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exploitation of children all have become so widespread
that even the most gruesome criminal act barely pricks
our sense of moral outrage. Alcohol, drug use, and suicide
are the most common escape routes, especially for the
poor, but their popularity is hardly a sign that Buddhism
is thriving.
If Buddhism is failing to penetrate deep into the
hearts of those who profess it as their faith, we have to
ask ourselves why, and to ask what can be done to reverse
present trends. I would like to approach these questions
by first asking what role Buddhism is intended to play in
our lives in the first place. I will deal with this question
by distinguishing two aspects of Buddhism both stem-
ming from the Buddha s original teaching. I shall call
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these the liberative and the accommodative strands of the
Dhamma.
The liberative strand, the essential and unique discov-
ery of the Buddha, is the message of a direct way to libera-
tion from suffering. This strand begins with the realization
that suffering originates within ourselves, from our own
greed, hatred, and ignorance, above all from our drive to
establish a sense of separate selfhood that pits us against
all other living forms. The Buddha s radical solution to the
problem of suffering is the demolition of the self-delusion
in its entirety. This issues in an utterly new mode of being
that the Buddha called Nibbàna, the extinguishing of
the fire of lust, the going out of the ego-consciousness with
its flames of selfish craving.
The attainment of this goal, however, requires a price
far higher than most people can pay: a strict discipline of
contemplation grounded upon a radical ethic of restraint.
Thus, being a skilful teacher, the Buddha modulated his
teaching by including another dimension suitable for
those unable to walk the steep road of renunciation. This
is the accommodative strand of the Dhamma: a path of
gradual transformation, extending over many lives, ful-
filled by training in meritorious deeds and developing the
virtues needed as a foundation for the ultimate attainment
of Nibbàna. This strand of Dhamma, it must be empha-
sized, is not merely an expedient device, a beautiful fable
invented by the Buddha as a means of offering consolation
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or of inculcating moral virtues. It is, rather, an integral as-
pect of the original teaching stemming from the Buddha s
own vision into the multiple dimensions of sentient ex-
istence and the prospects for transmigration within the
round of rebirths. But the function of this teaching within
his system of training is provisional rather than ultimate,
mundane rather than transcendent.
I call this dimension of Buddhism accommodative
for two reasons: first, because it accommodates the doc-
trine of deliverance to the capacities and needs of those
unable to follow the austere path of meditation prescribed
as the direct route to Nibbàna; and second because it
helps to accommodate Buddhist followers within samsara
while offering salutary guidance to protect them from the
more intense forms of worldly suffering, especially from
a fall into lower spheres of rebirth. In its accommodative
dimension, Buddhism provides a comprehensive world-
view which gives ordinary men and women a meaning-
ful picture of their place in the cosmos. At the same time
it propounds an elevated system of values that includes
ethical rules to help us live happily amidst the fluctua-
tions of daily life and in harmony with our fellow human
beings.
Although the original keynote of the Dhamma was
the message of deliverance, as Buddhism spread first across
India and later over wider Asia, the balance between its
two strands swung away from the liberative towards the
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accommodative. Such a development was only natural
when a spiritual teaching whose liberative core was suited
for renunciants became the religion of an entire nation,
as happened in Sri Lanka and elsewhere in Asia. But this
aspect of Buddhism should not be disparaged or placed in
competitive contrast to the liberative dimension, for both
are equally essential to the aims of the Buddha s teach-
ings. The path of renunciation leading to final liberation
was always suited for the few, even within the ranks of the
monastic order; for the many the accommodative strand
of Buddhism was necessary, both as a worldview and as a
means of preparing the ground for practice of the libera-
tive Dhamma.
Through the centuries accommodative Buddhism
portrayed for us an orderly universe with the Buddha as
the supreme teacher, with multiple heavens inhabited by
benevolent gods, governed by an ethical law connecting
our present actions with our future destinies. By means of
its doctrine of merit, this side of Buddhism gave people an
incentive for doing good deeds, and the fruits of this were
evident in the general spirit of benevolence that prevailed
in traditional Buddhist societies.
From ancient times until the modern era, the pic-
ture of the universe offered by accommodative Buddhism
functioned as the unchallenged bedrock for the preaching
and practice of the Dhamma. However, beginning in the
late fifteenth century, from beyond the horizon a challenge
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came that was to shatter the self-assured certainty of this
worldview. The challenge took the shape of the European
colonial powers who, in successive waves, grabbed control
of the social and political institutions on which popular
Buddhism depended. Foreign conquest, the proselytizing
missions of the Christian churches, the secularization of
education and its subordination to colonial rule: all these
measures together dealt a hard blow to Buddhist self-
esteem and to the sovereign role of the Dhamma in the
lives of the wider Buddhist population.
This trend was reinforced by the rise of the scientific
worldview. Although the basic principles of the scientific
method could easily resonate with the Buddhist spirit
of free inquiry, science introduced an understanding of
the world that, in its materialistic bias, clashed with the
spiritual vistas envisaged by Buddhist tradition. While
classical Buddhism posits a multi-tiered universe inhab-
ited by many classes of sentient beings who transmigrate
from realm to realm in accordance with their karma, sci-
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