The Buddhistic revelation to the modern world involves the rediscovery of a coherent view of life that prevents the materialistic civilization from ending in disaster. Societies now come to the climax of cultural ferment where the progressive quality of Modern Art, Technology and Knowledge depends on the amount of sense of purpose, compassion, and humanistic initiatives for coping with life as a whole. Such is the essentials of the Buddhist culture.
To a majority of people, Buddhism is this practice of an age-old cult, carried out and promoted by those half-dreaming ones devoted to dozy, monotonous praying for salvation. They believe in a Buddha similar to a Hindu god Brahma. They worship the Lord Buddha as the Almighty and beseech him for blessings, salvation, and even earthly favors. This misunderstanding has created a veil of religious myths, fictitious and profane, which conceal the realistic spirit of the True Law. That is the reason why Buddhism will be conceived as «a religion both profound and profane. »1
We have to take the responsibility to reveal what is profound in Buddhist teaching to the extent that Buddhism will not come to be a yoke preventing the believers from acquiring spiritual freedom, social prosperity, self-realization and the achievement of world salvation.
There in a serene, aloof monastic cave lived an enlightened monk with his disciples, many of whom had realized the Path. One of the most excellent disciples, known to the whole monastery for his faithfulness and kindness to the teacher and mates, was still far from ultimate success. Year after year and the disciples one after another had reached supreme knowledge and left the monastery for their propagation trips in different directions, but nothing was changing with the long trained disciple, obedient and righteous.
The teacher, after a very long time of studying the situation, came to realize, when a sudden snowstorm brought winter about, that the mind of his student had reached a point when "One More step" or one final thrust is required to attain enlightenment. The cave was thrilled with freezing coldness while the teacher's heart warmed up at the thought that it was possibly the right moment for the disciple to be awakened. After a walk surveying around the monastery, the venerable was found back at his patriarchal seat; beside it was the only fireplace with so dim a fire that it seemed to be nearly extinct. The situation was urgent. So he called his disciple thereto and gave him an order:
«It's necessary now to find some wood for keeping up the warming fire. Go and see if we could get some, my son?» He thus obeyed and left, but he knew the wood storage was already empties after some of those days under unceasing snowstorm. Moreover, snow had blocked up all the ways down to the lower forest. He had tried his best in this vain searching before he returned with nothing but a very sad look.
«I am sorry, Sir; but there is not a single piece of wood on hand while the storm outside is so mighty that nobody can go out…. »
«But how about searching all over the inside, first. If you see anything made of wood or flammable material, bring it here, will you?» was his kind consolation. The religious candidate obediently bowed and went out on another search.
Nothing but rock was available. He presented himself to the teacher at last and exclaim desperately:
«Finally nothing is wooden material, Sir!»
«Oh, worthy one! I believe you will find one thing made of wood, which is right inside this cave only if you try to use the best of your sight faculty. »
In spite of his overwhelmed despondency, he made a decisive exertion to survey all and every corner of the monastery and go as far as the main shrine of the Buddha. Under the throne of the statue, he knelt down and prayed for His revelation before going on a last searching. No doubt, nothing was a wooden thing except the Buddha statue.  All the rest is of rock and iron. He came to the climax of dejection and finally was found kneeling before the monk with fear and trembling from head to toe. He said:
«Oh, sir, there is nothing of wood at all except the Buddha's statue! Yes, the statue is made of wood, really, but Oh, my Lord! It is our Lord Buddha. »
For the first time, the master seemed to be out of temper and scolded loudly:
«You fool!  Why don't you shut up all non-sense words as such? Now, bring it here, that wooden thing. You understand!» Startled and filled with doubt and bewilderment, both physically and mentally, he made for the Buddha statue. He lowered it down from the high throne to carry it back to the monk after he has expressed his utmost respect-with-fear to the statue.
The expression of compassion and calmness then, reappeared on the face and in the eye of the enlightened monk. He picked up an axe, raised it above his head then, with all his strength, chopped down at the glittering gold-plated Buddha into such broken pieces as the very heart and mental cataclysm of the faithful disciple. His sweat streamed down from every pore, his body trembled and eyes uncontrollably came to tear, while his master was quietly throwing the broken wood piece after piece into the flame being increasingly enlivened. The rocky hall was so brightened as this mind-flower flourishing into enlightenment, such blissful moment as when an Archimedes exclaims a triumphant achievement: «Eureka! Eureka!»
«We have now come to the point where we are obliged to consider the spirit, the soul and the physical form as an indivisible unit…» was the belief of Russian physiologist Pavlov, announced in a famous essay on Esprit Scientifique Russell (p. 55). Actually it strikes the time for us to make the Buddhist beholder forsake all illusory manifestation of the religion so that the essential reality is revealed eventually to all humanities. Only in this sense will Buddhism become the most active and realistic, that enables us intelligentsia to find out satisfactory answers to all spiritual necessities, and to re-discover there in the powerful motivation for the growth of a golden civilization with physical progress in harmony with transcendental humanism.
Buddhism has been formed as a crystallization of various schools of the perennial philosophy of ancient India. The Buddha came to life to bring forth to the great synthesis all the former theological, religious and ideological tendencies of Vedic tradition2 . His Noble Path is a complete expression of the human philosophical science ever known to history. In Buddhism are included all fundamental problems of existence, great and small, where all past and present may find definite outlets. That it has not been conceived as such, but otherwise, misunderstood is badly due to ambiguous manifestations in varying languages and forms of overdue conventions. As modern exponents of Buddhism, we have the task of revealing the realistic essence of Buddhist thought to the modern technology, art and learning, which is the meaning of the Unity of all realities, both physical and spiritual.
The tragedy of humanities today thus is the warring conflicts of arbitrary conceptions of life, which in reality is a whole, the indivisible unity. We must agree with professor Nguyen Đang Thuc’s note of this noble unifying vision of life: “… that human society is now experiencing a terrible moral and physical crisis can be explained by the lack of the moral conditions for this unification… the present phase will be one of control of the inner self.
“Experimental science, with its democratic character and with the experience of religions of the East will help the average man master his desires. ” (Asian Culture, Vol, III, No, 2)
And Buddhism, due to its adaptability to the needs of men of diverse mental and cultural and racial backgrounds, is to make more and greater contributions to social progress and spiritual freedom of Man today.
This great synthesis expressed the highest creative spirit of humanity against the natural background of lofty mountains and shady forests of India. Their thought was ceaselessly probing into mysterious phenomena of the boundless universe wherein they seemed to be imprisoned by the Brahma’s indecipherable creative work.
With this belief in Brahma, the God, they established Brahmanism with the basic concept of reincarnation namely SAMSARA, the transmigration or "metempsychosis” that gave way to a social system of caste. The schools of Upanishad appeared not quite as an ultimate negation of that Brahma’s mightiness but did raise foremost the highest doubt on the nonsense and uselessness of this illusive manifestation. This inquiring spirit was the source of all the coming philosophies: The Vedantism first drew Brahma down into every mortal and turned to the cause of human equality. Much more vigorous opposition to former theologies was the philosophy of realistic Vaisesika.
An eclectic tendency opened the way of Samkhya, proposing the dualist existence of transcendental self (Purusa) and primordial nature (Prakriti), the Soul and Matter. The transcendental self ’s will to communicate to, and become one with, the primordial nature would have created this world of illusion. Should this "Will" be nullified, all illusion would consequently cease, and there is revealed the Identity of Purusa and Prakriti.
More than two thousand five hundred years later, the Buddha came to life making his reconciliation of all former perennial philosophies into Buddhism which, upon the foundation of COMPASSION AND BELIEF IN MAN'S POTENTIALITY FOR ENLIGHTENMENT, SPIRITUAL LIBERTY, INDEPENDENCE and SELF-REALISATION, revealed to the world THE REALISTIC CONTENT OF A PERFECT LIFE so far as concerning the SPIRITUAL and PRACTICAL ASPECTS of the WAY TO ENLIGHTENMENT.
The Great Master gave a sharp look at everything in existence as it really is, found at its core the SUCHNESS, which he described as this threefold principle:
- Every phenomenon is impermanent
- Every existence is without a self
- Such is Eternity
This is the nature of things. "An-sich-sein" or "Nomos"3  (a-b) to use Heidegger's language, the keyword for man at the threshold of the immense treasure of universal secrets, the very original source of this world. This understanding of THING-IN-ITSELF only helps him unload ignorant attachments one by one, and get closer to his transcendental self.
The world of phenomena is a component system of universal causation.  Men who will make up his mind to probe into the deep mysteries of life and the universal evolution must know this Noble law of "cause-and-effect" relativity in making efforts to turn the Wheel to a finer moral status, human salvation will be achieved eventually.
One's Karmic record of life makes him suffer in the mortal world, and undergo a series of incarnations. Sufferings, we believe, are originated from sensual cravings that never cease to increase day by day. Only by following the Noble Eightfold Path (āryāstānga mārga) can one realize that blissful state of Nirvana.
Buddhism starts from its spiritual point of view to make its way through the Six-Dust World for the ultimate liberation from human bondage. However the point of departure, i. e. Buddhism, is not the absolute truth, but only a means, provisional and non-real, like the "finger that points to the moon" a symbol of the true reality. The most emphasized Buddhist concepts are the personal value and the freedom of thought that help it be developed and embellished by generations one after another. The freedom of thinking is the most essentials of all and no wonders Buddhism has been widespread and welcome all over the world while no warring conflicts are known in the history of its religious propagation at all.
German historian Dietrich Seckel, in "The art of Buddhism" expresses his convictions as such when he writes: “It will be appreciated that this was not the foundation upon which one could establish an obligatory dogma. Hence Buddhism could easily adapt itself to alien ways of thinking, doctrines and cultural conditions, without sacrificing its basic concepts. This of course meant that it had to renounce the lives and thoughts of the people under its sway… It was presumably this modesty in its claims that enabled it to spread peacefully into such vast areas, where the cultural pattern was so different. " P. 18-19.
Over two millenniums of existence with the peace-loving peoples on the eastern part of the world, Buddhism never ceases to develop and open up new dimensions of spiritual life, thought and feeling.

ON ART
The Buddha's First Speech, since the moment of his Enlightenment, was artistically expressed verbally. His eloquent teachings were therefore highly appreciated by the great variety of beholders and have lent themselves to artistic representation all over the world of Buddhism.
His metaphors delivered to his disciples were recorded in the "SUTRAS of HUNDRED EXAMPLES" each skillfully conveyed the deep meaning of his message of salvation. It provides various good descriptions of this suffering humanity, the cause of sufferings, "also presents a moral conclusion for each story to suggests to every one of its characters a definite outlet according to every particular circumstances. This enables the religious beholders the good examples out in their practical life.
The Buddha's attitudes and noble behavior gave way to the very formation of Buddhist rituals and conventions. His solemn voice was the prototype of later rhythmic praying and such art forms as religious prose and poetry, ritual and music. The fine arts produced thousands of stupas, pagodas and icons of Buddha for the sake of religious contemplation as well as the means of propagation of the Dharma. Some hundred years before Christ, the Buddhist painting and sculpture had gradually developed but were not fully in bloom until the first century of Christ. This literature, sacred writings, music, painting, sculpture and architecture, drama and then modern cinema and television are now sufficiently available on the message of Compassion and Wisdom of Buddhism.
There is remarkable virtue of stylistic adaptability to all native arts in the ecumenical world of Buddhism where the Buddha's original concepts and art-forms have been willingly undergoing various metamorphoses to be come one with all and every native embodiment.
The more it elaborates, the richer it is in form and expression. As a rule, Buddhism, when penetrated into the soul of a community, serves to raise its culture and civilization to a higher horizon of the Buddhist worldview. In many instances it was only with the coming of Buddhism, only through the stimulus it provided and the aspirations it awakened, that art could develop fully and reach standards acceptable in all parts of Asia. Thanks to Buddhism the various art traditions, which until then had been largely regional in scope and self-sufficient, were enabled to establish contact with one another on an ever-growing scale, to exchange ideas and to fertilize each other.
As concerning the greatest of all contributions Buddhism have made to the art of Asia, Professor Seckel writes: «Buddhism succeeded in solving one of the major problems of Asian art: the problem of rendering the sacred in a human form of universal validity and appeal. »
In fact, the history of Buddhism from the third century B. C intimately comes to be one with that of Buddhist art.

ON KNOWLEDGE
On the foundation of synthesis and freedom of thinking, the Buddhist literature has evolved, with the participation of generations of intelligentsia, into a magnificent treasury of sacred books, namely: «Ocean of letters, forests of bibles. »
The sacred books are divided into three main sources, namely The Bible «Sutram», The Law «Vinaya», and The Philosophy «Abhidharma.»
The source of Sutram includes verbal teachings of the Buddha as reported by his disciples in the five great Sacred Books.
The source Vinaya, the system of essential laws that are to be observed by both the renounced and the Buddhist believers, serves as the substratum of the Buddhist order.
The source of Abbidharma includes philosophical treaties that explain and develop the essential meanings of the original Sutram.
This great treasury of literature came from successive generations of Buddhist authors. After The Master's Parinirvana, the first council of the Sangha was organized to gather his original teachings and basic religious laws as the cornerstone of the Buddhist order. This was the meeting of about 500 disciples or so, taken place at Ràjagriha city. The Bibles were Anada's dictation, and the Books of Law under Upali. The Essays or Abhidharma were later written as the further development from the former bibles. Two collections of the sacred books, namely Agamas and the Tenfold Recitation Vinaya hence came into being as the output of this gathering.
A century later, a second meeting was organized at Vesàli, aiming at a general review over the former sutras and vinayas, and in the mean time, to clear out all nucleus of strange conceptions and evils scattered right inside the community. This was also conceived as a turn of the ideology toward coming divergences into a variety of schools.
It has been said that Master MAHADEVA with his fivefold revolutionary manifesto4  had launched the first blow of a liberation movement that split the primitive Buddhism into two schools namely the conservatism of Hinasanghika and the liberalism of Mahasanghika. Both still underwent many further sub-divisions5 .
This complex dissociation showed an interesting panorama of the wealthy treasure of Buddhist literature on the one hand, but otherwise might lead learners into the kaleidoscopic world of letters, with a great variety of confusing and contradictory of aspects. It is up to the Buddhist missionary first and foremost to gain a good insight into the matter in order to build modern creative writings on the old treasure.
Buddhism in India was found to be geographically divided into the Northern school of Mahayana and the Southern school Hinayana before spreading out abroad: The Northern Buddhism took metropolitan Gandhara as point of departure to travel eastward to China through Central Asia, the highway of Buddhism, thence moved forward in various directions to Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea, Japan and Vietnam. The Southern school spread out from Ceylon to reach Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. On its pervasive travel, Buddhism adapted itself to all and every native belief while adopting more and more novelties.
Buddhist intelligentsia all over the world and the representatives of every Buddhist nation are now making all their best for the achievement of (what may justly be called) the Unity of Buddhism for the common cause of the world's peace and happiness.
After the past two millenniums or so of polarization now, Buddhism is at the very threshold of the long-fought for unification and synthesis (as is the case of the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church which was brought to life in 1963). We expect this remarkable reconciliation of the Northern and Southern school in Vietnam will lead to the rise of the Buddhist world unification some day.
For the cause of great harmony inside the Buddhist world, the follower of Buddha is supported to have an open mind and welcome whatever is essential coming from all sides of the earth, while trying incessantly to gain a deeper insight into the Noble content of the Great Master's teachings.

ON TECHNOLOGY
It is impossible for Buddhism to answer satisfactorily to the exigency of practical problems so far as concerning material and man's power for organizing a working technological system, but on the other hand it does reveal the realistic basis of the essential principles of science. This should be conceived as the very output of man's thought and consciousness over the experimental and practical problems of the time, there was, and still is a scientific theory as the technological world today. That's why Kantilya, an Indian scholar says: «Philosophy is the lamp of all sciences, the means of performing all. » The further science is proceeding onto the atomic age and its investigation into space, the closer it is related to Buddhism. The Buddhist view point is not that of an infinitesimal physics, indeed, but due to the non-empirical experience to give worthy explanations of the physical world which are really on good terms with modern scientific insight.
Hundreds of years before the modern astronomers asserted the existence of the multitude of other worlds of being in the outer space, the Buddha had, from his Boddhi tree of Enlightenment, taught of the Trisaharasramahasahasro lokadhatu or one billion worlds that exist in the universe around our planet. It was quite impossible for such a radical concept to be acknowledged by his contemporaries until recently it was so reaffirmed by modern science. There is no question that the early Buddhism is one of the most original «ideas” that the history of philosophy ever presents. In its fundamental ideas and essential spirit it approximates remarkably to the advanced scientific thought of the nineteenth century. The modern thought of Schopenhauer and Hartmann is only a revised version of ancient Buddhism.
«As far as the dynamic conception of reality is concerned, Buddhism is a prophecy of the creative evolutionism of Bergson. Early Buddhism suggests the outline of a philosophy suited to the practical wants of present day and helpful in reconciling the conflict between faith and science. » S. Radharkrishnan6 .
Buddhism is thus conveyed to us not only as a philosophy or spiritualism but also a functional basis of science. Other than a way of salvation, Buddhism still expresses itself as the realistic ideology, which is capable of evolving into a complete development of Modern culture as concerning Art, Learning and Technology.
Now is the right time for those endowed with the heritage of wisdom from our Lord Buddha to put His Noble Truth into action? Let's transcend the human conditions and establish a finer and better life in the harmonious religious-secular regime on earth. To that extent Buddhism will come to be adaptable to all the variety of intellectual exigencies of the age.
To deal with the culture of Buddhism, the history of a cultural synthesis with a long existence of more than two millenniums, this general survey is quite impossible and really inadequate.
However, most essentials have been revealed as:
- First, our consideration of the modern world: its situation at the turn of a civilization and its «debasement» promoted by the proposed Buddhistic motivation.
- Secondly, the misunderstanding of Buddhism.
- Thirdly, the fundamental principles of Buddhist teachings.
Last but not least is the ideo-culture of Buddhism or Buddhistic consciousness and force to be brought to life for the good of the present propagation of the Law.
May the Light of Compassion be with us all.

translated by Pham Kim Khanh

1 (The Buddha and Buddhism-The New Face of Buddha, trường phòng lục, 18 by Jerrold Schecter)
2 the Buddha was a religious reformer an Asian Martin Luther, Like Luther, the Buddha questioned the prevailing religious doctrine of his time and sought to change it. The Buddha rejected what he considered to be the abuses of the Hindu religion, with its rigid caste system and animal sacrifices. He rejected the Hindu scriptures, the Vedas, as divine revelation, and he did not accep the all-powerful Creator-God Brahma, the Hindu Universal Lord of Life. (The New Face of Buddha- J. Sehecter,trường phòng lục 1-2)
3 a) "Le "NOMOS' n'est pas seulement la loi, mais plus originellement l'assignation cache' dans le décret de l'Etre. Cette assignation seule permet d’enjoindre l'homme à l'Etre." HEIDEGGER, Lettre sur l’humanisme (ÜBER DEN HUMANISMUS) page 148 Question III.
b) “In the deep mystery of this "THINGS-AS-THEY-ARE" we are released from our relations to them”. Things as they are, the coldness of ice and the sound of rain, the fall of leaves and the silence of the sky, are ultimate things, never to be questioned, never to be questioned away.
“when all things are seen WITH-EQUAL-MIND they return to their nature.”
-the Hsinhsinming-Zen & Zen classics, Vol. I, Page 87. R.H. Blyth
4 MAHADEVA'S Five Points:
Arhats are Still influenced by the Evils that make out their sperm pollution in dreams;
2-   Arhat are Still unaware of their own indisrriminate wisdom, namely their false knewledge on the Dhamma (the truth);
3-   Arhats are Still harbored in their unsettled Skepticism;
4-   Arhats couln't know the attainment of their Arhatship by themselves, but by the Enlightened One's revelation;
5-  Arhats could be, for their own enlightenment, awakened to the Way thanks to the various Sounds.
5 THERAVADINS (The Elders Sect):
-Haimavatra
- Sarvàstivàda
- Vàtsiptra
- Dharmottariya
- Bhadrayànika
- Sammiti
- Sanhagarika
- Mahisàsaka
- Dharmàgupta
- Kasyapyà
- Sutravàda
b) MAHÀSANGHIKAS (The Greater Assembly Sect):
- Ekayàvahàrika 1
- Lokottaravàda 2
- Kukkutika         3
- Bahusrutiya      4
- Aparacaila         5
- Caitika               6
- Prajnaptivàda    7
- Uttaracaila         8
6  Indian Philosophy, Vol I, pp. 342
 

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