. Emptiness is
the fertile womb of reality, and the human womb possesses the same
wondrous power of manifestation.

Perfection of Wisdom philosophy elevates the concepts of birth and
motherhood above even that of Buddhahood itself. This philosophy
introduces a cosmic female who embodies the radiant wisdom that
gives birth to Buddhas. The goddess, known as Prajnaparamita, or
Perfect Wisdom, shares the name of the literature in which she
appears and the knowledge that she personifies. One of her fides is
Mother of All Buddhas, for she is the maternal source of saving
knowledge. As the mother, she endures, while her offspring, the
Buddhas, come into existence and pass away:

She is the Perfect Wisdom that never comes into being and therefore
never goes out of being .... She can never be defeated in any way,
on any level .... She is the Perfect Wisdom who gives birthless
birth to all Buddhas. And through these sublimely Awakened Ones, it
is Mother Prajnaparamita alone who turns the wheel of true
teaching.(2)

The Buddhas recede in importance as their birth-giver,
Prajnaparamita, emerges as the supreme teacher, the source of all
religious truths. Seekers of wisdom must sit at her feet and drink
from the endless stream of teachings that flow from her presence.
Without her, the Buddhas would have nothing to teach. She is the
source and content of their teachings, the eternal font of
revelation; the Buddhas are her messengers.

Mother Wisdom is put forth as the highest object of worship, more
worthy of reverence than a Buddha or Buddharelics, for only those
who prize wisdom above all else may attain it. Buddhas and their
relics are indeed holy; however, the Buddhas are sacred because she
brought them into being, while the relics are venerable because they
are saturated with her energy. Therefore, Buddhas and bodhisattvas,
too, revere her. Recognizing their dependence upon her, they
devotedly contemplate the spontaneously revealing Goddess
Prajnaparamita with deep consecration and respect--revering,
worshiping, and ecstatically adoring her .... The omniscience...
which alone constitutes Buddhahood springs from Mother
Prajnaparamita, and therefore all Buddhas and bodhisattvas are
intensely grateful and thankful to her and only to her.(3)
The entire edifice of Prajnaparamita philosophy is built upon the
principle that the birth-giver is greater than the one who is born.
As long as there is a mother of Buddhas, there will be more Buddhas,
and she will continue to exist long after they have passed away.

TANTRIC BUDDHISM, which arose in about the seventh century, added
its own distinctive valuation of birth. As a tradition that
treasures the human body as the abode of bliss and vehicle of
enlightenment, it is natural that Tantra proclaims that women, the
givers of birth, are to be honored. The Candamaharoshana Tantra has
harsh words for those who disparage the source of life, pleasure,
and kindness:
Woman alone is the birth giver, the giver of true pleasure to the
Three Worlds, the kind one. Those chattering fools engaged in evil
action, who now disparage her out of hostility, will, by their
action, remain constantly tortured for three eons in the fathomless
Raudra Hell, wailing as their bodies burn in many fires.(4)

The text pronounces that those who tail to honor women can not
attain liberation, but those who render to women their due homage
will be rewarded with supreme enlightenment. Toward this end, a man
should seek a woman upon whom he can focus his devotion. When he
finds a spiritual consort, he should approach sexual union with her
as a sacred act. Envisioning her as a living goddess, or female
Buddha, he should bow at her feet, beg her to grace him with a
loving glance, and worship at the altar of her thighs. He should
lovingly kiss her stomach, thinking, "This is where I formerly
dwelt; from here I was born," and grant her any form of pleasure
that she desires.

Although the honor accorded to women in Tantric Buddhism goes beyond
their role as mothers, the high value placed upon the human body and
upon birth is the cornerstone of this--and any--female-affirming
philosophy.

The theme of rebirth, like that of birth, was elaborated and assumed
grand proportions in the Buddhist imagination. Early Buddhism
envisioned six forms in which one could be reborn: that is, as a
denizen of hell, animal, human being, hungry ghost, demigod, or god.
The six realms of rebirth correspond to mental drives and
psychological temperaments. For example, a preponderance of hatred
and aggression will lead to rebirth in hell among violent beings.
Greed and perpetual dissatisfaction lead to rebirth as a hungry
ghost, while excessive envy results in birth among the demigods. A
person's thoughts, motivations, and behavior plant the seeds of
karma that will ripen in future lives. Enlightenment offers the hope
of escape from the round of rebirth.

As Buddhism evolved, rebirth came to be seen a process that can be
mastered and engaged in consciously. In Mahayana Buddhism, a
bodhisattva aspires to become free from karmic impurities and to
renounce the selfish desire for personal existence. Once freed from
this desire, however, the bodhisattva does not simply dissolve into
the blissful expanse of' ultimate reality. The paradox inherent in
this process is that, having transcended the thirst for personal
selfhood, one attains the Buddhist equivalent of immortality. No
longer subject to the laws of karma and rebirth, bodhisattvas are
free to recreate themselves eternally, in innumerable times, places,
and bodily forms, to lead others to the same state of liberation.
Such beings will fearlessly descend to the hell-realms to bestow
cooling water and the nectar of compassion upon their tortured
inhabitants, or visit places frequented by alcoholics, derelicts,
and compulsive pleasure-seekers of every description, for it is
necessary to appear among those who will most benefit from even the
slightest glimmer of wisdom.

These bodhisattvas, too, fashion divine bodies of unspeakable beauty
and infinite glory to enchant the senses and awaken spiritual
aspiration. Bodhisattvas do not even necessarily take rebirth in
human form. They may choose to be reborn as crops to feed the
hungry, rain to end drought, medicine to cure the sick, roads and
bridges to aid travelers, trees to provide shade, and houses to
provide shelter. They can manifest in many forms and places at one
time and travel into the past, present, and future. Having mastered
illusion, illusion becomes their plaything, reality their
playground, and conscious rebirth their entertaining and liberating
pastime.

TANTRIC BUDDHISM adds yet another dimension to the concept of
rebirth. In Tantra, death and rebirth are regarded as experiences
that one may undergo in one's present lifetime through yogic
practices that simultaneously purify the mind and body. The subtle
psychic energies that carry a person's thought and emotions are
normally dispersed throughout the body. A practitioner of Tantric
yoga learns to draw these energies into the central, spinal channel,
where they no longer support dualistic thought. Egoic selfhood,
which is predicated upon dualistic thought, is thereby deprived of
its foundation and spontaneously dissolves. Further concentrating
the energies into a single point, or drop, at the heart, the seat of
consciousness, brings about a psychic death. The illusory self, the
false ego, dies, and the clear light of universal awareness dawns in
its wake.

This process of psychic death and rebirth is depicted in Tantric
iconography in various ways. One is the motif of a Buddha trampling
upon a corpse. The corpse does not represent external beings or
forces that must be defeated but rather the unenlightened self that
is left behind on the journey to liberation. The Buddha pins down
its chest, the seat of the mind and emotions, showing that egoic
tendencies have been conquered. Above the gray, prostrate corpse,
the lifeless shell of the former self, the Buddha dances in a
magnificent, divine body. Tantric Buddhas are customarily adorned
with skull-crowns, necklaces of skulls, and ornaments made of human
bone, demonstrating that they have overcome the dualism of life anti
death and know the secrets of the art of rebirth.

The Flame-Dancing Dakini epitomizes the Tantric understanding of
spiritual rebirth. Her golden body shines with the radiance of
perfect wisdom and the life-force in its purest essence. Flames
burst from her body, for the fire of spiritual transformation blazes
within her. She wears none of the usual adornments of deity, for
only the barest naked awareness, stripped of all conceptual overlay,
can accomplish this transition. Her face is drawn into an expression
of supernatural intensity, for she experiences all the passions as
pure energy-waves that she may ride, enjoy, and use at will. The
flame-dancer emerges from a cloak of human skin with a bloody
lining. She leaps free of her former self, leaving it behind like an
afterbirth; she sheds it just as a snake sheds its skin, glowing
with the ecstasy of rebirth. She waves aloft a ball of string, a
Tantric symbol of continuity, expressing that death, or what the
unenlightened regard as death, has become child's play to her--an
illusory threshold that she has crossed many times.

This Tantric goddess occupies the vantage point from which life,
death, and rebirth are one grand process, a never-ending process of
transformation. She knows that, in the face of death, there is no
cause for sorrow, for there is no permanent loss or separation.
Thus, she dances exultantly, victoriously, rejoicing, filling the
universe with her cosmic laughter.

NOTES

(1.) Flower Ornament Scripture, translated by Thomas Cleary (Boston:
Shambhala, 1987), vol. 3, pp. 26(3-67.
(2.) Mother of the Buddhas: Meditations on the Prajnaparamita Sutra,
translated by Lex Hixon (Wheaton, Ill.: Quest Books, 1993), pp.
95-96.
(3.) Ibid, p. 123.
(4.) The Candamaharosana Tantra, Chapters 1-8, translated by
Christopher George (New Haven, Conn.: American Oriental Society,
1974), p. 70.