The Living Computer
Photo: Buddhadāsa Indapañño Archives C03371
“Buddhism relies on the law of nature. In nature, survival of the fittest is a very basic concept. Actually this is a concept in human thinking – it’s not a concept in nature itself – it’s just a human theory. ‘Working for the sake of duty’ seems to be close to the concepts of socialism or communism, and experience seems to show that, like nature, man performs best under some degree of competition. Why then does Buddhism promote the concept of living and working only for the sake of duty?”
~ Response by Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu ~
The survival of the fittest is an inherent principle or law of nature, it isn’t something that human beings invented or thought up. It’s just a fact of nature that there is survival of the fittest. And to do duty for duty’s sake, this is the meaning of ‘the fittest.’ To be most fit for survival, one most do duty for duty’s sake – that is to do duty correctly in line with the law of nature. When one acts and lives in line with the law of nature, then one is fit, one is supremely fit for survival. To do duty merely for one’s own sake, for some personal advantage or benefit, this is not in line with the law of nature, and so the selfish being is not fit for survival. But it’s only by doing duty just for the sake of Dhamma – for duty according to the law of nature – that one is fit for survival. So it’s correct to say ‘survival of the fittest,’ and fitness here is solely a matter of doing duty for the sake of duty itself.
So there’s no need to argue with nature. Don’t bother arguing with nature, otherwise you’ll just have a lot of headaches and dukkha. But if one can do duty for the sake of duty and in line with the law of nature, then we will have the full support of nature and things will go much more easily, and there will be survival.
‘To be fit’ or ‘fitness’ is the cause, ‘survival’ is the result. So be careful not to get the order backwards. It can be confusing to speak of ‘survival of the fittest,’ to put the result before the cause. It’s better to put it ‘the fittest survive,’ or ‘the most fit survive.’ There’s first the cause of being fit, to be in line with the law of nature, and then there will be the natural necessary result, which is survival. This is survival through Dhamma.
What’s funny here is that all this discussion about ‘us’ is about something that doesn’t really exist! That which we think is ‘we’ or ‘us’ – it’s just body and mind. But because this mind is able to think and proliferate, it goes and thinks foolishly, incorrectly, that there is some self, some lasting ‘me,’ some personal center. So it’s because of this ignorance that there is some self that can be attached to, that there is some ‘me’ that we can hang on to. We act selfishly and create all kinds of problems. So when there is nature under the power of ignorance, things go wrong, and when nature goes wrong, then there is selfishness and pain. Nature under the power of ignorance inevitably brings pain, stress, or dukkha. But when life is Dhamma, when instead of ignorance there is mindfulness and wisdom, then life just leads to peacefulness; life is peaceful, free and of great benefit. When we can replace the foolish thinking about ‘me, me, me’ with wisdom, then it’s a different kind of life. So there’s nature, but nature can go according to ignorance, or it can go according to wisdom. If instead of taking ego to be ‘me,’ we realize what we call ‘us’ or ‘we’ is just Dhamma, the nature that has been borrowed in order to be ‘us.’ If we understand ‘us’ to just be Dhamma, then with this wisdom we won’t make a mess out of things, we won’t create selfishness and egoism. So the thing is, how to make life Dhamma? How for Dhamma to be life? How to make these one and the same for us so that it’s no longer of nature that goes wrong, a nature that becomes stressful and painful?
Literally the word ‘Dhamma’ means ‘nature’ – nature is Dhamma – but in essence they’re not exactly the same. However in practice on the most profound level, they are again the same. When our way of living, when our behavior, all of our activities are in line with Dhamma, when everything we do is according to the law of nature, then Dhamma and nature are one and the same. To act, to behave in line with the law of nature, this is called ‘Dhamma,’ and when we act and live that way then our nature – the nature that we are – and Dhamma are the same thing. Every atom, every molecule of these bodies, are nature and happen according to the law of nature, they are Dhamma. Every particle of these hearts or minds is nature. When all these natures are correct, then there will be the survival that we have been talking about.
When there is incorrectness in our physical nature, in the body, then the result is illness and disease. When there is incorrectness in our mental or spiritual nature, in the mind, then there is a spiritual illness – that is the defilements such as greed, anger, and delusion. But when there is correctness, when there is Dhamma both physically and mentally, then everything is fine – there are no physical diseases and no mental diseases. When the system, both the mental and physical systems, can work together correctly, then there are no problems. Then the two can function together, you can’t separate them. If you try to separate the mind from the body, the result will be death and then you won’t be able to do anything anymore, they become useless. But when the body and the mind depend upon each other, when they’re integrated through Dhamma with correctness, then we can do everything that we need to do.
We live in the era of science in which scientific understanding has become very precise, developed, and refined. And so when we speak about everything being nature, everything being natural, about Dhamma being nature, then people can understand. In the past before there was adequate understanding of science, people couldn’t understand. They couldn’t understand if you said, ‘Everything is nature.’ They would only understand if you spoke about spirits, if you spoke about angels and devils, and in the end spoke about God. What nowadays we call ‘the fittest survive,’ in the old days that meant to be the fit in terms of God or to do the will of God. That’s the old superstitious way of speaking. But nowadays when there’s an adequate understanding of nature due to science, we don’t have to speak in such mythological or anthropomorphic ways, we can speak directly in Dhamma language to speak merely of ‘to be fit according to the law of nature,’ and then one will survive. This is Dhamma language without having to use any poetry or metaphors. It’s not the people language where everything has to be expressed in terms of egos and selves, or in anthropomorphic language.
(From the retreat “The Living Computer,” as translated from the Thai by Santikaro)
Dhamma Questions & Responses sessions were offered by Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu in 1990-1991 to foreign meditators attending Suan Mokkh International Dharma Hermitage courses.
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