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+ | ====== Noble & True: Essays on the Buddhist Path ====== | ||
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+ | Summary: | ||
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+ | ===== Contents ===== | ||
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+ | * [[# | ||
+ | * [[# | ||
+ | * [[# | ||
+ | * [[# | ||
+ | * [[#ch4|We Are Not One]] | ||
+ | * [[# | ||
+ | * [[# | ||
+ | * [[# | ||
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+ | * [[# | ||
+ | * [[# | ||
+ | * [[#ch7|The Not-Self Strategy]] | ||
+ | * [[#ch7.1|1. The Purpose & Range of the Teachings]] | ||
+ | * [[#ch7.2|2. The Metaphysical Assumptions of the Four Noble Truths]] | ||
+ | * [[#ch7.3|3. The Buddha' | ||
+ | * [[#ch7.4|4. Two Fetters of Views]] | ||
+ | * [[#ch7.5|5. " | ||
+ | * [[#ch7.6|6. The Strategic Use of the Knowledge, "All phenomena are not-self" | ||
+ | * [[#ch7.7|7. The Abandoning of All Strategies]] | ||
+ | * [[#ch8|The Buddha' | ||
+ | * [[# | ||
+ | * [[# | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====== Acknowledgements ====== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor # | ||
+ | |||
+ | Many people have read earlier versions of these essays and have kindly offered suggestions for improvements. In particular, I would like to thank the monks here at the monastery, as well as Michael Barber, Claude LeNinan, Addie Onsanit, Nathaniel Osgood, Robert Rhyne, Dale Schultz, Mary Talbot, Isabella Trauttmansdorff, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Some of these essays, in earlier incarnations, | ||
+ | |||
+ | These and other essays on Buddhist practice are available on the Internet at // | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div rightalign>// | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====== Danger is Normal ====== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor # | ||
+ | |||
+ | A short reflection that’s often chanted in Theravada monasteries states, in part, “I am subject to aging... subject to illness... subject to death.” That’s the standard English translation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | As the reflection concludes, these are good themes to reflect on every day— to keep us heedful of the fact that dangers are to be expected and are not an aberration. That way we can be prepared for them. Otherwise, we tend to forget — and our illusions of safety, when they’re challenged, often lead to unrealistic desires for absolute safety that can cause us to create unnecessary dangers for ourselves and people around us. | ||
+ | |||
+ | It’s an often-overlooked feature of the Buddha’s teachings that he identified the basis for all our good and skillful qualities as heedfulness — not innate goodness or compassion: heedfulness. To recognize that there are dangers both within and without, that your actions can make the difference between suffering from those dangers and not, and that you’d better get your act together now: This is the heedfulness that makes us generous, wise, and kind. We’re kind not because we’re innately kind. In fact, our minds are so quick to change that they’re not innately anything, good or bad, aside from being aware. If we’re heedful, we’re kind not only when others are kind to us or make us feel safe. We’re kind because we see that kindness is the safest course of action, even in the face of the unkindness of others. | ||
+ | |||
+ | This is why the Buddha told his monks, when they were ready, to go out into the wilderness to face some of the dangers there, so that they could overcome their complacency and become resourceful in dealing skillfully with threats to their physical and mental well being. That way they could learn to bring out their best qualities even when — especially when — confronted with the worst that the wilderness had to offer. Some of the most moving passages in the Pali Canon are the words of monks in the wilds who discovered, in the face of hunger, illness, and dangers from fierce animals, that the best way to keep their minds safe was to take refuge in practicing the Dhamma. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Now, the Buddha wouldn’t push the monks into the wilderness right off the bat. He was like a wise parent who provides safety for her children as they’re getting started in life, and then gradually acquaints them with the dangers of the world, providing them with the skills they’ll need to negotiate those dangers on their own. | ||
+ | |||
+ | This is why so many of his teachings deal with issues of safety and danger: recognizing what true danger is, what true safety is, and knowing how to best find true safety in both within conditions and beyond them. And he didn’t limit these teachings only to monks and nuns. He taught them to all his students, lay and ordained, because wilderness is not the only place where dangers abound. And monastics are not the only ones who can endanger themselves and others by holding to unwise and unrealistic notions about safety and danger. Complacency and the ignorance it fosters are problems for us all. | ||
+ | |||
+ | So it’s useful to reflect on some of the Buddha’s teachings on safety, to get his perspective on the dangers we all must encounter. Because it’s hard to keep complex teachings in mind when you’re face to face with danger, I’ll boil the main principles of the Buddha’s safety instructions to a few bullet points. That way they’ll be easy to keep in mind when you need them most. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The first point puts the remaining points into perspective: | ||
+ | |||
+ | ? **Total safety is possible, but only in nibbāna.** | ||
+ | :: As long as you’re not there yet, you have to accept the fact that you’ll be forced again and again to sacrifice some things in order to save others that are more valuable. Life in saṁsāra is full of trade-offs, and wisdom consists of learning to make wise trades. If you forget this fact, you tend to float around in a complacent bubble of what you assume to be a karma-free zone where you can have your cake and enlightenment too — and the people who live in complacent bubbles are the ones most likely to thrash around wildly, endangering themselves and others, when that bubble bursts. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The next point focuses on the primary means for finding the total safety of nibbāna and relative safety in the world. It forms the basis for all the points that follow. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ? **Your most lasting possessions are your actions.** | ||
+ | :: Your body is yours only till death; your loved ones, at best, are yours no longer than that. The results of your actions, though, can carry well past death, so make sure that you don’t sacrifice the goodness of your thoughts, words, and deeds to save things that will slip through your fingers like water. Specifically, | ||
+ | |||
+ | If you really want to protect your loved ones and other people around you from danger, remember that the same principle applies to them: Their most lasting possessions are their actions. So the best way to protect them is to teach them to observe the same five precepts. If they’re willing to listen to you, you can explain the precepts to them. If they’re not, you can teach the precepts by example — which, either way, is the only way to make the lesson stick. | ||
+ | |||
+ | :: **To find some safety in the world, you first have to give safety to the entire world.** | ||
+ | |||
+ | If you’re determined to observe the precepts in all situations, you’re giving a gift of safety to everyone, in that all beings, universally, | ||
+ | |||
+ | :: **You can protect yourself from the results of your past unskillful actions by training the mind.** | ||
+ | |||
+ | The fact that we’re born in the human realm means that we all have some past bad karma, so simply avoiding unskillful karma in the present isn’t enough to protect you from suffering. Fortunately, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The types of meditation especially helpful in this area include developing unlimited attitudes of goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity; developing your discernment in knowing how to stop causing yourself unnecessary suffering in the present; and learning the ability not to let the mind be overcome by either pleasure or pain. When the mind is trained in this way, it’s like a vast river of clean water: You can throw a lump of salt into the river and yet still drink the water, because it’s so vast and clear. Otherwise, your mind will be like a small cup of water: The same lump of salt thrown into the cup will make the water unfit to drink. | ||
+ | |||
+ | :: **The primary danger from other people lies, not so much in what they do to you, but in what they can get you to do.** | ||
+ | |||
+ | Their karma is their karma; your karma is yours. Even when you’re mistreated by others, their karma doesn’t become your karma — unless you start mistreating them in return. | ||
+ | |||
+ | At the same time, the most dangerous people aren’t necessarily those who are obviously mistreating you. Sometimes people you regard as your friends can try to get you to break the precepts, or to fire up passion, aversion, or delusion in your mind. In doing this, they can make you do lasting danger to yourself. | ||
+ | |||
+ | This means, on the one hand, that you have to train yourself not to fall for the reasonings or to be tempted by the rewards that some people will offer you to kill, lie, or steal for some “good cause.” On the other, it means that you have to distinguish speech that’s genuinely harmful from speech that’s harmful only on the surface. Nasty words meant to hurt your feelings or get you upset are harmful only on the surface. Words that insinuate themselves into your mind, getting you to develop unskillful attitudes or do unskillful things: Those are the ones that can do deep, long-lasting harm. | ||
+ | |||
+ | :: **You can protect yourself from harmful words by, again, training the mind.** | ||
+ | |||
+ | The best protection against unskillful speech is to depersonalize it, and two techniques are especially effective in this regard. One is to remember that human speech all over the world has always been, and always will be, either kind or unkind, true or false, beneficial or harmful. The fact that people may be saying unkind, false, or harmful things to you right now is nothing out of the ordinary. Like all dangers, it’s normal, so there’s no reason to feel that you’re being singled out for any special mistreatment. You can take it in stride. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The second technique is to tell yourself, when something harmful is being said, “An unpleasant sound is making contact at the ear.” And leave it at that. Don’t build any internal narratives around that contact that will stab at your heart. You have ears, so you’re bound to hear both pleasant and unpleasant sounds. But you can also develop discernment around how you use your ears and relate to those sounds. If you can let the words stop at the contact, they won’t present any danger to your heart. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Obviously, these principles build on the working hypothesis of kamma and rebirth — a hypothesis that, we’re told, is no longer viable in our modern/ | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Dhamma is said to be timeless. In this world where death is so normal, now is as good a time as any to put that claim to the test. </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====== What’s Noble about the Noble Truths? ====== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor # | ||
+ | |||
+ | When people ask me this question, they often seem a little embarrassed, | ||
+ | |||
+ | A good place to start for an answer is with the Pali term for noble truth: // | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ancient commentators specialized in the game of digging out these layers, and // | ||
+ | |||
+ | For instance, even though the truths are true for noble people, they’re not true //only// for noble people. They’re classed as right view, part of the path that will take you from your not-yet-noble condition and lead you to a noble attainment. In other words, they’re specifically //for// people who aren’t yet fully awakened. They’re part of the raft that takes you across the river. Once you’re on the other side, you no longer need the raft. From that point on, the path of those who are fully awakened, like that of birds through space, can’t be traced ([[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | So these truths don’t encompass all the views and knowledge of the awakened. They’re taught by the awakened because they’re part of the path to take unawakened people to awakening as well. | ||
+ | |||
+ | And the Buddha didn’t save these truths only for those who are on the verge of awakening. Once, when quizzed by a newcomer to the Dhamma named Gandhabhaka, | ||
+ | |||
+ | But what makes the truths themselves noble? My dictionary says that among the various meanings of the word “noble” in common usage are these three: preeminent, highly virtuous, and deserving respect. “Noble” can also be used in a technical sense — as in the noble elements — meaning something that doesn’t change with changing conditions. The noble truths are noble in all four of these senses. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The first sense — // | ||
+ | |||
+ | These truths not only provide the framework for understanding everything else that is skillful, but also give directions for how to deal skillfully with whatever arises in your experience. Suffering is to be comprehended, | ||
+ | |||
+ | This is what the Buddha meant when he noted that all he taught was suffering and the end of suffering. He did, of course, in his many years of teaching, touch on other topics as well, but he always did so within the overarching framework of how those topics related to an understanding of suffering and its end. Even when he dealt with such far-ranging subjects as how to make a marriage work or how to be reborn as a deva or nāga, he treated them under the framework of kamma, the principle underlying the fact that our actions can either cause suffering or end it. In other words, he was illustrating the principles of right view and at the same time showing both how far those principles can extend and how useful they are to know. If he was questioned about topics that would get in the way of gaining right view — as when he was asked to take a stand on whether a fully awakened being does or doesn’t exist after death ([[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The noble truths are also noble in the second sense of the word: //highly virtuous//. This is because the act of seeing yourself in terms of these truths is a noble act. Take the first two truths as an example. The first truth isn’t just “suffering.” It’s the truth that suffering boils down to clinging to the five aggregates (form, feeling, perception, fabrications, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The same point holds for the second noble truth. It’s not just “craving.” It’s the truth that craving is the cause of suffering. To view your cravings in this way gives you some distance from them and puts you in a position where they’re easier to drop when you see the stress and suffering they cause. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The noble truths are also noble in the sense that they //deserve respect//. This, in fact, is one of the meanings of “noble” that the Buddha himself explicitly used. He didn’t reserve the term only for those who have already reached awakening. He also used it to describe the search that takes you there. Any search for a happiness in things subject to aging, illness, or death, he said, is ignoble. The search for a deathless happiness is the only noble search there is ([[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | Finally, several passages in the Canon describe the four noble truths in ways suggesting that “noble” here also means universal and unchanging. One passage ([[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | So the noble truths are noble in all four senses of the word: | ||
+ | |||
+ | * They’re the preeminent teaching on skillfulness, | ||
+ | * the willingness to view yourself in light of them is a virtuous act, | ||
+ | * they’re part of a path that deserves utmost respect, and they don’t change with changing circumstances; | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | In my own experience, the people who have been most willing to regard the noble truths as noble in these ways have benefited the most from them, and are by far the happiest, most admirable people I have ever met. </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====== Truths with Consequences ====== <div chapter> <span anchor # | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Pali Canon contains a puzzle on the topic of truth (// | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div freeverse> | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | Those who dispute, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Canon also contains a related puzzle on the issue of views (// | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div freeverse> | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | By whom, with what, should he be pigeonholed here in the world? —this brahman who hasn’t adopted views. | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | I don’t say, ‘That’s how it is,’ the way fools tell one another. They each make out their views to be true and so regard their opponents as fools. | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | The brahman, evaluating, doesn’t accept theory, doesn’t follow views, isn’t tied even to knowledge. < | ||
+ | |||
+ | There are two principal ways to approach these puzzles. One is to take them as signs that the Buddha’s teachings on truth and views were subtle and nuanced, and that the contradictions in the puzzles are best treated as intentional paradoxes. The question is then whether the paradoxes can be resolved, say, by checking the Canon more carefully to see if the Buddha used the words “truth” and “views” in different ways in different contexts, or if he recommended different ways of relating to truths and views at different stages of the practice. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The other approach is to assume that the Buddha’s attitude to truths and views was basically simple, and that he defined his terms consistently across the board, with no variations for different stages in the path. From this assumption it would follow that only one side of each contradiction — either the side with a firm sense of right and wrong and true and false, or the side rejecting notions of right and wrong and true and false — accurately reflects the Buddha’s views on truth and views, and that the other side is a later interpolation inconsistent with the Buddha’s true teachings on these topics. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Now, the above passages asserting the need to go beyond views and attachments to true and false all come from the Aṭṭhaka Vagga, a set of poems in the fifth // | ||
+ | |||
+ | From there, these scholars have further interpreted these passages from the Aṭṭhaka Vagga in line with traditional Western schools of thought that have also questioned the existence of objective truths, coming to a variety of conclusions such as these: | ||
+ | |||
+ | * //A person on the path should hold to no fixed views of right and wrong, even views about the path.// | ||
+ | * //The Buddha refused to take a position on questions of “truth” because there is no way of knowing if assertions about truths correspond to the way things actually are. Agnosticism is thus the position closest to the Buddha’s own attitude to truth.// | ||
+ | * //The Buddha believed that each person has to find his or her own truth, and that any attempt to assert a universal truth is nothing more than an illegitimate attempt to assert power over others.// | ||
+ | |||
+ | Although these conclusions differ in their details, they all agree in rejecting the idea of categorical, | ||
+ | |||
+ | It doesn’t take too much thought to see that each of the above conclusions is self-contradictory, | ||
+ | |||
+ | But even if we put aside the issue of whether these conclusions can stand up to close scrutiny on their own terms, a survey of the Pali Canon shows that they are based on a false assumption about the Canon. That assumption is that there is a sharp line of distinction between the contents of the Aṭṭhaka Vagga and that of the rest of the Canon, and that these two parts of the Canon stand consistently on opposite sides of the issue of truths and views. | ||
+ | |||
+ | For instance, the first four nikāyas, like the Aṭṭhaka Vagga, also contain passages asserting that the awakened ones have gone beyond clinging to views ([[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div freeverse> | ||
+ | |||
+ | As for the Aṭṭhaka Vagga, it contains many passages asserting right views in line with the four noble truths, such as [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div freeverse> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <span spkr> | ||
+ | |||
+ | “What some say is true —‘That’s how it is’— others say is ‘falsehood, | ||
+ | |||
+ | <span spkr>The Buddha:</ | ||
+ | |||
+ | “The truth is one. There is no second about which a person who knows it would argue with one who knows. Contemplatives promote their various idiosyncratic truths. That’s why they don’t say one thing & the same.” | ||
+ | |||
+ | <span spkr> | ||
+ | |||
+ | “But why do they say various truths, those who say they are skilled? Have they learned many various truths or do they follow conjecture? | ||
+ | |||
+ | <span spkr>The Buddha:</ | ||
+ | |||
+ | “Apart from their perception there are no many various constant truths in the world.” ]!< | ||
+ | |||
+ | At the same time, the series of poems in the Aṭṭhaka Vagga discussing issues of truth start with the following passage, indicating that their rejection of “true” and “false” holds, not for all truths, but for idiosyncratic (pacceka) ones: i.e., truths that are not universally true. | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div freeverse> | ||
+ | |||
+ | Taken together, these passages suggest that the Buddha in the Aṭṭhaka Vagga was denying, not the validity of all views and truths, but only the validity of universal claims made for views and truths that don’t deserve them. Given that many of the poems in the Aṭṭhaka Vagga take the form of riddles, with frequent paradoxes and plays on words, it shouldn’t be surprising that its message is complex. | ||
+ | |||
+ | These two passages also call into question the three conclusions drawn from taking the previous Aṭṭhaka Vagga passages out of context: | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Because the truth is one, it can be argued that it doesn’t change. Thus there can be fixed standards for measuring one’s own views as right or wrong. As long as one is still on the path, one should regard right view as unfixed only to the extent that one has yet to confirm through experience whether it is genuinely right in leading to the end of suffering. | ||
+ | * The fact that people can know this truth implies that they are in a position to judge how well statements about it actually correspond to its reality. And because they know, agnosticism is far from the Buddha’s own recommended attitude toward truth. | ||
+ | * The fact that people who actually know genuine truth don’t dispute with one another about it implies that the truth is the same for all who experience it, and that it is not a purely subjective or individual matter. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | All of this suggests that the simple school of interpretation doesn’t do justice to the Pali Canon’s puzzles on truths and views. This means that we have to explore how they might function as paradoxes to be resolved. To do this, we have to look more closely at what the Canon has to say on the question of truths and views, to see if we can detect any nuances or distinctions that would help to resolve the paradoxes and provide practical insights into how to relate to truths and views in a way that actually leads to the end of suffering. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The first distinction worth noting is that the word “truth” in the Canon has at least two meanings that are relevant to the paradoxes. | ||
+ | |||
+ | In some instances, “truth” means a //true event or experience// | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | Similarly, the following passage talks about experiencing a truth “with the body,” which obviously means, not touching a statement, but directly realizing the experience of the truth in and of itself: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Buddha also uses “truth” in this way when he teaches the duties appropriate to the four noble truths: that the truth of suffering is to be comprehended, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Understanding these two meanings of “truth” helps to resolve the paradox concerning the relationship of the fully awakened person to the truth. On the one hand, such a person has reached the truth of a deathless dimension that is freed from attachments to all things and is not dependent on any conditions. This is the sense in which such a person has attained the truth. At the same time, however, because views and statements about truths are dependent on conditions, a person who fully attains the truth of awakening has to be free of all attachments to views and statements about truths, even to true statements about the truth of awakening itself. | ||
+ | |||
+ | However, this attainment doesn’t come just by telling yourself to abandon views and truths. You have to comprehend the reasons for being attached to views in the first place, and to develop genuine dispassion for those reasons. To do this, you have to depend on true views about the reasons for attachment and the means for inducing dispassion. This is why, even though awakening involves letting go of all views and statements about truth, the path there requires holding to certain views and statements about truth as consistent guidelines for the right way to let go. This means that you relate to truth in one way when you’re on the path, and another way when you’ve reached the goal. This is the second distinction worth noting. | ||
+ | |||
+ | One of the most famous paradoxes in the Aṭṭhaka Vagga points to precisely this distinction: | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div freeverse> | ||
+ | |||
+ | The same distinction is conveyed by the famous simile of the raft in [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | “What do you think, monks? Would the man, in doing that, be doing what should be done with the raft?“ | ||
+ | |||
+ | “No, lord.” | ||
+ | |||
+ | “And what should the man do in order to be doing what should be done with the raft? There is the case where the man, having crossed over, would think, ‘How useful this raft has been to me! For it was in dependence on this raft that, making an effort with my hands & feet, I have crossed over to safety on the further shore. Why don’t I, having dragged it on dry land or sinking it in the water, go wherever I like?’ In doing this, he would be doing what should be done with the raft.”</ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Even though you let go of the raft on reaching the shore, you have to keep holding firmly to the raft while making an effort with your hands and feet to reach the shore in the first place. To make a show of your lack of attachment to the raft by dancing around on the top of it is to risk being swept away by the river to the whirlpools downstream. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Putting this principle into practice when following the path means two things: | ||
+ | |||
+ | -- adopting right — i.e., effective — views about truth; | ||
+ | -- using them properly. | ||
+ | |||
+ | In judging whether a view is right or wrong, the Buddha advises assessing it in terms of the consequence of holding on to it. This means judging it by the actions it leads to and the results of those actions — and specifically how well those actions lead to the end of suffering. [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | In this way, the Buddha recommends looking at truths as instrumental, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The first is that, in some forms of Western Pragmatism, a statement can be judged to be true simply on grounds of utility: If adopting it as a view is beneficial as means to a particular end, such as making money or soothing your feelings, then it’s true. This, however, leaves room for declaring some useful fictions — views of the world that don’t really accord with the way it is— as true as long as they give the desired benefits when put into action. An example would be a false view of the world — say, one in which your actions can have no negative consequences — that you find useful because it’s comforting, or that allows you to pursue your aims without qualms about unintended consequences. | ||
+ | |||
+ | In [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | What the Pali Canon means by “corresponds” here can be inferred from the way it deals with offenses in the Vinaya, or disciplinary rules. There we find three ways in which correspondence to reality plays a role in analyzing what is and is not an offense. All three types of correspondence are fairly straightforward and commonsensical, | ||
+ | |||
+ | First, for a perception to be true, it must match the facts: to perceive a human being as a human being, for instance, is a true perception. To perceive that human being as a common animal or a mannequin would be a false perception. For ease of reference, this can be called correspondence of perception. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Second, when one makes a statement to others — especially when accusing another monk of an offense — one must accurately cite one’s evidence for making the statement. If the statement is based on what one heard someone else report, and one says so, that would count as corresponding to the truth. If one says that it was based on what one saw, that would not. This can be called correspondence of citation. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Third, when one is accused of an offense, one must give a truthful account of what one actually did. This means being honest not only about one’s physical or verbal actions, but also about one’s motivation and intentions associated with those actions. This can be called correspondence of narrative. | ||
+ | |||
+ | These three types of correspondence also function in the practice of the Dhamma. | ||
+ | |||
+ | First, in **the practice of mindfulness**, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Second, when making a statement, one “safeguards the truth” by **accurately reporting the evidence or line of thought** on which the statement is based ([[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | Finally, as the Buddha taught his son, Rāhula ([[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The second and third types of truth-as-correspondence — accurately citing the source of your opinions and giving an honest account of your actions — are directly related to each other, in that they focus your attention on your actions: what you did to shape the opinions that you bring to experience, and how you shape your experience in general through your intentions. The ability to be sensitive to these processes as they happen is central to the development of liberating discernment. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The importance of all three types of truth-as-correspondence in the practice is reflected in the Buddha’s admonition to his son Rāhula: His very first lesson to Rāhula was that anyone who feels no shame at telling a deliberate lie is devoid of the goodness of a contemplative ([[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | In this way, the Buddha’s standard of truth was not purely pragmatic. Right view, to be genuinely right, has to be pragmatic and correspond to the way things are. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The second point of difference between the Buddha’s attitude toward truth and that of Western Pragmatism is that many forms of Pragmatism lack any objective standards for judging “what works,” when put into practice, in attaining a desired goal. All too often a pragmatic argument for a particular truth is, “It’s good enough for me,” and that ends the discussion. There are no objective standards for judging what’s a worthwhile goal, or how well a truth has to work in order to be “good enough.” | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Buddha, however, offered an objective standard for judging appropriate goals and the extent to which views work as means toward those goals. He began by noting that all action aims at happiness and wellbeing. The best goal would thus be a happiness that cannot change into suffering. The fact that such a happiness exists is the teaching of the third noble truth: the cessation of suffering. This is the Buddha’s absolute standard for judging goals. Any lesser happiness in accordance with the attainment of this fact — i.e., a happiness that doesn’t require actions that would get in the way of realizing | ||
+ | |||
+ | this goal — might qualify as a worthwhile proximate goal, but it should be recognized as just that — proximate, and not ultimate. Any happiness whose attainment would stand in the way of attaining the fact of the third noble truth would not be a worthwhile goal at all. | ||
+ | |||
+ | This may be one of the reasons why the Buddha declared unbinding, the cessation of suffering, as the highest noble truth, not only because it is undeceptive, | ||
+ | |||
+ | With regard to the right use of truths, the Buddha first points out three misuses of right view. The first is to draw improper inferences, or to fail to draw the proper inferences, from it ([[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The second misuse of right view is to develop pride around the fact of adopting it, as if that in and of itself made you a better person than others ([[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The third misuse of right view is to employ it simply for the purpose of winning debates. This is a point, however, that carries several nuances. The Canon is filled with warnings against debating for the sake of debate — this is the context for the Aṭṭhaka Vagga’s criticism of those who argue for their idiosyncratic truths ([[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The primary intended purpose of right view is to be used as a guide in developing all the right factors of the path, from right view itself through right concentration ([[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The way they do this can be seen in a number of passages treating the issue of how right view is used in developing dispassion specifically for views. | ||
+ | |||
+ | In [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The sectarians then ask Anāthapiṇḍika about his own views, and in response he first asks to hear theirs. It turns out that they all hold positions on the hot debate topics of the day, such as the extent of the cosmos or the existence or non-existence of the soul. Anāthapiṇḍika criticizes their views, but instead of challenging the content of their positions, he focuses on the act of creating and holding to a position. In each case, he says, regardless of the content of the position, it comes from conditions that are inconstant and stressful. By holding to such views, the sectarians are all holding on to stress. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The sectarians then ask Anāthapiṇḍika his view, and he replies: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | On hearing this, the sectarians try to turn Anāthapiṇḍika’s argument against him, saying that in holding to his view, he too is holding on to stress. He counters, however, by saying that in looking at views in this way, he is also able to discern the escape from that stress. His argument leaves the sectarians at a loss for words, and so he returns to the Buddha, who commends him for refuting the sectarians in this way. | ||
+ | |||
+ | This passage shows that right view contains the seeds for its own transcendence because it focuses, not so much on the world outside, but on the processes with which the mind creates its sense of the world. In doing so, it also draws attention to the processes of clinging in the mind, and judges them to be not-self: i.e., not worth holding on to. This is how right view develops dispassion for all processes — including, ultimately, any clinging to itself or to any of the other factors of the path. | ||
+ | |||
+ | This point is further explained in many other discourses, but three in particular stand out. In [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | Despite the different details in how these suttas trace the processes surrounding the act of holding to views, in all of them the strategy is the same: to see that views come from processes that include intentional actions, or kamma, such as fabrication, | ||
+ | |||
+ | This strategy of looking at the processes surrounding the act of creating and holding to views is where adherence to the second and third types of truth-as- correspondence — sensitivity to the source of one’s views, and sensitivity to one’s actions and their results — bears full fruit. Without having developed sensitivity to these types of truth on the blatant level, it would be impossible to undertake this subtler stage in dismantling attachment to views. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The ultimate result, as [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | However, without that discernment and the strategies needed to give rise to it, even the Buddha’s release wouldn’t have happened. This is why, even though a fully awakened person has gone beyond attachment to views, he or she recognizes that the truths of right view are essential guides to those strategies. As a result, when teaching others, such people continue to teach the truths of right view so that their listeners, in holding to them, can master those strategies, too. And it’s important that they hold to these truths consistently, | ||
+ | |||
+ | But because those strategies are means to an end, the Buddha was careful to leave behind a number of paradoxical teachings about truths and views as a warning not to fall into the simple-minded trap of taking views as ends in themselves — thinking, for instance, that the purpose of the path is to //arrive// at right view — and to realize instead that there will come a point in the practice where even ideas of “true” and “false” must be put aside. | ||
+ | |||
+ | So the more fully we appreciate the Buddha’s paradoxes on truths and views, the more fully we’ll be able to benefit from the consequences of adopting right view and putting into practice the truths that he taught. </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====== We Are Not One ====== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor # | ||
+ | |||
+ | Twenty-five years ago, one of my teachers, Ajaan Suwat, led a meditation retreat in Massachusetts for which I served as translator. During a group interview session one afternoon, a retreatant new to Buddhism quipped, “You guys would have a good religion here if only you had a God. That way people would have some sense of support in their practice when things aren’t going well.” | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ajaan Suwat’s gentle reply has stayed with me ever since: “If there were a god who could arrange that, by my taking a mouthful of food, all the beings in the world would become full, I’d bow down to that god. But I haven’t found anyone like that yet.” | ||
+ | |||
+ | There are two main reasons why these words have continued to resonate with me. One is that they’re such an elegant argument against the existence of an all-powerful, | ||
+ | |||
+ | There are two main reasons why these words have continued to resonate with me. One is that they’re such an elegant argument against the existence of an all-powerful, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The other reason is that Ajaan Suwat indirectly addressed an idea often, but wrongly, attributed to the Buddha: that we are all One, and that our organic Oneness is something to celebrate. If we really were One, wouldn’t our stomachs interconnect so that the nourishment of one person nourished everyone else? As it is, my act of feeding can often deprive someone else of food. My need to keep feeding requires that other living beings keep working hard to produce food. In many cases, when one being feeds, others die in the process. Oneness, for most beings, means not sharing a stomach but winding up in someone else’s stomach and being absorbed into that someone else’s bloodstream. Hardly cause for celebration. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Buddha himself never taught that we are all One. A brahman once asked him, “Is everything a Oneness? Is everything a Plurality? | ||
+ | |||
+ | In [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | In [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | And in [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | Taken together, these three passages suggest that the Buddha wanted to avoid the view that everything is a Oneness because it doesn’t put an end to suffering, because seeing all things as One gets in the way of awakening, and because the idea of Oneness simply doesn’t square with the way things actually are. | ||
+ | |||
+ | But even though the Buddha didn’t tell the brahman why he avoided the extreme of Oneness, he did tell him how to avoid it: by adopting the teaching on dependent co-arising, his explanation of the causal interactions that lead to suffering. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ironically, dependent co-arising is often interpreted in modern Buddhist circles as the Buddha’s affirmation of Oneness and the interconnectedness of all beings. But this interpretation doesn’t take into account the Buddha’s own dismissal of Oneness and it blurs two important distinctions. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The first distinction is between the notions of Oneness and interconnectedness. Just because we live in an interconnected system, dependent on one another, doesn’t mean that we’re One. To be One, at least in a way worth celebrating, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Buddha pointed to this fact in a short series of questions aimed at introducing Dhamma to newcomers ([[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | Later generations of Buddhists replaced this image with others more benign, suggesting that interdependence involves nothing more weighty than reflected light: a net with jewels at every interstice of the net, each jewel reflecting all the other jewels; or a lamp surrounded by mirrors, each mirror reflecting not only the light of the lamp but also the light reflected from every other mirror. The dazzling beauty of the interacting light beams sounds like something to celebrate. | ||
+ | |||
+ | But these images don’t accurately portray the actual facts of interdependence. Our lives are not spent in a continual interplay of emitting and reflecting light. We’re individual beings with individual stomachs. Perpetually hungry, we never have enough of feeding off of one another. This is nothing to celebrate. Instead, as the Buddha states in [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The second distinction that gets blurred when dependent co-arising is portrayed as the Buddha’s affirmation of Oneness is the distinction between what might be called outer connections and inner ones: the connections among living beings on the one hand, and those among the events within each being’s awareness on the other. When you look at the series of events actually listed in dependent co-arising, you see that it deals with the second type of interconnection and not the first. None of the causal connections are concerned with how beings are dependent on one another. Instead, every connection describes the interrelationship among events immediately present to your inner awareness — your sense of your body and mind “from the inside,” the intimate part of your awareness you can’t share with anyone else. These connections include such things as the dependence of consciousness on mental fabrication, | ||
+ | |||
+ | So the interdependence here is not between you and other beings. It’s between all the experiences exclusively inside you. Just as I can’t enter your visual awareness to see if your sense of “blue” looks like my sense of “blue,” I can’t directly experience your experience of any of the factors of dependent co-arising. Likewise, you can’t directly experience mine. Even when I’m feeling a sense of Oneness with all beings, you — despite the fact that you’re one of those beings — can’t directly feel how that feeling feels to me. | ||
+ | |||
+ | In other words, instead of describing a shared area of experience, dependent co-arising deals precisely with what none of us holds in common. Even when the Buddha describes dependent co-arising as an explanation of the “origination of the world” ([[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The main message here is that suffering, which is something you directly experience from within, is caused by other factors that you experience from within — as long as you approach them unskillfully — but it can also be cured from within if you learn how to approach them with skill. In fact, suffering can only be cured from within. My lack of skill is something that only I can overcome through practice. This is why each of us has to find awakening for ourselves and experience it for ourselves — the Buddha’s term for this is paccattam. This is also why no one, even with the most compassionate intentions, can gain awakening for anyone else. The best any Buddha can do is to point the way, in hopes that we’ll be willing to listen to his advice and act on it. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Now, this is not to say that the Buddha didn’t recognize our connections with one another, simply that he described them in another context: his teaching on kamma. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Kamma isn’t radically separate from dependent co-arising — the Buddha defined kamma as intention, and intention is one of the sub-factors in the causal chain — but it does have two sides. When you give rise to an intention, no one else can feel how that intention feels to you: That’s the inner side of the intention, the side in the context of dependent co-arising. But when your intention leads you to act in word and deed, that’s its outer side, the side that ripples out into the world. This outer side of intention is what the Buddha was referring to when he said that we are // | ||
+ | |||
+ | Of course, given the wide range of things that people choose to do to and for one another, from very loving to very cruel, this picture of interconnectedness is not very reassuring. Because we’re always hungry, the need to feed can often trump the desire to relate to one another well. At the same time, interconnectedness through action places more demands on individual people. It requires us to be very careful, at the very least, not to create bad interconnections through breaking the precepts under any conditions. The vision of interconnectedness through Oneness, in contrast, is much less specific in the duties it places on people, and often implies that as long as you believe in Oneness, your feelings can be trusted as to what is right or wrong, and that, ultimately, the vastness of Oneness will set aright any mistakes we make. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Because interconnectedness through kamma is not very reassuring on the one hand, and very demanding on the other, it’s easy to see the appeal of a notion of Oneness benevolently designed to take care of us all in spite of our actions. And why that notion can appear to be a more compassionate teaching than interconnectedness through action, in that it provides a more comforting vision of the world and is more forgiving around the precepts. | ||
+ | |||
+ | But actually, the principle of interconnectedness through our actions is the more compassionate teaching of the two — both in showing more compassion to the people to whom it’s taught and in giving them better reasons to act toward others in compassionate ways. | ||
+ | |||
+ | To begin with, interconnectedness through kamma allows for freedom of choice, whereas Oneness doesn’t. If we were really all parts of a larger organic Oneness, how could any of us determine what role we would play within that Oneness? It would be like a stomach suddenly deciding to switch jobs with the liver or to go on strike: The organism would die. At most, the stomach is free simply to act in line with its inner drives as a stomach. But even then, given the constant back and forth among all parts of an organic Oneness, no part of a larger whole can lay independent claim even to its drives. When a stomach starts secreting digestive juices, the signal comes from somewhere else. So it’s not really free. | ||
+ | |||
+ | For the Buddha, any teaching that denies the possibility of freedom of choice contradicts itself and negates the possibility of an end to suffering. If people aren’t free to choose their actions, to develop skillful actions and abandon unskillful ones, then why teach them? ([[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The notion of Oneness precludes not only everyday freedom of choice, but also the larger freedom to gain total release from the system of inter-eating. This is why some teachings on Oneness aim at making you feel more comfortable about staying within the system and banishing any thought of leaving it. If what you are is defined in terms of your role in the system, you can’t leave it — and you’ll make sure that no one else tries to leave the system, either. It may require that you sleep in the middle of a road heavy with the traffic of aging, illness, and death, but with a few pillows and blankets and friendly companions, you won’t feel so lonely. | ||
+ | |||
+ | But the Buddha didn’t start with a definition of what people are. He began by exploring what we can do. And he found, through his own efforts, that human effort can lead to true happiness outside of the system by following a course of action, the noble eightfold path, that leads to the end of action — i.e., to release from the need to feed and be fed on. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Because each of us is trapped in the system of interconnectedness by our own actions, only we, as individuals, | ||
+ | |||
+ | So to teach people interconnectedness through kamma is an act of greater compassion than teaching them interconnectedness through Oneness. | ||
+ | |||
+ | And it gives them better reasons to be compassionate themselves. On the surface, Oneness would seem to offer good incentives for compassion: You should be kind to others because they’re no less you than your lungs or your legs. But when you realize the implications of Oneness — that it misrepresents the facts of how interconnectedness works and offers no room for freedom of choice — you see that it gives you poor guidance as to which acts would have a compassionate effect on the system, and denies your ability to choose whether to act compassionately in the first place. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Even worse: If all things are parts of a larger organic Oneness, then the evil we witness in the world must have its organic role in that Oneness, too — so how can we say that it’s wrong? It may actually be serving the inscrutable purposes of the larger whole. And in a theory like this — which ultimately undermines concepts of right and wrong, good and evil — what basis is there for saying that a particular act is compassionate or not? | ||
+ | |||
+ | The teaching on kamma, though, makes compassion very specific. It gives a realistic picture of how interconnectedness works; it affirms both your freedom to choose your actions and your ability to influence the world through your intentions; and it gives clear guidelines as to which actions are compassionate and which are not. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Its primary message is that the most compassionate course of action is to practice for your own awakening. Some writers worry that this message devalues the world, making people more likely to mistreat the environment, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Now for most of us, the path to awakening will involve many lifetimes— which is another reason to treat the world well. If we’re in this for the long term, we have to eat with good manners, so that we’ll be able to eat well for however long it takes. If we mistreat others, we’ll be reborn into a world where we’re mistreated. If we’re wasteful of the world’s resources, we’ll be reborn into a wasted world. Because we’ll be returning to the world we leave behind, we should leave it in good shape. | ||
+ | |||
+ | In the meantime, though, by following the path we’re taking care of business inside — and this, too, is an act of compassion to others. One of the most heartrending things in the world to witness is a person deeply in pain who can’t be reached: a young baby, crying inconsolably; | ||
+ | |||
+ | Someday, of course, we’ll be in their position. If we can take responsibility now for ourselves on the inner level — learning how not to be overcome by pleasure or pain, and not deceived by our cravings and perceptions — we won’t suffer then, even during the pain leading up to death. As a result, we won’t tear unnecessarily at the feelings of the people around us. This means that, even though we can’t transfer the food in our mouths to fill their stomachs, we’ll at least not burden their hearts. | ||
+ | |||
+ | And in mastering that skill, we give a gift both to others and to ourselves. </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====== Under Your Skin — The Buddha’s Teaching on Body Contemplation ====== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor # | ||
+ | |||
+ | During my first year as a monk, when I was staying at a monastery near Bangkok, we received an invitation from the children of a man in the last stages of liver cancer asking for some monks to visit him in the hospital, as he wanted to make merit and hear the Dhamma one last time before he died. Five of us went the next morning, and the senior monk in the group chatted with the man for quite a while to put his mind at ease and help him prepare for his coming death. Now was the time, the monk said, for him to put aside all concern for his body and to focus instead on the state of his mind so that it wouldn’t be overcome by pain as his body fell apart. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Suddenly the man blurted out that the worst part of the cancer wasn’t the pain. It was the embarrassment. All his life he had prided himself on staying fit and trim while his friends had gotten fat and paunchy, but now his belly was so horribly bloated from the cancer that he couldn’t bear to look at it or to imagine what other people might think, seeing him like this. No matter how much the senior monk tried to reassure him that it was nothing to be ashamed of — that this was part of the body’s normal nature beyond anyone’s control— the man wouldn’t let go of the conviction that his body had betrayed him and was now an embarrassment in the eyes of the world. | ||
+ | |||
+ | All through the conversation I couldn’t help thinking that the man would have suffered a lot less if he had taken some of the time he had devoted to looking fit and spent it on contemplating the unattractiveness of the body instead. I myself had never felt much enthusiasm for this particular meditation theme — I preferred focusing on the breath, and would contemplate the parts of the body more out of a sense of duty than anything else. But now I saw that the Buddha’s teaching on body contemplation was really an act of kindness, one of the many effective and essential tools he left behind to help alleviate the sufferings of the world. | ||
+ | |||
+ | On the way back to the monastery, I also realized, to my chagrin, that I had been complacent about my own attitude toward my body. Despite my contemplation of my liver, intestines, and everything else under my skin, I still took pride in the fact that I had kept fit when other people my age were getting a little flabby. Although I had consciously resisted the unrealistic standards for looking good fostered by the media, I had felt a little moral superiority about staying in good shape. But now I had to admit that even my “reasonable” amount of pride was dangerous: I, too, was setting myself up for a fall. Eating and exercising to //be// healthy may generally be a good policy, but a concern for //looking// healthy can be unhealthy for the mind. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Most of us in the West, of course, don’t see it that way. Because the modern obsession with impossibly perfect body images has taught so many people to hate their bodies to a pathological degree, we’ve come to identify all positive body images as psychologically healthy, and all negative body images as psychologically sick. When we learn of the Buddha’s recommendations for contemplating the body, we see them as aggravating rather than solving the problem. What we need, we think, is a way of meditating that develops positive images of the body as a beautiful and sacred vehicle for expressing compassion and love. | ||
+ | |||
+ | From the Buddha’s perspective, | ||
+ | |||
+ | When you understand this point, you’ll see that his teachings on the body are aimed at liberating us from unhealthy body images of both sorts, and replacing them with both sorts of healthy images. And when you understand the dangers of unhealthy body images — whether positive or negative — along with the freedom that comes from cultivating both sorts of healthy body images, you’ll realize that the Buddha’s training in resetting your body image is both a useful defense against the skewed messages of our culture and a necessary part of the Buddhist path. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Unhealthy body images, whether positive or negative, start with the assumption that the body’s worth is measured by the beauty of its appearance. The damage done by this assumption when it leads to negative body images is common knowledge, but the damage done when it leads to positive ones is just as bad if not worse. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Buddha' | ||
+ | |||
+ | This is because the perception of beauty carries a power. We sense the power wielded by the people we perceive as attractive, and we want to exert the same power ourselves. This is one of the reasons why we resist the idea of seeing the body as unattractive, | ||
+ | |||
+ | -- //It leads to unskillful kamma.// Because beauty is comparative, | ||
+ | -- //It’s fragile.// No matter how hard you try to stave off the signs of aging, they always arrive too soon. The pride that once sustained you now turns around to stab you. Even when the body is at the pinnacle of its health and youth, to perceive it as beautiful requires huge blind spots: that you ignore any external features that are less than beautiful, that you view it only from certain angles and when the lighting is just so— and don’t even think of what lies inside, just under the skin, ready to ooze out of your orifices and pores. Because these unattractive features can show themselves at any time, you need constant reassurance that no one else notices them, and even then you wonder if the people reassuring you are telling you the truth. | ||
+ | .. When you’re attached to something so fragile, you’re setting yourself up to suffer. The appearance of each new wrinkle becomes a source of fear and anxiety, and when this is the case, how will you not be afraid of aging, illness, and death? And if you can’t overcome this fear, how will you ever be free? | ||
+ | -- //The fragility of this power also enslaves you to others.// When you want to look good to others, you’re placing your worth in their hands. This is why people self-conscious of their looks resent the objectifying gaze. They would prefer that it be an expression of pure admiration, but they know deep down that it often isn’t. Do those who are gazing at you really admire you? What standards are they measuring you against? Even if they do admire you, how pure is the driving force behind their admiration? Is their attention something you really want? Even though you may have cultivated your beauty as a means of power, you can’t control who that power will draw to you, or why. | ||
+ | .. When you internalize the gaze of others, you’re a prisoner of what, in reality, you’re reading into their gaze — an uncertain process at best. The more you want to believe in your own beauty, the more you become attracted to people who show signs of being attracted to you, but then you find yourself serving their interests rather than your own. | ||
+ | .. In your quest to develop and maintain your beauty, you also become a slave to the beauty industry in its various forms — an industry that holds out the promise that perpetual beauty is possible, but keeps pushing the ideal of beauty to more and more impossible extremes, requiring more and more of your money and time. These extremes can even compromise your health, as in the cult of freakishly thin female models and morbidly muscular men. | ||
+ | .. This is probably the most ironic aspect of the power of beauty: that the desire to use your beauty to exert control over others ends up enslaving you to those who promise to help you maintain your beauty as well as to those you hope to control. | ||
+ | |||
+ | In contrast to an unhealthy positive body image, a healthy one focuses not on how good the body can //look// but on the good it can //do//. As an object of concentration, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Most people believe that it’s possible to appreciate the body both for its potential for beauty and for its potential for goodness, but an unhealthy positive body image undermines a healthy positive body image because the time and energy spent on shoring up your perception of your own beauty lessens the time and energy you could spend on doing good. | ||
+ | |||
+ | At the same time, the hidden agendas of beauty often confuse and pervert your perception of what “good” really is. This confusion, for instance, is what allows spiritual teachers to claim that sex with their students can be a sacred and healing activity. No one who is free of an unhealthy positive or negative body image would seriously entertain such an idea. | ||
+ | |||
+ | It’s because an unhealthy positive body image works at cross purposes with a healthy positive image that it needs to be counteracted with a healthy negative image of the body’s beauty. This differs from an unhealthy negative body image in three important respects: | ||
+ | -- An unhealthy negative body image sees an unattractive body as bad. A healthy negative body image sees that physical unattractiveness is simply a perception, as empty as all other perceptions, | ||
+ | -- An unhealthy negative body image comes from seeing your body as unattractive and other people’s as attractive. A healthy negative body image comes from regarding everyone as basically unattractive — like houses in the tropics made of frozen meat. Even if some of them are more nicely shaped than others, when you smell their slow decay in the present and think of what they’ll be like when completely thawed, you’re not attracted to any of them at all. | ||
+ | -- An unhealthy negative body image is the result of attachment. Hating our appearance doesn’t mean we’re unattached to our bodies. We’re actually fiercely attached both to our bodies and to an ideal of beauty that our bodies have yet to attain. The conflict between these two forms of attachment is what makes us suffer. | ||
+ | |||
+ | What makes a healthy negative body image healthy is that it allows you to see the body’s beauty as a matter of indifference and to regard the body purely as a tool for developing the skillful qualities of the mind. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Buddha’s strategy for developing a healthy negative body image starts with the mindfulness practice of focusing on the body “in and of itself, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world.” In other words, instead of regarding the body through the internalized gaze of others, you regard it simply as you experience it here and now, on its own terms. A good place to begin is with the experience of the breath, learning how to manipulate that experience so as to induce a feeling of ease and refreshment in your immediate sense of the body. This sense of well-being reaffirms the worth of the body as a source for harmless happiness — when approached skillfully — even as you dismantle your notions of its attractiveness. | ||
+ | |||
+ | There are two traditional ways to start the dismantling: | ||
+ | |||
+ | For the dissection contemplation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | To get started with the right attitude to this contemplation — serious enough to show you mean business, but light-hearted enough to keep from getting depressed — you can ask yourself with each part: What would you do if you opened a room and found it unexpectedly on the floor? Or if you sat down at a table and found it on your plate? If it’s liquid, would you want to bathe in a vat of it? Think in these ways until you realize how ridiculous it is to want to look for beauty in a body made of these things. | ||
+ | |||
+ | For the decomposition contemplations, | ||
+ | |||
+ | For these perceptions to be healthy, you have to learn how to apply them equally to everyone. In fact, that’s what these perceptions are meant to be: equalizers. You’re looking at the truths of all bodies, equally, all over the world. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Most meditators are encouraged to apply these perceptions to their own bodies before applying them to others — on the grounds that our attraction to others often starts with our attraction to ourselves — but if you suffer from an unhealthy negative body image, start by applying them to a body you envy. Imagine, for instance, that supermodels were required to wear their skin inside out, and that all athletes and entertainers flaunting their abs were required to display everything else their abdomens contain. Only when your sense of humor can shake off your envy should you apply the perceptions of unattractiveness to yourself. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Regardless of what kind of unhealthy body image you start with, this contemplation is sure to get under your skin not only in a literal sense but also in an idiomatic one. It has to, because a part of the mind, well-entrenched for lifetimes, is sure to resist. If you obey the inner voices that put up resistance, you’ll never be able to dig up the unhealthy attitudes hiding behind them. Only when you challenge that resistance will you clearly see the underlying unskillful agendas behind your attachment to bodily beauty. And only when you see them clearly can you work your way free from them. | ||
+ | |||
+ | After all, the ultimate purpose of this contemplation is to see that the problem doesn’t lie with the body; it lies with your choice of perceptions. And it sensitizes you to how those choices are made: When you’ve been developing the perception that the body is unattractive, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Above all, try to bring an attitude of humor to this contemplation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | If you’re in a relationship, | ||
+ | |||
+ | And don’t be afraid that this meditation will leave you listless and morose. The more you can free yourself from internalizing the gaze of others, the more liberated you feel. As you bring more humor to issues of the body’s appearance, the more you unleash the healthy energies of the mind. </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====== Silence Isn’t Mandatory — Sensory Perception in the Jhānas ====== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor # | ||
+ | |||
+ | On the afternoon of his last day, as he was walking to the park where he would be totally unbound, the Buddha stopped to rest at the foot of a tree by the side of the road. There he was approached by Pukkusa Mallaputta — a student of the Buddha’s first teacher, Āḷāra Kālāma — who proceeded to praise Āḷāra for the strength of his concentration: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Buddha responded by telling Pukkusa of a time when he had been sitting in concentration in a threshing barn, percipient and alert, when the rain was pouring, lightning was flashing, and a thunderbolt killed two men and four oxen nearby, and yet he hadn’t seen anything nor heard a sound. He, too, didn’t know what had happened until he left the barn and asked someone why so many people had gathered nearby. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Pukkusa was so impressed by this story that, in his words, he took his conviction in Āḷāra and “winnowed it before a high wind” and “washed it away in the swift current of a river.” He then took refuge in the Triple Gem, presented the Buddha with a pair of gold-colored robes, and left. | ||
+ | |||
+ | This incident provides a curious footnote to an incident in an earlier set of stories: the Buddha’s own account of the events leading up to his awakening. After leaving home, he had studied with Āḷāra, who had taught him how to reach a formless concentration attainment called the dimension of nothingness, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The story of the Buddha’s conversation with Pukkusa, in contrast, reads like an anti-climax. Pukkusa’s interest goes no further than concentration, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The story does, however, raise an important question. It shows that the Canon recognizes stages of concentration in which the physical senses fall silent — and that the Buddha, as an awakened one, had mastered those stages— but it says nothing about whether those stages are necessary for awakening. Buddhaghosa — in his // | ||
+ | |||
+ | I have already explored elsewhere the issue of whether jhāna is necessary for awakening — concluding that, according to the Pali suttas, it is (see //Right Mindfulness//, | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Background: the Nine Attainments ===== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor #ch6.1> </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Any attempt to determine the suttas’ stance on this issue has to begin by analyzing how they describe the stages of concentration that can act as the bases for awakening. The suttas’ most extensive standard list describes nine stages in all. The first four stages, called the four jhānas, are the only members of the list included in the standard definition of right concentration in discussions of the noble eightfold path (see [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | Because many passages in the suttas describe how awakening can be based on any of the four jhānas or the five formless attainments, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The standard description of the nine stages is this: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | [2] “With the stilling of directed thoughts and evaluations, | ||
+ | |||
+ | [3] “With the fading of rapture, he remains equanimous, mindful, and alert, and senses pleasure with the body. He enters and remains in the third jhāna, of which the noble ones declare, ‘Equanimous and mindful, he has a pleasant abiding.’ | ||
+ | |||
+ | [4] “With the abandoning of pleasure and pain — as with the earlier disappearance of joy and distress — he enters and remains in the fourth jhāna: purity of equanimity and mindfulness, | ||
+ | |||
+ | [5] “With the complete transcending of perceptions [mental notes] of (physical) form, with the disappearance of perceptions of resistance, and not attending to perceptions of multiplicity, | ||
+ | |||
+ | [6] “With the complete transcending of the dimension of the infinitude of space, (perceiving, | ||
+ | |||
+ | [7] “With the complete transcending of the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness, | ||
+ | |||
+ | [8] “With the complete transcending of the dimension of nothingness, | ||
+ | |||
+ | [9] “With the complete transcending of the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Some suttas — such as [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | Because this themeless concentration of awareness, like the cessation of perception and feeling, follows on the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception, | ||
+ | |||
+ | It’s important to note that the mere attainment of any of these stages of concentration does not guarantee awakening. As [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The one possible exception to the principle that right concentration, | ||
+ | |||
+ | At the same time, even if the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling //does// automatically lead to awakening, we should note that it’s not the only totally non-percipient stage of concentration recognized by the suttas. The other is the meditation that leads a person, after death, to be reborn in the dimension of non-percipient beings. This dimension is mentioned in [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | So the mere attainment of concentration — even to the extent of being totally free from perception — does not guarantee awakening. | ||
+ | |||
+ | This fact is reflected in the two main ways in which the suttas describe a person practicing concentration. In some cases, they say simply that the meditator enters and remains in a particular stage of concentration. In others, they say that the meditator, while remaining in that stage, analyzes it in terms of the fabrications of which it is composed, gains a sense of dispassion for those fabrications, | ||
+ | |||
+ | [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | “Staying right there, he reaches the ending of the effluents. Or, if not, then — through this very Dhamma-passion, | ||
+ | |||
+ | In other words, unlike its treatment of the first seven stages of concentration, | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | “And further, with the complete transcending of the dimension of nothingness, | ||
+ | |||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | The important differences in the two formulae are these: (1) The first formula lists in great detail the qualities that Sāriputta ferreted out, whereas the second doesn’t. This may relate to the fact that perception in the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception is so subtle and attenuated that a meditator in that dimension cannot label mental qualities clearly. (2) In the second formula, the Buddha is careful to say that Sāriputta did the analysis //after// emerging from the attainment, and that the analysis referred to //past// qualities, whereas he doesn’t qualify the earlier discussion in this way. This indicates that it is possible to do this sort of analysis while staying in any of the attainments up through the dimension of nothingness, | ||
+ | |||
+ | This is why the Buddha treats the arising of discernment with regard to these final two attainments in much less detail than he does with regard to the lower seven. This point will have an important bearing on the following discussion. | ||
+ | |||
+ | But the main lesson to draw from these passages is that concentration, | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Silence in the Formless Attainments ===== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor #ch6.2> </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Modern discussions of the question as to whether the external senses have to fall silent in right concentration for there to be the possibility of awakening tend to focus on the first jhāna, and for two connected reasons: (1) It is the lowest stage of concentration to be classed as right concentration. (2) As [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | Three passages in the suttas seem to provide clear evidence that this proposition is incorrect, in that they describe attainments where the external senses fall silent, but without including the first jhāna — or any of the other jhānas — in their descriptions. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * **A.1: ** The first passage is [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | When this was said, Ven. Udāyin said to Ven. Ānanda, “Is one percipient when not sensitive to that dimension, my friend, or unpercipient? | ||
+ | |||
+ | [Ven. Ānanda:] “One is percipient when not sensitive to that dimension, my friend, not unpercipient.” [Ven. Udāyin:] “When not sensitive to that dimension, my friend, one is percipient of what?” | ||
+ | |||
+ | [Ven. Ānanda:] “There is the case where, with the complete transcending of perceptions of (physical) form, with the disappearance of perceptions of resistance, and not attending to perceptions of multiplicity, | ||
+ | |||
+ | “And further, with the complete transcending of the dimension of the infinitude of space, (perceiving, | ||
+ | |||
+ | “And further, with the complete transcending of the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness, | ||
+ | |||
+ | “Once, friend, when I was staying in Sāketa at the Game Refuge in the Black Forest, the nun Jaṭila-Bhāgikā went to where I was staying, and on arrival — having bowed to me — stood to one side. As she was standing there, she said to me: ‘The concentration whereby — neither pressed down nor forced back, nor with fabrication kept blocked or suppressed —still as a result of release, contented as a result of standing still, and as a result of contentment one is not agitated: This concentration is said by the Blessed One to be the fruit of what?’ | ||
+ | |||
+ | “I said to her, ‘Sister, the concentration whereby — neither pressed down nor forced back, nor kept in place by the fabrications of forceful restraint — still as a result of release, contented as a result of standing still, and as a result of contentment one is not agitated: This concentration is said by the Blessed One to be the fruit of gnosis [arahantship].’ Percipient in this way, too, one is not sensitive to that dimension.” < | ||
+ | |||
+ | Because this passage, when describing attainments where the external senses fall silent even when the meditator is percipient, mentions only the first three formless attainments and the concentration of arahantship, | ||
+ | * **A.2:** A careful look at another passage — the standard description of the dimension of the infinitude of space, the first attainment in Ven. Ānanda’s list —shows why the attainments in his list differ from the four jhānas in this regard. The description states that the meditator enters and remains in this dimension “with the complete transcending of perceptions of form, with the disappearance of perceptions of resistance, and not attending to perceptions of multiplicity.” As noted above, the word “perception” here carries the meaning of mental note or label, the act of recognizing or identifying a mental object. So, to move from the fourth jhāna to the dimension of the infinitude of space, it’s necessary that mental labels of resistance disappear, and that the meditator transcend mental labels of form and pay no attention to mental labels of multiplicity. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Two of these terms, // | ||
+ | |||
+ | However, Buddhaghosa, | ||
+ | |||
+ | However, there is a sutta passage — in [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | Thus, regardless of whether perceptions of sensory input are called perceptions of resistance or perceptions of multiplicity, | ||
+ | |||
+ | This leads to a question: Following the interpretation drawn from [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | —In [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | —However, in the standard formula for dependent co-arising (see, for example, [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | It would seem clear that because the standard formula for the nine concentration attainments mentions these requirements beginning only with the dimension of the infinitude of space, they are not required for any of the lower levels. For a meditator in, say, the fourth jhāna, perceptions identifying sounds would not have disappeared. Even though he/she would ordinarily not pay attention to those perceptions, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Thus there seems good reason to take [[en: | ||
+ | * **A.3:** Further support for this reading of [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ven. Sāriputta: “Friend, with the purified intellect-consciousness | ||
+ | divorced from the five faculties, the dimension of the infinitude of space | ||
+ | can be known (as) ‘infinite space,’ the dimension of the infinitude of | ||
+ | consciousness can be known (as) ‘infinite consciousness, | ||
+ | of nothingness can be known (as) ‘There is nothing.’ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ven. Mahā Koṭṭhita: | ||
+ | known?” | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ven. Sāriputta: “One knows a quality that can be known with the eye | ||
+ | of discernment.” | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ven. Mahā Koṭṭhita: | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ven. Sāriputta: “The purpose of discernment is direct knowledge, its | ||
+ | purpose is full comprehension, | ||
+ | |||
+ | In other words, the only concentration attainments that can be known by a purified intellect-consciousness divorced from the five physical sense faculties are the first three formless attainments. The passage from [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The same point would also apply to the fourth attainment in Ven. Ānanda’s list, the fruit of gnosis. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Thus to be included in Ven. Sāriputta’s list in [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ven. Sāriputta does not explain what he means by “purified” here. Ostensibly, it could mean any of three things: purified of defilement, as in the Buddha’s standard description of his own mastery of the fourth jhāna (see, for example, [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | Now, of the three criteria, [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | In this way, all three passages — [[en: | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Buddhaghosa' | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor #ch6.3> </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Buddhaghosa, | ||
+ | |||
+ | **A.2:** In // | ||
+ | |||
+ | He bases his argument on two analogies. The first is that, in the formula for the fourth jhāna, the phrase, “with the abandoning of pleasure and pain” is actually describing a step that occurred earlier in the stages of concentration, | ||
+ | |||
+ | There is, however, no basis for his drawing this analogy here. The third jhāna, even though it is marked by equanimity, is also marked by “pleasure sensed with the body.” This pleasure is abandoned only with the entry into the fourth jhāna. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Furthermore, | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | [Sister Dhammadinnā: | ||
+ | |||
+ | In other words, even pleasant feeling contains pain in the fact that it changes. Thus the meditator, when going through the stages of jhāna, does not abandon either pleasure or pain until entering the fourth jhāna. The phrase describing this step is not referring to anything that happened earlier in the stages of concentration. For this reason, Buddhaghosa’s first argument by analogy does not hold. | ||
+ | |||
+ | His second argument by analogy is that the description of the third noble path — the path to non-return — mentions the abandoning of fetters, such as self-identity view, that were already abandoned as a result of the earlier noble paths, and so the description of the entry into the dimension of the infinitude of space should be read the same way, as mentioning something that had already happened earlier. | ||
+ | |||
+ | This argument, too, does not hold. In the descriptions of the noble paths, the fetters abandoned with each path are explicitly mentioned in the description of that path, with the ascending descriptions being cumulative: A person who has attained the first path has abandoned x; a person attaining the third has abandoned x and y; and so forth. For there to be an analogy here, then if the disappearance of perceptions of resistance and lack of attention to perceptions of multiplicity were a feature of the first jhāna, they would have to be mentioned in the description of the first jhāna. But they aren’t. This is why Buddhaghosa’s second argument by analogy also does not hold. | ||
+ | |||
+ | **A.1:** As for [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | Thus Buddhaghosa’s argument here, too, is unconvincing. It’s more likely that Ven. Ānanda excluded the four jhānas from his list because the meditator can still be sensitive to the five external senses when in those jhānas. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Still, modern proponents of the position that the external senses fall silent in the first jhāna have proposed another reason for not taking [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The argument in support of this proposal focuses on the form of the sutta: Because the sutta is found in the Nines section of the Aṅguttara Nikāya, and because it’s part of a chapter in which all the other suttas list all nine concentration attainments, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The argument in support of this proposal focuses on the form of the sutta: Because the sutta is found in the Nines section of the Aṅguttara Nikāya, and because it’s part of a chapter in which all the other suttas list all nine concentration attainments, | ||
+ | |||
+ | This argument, however, misses two important points. The first is that [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The second point is that not all the formless attainments qualify for inclusion in this sutta. Ven. Ānanda here is talking about states in which the meditator is percipient. As [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | For these reasons, the modern argument from form is unconvincing— which means that the face-value interpretation of [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | **A.3: **As for [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | This is not an idiomatic reading of the passage, but grammatically it is a legitimate interpretation of the instrumental case, the case in which the word “consciousness” appears in the sutta, and it allows Buddhaghosa to maintain that consciousness is divorced from the physical senses in the fourth jhāna. Because, as noted above, the suttas do not describe the jhānas below the fourth as “purified, | ||
+ | |||
+ | However, his interpretation presents him with a further question: If “can be known,” means, “can be experienced as a result of the fourth jhāna,” why is the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception not listed as well? To answer this question, Buddhaghosa quotes part of the above passage from [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The question that Buddhaghosa fails to address, however, is this: Why doesn’t Ven. Sāriputta include the fourth jhāna in his list? After all, it meets both of Buddhaghosa’s stipulations for “can be known”: As [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | This leaves a gaping hole in Buddhaghosa’s interpretation — an inconsistency that undermines the interpretation as a whole. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The most consistent interpretation of Ven. Sāriputta’s list in [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | This means that, despite the various arguments proposed for interpreting [[en: | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== More Arguments for Silence in the First Jhāna ===== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor #ch6.4> </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | However, proponents of the position that concentration counts as jhāna only when the physical senses fall silent do not focus only on sutta passages whose face value has to be denied in order to maintain their position. They also cite four passages that, they claim, give positive proof that the suttas openly support them. Buddhaghosa cites one of these passages — [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | A close examination of these citations, though, shows that none of them actually support the position they are supposed to prove. To see why, we have to look carefully at what each of the four passages has to say. The following discussion treats them one by one, first quoting the passage, then stating the modern argument for “soundproof jhāna” based on it, and finally showing how the passage does not support the argument as claimed. | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div excerpt>// | ||
+ | |||
+ | B.1: “Quite secluded from sensuality, secluded from unskillful qualities, one enters and remains in the first jhāna.”// | ||
+ | |||
+ | This passage at the beginning of the standard formula for the first jhāna states the prerequisite events for entering that jhāna. The argument based on it is this: “Sensuality” here means the objects of the five senses. Thus a meditator can enter the first jhāna only when input from the five senses falls away. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The problem with this argument is that the suttas //never// define “sensuality” as the objects of the five senses. Instead, they define sensuality as a passion for sensual resolves — the plans and intentions the mind formulates for sensual pleasures: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div freeverse> | ||
+ | |||
+ | In light of this definition, “secluded from sensuality” simply means that one has subdued one’s passion for sensual resolves. One has not necessarily escaped the input from the senses. And one has not abandoned all resolves. As MN 73 points out, unskillful resolves are abandoned in the first jhāna. Because the first jhāna contains directed thought and evaluation, resolved on the single task of solidifying one’s focus on a single object, skillful resolves are actually a necessary part of the first jhāna. The singleness of the task taken on by directed thought and evaluation is what qualifies the first jhāna as a state of singleness. Only with the attainment of the second jhāna are skillful resolves abandoned as well, leading to singleness on a higher level. | ||
+ | |||
+ | However, it has been further argued that “sensuality” in the standard formula for the first jhāna has a special meaning — i.e., the objects of the five senses — different from the definition given in [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | This argument, however, doesn’t accord with what we know of the Buddha’s teaching strategy. As he said in [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | So the phrase “secluded from sensuality” in the description of the first jhāna means nothing more than that meditators entering and remaining in the first jhāna have to abandon sensual resolves. Although — in focusing their minds on their meditation theme — they shouldn’t focus attention on input from the external senses, the standard formula doesn’t require them to block that input entirely from their awareness. | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | The argument based on this passage states that “cosmos” (loka) here means the objects of the five senses. Thus a meditator who has entered the first jhāna —and all the remaining attainments — must have gone beyond the range of those senses. | ||
+ | |||
+ | This argument, however, ignores the definition for “cosmos” given in the same sutta: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | In other words, the word “cosmos” in [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | This means that [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | The argument based on this sentence takes note of two facts. One, taking the sentence in context, the term “concentration” here means right concentration, | ||
+ | |||
+ | This argument is also used to deny the possibility that a meditator might be able to analyze a state of jhāna while still in it (see “Purity of Concentration, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Although the two facts on which this argument is based are hard to dispute, the argument goes astray in imposing too narrow a meaning on the word // | ||
+ | |||
+ | a) To begin with, //agga// has many other meanings besides “point.” In fact, it has two primary clusters of meanings, in neither of which is “point” the central focus. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The first cluster centers on the fact that a summit of a mountain is called its //agga//. Clustered around this meaning are ideas of //agga// as the topmost part of something (such as the ridge of a roof), the tip of something (such as the tip of a blade of grass), and the best or supreme example of something (such as the Buddha as the //agga// of all beings). [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The second cluster of meanings for //agga// centers on the idea of “dwelling” or “meeting place.” A hall where monks gather for the uposatha, for example, is called an // | ||
+ | |||
+ | Given that the object of concentration is said to be a dwelling (// | ||
+ | |||
+ | b) But even more telling in determining the meaning of // | ||
+ | |||
+ | In Mv.II.3.4, the phrase, “we pay attention, | ||
+ | |||
+ | In AN 5:151, the Buddha lists five qualities that enable one, when listening to the true Dhamma, to “alight on assuredness, | ||
+ | |||
+ | * “One doesn’t hold the talk in contempt. | ||
+ | * “One doesn’t hold the speaker in contempt. | ||
+ | * “One doesn’t hold oneself in contempt. | ||
+ | * “One listens to the Dhamma with an unscattered mind, an // | ||
+ | * “One attends appropriately.” | ||
+ | |||
+ | Because appropriate attention means to contemplate experiences in terms of the four noble truths (see [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | So, in short, when [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div freeverse> | ||
+ | |||
+ | This is the one sutta citation that Buddhaghosa provides in the // | ||
+ | |||
+ | To fill in this blank, modern arguments in support of Buddhaghosa’s interpretation of these passages center on the meaning of the word “thorn” here, saying that it means something whose presence destroys what it pierces. Thus, to say that noise is a thorn for the first jhāna means that if one hears a noise while in that jhāna, the jhāna has been brought to an end. This interpretation is supported, the argument continues, by the pattern followed with regard to the remaining jhānas: The presence of directed thought and evaluation automatically ends the second jhāna; the presence of rapture ends the third; in-and-out breathing, the fourth. | ||
+ | |||
+ | However, there are altogether ten items in this sutta’s list of “thorns, | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div freeverse> | ||
+ | |||
+ | If “thorn” were to mean something that cannot be present without destroying what it pierces, then nearness to women would automatically destroy a man’s celibacy, and watching a show would automatically destroy one’s guarding of the senses, which isn’t true in either case. It’s possible to be near a women and to continue being celibate, and to watch a show in such a way that doesn’t destroy your guard over your senses. | ||
+ | |||
+ | An interpretation of “thorn” that consistently fits all ten items in the list, however, would be that “thorn” means something that creates difficulties for what it touches. Thus to say that directed thought and evaluation is a thorn for the second jhāna means that these mental activities make it difficult to enter or remain in the second jhāna; to say that noise is a thorn for the first jhāna simply means that noise makes it difficult to enter or remain there. | ||
+ | |||
+ | This interpretation is supported by the background story in [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | So this sutta proves nothing more than that noise makes it difficult to enter or maintain the first jhāna. It doesn’t prove that noises cannot be heard while in the jhāna. | ||
+ | |||
+ | From the discussion of these four citations — [[en: | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Purity of Concentration ===== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor #ch6.5> </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | This still leaves open, however, another question: Is it // | ||
+ | |||
+ | Causality as described in dependent co-arising leaves this open as a theoretical possibility, | ||
+ | |||
+ | However, the suttas do not say whether this theoretical possibility actually applies in practice. In fact, the only narrative account that addresses the issue is found in the Vinaya — the division of the Canon dealing with monastic rules. Because it is so short, and because its primary concern is with disciplinary issues, it does not address the Dhamma side of the issue in any conclusive detail. But it does raise some important points. The story is this: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | The monks were offended and annoyed and spread it about, “Now, | ||
+ | how can Ven. Moggallāna say, ‘Just now, friends, having attained the | ||
+ | | ||
+ | the sound of elephants plunging in, crossing over, and making a | ||
+ | | ||
+ | this matter to the Blessed One, (who said,) “There is that concentration, | ||
+ | | ||
+ | no offense for him.” < | ||
+ | |||
+ | This passage appears as part of the explanation of the fourth rule in the monks’ Pāṭimokkha, | ||
+ | |||
+ | There is, however, a technical Dhamma term at stake here: “imperturbable concentration (// | ||
+ | |||
+ | But the fourth jhāna is not the only stage of concentration that counts as imperturbable. [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | Unfortunately, | ||
+ | |||
+ | With reference to the formless attainments, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Commentary to this story, in discussing the term “not purified, | ||
+ | |||
+ | But because the Buddha said that Ven. Moggallāna spoke truly, we have to assume that Moggallāna was in a state of imperturbable concentration, | ||
+ | |||
+ | This point helps to explain an apparent anomaly in the way the suttas describe the attainment of the different stages of right concentration. As noted above, there are some cases in which they say simply that the meditator enters and remains in a particular stage. In others, they say that the meditator, while remaining in that stage, analyzes the stage in terms of the fabrications of which it is composed, gains a sense of dispassion for those fabrications, | ||
+ | |||
+ | As [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | If there were no leeway in the descriptions of the various concentration attainments, | ||
+ | |||
+ | This skill is what Ven. Sāriputta, in [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | “Just as if one person were to reflect on another, or a standing person were to reflect on a sitting person, or a sitting person were to reflect on a person lying down; even so, monks, the monk has his theme of reflection well in hand, well attended to, well-pondered, | ||
+ | |||
+ | In other words, the meditator can step back or step above the attainment, without destroying it, and penetrate it by means of the eye of discernment to the point of awakening. To use a more modern analogy, a meditator developing concentration for the sake of a pleasant abiding is like a hand fully snug in a glove; one developing concentration for the sake of the ending of the effluents is like a hand pulled slightly out of the glove but not so far that it leaves the glove. As the Buddha learned on the night of his awakening, the ability to analyze one’s jhāna requires an even higher level of skill than the simple ability to enter and remain in the jhāna, for the latter skill, on its own, cannot bring about awakening (see [[en: | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== The Right Use of Concentration ===== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor #ch6.6> </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Thus, even though Ven. Mahā Moggallāna’s story gives no hard evidence one way or the other as to whether a meditator in the formless attainments could hear sounds, it does clear up an important issue surrounding the practice of right concentration for the purpose of full release. An attainment of concentration does not have to be fully pure in order to qualify as right — and, in fact, if one knows how to use the impurity of one’s attainment, it can actually be an aid to awakening. | ||
+ | |||
+ | And there’s no need for right concentration to block out sounds. After all, one can gain awakening from any of the four jhānas. [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The important point about concentration is how one //uses// it. As the Buddha says in [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | Āḷāra Kālāma had strong concentration — strong enough to block the sound of 500 carts passing by — but he took it no further. He treated it as an end rather than a means because he lacked insight into how to contemplate it with the eye of discernment to reach awakening. The same point applies to the inhabitants of the dimension of non-percipient beings. As for Ven. Mahā Moggallāna: | ||
+ | |||
+ | In the final analysis, that’s what counts. </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====== The Not-self Strategy ====== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor # | ||
+ | |||
+ | As the Buddha once said, the teaching he most frequently gave to his students was this: All fabrications are inconstant; all phenomena are not-self (// | ||
+ | |||
+ | The debate between these two positions has lasted for millennia, with each side able to cite additional passages from the Canon to prove the other side wrong. Even now, both sides continue to find adherents attracted to their arguments, but neither side has had the final word. | ||
+ | |||
+ | A common way of trying to resolve this impasse has been to say that both sides are right but on different levels of truth. One version of this resolution states that there is a self on the conventional level of truth, but no self on the ultimate level. An alternate version of the resolution, however, switches the levels around: The conventional self does not exist, whereas a higher level of self on the ultimate level of truth does. And so the impasse remains. | ||
+ | |||
+ | All of these positions, however, gloss over the fact that the one time the Buddha was asked point-blank about whether the self does or doesn’t exist, he remained silent. The person who asked him the question, Vacchagotta the wanderer, didn’t bother to ask the Buddha to explain his silence. He simply got up from his seat and left. | ||
+ | |||
+ | However, when Ven. Ānanda then asked the Buddha why he didn’t answer the question, the Buddha gave four reasons — two for each of the two alternatives — as to why it would have been unskillful to respond to Vacchagotta’s question by saying either that the self exists or does not exist. (1) To state that there is a self would be to side with the wrong view of eternalism. (2) To state that there is no self would be to side with the wrong view of annihilationism. (3) To state that there is a self would not be in keeping with the arising of knowledge that all phenomena are not-self. (4) To tell Vacchagotta that there is no self would have left him even more bewildered than he already was. | ||
+ | |||
+ | If we take the Buddha’s reasons here at face value, they indicate that both sides of the debate over the existence or non-existence of the self, instead of being partially right, are totally wrong. Their mistake lies in the point they have in common: the assumption that the Buddha’s teachings start with the question of the metaphysical status of the self, i.e., whether or not it exists. | ||
+ | |||
+ | That, of course, is if we take the Buddha’s reasons for his silence at face value. The partisans who want to maintain the claim that the Buddha took a position on the existence of the self, however, have tended to ignore the first three reasons for his silence in the face of the question and to focus exclusive attention on the fourth. If someone else more spiritually mature than Vacchagotta had asked the question, they say, the Buddha would have revealed his true position. | ||
+ | |||
+ | However, none of the first three reasons apply specifically to Vacchagotta’s reaction to the Buddha’s possible answer. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The purpose of this essay is to show that these reasons should be accepted as indicating that the Buddha refused consistently to take a stand on whether there is or isn’t a self, and that his silence on this issue is important. To establish these points, it looks at the Buddha’s silence in three main contexts: | ||
+ | |||
+ | -- the purpose and range of his teachings; | ||
+ | -- the metaphysical assumptions that make that purpose possible; and | ||
+ | -- his pedagogical strategy in trying to achieve that purpose. | ||
+ | .. Once we understand these contexts, we can come to a better understanding not only of the Buddha’s silence, but also of: | ||
+ | -- why views concerning the existence or non-existence of the self do not serve the purpose of the Buddha’s teachings; | ||
+ | -- why perceptions of “self” and “not-self” nevertheless can act as strategies to help serve that purpose; | ||
+ | -- in particular, what purpose is served by the perception, “All phenomena are not-self”; | ||
+ | -- why all these perceptions are no longer needed and no longer apply once they have succeeded in serving the Buddha’s main purpose in teaching. | ||
+ | |||
+ | In other words, the purpose of this essay is to show that the Buddha’s teachings on self and not-self are strategies for helping his students attain the goal of the teaching, and that neither apply once the goal is attained. | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== 1. The Purpose & Range of the Teachings ===== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor #ch7.1> </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | All of the Buddha’s teachings have to be understood in light of their primary purpose, which is to solve a single problem: the problem of dukkha (stress, suffering). Other issues are treated only as they relate to solving this problem. Any issues that are irrelevant to this problem — or would interfere with its solution — lie outside of the range of what he was willing to address. | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | “The cessation of stress,” here, does not refer to the simple passing away of individual instances of stress, which happens all the time. Instead, it refers to the total ending of stress, an attainment that can be reached only through a path of practice aimed at fostering dispassion for the origination or cause of stress. | ||
+ | |||
+ | These facts shape the Buddha’s central teaching, the four noble truths: stress, its origination, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== 2. The Metaphysical Assumptions of the Four Noble Truths ===== <span anchor #ch7.2> </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | From these four truths, the metaphysical assumptions underlying the Buddha’s teachings as a whole can be detected. And they are not hard to find, for they’re revealed by the way the truths are interrelated. The first two noble truths state that stress is caused by the mental action of craving and clinging. The last two truths state that the cessation of stress can be reached by means of the actions that make up the path to its cessation. The way these truths are paired shows that the Buddha’s basic metaphysical assumptions concern action (// | ||
+ | |||
+ | Given these assumptions, | ||
+ | |||
+ | This means that in the Buddha’s teachings about the path, both “self” and “not-self” are used, not as metaphysical tenets, but as strategies: perceptions that are meant to serve a particular purpose along the way and to be put aside when no longer needed. | ||
+ | |||
+ | In fact, the entire path to the end of stress is a set of eight strategies — the factors that give the path its name as an eightfold path: right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Right view — the proper focus and framework for understanding stress and its cessation — is one of these strategies. And it’s under this path factor that views about self and not-self function in helping to bring stress to an end. This means that the teachings on self and not-self are answers, not to the question of whether or not there is a self, but to the question that the Buddha said lies at the beginning of the discernment leading to right view: “What, when done by me, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness? | ||
+ | |||
+ | As for the goal, the cessation of stress, the Canon states that although it may be experienced, | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== 3. The Buddha' | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor #ch7.3> </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | To help his listeners master right view as a means to that goal, the Buddha followed a pedagogical strategy of answering only those questions that stayed on topic. In line with this policy, he divided questions into four categories based on how they should be handled to keep the listener properly focused with the correct framework in mind ([[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The most important questions deserving categorical answers are those focused on the skills of the four noble truths: comprehending stress, abandoning its cause, realizing its cessation, and developing the path of practice to its cessation. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Of these skills, the most central one is to develop the path factors that undercut the cause of stress within the mind: passion and desire for things that are bound to change. As a first step in this skill, the Buddha offered — as part of right view — different ways of categorizing the range of objects for which people feel passion and desire. A primary set of categories consists of five activities, called aggregates (// | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘Thus asked, you should answer, “Our teacher teaches the subduing | ||
+ | of passion and desire.” | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘“...passion and desire for what?” | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘“...passion and desire for form... feeling... perception... fabrications... | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘“...seeing what danger [or: drawback] does your teacher teach the | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘“...when one is not free from passion, desire, love, thirst, fever, and | ||
+ | | ||
+ | there arise sorrow, lamentation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘[Similarly with feeling, perception, fabrications, | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘“...when a person is free from passion, desire, love, thirst, fever, and | ||
+ | | ||
+ | there does not arise any sorrow, lamentation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘[Similarly with feeling, perception, fabrications, | ||
+ | |||
+ | One of the main manifestations of passion and desire for these aggregates is to view them as “me” or “mine,” creating a sense of self around them. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | <div excerpt> | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘[Similarly with feeling, perception, fabrications, | ||
+ | |||
+ | These ways of building a self-identity around any of the aggregates are what the Buddha meant by the terms, “I-making” and “my-making.” Beings engage in the process of I-making and my-making because of the pleasure to be found in the aggregates. | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | The activities of I-making and my-making are defiling because, even though they aim at pleasure, they lead to stress — both because the act of clinging is stressful in and of itself, and because it tries to find a dependable happiness in things that are subject to change, stressful, and not totally under one’s control. | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘Monks, do you see any clinging in the form of a doctrine of self which, when you cling to it, there would not arise sorrow, lamentation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘No, lord.’ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘...Neither do I... What do you think, monks: If a person were to gather or burn or do as he likes with the grass, twigs, branches, and leaves here in Jeta’s Grove, would the thought occur to you, “It’s //us// that this person is gathering, burning, or doing with as he likes”? | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘No, lord. Why is that? Because those things are not our self and do | ||
+ | not pertain to our self.’ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘Even so, monks, whatever is not yours: Let go of it. Your letting go of | ||
+ | it will be for your long-term welfare and happiness. And what is not | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | Questions that focused on why and how to put an end to I-making and my-making were among those that the Buddha would answer categorically. | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div freeverse> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <span spkr> | ||
+ | |||
+ | One who regards the world in what way isn’t seen by Death’s King? | ||
+ | |||
+ | <span spkr>The Buddha:</ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Always mindful, Mogharāja, regard the world as empty, having removed any view in terms of self. This way one is above and beyond death. One who regards the world in this way isn’t seen by Death’s King. ]!< | ||
+ | |||
+ | In other words, the Buddha would give categorical answers to questions that regarded the activity of clinging to a sense of self as both as a choice and as a choice that could be reversed. | ||
+ | |||
+ | To help his listeners see that activity in action, and to reverse it then and there, he would often use the following strategy of cross-questioning to get them to examine their experience of the five aggregates in a way that would lead them to sense disenchantment and dispassion for the aggregates, and so to stop the processes of I-making and my-making around them. The result was that many of his listeners, on being cross-questioned in this way, would gain total release from all stress. | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘Inconstant, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘And is that which is inconstant easeful or stressful? | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘Stressful, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘And is it fitting to regard what is inconstant, stressful, subject to | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘No, lord.’ | ||
+ | |||
+ | [Similarly with feeling, perception, fabrications, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘Thus, monks, any form whatsoever that is past, future, or present; | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | [Similarly with feeling, perception, fabrications, | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | That is what the Blessed One said. Gratified, the group of five monks delighted in the Blessed One’s words. And while this explanation was | ||
+ | being given, the minds of the group of five monks, through lack of | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | Notice, however, the conclusion to which this pattern of cross-questioning leads: that the aggregates do not deserve to be regarded as “mine,” “my self,” or “what I am.” For the purposes of leading his listeners to release, the Buddha did not ask them to come to the further conclusion that there is no self. In fact, questions as to whether there is or is not a self fall into the category of those deserving to be put aside. Questions framed in those terms, instead of aiding in the end of stress, simply act as fetters and entanglements, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Here, for instance, is the record of the Buddha’s encounter with Vacchagotta: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘Then is there no self?’ For a second time the Blessed One was silent. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Then Vacchagotta the wanderer got up from his seat and left. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Then, not long after Vacchagotta the wanderer had left, Ven. Ānanda said to the Blessed One, ‘Why, sir, did the Blessed One not answer when asked a question asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer? | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘Ānanda, if I, being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is a self, were to answer that there is a self, that would be in company with those contemplatives and brahmans who are exponents of eternalism [i.e., the view that there is an eternal soul]. And if I, being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is no self, were to answer that there is no self, that would be in company with those contemplatives and brahmans who are exponents of annihilationism [i.e., that death is annihilation]. If I, being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is a self, were to answer that there is a self, would that be in keeping with the arising of knowledge that all phenomena are not-self? | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘No, lord.’ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘And if I, being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is no self, were to answer that there is no self, the bewildered Vacchagotta would become even more bewildered: “Does the self that I used to have now not exist? | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | As we have already noted, people who hold that the Buddha took a position one way or the other on the question of whether or not there is a self have attempted to explain away the Buddha’s silence in the face of Vacchagotta’s questions. They usually do so by focusing on his final statement to Ānanda: Vacchagotta was already bewildered, and to say that there is no self would have left him even more bewildered. In some cases, they add the same qualification to the Buddha’s first two statements to Ānanda, saying that Vacchagotta would have // | ||
+ | |||
+ | As proof, they focus on the qualifications that the Buddha uses to preface all four of his reasons: “If I, being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer...” This, they claim, indicates that if someone else had asked the question, the Buddha would have responded differently because the statements, “The self exists” and/or, “The self does not exist” would have meant something else to a different person. | ||
+ | |||
+ | This interpretation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘As he attends inappropriately in this way, one of six kinds of view arises in him: The view //I have a self// arises in him as true and established, | ||
+ | |||
+ | or the view //I have no self...// | ||
+ | |||
+ | or the view //It is precisel> | ||
+ | |||
+ | or the view //It is precisely because of self that I perceive not-self...// | ||
+ | |||
+ | or the view //It is precisely because of not-self that I perceive self// arises in him as true and established, | ||
+ | |||
+ | or else he has a view like this: //This very self of mine — the knower which is sensitive here and there to the ripening of good and bad actions — is the self of mine which is constant, everlasting, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘This is called a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views, a fetter of views. Bound by a fetter of views, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person is not freed from birth, aging, and death, from sorrow, lamentation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘The well-taught disciple of the noble ones... discerns what ideas are fit for attention, and what ideas are unfit for attention. This being so, he doesn’t attend to ideas unfit for attention, and attends (instead) to ideas fit for attention... He attends appropriately, | ||
+ | |||
+ | This passage makes many important points, but two are most relevant here. First, it disproves the interpretation that the Buddha avoided the label of annihilationism by holding that there is no self to be annihilated at death. As the passage shows, simply to ask in the present, “Do I not exist?” and to come up with the answer, “I have no self,” is just as much a fetter as to come up with the answer “I have a self” that later might be annihilated. Both positions get in the way of attending to ideas that are fit for attention. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Second, the passage shows that such questions as “Is there a self?” “Is there no self?” “Am I?” “Am I not?” “What am I?” all fall into the category of questions that should consistently be put aside, regardless of who asks them. Thus the Buddha’s first three reasons for not answering Vacchagotta’s questions hold not only in Vacchagotta’s case, but in every case where those questions or their equivalents are asked. | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== 4. Two Fetters of Views ===== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor #ch7.4> </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Whenever the Buddha put a question aside, there was always a reason why. The above passage from [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | That’s the short answer. To gain a more detailed understanding of why the questions behind these views should be put aside, it’s worth looking into the first three reasons the Buddha gave for not responding to Vacchagotta’s questions in [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The first reason states that to say “There is a self” is to side with the wrong view of eternalism. Here it’s important to note that the Buddha is not stating that all views of an existing self are eternalistic. As we will see, he is well aware of views claiming the existence of a self that is not eternal. However, the statement, “There is a self” conforms with eternalism in that it shares the same practical drawbacks as an eternalist view. It cannot be used as part of the strategy for putting an end to stress because, in holding to this sort of view, there is a double level of attachment: to the view itself, and to the objects the view identifies as self. This is why the Buddha so frequently deconstructed the view of an existing self in order to help his listeners advance along the path. | ||
+ | |||
+ | One of his most thorough treatments of the view that there is a self is found in the Great Causes Discourse ([[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The text gives no examples of the four basic categories, but we can cite the following as illustrations: | ||
+ | |||
+ | He then goes on to show that any assumption of a self, however defined, revolves around one or more of the five aggregates, as noted above — assuming the self either as identical with the aggregate, as possessing the aggregate, as in the aggregate, or as contained within the aggregate. For example, a formless infinite self might be assumed to contain consciousness within it, or as being identified with consciousness. Because these aggregates, including the consciousness-aggregate, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Buddha’s second reason for not answering Vacchagotta’s questions is that if he were to state that there is no self, he would be siding with the wrong view annihilationism. This is because this statement shares the same practical drawbacks as an annihilationist view. It, too, interferes with the strategies needed to put an end to stress because the act of holding to it can act as a fetter on two main levels. | ||
+ | |||
+ | On the grosser level, a view of this sort can be used to justify immoral behavior: If there is no self, there is no agent who is responsible for action, no one to benefit from skillful actions, and no one to be harmed by unskillful actions. | ||
+ | |||
+ | This point is illustrated in [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘One sees any feeling whatsoever... any perception whatsoever... any | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘One sees any consciousness whatsoever — past, future, or present; | ||
+ | | ||
+ | every consciousness — as it actually is with right discernment: | ||
+ | not mine. This is not my self. This is not what I am.”’ < | ||
+ | |||
+ | Another monk sitting in the assembly, however, takes this contemplation in an unskillful direction. Instead of using it for its intended purpose — the end of I-making and my-making — he turns it toward a conclusion that action done by what is not-self will not be able to touch oneself: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | This conclusion, in effect, denies the Buddha’s underlying assumptions about the efficacy of kamma. The Buddha’s first response to this misuse of his teaching is to denounce it: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Buddha then turns to the other monks and leads them through his standard questionnaire of cross-questioning about whether the aggregates deserve to be regarded as self (as in [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | On a more refined level, the act of holding to the view that there is no self contains a fetter in the very act of holding to the view. It can also lead a meditator to become fettered to any experience of peace or equanimity that meditating on this view might produce. As [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | On attaining this level of concentration, | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘A certain such monk might, Ānanda, and another might not.’ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘What is the cause, what is the reason, whereby one might and another might not?’ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘There is the case, Ānanda, where a monk, having practiced in this way — (thinking) “It should not be, it should not occur to me; it will not be, it will not occur to me. What is, what has come to be, that I abandon” — obtains equanimity. He relishes that equanimity, welcomes it, remains fastened to it. As he relishes that equanimity, welcomes it, remains fastened to it, his consciousness is dependent on it, is sustained by it [clings to it]. With clinging/ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘Being sustained, where is that monk sustained? | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘The dimension of neither perception nor non-perception [one level higher than the dimension of nothingness].’ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘Then, indeed, being sustained, he is sustained by the supreme clinging/ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘Being sustained, Ānanda, he is sustained by the supreme clinging/ | ||
+ | |||
+ | In other words, to gain freedom from the subtle stress to be found even in the equanimity of the formless attainments, | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== 5. " | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor #ch7.5> </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Avoiding the question of the existence of the self not only allowed the Buddha to sidestep an issue that could prevent a student’s progress on the path to the end of suffering; it also allowed him to focus directly on the kamma of self and not-self. In other words, it allowed him to look at the mental activities of I-making and my-making //as activities//, | ||
+ | |||
+ | If, on the other hand, he had held to the doctrine that there is a self, then whatever he identified as self could not be regarded as not-self, and so would have been left as an object of clinging, and thus a remaining area of limitation and stress. | ||
+ | |||
+ | But to treat I-making and my-making purely as activities allowed him to give precise, helpful advice on when and where the perceptions of self and not- self — and what kind of self — are skillful strategies and when not. | ||
+ | |||
+ | We have already seen several examples of the Buddha recommending the perception of not-self as skillful. Here are a few examples of when he and his disciples recommended the perception of self as a skillful strategy along the path. | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div freeverse> | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | Evil is done by oneself. By oneself is one defiled. Evil is left undone by oneself. By oneself is one cleansed. Purity and impurity are one’s own doing. No one purifies another. No other purifies one. | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | You yourself should reprove yourself, should examine yourself. As a self-guarded monk with guarded self, mindful you dwell at ease. < | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div excerpt> | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ven. Ānanda: ‘“This body comes into being through conceit. And yet it is by relying on conceit that conceit is to be abandoned.” Thus it was said. And in reference to what was it said? There is the case, sister, where a monk hears, “The monk named such-and-such, | ||
+ | |||
+ | These passages show that the idea of self can play a useful role on the path by creating a sense of self-reliance and clear motivation to practice. Without these skillful forms of I-making and my-making, a meditator would find it hard to get started and to stay on the path. Only after these skillful uses of the idea of self have done their work in leading the meditator to strong mindfulness and concentration can they be abandoned with the perception of not-self applied to the path, as we have seen above. Ultimately, even this perception can be abandoned when passion and delight for all five aggregates —including the aggregate of perception — are put aside, and the mind reaches total release from stress. | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== 6. The Strategic Use of the Knowledge, “All phenomena are not-self” ===== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor #ch7.6> </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | As the above discussion shows, the Buddha’s first two reasons for not answering Vacchagotta’s questions have many strategic implications and show the wisdom of taking no position as to whether there is or is not a self. This leaves us with the Buddha’s third reason for not answering Vacchagotta’s questions: that to say there is a self would not be in keeping with the arising of the knowledge that “All phenomena are not-self.” To understand why the Buddha saw the arising of this knowledge as so important, we have to understand (a) what the statement, “All phenomena are not-self” means and (b) what strategic purpose it serves on the path. | ||
+ | |||
+ | In the Buddha’s vocabulary, both the words “All” (//sabba//) and “phenomena” (// | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | In other words, the range of the word “All” goes only as far as the six senses and their objects — sometimes called the six spheres of contact. Anything beyond that range cannot be described, even as remaining or not remaining when those spheres of contact fade and cease. | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ven. Sāriputta: ‘Don’t say that, my friend.’ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ven. MahāKoṭṭhita: | ||
+ | the six spheres of contact, is it the case that there is not anything else?’ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ven. Sāriputta: ‘Don’t say that, my friend.’ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ven. MahāKoṭṭhita: | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ven. Sāriputta: ‘Don’t say that, my friend.’ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ven. MahāKoṭṭhita: | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ven. Sāriputta: ‘Don’t say that, my friend.’ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ven. MahāKoṭṭhita: | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ven. Sāriputta: ‘Saying, “... is it the case that there is anything else... is it the case that there is not anything else... is it the case that there both is and is not anything else... is it the case that there neither is nor is not anything else?” one is objectifying the non-objectified. However far the six spheres of contact go, that is how far objectification goes. However far objectification goes, that is how far the six spheres of contact go. With the remainderless fading and cessation of the six spheres of contact, there comes to be the cessation of objectification, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The dimension of non-objectification, | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | So the word “All,” even though it may cover the entirety of experience that can be described, does not cover the entirety of what can be directly experienced. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Similar considerations apply to the word, “phenomenon.” As the last quotation indicates, “phenomenon” applies to objects of the intellect or mind (// | ||
+ | |||
+ | The highest unfabricated phenomenon is dispassion (// | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | Some of the terms following “dispassion” in this passage are its synonyms; some are not. Those that aren’t are events that follow automatically on it. However, because //dhamma// can also mean “event, | ||
+ | |||
+ | However, even though the realization of unbinding (// | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div freeverse> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <span spkr> | ||
+ | |||
+ | One who has reached the end: Does he not exist, or is he for eternity free from affliction? Please, sage, declare this to me as this dhamma has been known by you. | ||
+ | |||
+ | <span spkr>The Buddha:</ | ||
+ | |||
+ | One who has reached the end has no criterion by which anyone would say that — it does not exist for him. When all dhammas are done away with, all means of speaking are done away with as well. ]!< | ||
+ | |||
+ | Given the range of the words “All” and “phenomena, | ||
+ | |||
+ | In fact, that is the first point to note about this knowledge: It is meant to be used strategically. Instead of being a description of what is learned upon attaining the goal, it is part of the path leading to the goal. | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div freeverse> | ||
+ | |||
+ | This knowledge is especially useful at a very advanced stage of the path, for it can help a person who has already attained a partial awakening to attain total awakening. | ||
+ | |||
+ | There are, all in all, four stages of awakening described in the Canon: The first three involve seeing the deathless; the last, a total plunge into unbinding. This point is indicated in the following simile: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | | ||
+ | heat, oppressed by the heat, exhausted, dehydrated, and thirsty. He | ||
+ | would look into the well and would have knowledge of “water, | ||
+ | would not dwell touching it with his body. In the same way, although I | ||
+ | have seen properly with right discernment, | ||
+ | | ||
+ | fully awakened one] whose effluents are ended.’ < | ||
+ | |||
+ | The implied analogy here is that the arahant is like someone who has plunged into the well and dwells touching the water with his body. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Another simile compares the path to total awakening to the act of crossing a river. In this case, the water stands for craving and for the flow of suffering in the wandering-on of repeated rebirth. The first three stages of awakening correspond to the point where one gains a footing on the far side of the river; full awakening, the point where one has climbed to safety on the bank where all dhammas have been brought to a final end. | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘All dhammas have unbinding as their final end.’ < | ||
+ | |||
+ | The practical difference between gaining a footing and climbing the bank lies in how one reacts to the experience of the deathless — and this is where the knowledge, “All phenomena are not-self” comes into play: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | turns his mind away from those phenomena, and having done so, | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘Staying right there, he reaches the ending of the effluents. Or, if not, | ||
+ | then — through this very Dhamma-passion, | ||
+ | from the total wasting away of the five lower fetters [self-identity views, | ||
+ | | ||
+ | | ||
+ | there to be totally unbound, never again to return from that world. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘[Similarly with the remaining jhānas and the formless attainments | ||
+ | up through the dimension of nothingness.]’ < | ||
+ | |||
+ | As this passage indicates, the act of perceiving the five aggregates as not-self is, for some people, enough to gain full awakening. If any passion and delight arise around the experience of the deathless — taking that experience as an object — such people can detect the passion and delight as coming under the fabrication aggregate, and so they can apply the perception of not-self to that passion and delight as well. Other people, however, focus too narrowly on the experience of the deathless, and so when passion and delight arise for that experience, they misperceive them as part of the experience. This would lead them to assume that the passion and delight are unfabricated. Because the unfabricated does not fall under the aggregates, and because they have been applying the perception not-self only to the aggregates as they perceived them, they would not apply the same perception to the passion and delight that they wrongly perceive as part of the deathless. | ||
+ | |||
+ | It’s precisely this misperception that the knowledge, “All phenomena are not-self” is meant to cure. When this knowledge is applied even to the experience of the deathless, it can help detect the fabricated passion and delight around the deathless as actually separate from it. After all, these fabrications are dhammas, and they come from viewing the deathless as a dhamma. Thus the perception of not-self applies to them and to the aspect of the deathless experience that still takes that experience as an object of the mind. When this perception fully removes the last remaining act of clinging to these subtle mind-objects and events, all activity at the six senses ceases. Full awakening occurs with a full plunge into unbinding. | ||
+ | |||
+ | It’s because the knowledge, “All phenomena are not-self” can lead to this goal, and because the Buddha wanted to prevent anything from getting in the way of the arising of this useful knowledge, that he remained silent when Vacchagotta asked him if there is a self. | ||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== 7. The Abandoning of all Strategies ===== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor #ch7.7> </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Once the goal is attained with the ending of action, all strategies are dropped. As we have noted, even the knowledge, “All phenomena are not-self” does not apply once there is a full plunge into unbinding. However, that does not mean that what lies beyond the range of that knowledge should be perceived as self. To believe that it does would be to fall into the wrong view that the Buddha avoided by not answering Vacchagotta’s first question. As the above passage from [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | In saying that the awakened person cannot be described, the Buddha was not simply being lazy in his use of language. He had a very clear notion of what defines a living being. | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘Any desire, passion, delight, or craving for form, Rādha: When one is caught up //[satta]// there, tied up // | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘Any desire, passion, delight, or craving for feeling... perception... fabrications... | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘Any desire, passion, delight, or craving for consciousness, | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘If one stays obsessed with form, that’s what one is measured by. Whatever one is measured by, that’s how one is classified. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘If one stays obsessed with feeling... perception... fabrications... consciousness, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘If one doesn’t stay obsessed with form, monk, that’s not what one is measured by. Whatever one isn’t measured by, that’s not how one is classified. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘If one doesn’t stay obsessed with feeling... perception... fabrications... consciousness, | ||
+ | |||
+ | With nothing by which he/she can be measured or defined, there is no way of describing the person who is free from passion and delight for the aggregates. That is why the Buddha kept insisting that an awakened person cannot be described as existing, not existing, both, or neither ([[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | This point applies not only to what other people might say about the awakened person, but also to what the awakened person would say about him or herself. After all, in the attainment of the goal, all six sense spheres have ceased; when they have ceased, there is nothing felt. When there is nothing felt, not even the thought, “I am” would occur. | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ven. Ananda: ‘No, lord.’ | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Buddha: ‘Thus in this manner, Ānanda, one does not see fit to assume that “Feeling is not my self: My self is insensitive [to feeling].”’ < | ||
+ | |||
+ | The fact that nothing is felt through the senses, however, does not mean that the experience of the goal is a total blank. It contains its own inherent //sukha//: pleasure, happiness, ease, and bliss | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | It’s because of this supreme pleasure that when an awakened person, after experiencing the goal and returning to the realms of the six senses, no longer feels the need to feed on the feelings that the six senses provide. | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | With no need to feed off the six senses, the awakened person is freed from any need to read a “self” or “other” into sensory experience. This is what liberates such a person from any passion for views. As a result, experience can occur with no “subject” or “object” superimposed on it, no supposition of experience or thing experienced. There can be simply the experience in and of itself. | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘And so, monks, the Tathāgata, when seeing what is to be seen, doesn’t suppose an (object as) seen. He doesn’t suppose an unseen. He doesn’t suppose an (object) to-be-seen. He doesn’t suppose a seer. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘When hearing... When sensing... When cognizing what is to be cognized, he doesn’t suppose an (object as) cognized. He doesn’t suppose an uncognized. He doesn’t suppose an (object) to-be-cognized. He doesn’t suppose a cognizer. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘And so, monks, the Tathāgata — being the same with regard to all phenomena that can be seen, heard, sensed, and cognized — is “Such.” And I tell you: There is no other “Such” higher or more sublime. | ||
+ | |||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div freeverse> | ||
+ | |||
+ | A view is true or false only when one is judging how accurately it refers to something else. One needs to make these judgments about views as long as one has not yet fully reached full awakening and still needs to make use of views for that purpose. But when awakening is fully reached, one no longer needs views as guides to the highest happiness, for that happiness has already been attained. So one is free to regard every view purely as a mental or verbal act, an event, in and of itself. When this is the case, true and false can be put aside. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Thus for the Tathāgata — whose lack of hunger frees him not to impose notions of subject or object on experience, and who can regard sights, sounds, feelings, and thoughts purely in and of themselves — views don’t have to be true or false. They can just be phenomena — actions, events — to be experienced. With no notion of subject, there are no grounds for “I know, I see”; with no notion of object, no grounds for, “That’s just how it is.” Views of true, false, self, no self, etc., thus lose all their holding power, and the mind is left free to its Suchness: untouched, uninfluenced by anything of any sort. Although the Buddha, as a teacher, used views as strategies to help his students gain release, his Suchness — having gone beyond the need for such strategies— was something beyond. | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | ‘A “position, | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | This, monks, the Tathāgata discerns. And he discerns that these positions, thus seized, thus held to, lead to such and such a destination, | ||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div centeralign> | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Canon thus contains plenty of evidence that the Buddha meant his most frequent teaching — that all phenomena are not-self — to be used as a strategy for putting an end to clinging. Because the end of clinging leads to the end of suffering, this teaching thus serves the overall purpose of why he taught in the first place. He did not mean for this teaching to serve as part of an answer to the metaphysical question of whether or not the self exists. That’s because no answer to this question — either a categorical Yes, a categorical No, or an analytical Yes and No — could serve as an effective strategy on the path to the end of stress. In fact, these latter views are all obstacles in the path. At the same time, they do not correspond to any view held by the awakened person once the path has achieved its goal, for such a person cannot be described in these terms, and indeed lies beyond the sway of any view at all. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The metaphysical question that the not-self teaching does respond to concerns the efficacy of action: that human action is the result of choice, and that those choices can lead either to stress or to the total ending of stress. When viewed in this light, questions of self and not-self become questions of action and skill: when choosing to use a perception of self will lead to long- term welfare and happiness, what kind of perception of self is useful toward that end, and when it’s skillful to apply the perception of not-self instead. By avoiding the question of whether there is or is not a self, the Buddha was freed to focus on the most effective way to use perceptions both of self and of not- self as tools on the path. In particular, he was freed to employ the teaching that all phenomena are not-self as a tool leading his students to drop subtle forms of clinging without, at the same time, creating even subtler forms. That’s why this strategy can help them reach full awakening. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Because the path to awakening leads to a total happiness, the need to think in terms of self and not-self ends when the path reaches its goal. And because the path is a set of actions leading to the end of action, all aspects of the path— including perceptions of self and not-self — are strategies: actions adopted to serve a purpose, and then put aside when that purpose is served. Although an awakened person can still use these perceptions for strategic purposes when dealing with others, the fact that they are perceptions — and thus included under the aggregates — means that they are transcended in the plunge into unbinding. | ||
+ | |||
+ | That, of course, is simply what the Canon says. Whether it’s true — i.e., actually useful in putting an end to stress — cannot be proven simply by quoting the Canon. The ultimate test of this interpretation is to put it into practice and see if it truly leads to the aim of the Buddha’s teachings: the total ending of all suffering and stress. </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====== The Buddha’s Last Word ====== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor # | ||
+ | |||
+ | On the night of his total unbinding, as he was lying on his side under a pair of flowering trees, the Buddha gave his last instructions to his followers. His final sentence was // | ||
+ | |||
+ | Consummation is a state of fullness or perfection. As the Buddha recognized, some forms of consummation come with little or no effort, as when you’re born into a large, well-connected family, consummate in good health and a wide range of possessions. But as he noted, this sort of consummation doesn’t put an end to suffering; when you lose these things, it’s not really a serious loss. The serious losses are when you lose your virtue or your correct understanding of which acts are skillful and which ones are not, for if you lose these things, your actions will lead to more suffering for yourself and for others, now and into the future ([[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | This is where the concept of meaningful consummation comes in. If you want to end your suffering, you need to develop consummate mastery of the skills that allow you to see the cause of that suffering and to perfect the inner qualities required to bring it to an end. As with the mastery of any really important skill, this calls for concerted effort. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The cause of suffering is // | ||
+ | |||
+ | Consummate knowledge is the knowledge that sees things in terms of the four noble truths, plus the skill mastering the task that each truth entails: comprehending suffering; abandoning its cause — i.e., the craving that sustains ignorance; realizing the cessation of suffering; and developing the path to its cessation. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Attaining consummation is part of developing the path, and in particular the path factor of right effort: making the effort to give rise to skillful mental qualities and to bring them to the culmination of their development. Although the idea of consummation could logically apply to any skillful quality, the Buddha associated it with specific lists of qualities that relate to two distinct stages of the path. And even though consummation in these areas isn’t fully reached until the path arrives at the noble attainments, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The first level of consummation deals with qualities perfected when a meditator reaches the first level of awakening, called stream-entry. Such a person is said to be consummate in view (// | ||
+ | |||
+ | This experience of the deathless radically and permanently alters many things in the mind, but the experience itself is only temporary. And it’s not enough to end craving, because many more qualities of mind need to be brought to consummation for awakening to be full, leaving no possibility of any further mental suffering. | ||
+ | |||
+ | One standard list of qualities that stream-enterers need to develop further is mentioned in [[en: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The first set of qualities contains four factors: virtue, restraint of the senses, wakefulness, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The second set of qualities contains seven factors: conviction, shame, compunction, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The third and final set of caraṇa consists of the four jhānas — levels of strong concentration — which the Buddha compared to the provisions needed to keep the gatekeeper and the soldiers of the fortress well-nourished and strong in performing their duties. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The third and final set of caraṇa consists of the four jhānas — levels of strong concentration — which the Buddha compared to the provisions needed to keep the gatekeeper and the soldiers of the fortress well-nourished and strong in performing their duties. | ||
+ | |||
+ | These fifteen qualities, when brought to a consummate level of mastery, counteract the craving that sustains avijjā. This is why they lead to the three cognitive skills or knowledges (// | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Buddha himself was consummate in these fifteen types of conduct and in the three cognitive skills they engender, which is why “consummate in knowledge and conduct” (// | ||
+ | |||
+ | What’s remarkable about these forms of consummation is how unremarkable they are. As the Buddha once said, he wasn’t a close-fisted teacher, saving a secret or esoteric doctrine for last. Instead, the word “reach consummation” simply reiterates the main teaching he had stressed open-handedly from the very beginning of his career: Develop the eightfold path— which is the same thing as training in virtue, concentration, | ||
+ | |||
+ | //Shame and compunction// | ||
+ | |||
+ | //Sense restraint//: | ||
+ | |||
+ | // | ||
+ | |||
+ | // | ||
+ | |||
+ | By including these issues under the term “consummation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | By ending his teachings with the verb // | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====== Glossary ====== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor # | ||
+ | |||
+ | //Ajaan (Thai)//: Teacher; mentor. Pāli form: // | ||
+ | |||
+ | // | ||
+ | |||
+ | // | ||
+ | |||
+ | // | ||
+ | |||
+ | //Deva//: Literally, “shining one.” An inhabitant of the terrestrial and celestial realms higher than the human. | ||
+ | |||
+ | //Dhamma//: (1) Event; action; (2) a phenomenon in and of itself; (3) mental quality; (4) doctrine, teaching; (5) nibbāna (although there are passages describing nibbāna as the abandoning of all dhammas). When capitalized in this book, Dhamma means teaching. Sanskrit form: //Dharma//. | ||
+ | |||
+ | //Jhāna//: Mental absorption. A state of strong concentration, | ||
+ | |||
+ | //Kamma//: Intentional act. Sanskrit form: //Karma//. | ||
+ | |||
+ | //Māra//: The personification of temptation and all forces, within and without, that create obstacles to release from // | ||
+ | |||
+ | // | ||
+ | |||
+ | // | ||
+ | |||
+ | //Pāli//: The language of the oldest extant complete Canon of the Buddha' | ||
+ | |||
+ | // | ||
+ | |||
+ | // | ||
+ | |||
+ | // | ||
+ | |||
+ | // | ||
+ | |||
+ | //Sutta//: Discourse. Sanskrit form: //Sūtra//. | ||
+ | |||
+ | //Tādin//: “Such,” an adjective to describe one who has attained the goal. It indicates that the person’s state is indefinable but not subject to change or influences of any sort. | ||
+ | |||
+ | // | ||
+ | |||
+ | // | ||
+ | |||
+ | //Vinaya//: The monastic discipline, whose rules and traditions comprise six volumes in printed text. </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====== Abbreviations ====== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor # | ||
+ | |||
+ | |AN|Anguttara Nikaya| | ||
+ | |Dhp|Dhammapada| | ||
+ | |DN|Digha Nikaya| | ||
+ | |Iti|Itivuttaka| | ||
+ | |Khp|Khuddakapāṭha| | ||
+ | |MN|Majjhima Nikaya| | ||
+ | |Mv|Mahāvagga| | ||
+ | |SN|Saṁyutta Nikāya| | ||
+ | |Sn|Sutta Nipata| | ||
+ | |Ud|Udana| | ||
+ | |||
+ | // | ||
+ | |||
+ | <span # | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div # | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div showmore> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div # | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div # | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div # | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div # | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div f_zzecopy> | ||
+ | |||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div # | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div # | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div # | ||
+ | |||
+ | </ | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ---- | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div # |