Within the opening commentary to the Spring 2023 difficulty of Buddhadharma, Barry Boyce shares why Nalanda’s spirit of open inquiry is simply what’s wanted to maintain Buddhism alive and vibrant in every era.
Across the time I used to be sixteen, I began exploring a number of completely different philosophical methods and practices: Samkhya, Advaita Vedanta, Kriya, Hatha, and Bhakti yoga, Sufism, Jainism, Chris- tian mysticism, Kabbalah, you title it. Previous to that point, any exploration of actuality or fact had come within the type of indoctri- nation. I used to be informed what to imagine.
No
Questions
Requested.
Once I lastly landed on Buddhism, due to this fact, I used to be involved I’d be required to turn out to be a doctrinal true believer (and
I’ve certainly turn out to be that at varied factors in my so-called Buddhist profession, inflicting me to finally attain for the air sick- ness bag every time). Early on, although, I had the great fortune to listen to in regards to the magnificent Nalanda College—purportedly the oldest establishment of upper studying on Earth, an unlimited advanced in historical India, drawing college students from far and huge. It was a monastic establishment, one of many nice Mahaviharas, like its much less well-known however maybe no much less illustrious sisters, Vikramasila and Odantapuri. The spirit of Nalanda, as I used to be taught, was to ask in no matter methods of thought and non secular follow had been overseas on the time. If what Buddhism has to supply was of nice worth, it will stand as much as the check of publicity and change with different methods of pondering and practising, and actually, may even be innovated on account of the interplay. (Nonetheless equally true immediately.) It’s simple to think about that a lot of the nice studying and follow that got here out of Nalanda resulted from vigorous back-and-forths somewhat than pedantry.
I discovered this prospect so inviting on the earth I used to be seeing then and see now—one the place people, communities, religions, and nations battle to determine who’s the neatest one within the room. Reality can’t merely be enforced by authority, coercion, or diktat. It should stand by itself two toes. It has to outlive within the public sq., and be borne out in expertise and leavened by engagement with others on the earth, who deliver numerous views to the change.
Nalanda was not about establishing the primacy of Buddhism because the one true religion, however—as Jan Westerhoff makes clear in his opening essay—to find what works and what’s helpful by fostering a contemplative ambiance that mixes non secular follow; aware consideration to the rituals of every day life; research; and debate.
If this exercise goes by the title philosophy, it’s philosophy within the authentic that means of that time period: love of knowledge. As Francesca Fremantle writes in Luminous Vacancy, “Buddhist philosophy is all the time sensible and relates on to expertise, so it typically appears to be extra a non secular psychology than a philosophy.” Her trainer, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, spoke of learning the dharma as being like pouring water right into a sieve. When you have interaction with it, it may well information you, nevertheless it doesn’t offer you a doctrinal last reply that can fill your cup for good so you may carry it round as your prized possession.
He additionally spoke of the dharma as tasty contemporary baked bread. The recipes for this bread stretch again into the mists of time, and a few of them had been cooked up at Nalanda. We observe these recipes to this present day and proceed to benefit from the freshness and nourishment of the bread because it takes new kinds and shapes. The entire academics and students on this difficulty embody this spirit of bring- ing forth new child perception from our historical inheritance. They convey not merely content material, however an angle of a humble merging of research and follow and software on the earth of struggling beings. That’s the spirit of Nalanda we rejoice right here.