You know, in all the years I’ve been reading the Buddha’s teachings, I’ve never once heard him talk in terms of the “secret of life” or the “secret of existence.”
This quote is actually from a talk given by Swami Vivekananda in the US in 1895, which made me wonder when people started talking about a “secret of existence.” It struck me as being rather a 19th century expression.
Google Books only gives one result from the 18th century for that phrase, one more (excluding duplicate results) from 1800 to 1820, and then dozens from 1820 to 1830. Even allowing for sample bias in Google’s database, it seems that the phrase only came into vogue in the early 1800s — earlier than I’d thought.
The phrase “the secret of life” seems to have become common much earlier, and is found in books throughout the 1700s.
When the Buddha talked about “secrets” or things being “secret” he seems to have done so in quite a literal way. He’d talk about people doing evil deeds in secret, and about friends keeping your secrets and sharing their own. But he doesn’t seem to have talked about a “secret of life” or a “secret of existence.”
Thanks for Bhikkhu Pandit for sending me this quote, which he found on Facebook.
This Fake Buddha Quote also crops up from time to time on Twitter:
“The whole secret of existence is to have no fear.”–Buddha
— Awake The Light (@AwakeTheLight) June 23, 2012
I’m a relative novice, but it seems to me you can tell fake Buddha quotes by their tendency to favor a polarity (i.e., the secret is; have no fear), whereas the Buddha seems to have focused on equanimity as a core value. (i.e., approach your fear–as everything else– with curiosity, compassion and openness) I’d love your thoughts/corrections on this. Thanks for your commitment to accuracy.
Hi LInda.
Actually, the language you use — of approaching fear with curiosity, compassion, and openness — is very modern and not at all traditional. It’s probably not found until after the advent of MBSR, and I doubt you’ll find anything like it in the Buddhist scriptures. That doesn’t mean it’s invalid as a practice, of course. Quite the contrary.
It’s very hard for me to say what triggers my FBQ alert system. When something sounds too much like a bon mot, I’m on alert. The language that’s been passed down to us in the scriptures is often a little clunky and unpolished. The Buddha didn’t tend to talk in neat little sound-bites.
In the “secret of existence” quote, the job is easy. The Buddha simply didn’t use this kind of idiom of existence having a secret. That’s a much more modern concept, although not as modern as the concept of approaching fear with curiosity.
Similarly, in a quote like “A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things that renew humanity,” we’re doing more or less OK until we get to the phrase “renew humanity” (although “a life of service” is not a traditional Buddhist idiom). “Renewing humanity” is just not how the Buddha’s recorded as having talked. He wanted people to become awakened, but he didn’t talk about “renewal.”
To get back to your idea of polarity. If by that you mean that you think you can recognize a Fake Buddha Quote because it promotes an absolute absence of some undesirable quality like fear, I’m afraid that’s exactly how the Buddha seems to have talked. He did talk about awakening as being a complete freedom from fear, greed, hatred, and delusion. The Buddha talked about “subduing fear” before his awakening, but not about befriending it. The sutta I’ve linked to does show the Bodhisatta having a certain curiosity about fear: he deliberately puts himself into a situation where fear is likely to arise, and he asks himself, “Is this fear and terror coming?” But his language is of subduing, and when he talks about those who are awakened, he talks in terms of them being free of fear.
You’re welcome. Keep up the work.