Progress is Natural

One of Sangharakshita's great contributions to the Dharma has been his exegesis on what he called 'the spiral path'. This is a teaching that was lost to the Buddhist world, despite being preserved in the texts, until it was brought to light by Mrs Rhys Davids in the introduction of her translation to the Saṃyutta Nikāya. It is a vital counterpart to the application of paṭicca-samuppāda found in the twelve-fold nidāna chain. In this long lost twin we find an answer to the question of how enlightenment is possible for unenlightened people. Having lost what seems like the Buddha's original answer to this question, the Buddhist tradition came up with many and varied answers of its own, some more successful than others. But for me none has the simplicity or the raw intensity of this Pāli text. When Sangharakshita wrote about this teaching [1] he was only aware of the Upanisā Sutta (SN 12.23, PTS S ii.29) however myself and other scholars in the Triratna Buddhist Order have subsequently discovered a number of other texts which explore the second form of paṭicca-samuppāda. [2] This one from the chapter of tens from the Aṅguttara Nikāya is my personal favourite.

The Discourse on Forming an intention [3]

The virtuous one, endowed with virtue [sīlavant sīlasampanna] need not form an intention 'may my conscience be clear'. It is natural for the virtuous one endowed with virtue to have a clear conscience. Having a clear conscience [avippaṭisāra] there is no need to will 'may I feel joy'. Joy naturally arises in those who have a clear conscience. The joyful [pāmojja] need not decide 'may I be filled with rapture'. Joyfulness naturally produces rapture. There is no need for the enraptured [pītimana] to resolve 'may my body calm down'. It is natural in the enraptured for the body to calm down. With a body at rest [passaddhakāya] there is no need to form the intention 'may I experience bliss'. With the body at rest they naturally experience bliss. The blissful [sukhina] don't need to will 'may my mind become composed'. The mind of the blissful is naturally composed. When the mind is composed [samādhiyatu] there is no need to think 'may I have knowledge and vision of experience as it is'. With the mind composed one naturally sees and knows experience as it is. Knowing and seeing experience as it is there is no need to form an intention 'May I become weary [of experience], may I become dispassionate [towards it]. It is natural when seeing experience as it is [yathābhuta jāna passa] that one becomes fed up and turns away from experience. Weary of experience and disinterested in it [ nibiddāvirāga] there is no need to wish 'may I experience for myself the knowledge and vision of liberation'. For, weary of experience and disinterested in it one naturally experiences knowledge and vision of liberation [vimuttiñāṇadassana].

Thus knowledge & vision of liberation is the benefit [attha] and blessing [ānisaṃsa] of being fed up and turning away. Being fed up and turning away is the benefit and blessing of knowledge & vision of experience as it is. Knowledge & vision of experience as it is, is the benefit and blessing of absorption. Absorption is the benefit and blessing of bliss. Bliss is the benefit and blessing of serenity. Serenity is the benefit and blessing of rapture. Rapture is the benefit and blessing of joy. Joy is the benefit and blessing of a clear conscience. A clear conscience is the benefit and blessing of moral competence..

Thus each one fills up the next, each one is fulfilled by the next, and goes from the near bank to the far bank.

This sutta seems to require very little in the way of commentary. however I do need to say a little about the word I have translated as 'naturally' or 'it is natural'. The word in Pāli is dhammatā. this is an abstract noun formed by adding be abstract suffix -tā to the familiar word dhamma. Bhikkhu Bodhi renders this as 'natural law'. The meaning relies on that sense of the word dhamma corresponding to the English 'nature', and is more literally 'nature-ness' i.e. natural.

The sequence of states (dhammā) mentioned in Pāli is:

sīlavant sīlasampanna > avippaṭisāra > pāmojja > pīti(mana) > passaddhakāya > samāhita/samādhi > yathābhūta jānata passata > nibbinna riratta > vimuttiñāṇadassa sacchikaroti.

The message of the text is very simple. Enlightenment is a natural process. One thing leads to another, each one 'filling up' (abhisandeti) the next, and becoming its fulfilment (paripūreti). I think it's a very interesting reflection for us moderns who are wont to say "I just want to be happy". In this way of looking at things there is no need to form an intention to be happy. If one wants to be happy than one needs to look at the conditions that bring about happiness, especially by being virtuous.

The text is saying that if only we practice virtue in the Buddhist sense of that word, then all else follows quite naturally. There is a compelling logic to this. But it is also pragmatic, and very much in the spirit of 'come and see' (ehi passiko). It is not that no effort is required, far from it. But if we pay attention to the fundamentals, then the rest will take care of itself. Accepting this scheme as a possibility is the beginning of the spiritual life. Finding it to be true in one's own experience is the beginning of faith. Giving oneself up to it is the beginning of insight.


Notes

1. See: A Survey of Buddhism. 7th Ed. 1993, p.135ff [Chp 1, sect. 14 'Saṃsāra and Nirvāṇa']; and The Three Jewels. 3rd Ed. 1991, p.108ff [chp 13 'The stages of the path'].
   
2. I discuss the examples that I have located at the end of my essay: A Footnote To Sangharakshita's 'A Survey of Buddhism'. This is in need of a rewrite, but my friend Dhīvan is the expert and his book on the subject, This Being, That Becomes: The Buddha's Teaching on Conditionality, is due out soon.
   
3. Cetanākaraṅīya Sutta AN 10.2, PTS A v.2. My translation based on the Pāli text as tripitaka.org. Also translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi in his AN anthology 'The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha', p.238-9 as 'The Lawfulness of Progress'.

image: Sangharakshita, from Manchester Triratna Buddhist Centre.

The main sources are for the Spiral Path:

• Upanisā Sutta - SN 23.15
• Pamādavihārī Sutta - SN 35.97
• AN 10 1-5 and 11 1-5
• AN 8.81; which recurs with fewer steps as AN 7.65, 6.50, 5.24, 5.168.
• Samaññāphala Sutta - D2, repeated in D 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.
  
• Dasuttara Sutta - DN 34
• Vatthūpama Sutta MN 7
• Kandaraka Sutta - MN 51
• Visuddhimagga: I.32 (p.13 in Ñāṇamoli's translation).

Philological odds and ends III

Many words have interesting stories associated with them. This is a third set of terms which have caught my eye as having some interest, but which did not rate a whole essay on their own.

In this post: Bodhisattva, anagārikā, samyak/mithyā (Pāli sammā/micchā)




Bodhisattva

The typical explanation of this word tells us that sattva is the Sanskrit word for 'being', an abstract noun from sat 'true, real', ultimately from the verbal root √as 'to be' (cognate with English 'is'). Sanskrit used the notion of 'being' in much the same way we do in English: being 'a state of existence (or realness) and; a being 'a living entity'. Sat (and its derivative satya) was a very important term in Vedic metaphysics, and is still important in contemporary Hindu metaphysics. Adding the -tva suffix gives 'truth' or 'reality'.

It's plausible enough, however the Pāli commentaries take the Pāli equivalent satta as related to either sakta 'intent on' (the past-participle of the verb √sañj 'clinging'); or from śakta meaning 'capable of' (pp from √śak 'strong, capable, able'). The suggestion then is that sattva is a hyper-sanskritisation similar to sūkta > sutta > sūtra as discussed in Philological Odds and Ends I. In this case Sanskrit satka, śakta and sattva all become satta in Pāli and other Prakrits. The option of 'intent on' (satka) would fit the way 'bodhisattva' practitioners are described in very early Mahāyāna Sūtras (e.g. the Ugraparipṛccha - see Jan Nattier. A Few Good Men).

A bodhisattva, then, is 'intent on bodhi' and perhaps should be spelt bodhisakta (though centuries of tradition weigh against such a correction). The word is an adjective used in the sense of someone aspiring to, or about to, attain bodhi and become a Buddha. Both buddha and bodhi deriving from the same root √budh 'to understand, to wake up to' - buddha is the past-participle meaning 'awoken', while bodhi is verbal noun meaning 'knowledge' (c.f. buddhi 'intelligence').

Note the spelling 'satva' (with a single 't') seems to have begun as a scribal error - inadvertently leaving off the extra 't'. There is a word satvan which is literally 'one who possesses sat', and which is used to mean 'living, breathing' and 'powerful, strong, a warrior'. The nominative singular is satvā, and it is purposefully used in some cases to describe the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas - they are described as mahāsatvā 'great heros' in the Sarvatathāgata-tattvasaṃgraha Tantra for instance. Cf the use of mahāsattva which is commonly used in Mahāyāna sūtras.

Anagārikā

Someone asked me about this word. The Sanskrit is anāgarikā (fem) meaning 'homeless'. The word is not in PED, but it does occur 3x in the Cullanidesa (a commentarial text included in the Canon): once as anagārikassa (the dative - to/for the homeless), and twice in the compound anagārikamitto (friend of the homeless). This seems to be the only use in Pāli and I deduce that the word is masculine or neuter in Pāli 'anāgarika' (short final 'a'). Given that is doesn't occur in the Canon per se it seems unlikely to have been used in the same sense as we think of it, i.e. it's not a technical term. The Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Dictionary suggests that the Pāli equivalent is anāgariya. PED points to the entry for agāra/agāriya. Agāra (same in Sanskrit) just means 'house'. Under agāriya it notes that it is usually used in the (feminine) negative: 'anagāriyā'. It is used in the context of going forth (pabbajita) into the 'homeless' life - so is the same technical term (PED notes agāriya = agārika). An agārika is a layperson - i.e. someone who dwells in a house (as opposed to a paribbājaka or vagrant).

samyak/mithyā (Pāli sammā/micchā)

This pair of adjectives find frequent use in Buddhist terminology. For instance there is samyagdṛṣṭi (P. sammādiṭṭhi) and mithyādṛṣṭi (P. micchādiṭṭhi), that is right-view and wrong-view. Samyak/samyag are forms demanded by sandhi, and the base form of the word is samyañc. The root here is √añc 'to bend'. The prefix saṃ- here makes it mean 'to bend with', and the 'y' being a euphonic insertion. In common parlance we might even say that it means 'to go with the flow or grain'. There is an applied meaning which is to pay respects to - i.e. to bow to or with. I often think that Indian metaphors owe a lot to the early Indo-Europeans having lived in places where rivers where very important. Samyañc 'to bend with' comes to mean, via bending the right way, or going with the natural order, 'correct, right' and perhaps even 'perfect' (i.e. getting everything right). Mithyā on the other hand is a contracted form of mithūyā and means 'inverted', or 'contrary'. The root here is √mith meaning both to 'alternate' and to 'altercate' (a nice summing up by William Dwight Whitney!) From this root we get the indeclinable particle mithu which indicates 'an alternate', or some kind of conflict; as well as similar sounding word, mithuna, meaning 'a pair'. So samyakdṛṣṭi means 'to have a world-view which is in accordance with the natural order; to be seeing things as they are'; while mithyādṛṣṭi means ' to have a world-view which is contrary to how things are, which goes against the grain'.

See also

• Philological Odds and Ends I: tathāgata, sūtra, śramaṇa, loka, gahapati/gṛhapati.
• Philological Odds and Ends II: cakravartin, cintāmaṇi, yoniso manasikara, pāramitā, etymology.
• Philological Odds and Ends IV: vrata, mitra, kavi