15
THE PROBLEMATIC OF MIND IN
GOTAMA BUDDHA
Tatsuo Haya
What is Buddha?Around the fifth century BCE in India, a series of factors, including increased levels
of agricultural production, improvement of trade, population concentration, and
general monetary and economic development, led to the founding and flourishing
of cities. This was also a time when the economic and cultural focus changed from
rural communities to growing cities. A progressive royalty and an affluent merchant
class attained prominence and power. These openminded people were innovative in
many ways and demolished the basic, controlling superstructure of rural society: the
religion of the Bhramans.
I am a scholar of Early Buddhism, especially researching the original thought of
Gotama Buddha, and teach undergraduate university students the religious and
philosophical theories of Buddhism. In this essay, I introduce the broad aspects of a
Buddhist philosophy of mind and show how it alleviates the suffering (here the term
means subjective anguish or discontent) of self-attachment. The changes in ancient
India eventually introduced a whole new psychology of the individual.
These social changes also influenced the fields of philosophy and religion, where
freethinkers who had refused the Bhramanical tradition, dominant since the times of
the Vedas, began to assert themselves. The early Buddhist scriptures offer examples
of moralistic critical thought, and skeptical, deterministic, and materialistic doctrines.
Similar movements occurred in Greece with the Sophists, and in China with the
so-called Hundred Philosophers. It can be argued that within the context of Indian
history, freedom of thought had rarely been granted. Gotama Buddha, the founder
of Buddhism, was among the freethinkers of this period.
Gotama Buddha is said to have been born in 463 BCE and passed away in 383
BCE. He was a prince and led a life of comfort. However, after much contemplation
on the transitory nature of life (the fact that one is born, ages, gets ill and finally dies),
he finally left home and dedicated himself to deep meditation and asceticism. After
having mastered and transcended these practices, he attained enlightenment and
became a Buddha, an Awakened One. These two words, ‘enlightenment’ and
‘Buddha,’ express the essence of Buddhism. In Pali, as well as in Sanskrit, both words
have their linguistic origin in a single verbal root, ‘budh’ which means ‘awakening’ or