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The human individual in his or her concrete reality is not simple but composite, consisting of various elements which can be distinguished even if not actually divided. These elements are variously enumerated. Pauline Christianity has its body, soul, and spirit, Upanisadic Hinduism its five kosas consisting, respectively, of food, breath, mind, intelligence, and bliss, Neoplatonism its soma, psyche, and pneuma, and so on. In Buddhism the human individual is traditionally analysed into two, three, or five principal elements, each one of which is, of course, susceptible of further analysis. The twofold analysis resolves man into nama or name, by which is meant his subjective mental existence, and rupa or form, by which is meant his objective material existence. The threefold analysis resolves him into body (kaya), speech (vak, vaca), and mind (citta). In the more elaborate fivefold analysis the human individual is resolved into body (rupa), feeling (vedana), perception (samjna), volition (samskhara), and consciousness (vijnana), collectively known as the five “heaps” (skandhas).
Each set of elements, whether of a twofold, threefold, or fivefold nature, forms the centre of a vast and complex network of doctrinal, ethical, and symbolical correlations and associations which, in the course of centuries of development, grew more and more elaborate. What in the case of an ordinary unenlightened human being is simply name and form, in the case of a Buddha is Dharmakaya and Rupakaya, i.e. the “body” in which he realises the ultimate truth of things and the “body” in which he continues to function in the world of appearances. Similarly, there is a correlation between the threefold composition of man, as consisting of body, speech, and mind, and the threefold composition of the Buddha, as consisting (according to the Yogacara systematisation subsequently adopted by all the Mahayana schools) not only of a Dharmakaya and a Rupakaya (in this scheme termed the Nirmanakaya or “created body”) but also of a Sambhogakaya or “body of glory” (literally “body of mutual enjoyment”) in which He functions on the higher spiritual planes and by means of which, in particular, He communicates with the Buddhas of other world-systems and with advanced Bodhisattvas. In the case of the fivefold analysis of man, the five heaps are correlated with various other sets of five, both microcosmic and macrocosmic. There are the five Buddha-families, the five knowledges (jnana), the five passions (klesa), the five elements, the five colours, and so on.
In addition, inasmuch as they are all analyses of the same “object”, i.e. the concrete reality of the human individual, the twofold, threefold, and fivefold analyses are naturally interrelated. “Name” in the twofold analysis corresponds to speech and mind in the threefold analysis (and vice versa), while mind in the threefold analysis corresponds to feeling, perception, volition, and consciousness in the fivefold analysis (and vice versa). In other words, each analysis is an analysis of the total human being and it is, of course, of the transformation of the total human being that we speak when we speak of the Ten Precepts and Total Transformation. Total transformation represents the complete transformation of the total individual in accordance with the highest imaginable ideal, the Ideal of Human Enlightenment.
But how is it that the Ten Precepts, in particular, should be associated with this process of total transformation, rather than the Five or the Eight, for instance? The answer to the question is implicit in what has already been said. The precepts represent, in principle, the prolongation of the act of Going for Refuge into every aspect of one’s existence. They represent, in other words, the total transformation of the individual who goes for Refuge, in accordance with the Ideal which that Going for Refuge implies. The precepts which such an individual undertakes to observe, as the natural extension of his Going for Refuge, should therefore correspond to the principal elements of his existence. This means, in effect, that the division of the precepts should correspond to the “division” of the individual human being as represented by one or another of the traditional Buddhist analyses.
The only set of precepts which fulfils this requirement is that of the Ten Precepts, which inasmuch as it comprises three precepts governing the body, four governing the speech, and three governing the mind, corresponds to the threefold analysis of man into body, speech, and mind. It is only the Ten Precepts, therefore, which bring out with sufficient clarity the pact that the Precepts represent the total transformation of the individual as the consequence of his Going for Refuge, and it is the Ten Precepts, therefore, that members of the Western Buddhist Order undertake to observe.
Before we conclude our consideration of this topic let me draw your attention to an interesting and significant fact. As we have seen, Buddhism analyses man into body, speech, and mind, and it is this triad which provides the framework for the Ten Precepts. References to “body, speech, and mind” are, in fact, found throughout the Tripitaka, and it would appear that the triad goes back to the earliest period of Buddhism and formed part of the Buddha’s own “language”. As we know, that language was adopted, and in part adapted, from the existing Indian religious tradition or traditions, some terms and concepts indeed being subjected to radical redefinition and reinterpretation. The triad of body, speech, and mind did not form part of this already existing “language”. Indeed, according to sources which I have not, as yet, had the opportunity of checking, the concept of man as consisting of body, speech, and mind is not to be found in the Vedas. If the Buddha did not think of it Himself, and it seems unlikely that He did, then where did He get it from? He could only have got it – and this is the interesting and possibly significant fact to which I wanted to draw your attention – from the Zoroastrian tradition, in which the same triad occupies an extremely important place and where, as in Buddhism, there is a strong emphasis on a corresponding threefold purification.
This raises all sorts of fascinating questions concerning the relations between India and the Persian Empire, and between India and Central Asia, as well as concerning the extent to which Zoroastrianism may have influenced Buddhism, and Buddhism, in its turn, may have influenced Sufism. Fascinating as they are, however, these are questions which must be pursued on some future occasion. Meanwhile, we must proceed to our next topic.