The Buddha's teachings as a system of creative education : a study based on the Pāli discourses

Abstract

This thesis seeks to establish that the Buddha’s Dhamma is a form of creative education and the Buddha is creator educator par excellence. It claims that the Buddha-dhamma is creative education inasmuch as it is a totally novel product. This product is a New Man: It is man himself, from being an ordinary worldling (puthujjana)–––intrinsically conditioned by the fundamental cognitive topsy-turvy-ness (avijjā), affective and conative negativities–––fully transformed into an ariya endowed with perfect insight (paññā) which liberates man from the human predicament.

The thesis adopts the method of textual-doctrinal analysis and of case studies of the Buddha himself and of several major disciples of the Buddha, who serve to exemplify how a candidate is creatively transformed through the Buddha-dhamma. These cases, including that of the Buddha, are primarily based on the Pāli Tipiṭaka; but they also include some illuminating material from the Northern textual tradition. In my analyses, I have, where appropriate compared the Buddhist creative education to notions enunciated by some modern humanistic thinkers, particularly Erich Fromm, Abraham Maslow and Carls Rogers. I have, however, chosen to differ from them where necessary–––particularly in pointing out that the Buddha’s and the achieved disciples’ supra-normal insight and the saṃsaric factor of the candidates, are excluded from the scope of consideration. Basing on these case studies, I observe that, as a creative educator, the Buddha is essentially non-authoritarian, anti-establishmentism and anti-institutionalization. In this connection, I demonstrate that the Buddha’s dhamma-vinaya signifies a “system” of spiritual transformation; his creativity is further illustrated with his flexible and skilful manner of differently transforming candidates of different temperament and different background: socially, intellectually and religiously, etc. In spite of this flexibility, the overall, primary characteristic of this creative education is clearly discernible as being inspiration. This feature of inspiration is further examined by me in details in various contexts, in terms of the fourfold characteristic represented by sandasseti, samādapeti, samuttejeti and sampahaṃseti. They are observed to fundamentally characterize not only the Buddha’s pedagogy, but also that of his competent disciples. They are additionally seen to be stressed in some suttas as constitute the spiritual dimension in the worldly services rendered by one spiritually committed to the ideals of the Buddha-dhamma.