Can Humanity Change? (eBook)

Introduction

Iswhat is happening in the world pointing to the need for a fundamental change inhuman consciousness, and is such a change possible? This is an issue at theheart of both Krishnamurti's and the Buddha's teaching, and in 1978 and 1979the eminent Buddhist scholar Walpola Rahula came to Brockwood Park in Englandto put questions that had occurred to him from his reading of Krishnamurti'sbooks. The future Chancellor of the Sri Lankan University of Buddhist and PaliStudies, Walpola Rahula was an acknowledged authority on both the Theravada andthe Mahayana schools of Buddhism. He had lectured at universities around theworld, and was the author of the article on the Buddha in the EncyclopediaBritannica.Hehad also written a widely known introduction to Buddhism, translated into manylanguages, called Whatthe BuddhaTaught.Hewas accompanied by Irmgard Schloegl, a well-known teacher of Zen Buddhism andfor some years the librarian of the Buddhist Society of London.

Nearlyall the conversations, in which the physicist David Bohm and the scientist andauthor Phiroz Mehta also participated, start with Dr. Rahula raising an issueof crucial importance for any radical change in the way we usually seeourselves, others, life, and death. The nature of personal identity, whetherthere is a relative truth and an ultimate truth, and the distinction betweeninsight and intellectual understanding are all topics on which he argues thatthe Buddha and Krishnamurti have said substantially the same things. He alsoexplains to Krishnamurti that in his view the original teaching of the Buddhahas over the centuries been in many ways misunderstood and misinterpretedparticularly with regard to the nature of meditation and the form of meditationknown as satipatthana,or'mindfulness.'

Oneach occasion, however, instead of discussing whether Dr. Rahula's argument isright or wrong, Krishnamurti moves the debate into quite a different direction.Why, he asks, compare? What is the value of such comparison? Why bring theBuddha into the discussion between the two of them? Courteously, and with alightness of tone, Krishnamurti challenges Walpola Rahula to say whether he istaking part in the conversation as a Buddhist or as a human being, whether heconsiders that humanity is in any sense progressing psychologically, what heunderstands by the word 'love.'

Dr.Rahula continues, however, in most of these conversations to draw parallelsbetween what the Buddha has said and what Krishnamurti is saying, so that areader interested in that inquiry willfindmuch of interest. But at another level there is something quite different goingon. Time and time again after describing, say, the role of thought in creatingthe self, Krishnamurti will ask Dr. Rahula and the other participants: Do you seethat?The word seeisrightly emphasized, because the seeing in question is clearly meant to beseeing with such depth and clarity that consciousness and simultaneously actionare radically transformed. It is also notable that Krishnamurti unfolds hisargument by a series of questions, some of which he wants his listeners toallow to sink in rather than to answer—,a distinction they do not always findit easy to make.

Thismoves the debate into an area which all of us are familiar with, to some extentat least—,understanding verbally, rather than understanding so deeply that wechange our behavior. There must be few of us who have not looked at somethingwe have done and said, 'Icansee why I did that, and I shouldn't have done it,' yet do exactly the samething a short time later. 'I...