The World and What Exists

Some time back I wrote a post about the early Buddhist attitude to ontology - the issue of what exists, and what the nature of that existence is. I argued that ontology plays no part in the Buddha's presentation of his teaching. However in a note to the Flower Sutta (SN 22:94; PTS S iii.138-140) Bhikkhu Bodhi, one of the foremost authorities on Theravāda Buddhism, states "The Buddha's utterances at 22:94, for example, show that he did not hesitate to make pronouncements with a clear ontological import when they were called for" (Bodhi 2000 : 734, n.29). I want to look at key passages in this sutta, and examine the claim that they have an "ontological import".

The Flower Sutta begins like this:

Sāvatthinidānaṃ. ‘‘Nāhaṃ, bhikkhave, lokena vivadāmi, lokova mayā vivadati. Na, bhikkhave, dhammavādī kenaci lokasmiṃ vivadati. Yaṃ, bhikkhave, natthisammataṃ loke paṇḍitānaṃ, ahampi taṃ ‘natthī’ti vadāmi. Yaṃ, bhikkhave, atthisammataṃ loke paṇḍitānaṃ, ahampi taṃ ‘atthī’ti vadāmi’’.

At Sāvatthi: Bhikkhus I don't dispute with the world, the world disputes with me. A Dhammavādin doesn't quarrel with anyone in the world. That which the wise in the world agree "it does not exist (na atthi), I too say "it doesn't exist". That which the wise in the world agree "it exists" (atthi), I too say "it exists".

Dhammavādī is an adjective which describes someone who professes, or speaks, Dhamma. Vāda is an argument, view, or ideology; and the -in suffix (vādin) is a possessive - someone who has that view. In my translation I've adopted Dhammavādin (the uninflected form) because it is on the model of Theravādin, or Yogacārin and should be familiar enough. I quite like the term Dhammavādin.*

The sutta continues by asking what it is that the wise agree doesn't exist in the world? The answer is forms, feelings, perceptions, volitions, and consciousness that are permanent, stable, eternal, not subject to change do not exist in the world. These are of course the five khandhas, aka the apparatus of experience. What the wise agree as existing in the world are khandhas that are impermanent, suffering and subject to change.

Taken at face value this passage we might read this as an ontological statement. However I think we need to be quite careful. The problem is with the word loka. Literally it means 'world', and Bhikkhu Bodhi is clearly taking it to mean that the khandhas exist in some impermanent sense in the world (loke/lokasmiṃ). However in his long essay on the word on 'loka' Jan Gonda (1966) shows that the original meaning of the word was something like 'the visible world' or 'the world of experience'. The original image is one of a clearing in a forest - loka is what can be seen clearly, what appears to the mind. On the physical level this means the sensual world. However it also has the connotation that we have in English with regard to the world - one can live in 'one's own world' for instance. In this case the meaning is more personal, it is a psychological term. Gonda is concerned with Vedic literature which predates the Buddha, but he establishes the metaphorical/psychological use of the word. Sue Hamilton (2000) has shown that this is also how the Buddha uses the world loka. Hamilton links loka and khandha together as part of an elaborate extended metaphor developed by the Buddha for describing the subjective pole of experience.

So I would paraphrase the above as: in the world of experience, there is nothing in that experience which is lasting, satisfying, or independent of experience. Read in this way there is nothing here of ontological import. Bhikkhu Bodhi is mislead by reading loka literally rather than metaphorically. I think the Buddha was an empirical realist - he has no explicit quarrel with the idea that there are objects of the senses, but he has nothing definite or positive to say about such objects or their natures.

To play the devils advocate for a moment, if we were to accept Bhikkhu Bodhi's assertion that the Flower Sutta has something ontological to say, then what would it be saying? Presuming also that Bhikkhu Bodhi, going along with orthodox Theravada doctrine, accepts that the khandhas are a complete definition of reality, then what is being said in this sutta is that nothing definite can be said about the reality that Bhikkhu Bodhi is thinking of. In this view nothing at all is stable. There is nothing in this view on which to pin an ontology. Nothing exists in fact. So accepting the proposition we are lead to a paradox - one that is often overlooked. The way out of this is provided by Hamilton. What the Buddha is describing is not reality but experience. If reality really were so fluid we could not experience it. By necessity we must water down the statement that 'everything changes' to 'everything changes, but some things change slowly enough for us to experience them as persisting'. In fact everything that we experience as a something, must change slowly else we wouldn't experience it as a something. If something is there one second and gone the next, we usually assume that it was a trick of the mind (recalling that the Buddha had only his bare senses and no camera or other recording equipment!). So things must actually exist for a time in order for us to experience them.

However Hamilton's is a more elegant view. It is our experience of things which is changing from moment to moment, which is never satisfying. The fact that our experience changes from moment to moment says nothing about the nature of reality. It is a comment on the nature of consciousness and awareness. This is a statement that can be taken at face value, without having to back off to allow for practicalities. In fact it has important practical implications for Buddhists in the sense that it directs our attention not to the world as such, but to the world of experience.

The sutta later describes each of the khandhas as "loke lokadhammo", which Bikkhu Bodhi translates as "a world-phenomena in the world". It is this that the Buddha has awoken to (abhisambujjhati) and realised (abhisameti). If we read loka as something more like 'world of experience' then the Buddha is saying that he has understood the elements of experience in the world of experience. I think we can see this as further vindication of Hamilton's approach to the subject. Her view is that the khandhas are not the sum total of existence, but the elements of, or by which we have, experiences. What the Buddha was interested in was understanding the very process whereby we have experiences, and why we misinterpret them to our detriment. The nature of the world as an externally existing 'something' (kiñci) is not relevant to this question, because the Buddha, like many Western thinkers, took the view that we could not directly touch that something. We have only the information of our senses and what our mind makes of them. It is by understanding the mechanics of the process - by watching it in action - and disentangling ourselves from the stories we tell about experience, that we can free ourselves from the erroneous conclusions that cause us suffering.

Notes

* Members of the Western Buddhist Order are known as Dharmacārī or Dharmacāriṇī which are, respectively, the masculine and feminine nominative singular of the adjective dharmacārin. Dharma is familiar, and cāra means "going, motion, progression, course; proceeding; practising". The -in suffix, as above, is a possessive. So dharmacārin describes someone who is practising the Dharma. Dharmacārin is the stem or uninflected form and therefore gender neutral. I have argued, so far unsuccessfully, that the WBO should adopt this usage rather than the gender specific terms.

Reading

• Bodhi. 2000. The Connected Discourses of the Buddha : a Translation of the Saṃyutta Nikāya. Boston : Wisdom Publications.
  
• Gonda, J. 1966. Loka : World and heaven in the Veda. Amsterdam, Noord-Hollandsche U.M.
• Hamilton, Sue. 2000. Early Buddhism : a new approach. The I of the beholder. Richmond, Surrey : Curzon.

See also: To be or not to be : the problem with ontology. Jayarava's Raves 31-10-2008


image: World map from ancientworldmaps.blogspot.com

What Did the Buddha Mean by 'World'?

I have been working on a commentary to the Kaccānagotta Sutta (SN 12.15, PTS Sii.16.) and considering the term loka, usually translated as 'world', and how the Buddha used it; especially in the context of the compound lokasamdaya 'origin of the world'. In my research I found a trail already followed by Bhikkhu Bodhi in the notes to his Saṃyutta Nikāya translation. I will work through these texts myself, offer my own translations and observations, but leave Bhikkhu Bodhi the last word, since he got there before me.

Our first text is the Discourse of Going to the End of the World. [1] Here an odd question is raised:

kena cāvuso lokasmiṃ lokasaññī hoti lokamānī?
And by what, friend, in the world is one a perceiver and cogniser of the world?

The answer is that one is a perceiver and cogniser of the world by the six sense organs in the world. On one hand this is obvious - one perceives 'the world' through the senses - however the senses themselves are in the world (lokasmiṃ). Bhikkhu Bodhi points to SN 2.26 for an explanation. This is the Rohitassa Sutta. [2] Here the young deva, Rohitassa, asks the Buddha:

yatha nu kho bhante na jāyati na jīyati na mīyati na cavati na upapajjati, sakkā nu kho so, bhante, gamanena lokassa anto ñātuṃ vā daṭṭhum vā pāpuṇituṃ vā ti?

Is there a way by travelling to know, or see, or to reach, the end of the world where one is not born, grow old, die; where is is no death and rebirth?

The answer is no. One cannot reach the goal by actually travelling. I take this to mean that the Buddha is not talking about a place, that the language of the 'path' is only a metaphor. So the world being talked about is not the physical world, not the external objective world. He then makes a statement which might be familiar:

Na kho panāhaṃ, āvuso, appatvā lokassa antaṃ dukkhassa antakiriyaṃ vadāmi. Api ca khvāhaṃ, āvuso, imasmiṃyeva byāmamatte kaḷevare sasaññimhi samanake lokañca paññapemi lokasamudayañca lokanirodhañca lokanirodhagāminiñca paṭipadanti.

However, I, friend, there is no making an end of disappointment, without reaching the end of the world. And, friend, it is right here in this 'fathom long' [3] body endowed with perception and cognition that I declare the world, the origin of the world, the cessation of the world, and the way leading to the cessation of the world.

So this reinforces the idea that 'the world' is not 'the world' as we usually think about it, but the kind of world we refer to when we refer to some who "lives in a world of their own" - a subjective world. If we turn to Buddhaghosa's commentary [4] at this point (as Bhikkhu Bodhi does in his notes) we find that he links loka with dukka and associates the four truths of the noble ones with the world, the origin and cessation of the world and the way to the cessation of the world. Buddhaghosa then says:

Iti – ‘‘nāhaṃ, āvuso, imāni cattāri saccāni tiṇakaṭṭhādīsu paññapemi, imasmiṃ pana cātumahābhūtike kāyasmiṃ yeva paññapemī’’ti dasseti.

Thus he should see: ' I do not, friend, declare these four truths in grass and wood, but I declare them only in this body of the four great elements'.

Now this is presented as a quote from the Buddha, but modern databases make it easy to show that it does not occur in the Pāli texts that have come down to us. So we must be cautious in how we use it. With this caveat I may say that this the most unequivocal statement that the Buddha is unconcerned with the objective world, but only with the subjective world, that I know of. What in effect Buddhaghosa, at least, is saying is that paṭicca-sammupāda is not intended to apply to the external world, but to one's world of experience - to the processes of perception (the senses) and cognition (the mind) located within the body.

In the World Sutta [5] the Buddha asks the rhetorical question: "what is the origin of the world". His answer is a well known formula:

Cakkhuñca paṭicca rūpe ca uppajjati cakkhuviññāṇaṃ. Tiṇṇaṃ saṅgati phasso. Phassapaccayā vedanā; vedanāpaccayā taṇhā; taṇhāpaccayā upādānaṃ; upādānapaccayā bhavo; bhavapaccayā jāti; jātipaccayā jarāmaraṇaṃ sokaparideva-dukkhadomanassupāyāsā sambhavanti. Ayaṃ kho, bhikkhave, lokassa samudayo.

With the eye and forms as condition, eye-consciousness arises. The coincidence of the three is contact. On the basis of contact there are sensations, which give rise to desires. Desires are fuel which supports becoming. [6] With becoming there is birth, and from birth old-age, and death, grief, lamenting, misery, dejection, and trouble are produced. This, monks, is the origin of the world.

This is a portion of the nidāna chain (the most useful and relevant part) which we normally associate with the arising of dukkha. Here the world is more or less equivalent to dukkha. Note that 'the world' comes into being on the basis of contact between sense organ and sense object - forms. Here forms are not part of 'the world', they are part of the conditions which give rise to the world - this is a very important distinction. The nidānas do not give rise to forms, they give rise to the experience, the world of suffering.

The conclusion of this exploration is, I hope, clear and I will leave it to Bhikkhu Bodhi to articulate it:

"The world with which the Buddha's teaching is principally concerned is 'the world of experience,' and even the objective world is of interest only to the extent that it serves as that necessary external condition for experience" [7]

~~||~~

Notes

1. Lokantagamana Sutta (SN 35.116, PTS S iv.93)
2. Rohitassa Sutta (SN 2.26, PTS S i.61; also AN 4.45, PTS A ii.47)
3. 'fathom long carcass' is (I think) Mrs Rhys David's translation of byāmamatte kalebara which has a great ring to it: but byāma refers to 'an arm-span' which is typically somewhat less than a fathom or six feet. Kaḷevara (or kaḷebara) is 'the body'. It also means 'a corpse or carcass', but a dead body is seldom "endowed with perception and cognition"
4. Rohitassa Sutta Vaṇṇanā (SA i.116)
5. Loka Sutta (SN 12.43, PTS S ii.73)
6. upādāna is typically translated as 'clinging'. This is neither bad doctrine, nor bad philology. However Richard Gombrich has shown how the word more literally means 'the thing which supports a active process' i.e. fuel. The equation that "desire fuels becoming" is part of the metaphor of fire, which characterises becoming (bhava) as like a fire which can only continue when there is fuel. In my opinion it makes more sense. I've written more on the use of the metaphor of fire in these essays: Everything is on fire! and Playing with Fire.
7. Bodhi. Connected Discourses p. 394, n.182.

image: earth in hands from Worthington Libraries.

Formalism in the Saṅgha

In the text I will discuss in this essay, it seems as though formalism had already begun to set in to the early bhikkhu saṅgha--indeed what it appears to show is that a monastic saṅgha, as opposed to a wandering ascetic saṅhga, is itself a form of degeneration recognised before the closing of the Canon. Whether this really happened during the lifetime of the Buddha or not we don't really know, but clearly it happened fairly quickly for this story to be canonical. What follows is an abbreviated translation of the Third Instruction Story (Tatityaovāda Sutta. S 16.8; PTS S ii.208) which as the title suggests is the third of three similar stories in which the Buddha asks Kassapa to admonish or instruct (ovāda) the bhikkhus.

Translation

In Rājagaha at the squirrel feeding place. The indeed Elder Mahākassapa approached the Bhagavan, greeted him, and sat to one side. As he sat the Bhagavan said to him, "Kassapa instruct the bhikkhus, give them on a talk on Dhamma. Either you or I should instruct them, Kassapa; either you or I should give them a talk on Dhamma.

"At present, Bhante, the bhikkhus speak ill, and are unruly; they are impatient and slow to take on instructions."

"Formerly Kassapa, amongst the elder bhikkhus, there were those who lived in the wilderness (āraññikā ) and spoke in praise (vaṇṇavādina) of living in the wilderness; and they ate only from an alms bowl (piṇḍapātika) and praised living on alms food; and wore robes from rubbish heaps (paṃsukūlika ) and praised wearing such robes; and owned just three robes and praised living with only three robes; and were easily satisfied (appiccha) and praised being easily satisfied; and were contented and praised contentment; and were solitary (pavivittā) and praised solitude; and were individuals (asaṃsaṭṭha ) and spoke in praise of individuality; and exerted themselves (āraddhavīriya) and praised exertion (vīriya-ārambha) ."

"Bhikkhus who possessed such qualities where invited to sit by the elder bhikkhus. [They would say] 'come bhikkhu', and 'what is this bhikkhu's name?', and 'what a good bhikkhu indeed is he', and 'this is a bhikkhu who loves the training'."

"And the new bhikkhus would think [a bhikkhu with those qualities is really a bhikkhu, and the elder bhikkhus treat him with respect]. They would be on the path to being like that, and that would be for their welfare (hitāya) and happiness (sukkha) for a long time."

"But now, Kassapa, the elder bhikkhus are not like that."

"Now he is [thought to be] a bhikkhu who is known, famous, a recipient of the requisites of robes, alms bowl, lodging, medicine and support when ill. Him the elder bhikkhus invite to sit. [They would say] 'come bhikkhu', and 'what is this bhikkhu's name?', and 'what a good bhikkhu indeed is he', and 'this is a bhikkhu who loves the brotherhood '."

"And the new bhikkhus would think [a bhikkhu with those qualities is really a bhikkhu, and the elder bhikkhus treat him with respect]. They would be on the path to being like that, and that would be for their harm (ahitāya) and unhappiness (dukkha) for a long time."

"Of [the famous recipient of requisites] one speaking rightly might say: 'the celibate practitioner is oppressed by the misfortunes of a celibate practitioner, is overcome by what overcomes a celibate practitioner.'"

Comments on the text and translation

The first thing to note is where this dialogue takes place, i.e. in the kalandakanivāpa near Rājagaha. DOPN says of the kalandakanivāpa: "Here food (nivāpa) was regularly placed for the squirrels [kalandaka]… UdA.60; SnA.ii.419"; the identification of kalandaka as 'squirrel' is difficult to substantiate – c.f. PED s.v. kalanda ‘heap, stack’; BHSD notes variant spellings karandaka-, kalaṇḍaka- and karaṇḍaka-. Bhikkhu Bodhi (Connected Discourses, p.760) has “Bamboo Grove” which may reflect the fact that the kalandakanivāpa was said to be in the Veluvaṇa or Bamboo Grove. CST notes that the Sri Lankan printed canon has instead "sāvatthi, ārāme" in a park near Sāvatthī – which brings to mind Schopen’s article 'If You Can't Remember, How to Make It Up' on the Mūlasarvātivāda-Vinaya rules for assigning a text to a city if one is not specified in the text one has. Schopen (1997).

The phrase "slow to take on" renders the compound: appadakkhiṇaggāhina = a– + pa– + dakkhiṇa + gāhina ‘not right handed’ (c.f. padakkhina ‘to the right’). The implication seems to be that they bhikkhus are inept, as the right hand symbolises aptitude – just as it does in European culture where the Latin derived word for left-handed is sinister. In India there is the additional sense of pollution related to the left hand being used to wash the anus after defecation. Hence also keeping the right shoulder towards objects (including people) of respect. (See Ritual Purity or Rank Superstition).

The new bhikkhus (nava bhikkhu) observing the elder bhikkhus (thera bhikkhu), emulate them and thus they would be on the path to "being like that": tathā hi, or 'thus' with hi linking back to the previous sentence. The commentary glosses tathā as tesu theresu 'amongst these elders', which reinforces the sense of the newer monks becoming like the older monks.

The word ārañña is often erroneously translated as "forest" but in fact it means a place outside of the safety of the village and away from cultivated land, i.e. something more like ‘wilderness’. It is true that ārañña includes the jungle that still existed in the Ganges Plain at the time, but the word has a broader reference.

In the past, says the text, bhikkhus "wore robes from rubbish heaps" The word here is paṃsukūlika:paṃsu means 'dirt, rubbish'; kūla however means 'slope, bank' usually with reference to a river' (PED), and in this context suggests a 'heap'. So the brief meaning would be 'one who resorts to rubbish heaps' however The Dīgha Nikāya commentary glosses paṃsukūlāni as pathaviyaṃ chaḍḍita-nantakāni 'rags discarded on the ground' (DA 2.356) which suggests we should understand the word paṃsukūlika as 'one who resorts to rubbish heaps [for clothing]'.

There are two terms used to describe the bhikkhu leading a solitary life: pavivitta and asaṃsaṭṭhā. The word pavivittā suggests that they lived alone, and apart. The other word asaṃsaṭṭhā could be a simple synonym but I take the opportunity to draw out something else. It is a pp. from saṃ√sṛj 'living in groups, mixed with' (Pāli saṃsaṭṭheti? c.f. noun saṃsagga ‘contact, association’. Here I’m assuming that the negative prefix gives the word a positive force rather than being a simple negation: that the bhikkhus were once individuals rather than simply members of a group; as opposed to saying that the bhikkhus did not socialise or live in groups which is implied by pavivitta. I any case the two together emphasise aloneness.

The last quality discussed is put in two related ways: āraddha-vīriya with 'energy engaged' and vīriya-ārambha 'making a effort'. Both āraddha and ārambha are from ā√rabh 'to begin, understand', PED lists viriyaṃ ārabhati 'to make a effort'. The form of the past participle āraddha is affected by Bartholomae’s Law affecting the adding of the past participle suffix –ta to a voiced aspirated consonant so that bha + ta goes though several hypothetical stages to produce the form in use: bhta > btha > bdha > ddha.

Having observed the elder bhikkhus the new bhikkhues tend to become like them (tathattāya) This is the dative case of tathatta, an abstract noun from tatha 'thus', meaning 'the state of being thus'; The commentary explains: tathattāyāti tathābhāvāya, āraññikādibhāvāyāti attho - 'to being like that' means 'to become thus' i.e. to 'primarily becoming a wilderness dweller'. Compare the word tathāgata which is literally 'one who is thus' or 'one who is like that'.

My phrase "this is a bhikkhu who loves the brotherhood" translates sabrahmacāri-kāma. Sa- is a prefix meaning 'with, together' and is connected with Latin simul as in English words like similar and simultaneous; cārin (cari- in compounds) is a possessive from cāra 'action, behaviour, faring' and a brahmacārin is literally 'one who behaves like Brahmā' (i.e. like God) and originally the word referred to an unmarried (and therefore celibate) student of the Vedas who by convention stayed aloof from the world. Buddhists took over this characteristically Brahmanical term to mean a celibate Buddhist practitioner, i.e. a bhikkhu. The word bhikkhu means 'a beggar', and perhaps this other term brahmacārin had a more positive connotation. Often in a Buddhist words with brahma- have the connotation of ‘holy, divine’ so a brahmacārin is sometimes referred to in English as someone who practices the holy life, though I think the loading with Theistic symbolism makes this unhelpful. So sabrahmacāri- means 'with those who live as celibate monks'. Finally kāma means love or desire. Compare also the related to the word dhammacārin ‘a dhamma-farer’, ‘one who lives by the dhamma’. Members of the Triratna Order are referred to (if only by each other) using the Sanskrit equivalent dharmacārin (masculine dharmacārī; feminine dharmacāriṇī).

Note the subtle change in emphasis here: the āraññikā is said to ‘love the training’ (sikkhā-kāma), where as the famous monk (yasassin) the recipient of donations (lābhin) is said to be ‘one who loves the brotherhood’ (sabrahmacāri-kāma). The implication is that he does not love the training, and he is not one who is pavivattā or asaṃsaṭṭḥā, solitary and individual, but is a gregarious group member (na pavivttā; na saṃsaṭṭhā).

Conclusion

That bhikkhus changed from being freelance solitary wanderers to collective and settled monks should come as no surprise. That early Buddhists saw this as problematic may do. This is because the winners write history and Buddhist history has been, until recently, written by settled collectivists of the kind described above: concerned primarily with getting their requisites. This text must give us pause in considering the idea that cenobitical renunciants are the ideal Buddhists or that they are the preservers of the original tradition of the Buddha. Their own texts, mostly conserved with great care, show us that this is simply not true.

The problems facing the brahmacārin can be overwhelming and defeat the brahmacārin so that they up trying to make the best of saṃsāra. They try to get as comfortable as possible, and they exploit the lay community to achieve this. At worst it is an outright scam.

Following the publication of Reginald Ray's book Buddhist Saints in India, we became aware that Buddhist society was not originally two-tiered, but threefold with what Ray calls forest-renunciants, settled monastics and lay people all playing important roles in maintaining Buddhism as a way of living. The renunciants (often called bodhisattvas in early Mahāyāna texts like the Ugraparipṛccha - see Nattier) were the full time practitioners, and as the Tatityaovāda Sutta shows they were considered to be the true bhikkhus. Those less committed, or less able bhikkhus, provided the support for the bodhisattvas, and interfaced with the public, especially wealthy patrons. This function was clearly looked down upon at some time, or in some quarters before the closing of the Canon. The positive contribution they made was in setting up systems to preserve texts, and distribute the enormous wealth that soon began to accumulate in monasteries. They also acted as a kind of police force for the saṅgha, since as the Vinaya itself shows the monks were a wayward lot. But without the cutting edge of intensive meditation practice the settled monastics became worldly bald men in elaborate robes (they edged women out of the picture as much as possible). The acts of the saṅgha became mere formalism.

The Triratna Buddhist Order response to this comes on many levels. A Buddhist is not defined by membership of some group or allegiance to certain doctrines, but by the act of going for refuge. We set aside the monk/lay divide and say that commitment to practice takes precedence over lifestyle or haircut. We are all committed to practising the Dharma. To some extent each member of the Order takes on each of the three roles at different times: each of us aims to spend most of our time on Dharma practice of some kind, including right-livelihood work. For some this involves living with a family, for others living in a single-sex community or alone. All of us aim to spend some time on retreat each year, and preferably some time on solitary retreat. Obviously people have different temperaments and aptitudes, but we all contribute to a community that supports practice rather than the accumulation of assets.

The old way of concentrating resources on supporting a load of free loaders is not going to work in the West. Monasticism is and will probably remain a minority sport. Monastics, who are genuinely full-time practitioners and supported to be so, add depth to a practice community, as do those who can sustain intense solitary practice. But becoming a monk will never be a career option as it is in Asia. If we reach 1% of the Buddhist population living in full-time retreat for longish periods of time that would seem plenty. (Tibet got to 25% of the adult male population which was outrageous).

Our Western culture is in dire need of Buddhist techniques for paying attention, calming down, developing positivity and emotional robustness, and the bulk of our resources should be focussed on trying to meet that need. With some basic calm and good will we might be able to start making progress on deeper transformation - but chances are our neighbours on planet earth will need help with the basics before that. Human beings are one species. We have only one planet to live on, which we share with other forms of life. There's no realistic way to talk about being free when one's neighbours are enslaved. We must all be free, or no one is.

~~oOo~~

Bibliography

• Bodhi. (2000) The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A translation of the Saṃyutta Nikāya. Wisdom.
• Nattier, Jan. (2003) A few good men : The Bodhisattva path according to the Inquiry of Ugra (Ugraparipṛcchā). University of Hawai'i Press.
• Ray, Reginald A. (1994) Buddhist Saints in India: A Study in Buddhist Values & Orientations. Oxford University Press.
  
• Schopen, Gregory. (1997) 'If you can’t Remember, How to Make it up, Some Monastic Rules for Redacting Canonical Texts.' in Kieffer-Pülz, P & Hartman, J. (Eds.) Baudhavidyāsudhākaḥ. Studies in Honour of Heinz Bechert. Swisttal-Oldendorf: Indica-et-Tibetica-Verl.
  

A Sutta on Freewill

your move...

This is a text I recently stumbled upon. It is quite interesting because it directly addresses the issue of freewill, something I have not come across in a Buddhist text before. The Buddha is seen arguing with Brahmin who denies freewill and argues for a form of determinism or fatalism. This kind of view is popular again today. Advaita Vedanta enthusiasts, such as Gary Weber, also hold that free will is an illusion and that everything is predetermined. We are increasingly seeing the influence of Advaita Vedanta on Buddhists who use the self-enquiry methods of Vedantins. Many scientists are also determinists are well. Therefore knowing how the suttakāro dealt with this assertion is of some interest.

The title of the sutta is Attakārī Sutta AN 6.38 (AN iii.337-8). The adjective atta-kārin and noun atta-kāra are central to the text so let us first pause to consider what they mean. Attan (atta- in compounds; ātman in Sanskrit) is, of course, the reflexive pronoun 'self, own'. It's not being used here in the sense of a metaphysical self. It is being used in an empirical sense: the experiential self, or, for the finicky, the physical locus of awareness and intention, broadly speaking the body ('body' is one of the meanings of Vedic ātman). Since the text itself provides the argument for this, we'll let it speak first. The other part of the compound is kāra 'act, deed'. Like the world karma it stems from the verbal root √kṛ 'do, make'. So, atta-kāra refers to 'one's own act'. In this type of compound the -kāra can mean 'maker' (literally 'one whose action is...'). So the term suttakāra can mean the one whose act was the creation of the suttas, a 'sutta-maker'. Another term, drawn from the Sāṅkhya school is ahaṃkāra 'I maker'.  Kicca-kāra is doing what ought to be done, doing one's duty.The adjectival form atta-kārin means 'doing one's own action'. The word para used as a pronoun means 'other' and contrasts with attan. If attakāra is one's own action, then parakāra is another's action.

The text begins with the meeting of the Buddha and an unnamed Brahmin who tells the Buddha his view, there's no nidāna beginning 'evaṃ me sutaṃ' or telling us where the encounter takes place, we just dive straight in. The whole Pāḷi text is cited below, with my translation and commentary interspersed.

Atha kho aññataro brāhmaṇo yena bhagavā tenupasaṅkami; upasaṅkamitvā bhagavatā saddhiṃ sammodi. Sammodanīyaṃ kathaṃ sāraṇīyaṃ vītisāretvā ekamantaṃ nisīdi. Ekamantaṃ nisinno kho so brāhmaṇo bhagavantaṃ etad avoca – ‘‘ahañhi, bho gotama, evaṃvādī evaṃdiṭṭhi – ‘natthi attakāro, natthi parakāro’’’ti. 

Just then a certain Brahmin approached the Bhagavan and exchanged polite greetings. Having greeted each other the Brahmin sat down on one side and spoke to the Buddha. "Mr Gotama, my philosophy, my view, is that there is no 'one's own action'; there is no 'another's action'.

Bodhi translates attakāra as 'self-initiative' which I think hints more at free will. I suppose we could say it means acting on one's own accord, or being free to act. Bodhi wants us to think about who is initiating the action. Vedantists say that no one initiates the action. Things just happen. There are hints here of Sāṅkhya darśaṇa. The Sāṅkhya view is that in reality what is most fundamental in us is a passive essence called puruṣa. The active side of experience (prakṛti) is like a distracting illusion that keeps puruṣa involved in the world of matter and away from quiescent perfection (kevala - literally isolation). In order to get back to perfection one has to role back the illusion until prakṛti returns to it's quiescent potential state. Sāṅkhya is very vague on some of the details of this view and many of the questions we'd like to ask don't seem to have answers on Sāṅkhya terms. But this view that there is no such thing as 'one's own action' shares some characteristics with Sāṅkhya. This is apparently news to the Buddha.  

Māhaṃ, brāhmaṇa, evaṃvādiṃ evaṃdiṭṭhiṃ addasaṃ vā assosiṃ vā. Kathañhi nāma sayaṃ abhikkamanto, sayaṃ paṭikkamanto evaṃ vakkhati – ‘natthi attakāro, natthi parakāro' ti!

Brahmin I've never seen or heard of this philosophy, this view. For how indeed does one who comes and goes under his own steam possibly say: there is no 'one's own action'; there is no 'another's action'.

So the Buddha's first reaction to this previously unknown philosophy is to ask how anyone who had just walked up to him, greeted him, sat down on one side, and stated his philosophy (all apparently of his own free will) could possibly believe that he did not do so of his own accord. The commonsense response is that the view cannot make sense of what is happening right now. The Brahmin arrives by himself (sayaṃ abhikkamanto) and he leaves by himself (sayaṃ paṭikkamanto). So the determinist view is at best counter-intuitive.

The Buddha then asks a series of questions:

Taṃ kiṃ maññasi, brāhmaṇa, atthi ārabbhadhātū ti?
Evaṃ, bho.
Ārabbhadhātuyā sati ārabbhavanto sattā paññāyantī ti?
Evaṃ, bho.
Yaṃ kho, brāhmaṇa, ārabbhadhātuyā sati ārabbhavanto sattā paññāyanti, ayaṃ sattānaṃ attakāro ayaṃ parakāro.

Do you think, Brahmin, there is a factor of instigation?

Yes, Sir.

And when there is a factor of instigation, is it evident that beings are instigating?

Yes, Sir. 

So, when there is a factor of instigation and it is evident that beings are instigating, this is the 'one's own action' of beings, this is another's action.

This question is obvious. It stems from what the Buddha said initially. If we see beings instigating actions (ārabbhavanto) then why would we assume that they are not doing their own actions? 'Instigation' is a translation of ārabbha from the verb ā√rabh 'to begin'. Here dhātu is similar to the word dharma in many respects: 'a factor, an element'. 

Taṃ kiṃ maññasi, brāhmaṇa, atthi nikkamadhātu…pe… atthi parakkamadhātu… atthi thāmadhātu… atthi ṭhitidhātu… atthi upakkamadhātū ti?
Evaṃ, bho.
Upakkamadhātuyā sati upakkamavanto sattā paññāyantī ti?
Evaṃ, bho.
Yaṃ kho, brāhmaṇa, upakkamadhātuyā sati upakkamavanto sattā paññāyanti, ayaṃ sattānaṃ attakāro ayaṃ parakāro.

Do you think, Brahmin, there is a factor of going out... a factor of advancing...  a factor of resistance... a factor of endurance... a factor of approaching?

Yes, Sir.

And when these factors are present is it evident that beings are performing them?

Yes, Sir.

So, when there are these factors and it is evident that beings are performing them, this is the 'one's own action' of beings, this is 'another's action'.

Note the CST version of the text here seems to have been abbreviated more than the text that Bhikkhu Bodhi translates in his AN translation (p.902-904). I've followed the text I have, though I rather than using only the first and last members of the list, I've rendered the final question as a collective inquiry about all the actions involved.

The Buddha lists a series of generic actions which beings are seen to perform. And he asks the same question in each case. And, weirdly, the Brahmin answers "yes" in each case. And the Buddha simply points out the obvious: we all make choices all the time and act on intentions all the time. To argue against free will on some abstract principle is bizarre. Presumably the Brahmin thinks that even though we give the appearance of willed actions, that this is an illusion, a la Sāṅkhya or Advaita Vedanta. But the Buddha is far from impressed by this and repeats the phrase above:

Māhaṃ, brāhmaṇa, evaṃvādiṃ evaṃdiṭṭhiṃ addasaṃ vā assosiṃ vā. Kathañhi nāma sayaṃ abhikkamanto sayaṃ paṭikkamanto evaṃ vakkhati – ‘natthi attakāro natthi parakāro’ ti.

Brahmin I've never seen or heard of this philosophy, this view. For how indeed comes and goes under his own steam possible say: there is no 'one's own action'; there is no 'another's action'.

Then the Brahmin, in a predictable change of heart, converts to being a follower of the Buddha:

Abhikkantaṃ, bho gotama…pe… ajjatagge pāṇupetaṃ saraṇaṃ gatan ti!

It is amazing, Mr Gotama... etc... from this day on [I've] gone for refuge for life. 

Again Bhikkhu Bodhi seems to have an unabbreviated text. I translate the text as I have it. Bodhi says that the Brahmin becomes a lay follower. So a determinist is now convinced that we have free will (attakāra) simply be having the obvious situation pointed out to him. Not a very inspiring story - he doesn't even argue. But it shows that free will is a given in early Buddhism.

This word attakāra is in fact quite rare. It occurs in only one other sutta, Jātaka 528 (Mahābodhijātaka) and an Apadāna Story (i.24). The sutta is the Samaññaphala Sutta (DN 2) where this view on self-willed actions is associated with Makkhali Gosāla (DN i.53-55). Makkhali is a determinist, in that he doesn't believe any theory of causation or conditionality, nor does he see the point in religious exercises. He sums up his view as

Seyyathāpi nāma sutta-guḷe khitte nibbeṭhiyamānam eva paleti, evam eva bāle ca paṇḍite ca sandhāvitvā saṃsaritvā dukkhass'antaṃ karissantī ti.

Just as a ball of string that is thrown, will run away always unwinding, even so the fool and the wise running on, circling around, will eventually make an end of suffering. 

So despite being a fatalist, he's also an optimist because he believes that events will play themselves out positively. The ball of string will eventually unravel and the end of dukkha will be reached. It's just that there is nothing we can do to speed the process up and no external power that can come to our rescue. What will be, will be, and it will take as long as it takes. One just has to accept that events will play themselves out for the best. To counteract this we simply point out that one can choose to believe that or not. It's up to the person, because we do in fact have choices.

These days many scientists are also determinists with no teleological bent: "there is no free will; what will be, will be; we have no idea what it will be, except that the entropy of the universe is increasing." Tackling this view is a more difficult problem that I'll try to address in my next essay.

~~oOo~~

Paṭicca-samuppāda - a theory of causation?

"The doctrine of Dependent Origination is a
fundamental Buddhist teaching on causation
and the ontological status of phenomena."
-
Encyclopedia of Buddhism [1]

~~~

THIS IS THE FIRST SENTENCE from the definition of dependent-origination from the Encyclopedia of Buddhism, and it made me think "no, it isn't!" The fact is that this kind of source - a general encyclopedia - is not going to make much difference in Buddhist circles since Buddhists aren't likely to be consulting an encyclopedia on Buddhism, but it will get taken up by students, especially students of comparative religion, who will propagate the view.

I'm very doubtful about this word 'doctrine'. It leads to the phrase 'dependent-arising' being capitalised, when dependent-arising is purportedly a description of a process of 'things' arising, i.e. adjectival; it is not a thing itself, so I don't think it should be a proper noun. In any case "doctrine" sounds too fixed, too certain, and too dogmatic for my ear. So I won't use it, and will instead talk about the theory of dependent-arising.

First paṭicca-samuppāda is not a teaching on, or a theory of, causation at all. While the Buddha did use the term hetu 'cause, reason' sometimes, it was always synonymous with words like paccaya 'condition', samudaya 'origin', etc. The English translations are all synonyms as well, according to my Oxford Thesaurus. Paṭicca-samuppāda is about dependency and contingency, but it is not about causation. As far as I can tell the Buddha doesn't use hetu in its verbal form (hinati, pahiṇati), in this context. I've done a detailed analysis of the word paṭicca-samuppāda and you can consult that if need be, but the gist is that things arise on the basis of conditions. We do not say that the condition causes the thing to arise (and thereby we avoid assigning agency to them), only that something arises having depended on (paṭicca) something else. This form - 'having depended on' or 'depending on' - (a gerund) sounds awkward in English, but is a very common way of creating subordinate clauses in Pāli. The gerund refers to an action immediately preceding the main verb (here indicated by the verbal noun samuppāda arising). The arising is preceded by the condition, and arising is dependent on the condition - this is all that is being said.

When the Buddha said imasmiṃ sati idaṃ hoti (that being, this becomes) he used a particular grammatical form known as a locative absolute: both imasmiṃ and sati are in the locative case. Here sati is an action noun from √as 'to be', and not related to sati 'remember' (Sanskrit smṛṭi). The sense is of the locative absolute sub-clause is one of duration: 'while this exists' or 'when this exists'. Then idaṃ hoti just means 'this is'. So the sentence says: "while there is that, there is this" (imasmiṃ and idam are the same deictic pronoun and should both be 'this', but that gets confusing). There is no sense, nor any implication of causation here. We might say, following the metaphor used by Bhikkhu Ñāṇavīra, that while there are walls, the roof stays up; and when the walls are absent there can't be a roof, if the walls crumble the roof falls down. The walls do not cause the roof, nor are they in themselves sufficient to bring the roof into existence (it requires some other factors as well). To take the walls as causing the roof would be to give them agency as builders.

The most common way of explaining paṭicca-samuppāda is with reference to the nidānas:

"from the condition of ignorance [there are] volitions (avijjā-paccayā saṅkhārā)" etc.

The verb 'to be' (i.e. 'there are', 'there is') is missing because it is permissible, and idiomatically correct in Pāli. Just as above avijjā is a condition without which there can be no saṅkhārā, but it does not cause it - ignorance doesn't have agency of itself, but causes the agency I do have to go awry. Another frequent expression goes like this: with the eye and forms as conditions, eye-consciousness arises. (cakkhuṃ ca paṭicca rūpe ca uppajjati cakkhu-viññāṇaṃ). Again think of the house analogy - when the foundations and the walls are in place, you can put up a roof. As Bhikkhu Bodhi, articulating a more orthodox Theravāda view, says of the nidānas:

"The sequence of factors should not be regarded as a linear causal process in which each preceding factor gives rise to its successor through a simple exercise of efficient causality. The relationship among the factors is always one of complex conditionality rather than linear causation. The conditioning function can include such diverse relationships as mutuality (when two factors mutually support each other), necessary antecedent (when one factor must be present for another to arise), distal efficiency (as when a remotely past volitional formation generates consciousness in a new life), etc." [2]

The second point is about ontology. Ontology is one of these big words I've gotten into the habit of using without ever saying much about it. The Online Etymology Dictionary tells us that word comes from the Greek verb einai 'to be' (present-participle: on 'being', genitive ontos.) and refers to the study of, and theories about 'being'. The primary question ontology asks is "what is there?" Similarly epistemology is the study of knowledge and asks "what can we know about what's there?" These are the basic questions of Western philosophy down the ages. And, as I have previously argued, there is a fundamental mismatch between Buddhism and Western philosophy because the Buddha had no interest in either of these questions. The domain (visaya) for Buddhist inquiry is the 'world' which arises out of the interaction between between sense faculty and sense object. The Buddha has little or nothing to say about sense faculties except to list them; and little or nothing to say about sense objects except that desire for them is unhelpful. Because he is not interested in the question "what is there?" we must conclude that the Buddha was not interested in ontology. As I pointed out in my commentary on the simile of the chariot, from the point of view of the Buddha only disappointment (dukkha) arises, and only disappointment ceases. Paṭicca-samuppāda is an insight into how dukkha arises - dukkha being a synonym for 'the world of experience' [see also What Did the Buddha Mean by World?].

I had a go at explaining the various meanings of dhamma in Oct 2009. Dhamma is often translated as 'phenomena' - with the sense that it applies to any phenomena. It can simply mean 'thing' and this may give the impression of an ontological position. The nidānas are sometimes referred to as dhammas (items in a list). However over some years now I've been arguing for the adoption of one of Sue Hamilton's key insights: that the Buddha was always talking about experience, and not about ontology. [3] Even Bhikkhu Bodhi who apparently remains convinced that the Buddha did talk about ontology from time to time, concludes:

“The world with which the Buddha’s teaching is principally concerned is ‘the world of experience,’ and even the objective world is of interest only to the extent that it serves as that necessary external condition for experience.” [4]

To be fair there are some ontological implications of paṭicca-samuppāda: e.g. consciousness (viññāna) apparently precedes body (nāma-rūpa); but the teaching is not about that, it's an incidental aspect of the teaching. [5] I've confessed that these ontological implications cause me some confusion, and I have been so far unable to reconcile them. But in terms of getting on with practice it doesn't matter in the least - my focus, like the Buddha's is not on ontology, but on experience. I'm happy to practice ethics, calm down, observe my 'world' and allow insight to resolve lingering doubts and confusion when it comes - it's a work in progress.

So if I were to reframe that first sentence in the Encyclopedia I would say it this way:

The theory of dependent-arising is a
fundamental Buddhist teaching on conditionality
and the nature of experience.

~~oOo~~

Notes

1. Keown, D. and Prebish, C. Encyclopedia of Buddhism. Routledge, 2007. (p.268.)
2. Bodhi Connected Discourses. p. 523 (introduction to the nidāna-saṃyutta.)
   
3. Bodhi Connected Discourses. p. 394, n.182.
4. I note that there is a contemporary philosophical discourse about the "ontology of experience" but I don't understand it. My view is that experience has an indeterminate ontological status - the language of ontology, i.e. existence and non-existence, simply doesn't apply. This is in line with what we find the Buddha saying in the Kaccānagotta Sutta (SN 12.15); and later in Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamaka Kārikā (which quotes a Sanskrit version of the Kaccānagotta at 15.7).
   
5. See especially: Shulman, Eviatar. 2008. 'Early Meanings of Dependent-Origination,' Journal of Indian Philosophy, 36(2): 297-317. I have some reservations regarding Shulman's assumptions about what is referred to in the nidāna chain, but over-all this is one of the most interesting articles I've read in years.
   

Synonyms for Nibbāna

taintless
true
beyond
subtle
very difficult to see
unenfeebled
certain
looked for
without attributes
free from the mental proliferation
peaceful
deathless
sublime
auspicious
a place of safety
marvellous
astonishing
healthy
healthiness
extinguished
trouble-free
abscence of passions
purity
freedom
detached
the light
a hermitage
shelter
refuge

In a short text from the Saṃyutta Nikāya the Buddha gives a series of metaphors and similes for Nibbāna.[1] Using the form: "Bhikkhus I will teach you X and the path leading to X: listen to that... And what is that? ..." e.g.

Anāsavañca vo, bhikkhave, desessāmi anāsavagāmiñca maggaṃ. Taṃ suṇātha. Katamañca, bhikkhave, anāsavaṃ pe

The form is very abbreviated because it is referring back to previous suttas which are very repetitious. In Pāli an 'etc.' or elipsis '...' is signified by 'pe' which is itself a contraction of peyyālaṃ 'repetition, sucession'. [2] The paths leading to nibbāna are just what you would expect: the eightfold path, the foundations of mindfulness, the four right efforts etc. These are enumerated at (tedious) length in the previous texts in the chapter. However the list of synonyms is quite interesting so I thought I'd extract the them and comment a little where appropriate. If nothing else it's a good vocab exercise!

anāsavaṃ - the basic term is āsava which literally means 'influx'. Gombrich thinks this originated in a Jain context where it meant the inflow of 'dust' that results from actions and sticks to the jīva (or soul) weighing it down in saṃsara. By cleaning the jīva through pain, and creating no more dust through inaction, the Jains sought to lighten their jīva so it could float to the top of the universe and be liberated from saṃsara. For Buddhists āsava means something more like 'taints'. There are three or four: sense desire (kāma), desire for existence (bhava), ignorance (avijja), and (sometimes) views (diṭṭhi). The taints are what hold us in bondage, and nibbāna is often talked about in terms of destruction of the taints (āsavakkhaya). Anāsavaṃ, with the negative prefix an-, is taintless.

saccaṃ - from √sat (the Sanskrit equivalent is satya) which can mean 'true' or 'real' much like the cross over in English. Here it most likely refers to truth.

pāraṃ - from √pṛ 'beyond, over'. Figuratively 'the other shore'. The image is perhaps of making it safely across a river. Another possibility is that it retains something of an archaic form of rebirth theory. Even in Buddhism you occasionally get references to this world and the next.

nipuṇaṃ - the root is also √pṛ but in the sense of 'busy, active' (cf. Sanskrit pṛṇoti). The meaning is 'clever, skilful, accomplished; fine, subtle'.

sududdasaṃ - invisible. Ironically the word itself is almost invisible as it's very difficult to find in the dictionary! In The Pali-English Dictionary (PED) sv. dasa 2 (Sanskrit dṛśa) 'seeing, to be seen' we find a note that duddasa (not listed elsewhere) means 'difficult to see': presumably from du (S. duḥ) + dasa with a doubling of the initial da. Su then is being used in the sense of 'thoroughly' or 'very'. So sududdasa then means 'very difficult to see'.

ajajjaraṃ - from jarā 'to age'. The repetition of the ja comes from the intensive form meaning 'withered, feebled with age', while the 'a' is a negation. So the word means unenfeebled. Incidentally jarā is cognate with the Greek 'geras' and therefore related to English 'geriatric' a 20th century coinage from geras + iasthai 'heal, treat'.

dhuvaṃ - (S. dhruva) 'stable, constant, fixed, certain'. The general Indian view is that the mundane world is always changing - going through cycles of change. The Buddha extended this to the world of the gods which Brahmins considered unchanging (anitya). Nibbāna is by definition unchanging, but is also impersonal. Dhruva is related to English 'true'.

apalokitaṃ - PED gives 'asked permission', 'consulted' which hardly seems like a epithet for Nibbāna. But wait, because this is the Pāli equivalent of Sanskrit avalokita which should be familiar as the first part of the name Avalokiteśvara, and means 'beholding, looking at'. The noun form of the verb lokate is loka - the perceptible world. Lokita is a past-participle 'looked, perceived' and with ava can mean 'looked down' as in Avalokiteśvara - The Lord who Looked Down [upon the suffering beings with compassion]. How does it relate to nibbāṇa? Avalokita can also mean 'to look ahead/before/after' so I think what intended here is that nibbāna is what we look forward to - the looked for, ie what we seek. Bhikkhu Bodhi has 'undisintegrating' but I don't understand why.

NOTE (10/11/09). It's been pointed out to me in a comment by Theravadin that apalokitaṃ is a+palokitam. Palokitam being a past-participle of palujjhati (itself the passive of palujati) 'to break, to fall down'. Hence Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation as 'undisintegrating' makes more sense.

anidassanaṃ - PED lists this under nidassana and suggests that it means 'without attributes'. Nidassana (ni- + dassana) literally 'seeing into' or 'looking back' means 'evidence, example' and 'attribute, characteristic'. To some extent it overlaps with avalokita in the sense of 'looking down'. Anidassana then may remind us of the the signless liberation of the mind (animitta-ceto-vimutti), animitta being another synonym for nibbāna. Nibbāna here is that which has no characteristic, there is no evidence of it because it is not a thing or place. Also it cannot be refuted.

nippapañcaṃ - PED analyses this as nis- + (p)papañnca. I have dealt with this difficult word papañca in an earlier Rave: Proliferation. The way I think of papañca is as all the stories we tell ourselves about the experiences we have, which come largely from various groups we belong to. Unfortunately we tend to believe our own stories. Nis- in this case means 'free from'. So nibbāna is free from the mental proliferation associated with sensory experiences - we may still have experiences but we see them for what they are - impermanent, unsatisfactory and insubstantial.

santaṃ - means peaceful, calmed down. It is a past-participle of sammati from S. √śam 'to calm, quiet'. When all our proliferations are pacified, we stop craving and hating, and then we experience the most profound state of peace imaginable. Nibbāna is peace.

amataṃ - one word which may be more familiar in its Sanskrit form: amṛta. The root is √mṛ 'to die' - mṛta (P. mata) meaning 'dead, deceased'. So amṛta literally means undead, but the English has all the wrong connotations! Immortal is actually cognate (via Latin mors from the same Proto-Indo-European root) but this translation has such strong Christian overtones that it's useless in this context. Undying is probably the best choice, though deathless also has resonance. In Indian mythology, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist, amṛta is an ambrosial drink which bestows immortality - it is one of the valuable things churned from the ocean of milk by the devas and asuras. Mahāyāna Buddhists seem to have adopted the Śaiva version of the story in which Śiva swallows the poisoned amṛta (thereby saving all beings in the universe), and have given Śiva's characteristic blue colour to Avalokiteśvara and/or Vajrapāṇi. There is in fact a dhāraṇī associated with Avalokiteśvara called Nilakantha (blue throat) a name which rightly belongs to Śiva.

paṇītaṃ - the literal meaning here is 'brought out' from neti (√nī) 'to lead, guide, direct'. It is being used here in an applied sense as 'exalted, excellent, sublime'. PED says it is synonymous with uttama 'the highest', and antonymous with hīna 'inferior, vile, contemptible'.

sivaṃ - this one is a surprise, because in Sanskrit it is śiva. It means happy, fortunate, auspicious, and is of course the name of a Hindu God: Śiva. In Sanskrit the sense extends to 'friendly, kind, benign'. Richard Gombrich has argued (in How Buddhism Began) that Angulimala was a Śaiva (a worshipper of Śiva), though I don't think we can be certain of this. PED lists this word as a reference to Śaivas in the post-canonical Questions of King Milinda.

khemaṃ is quite similar to santa. It means peaceful, safe, calm; or even a place of safety and calm.

acchariyaṃ - the etymology of this word is uncertain with different scholars having different ideas but tending to agree that it is not from the main dialect underlying Pāli (this is now considered to be Magadhi). It means wonderful, surprising, strange, marvellous! It's often linked with the next term abbhutaṃ. .

abbhutaṃ - similar to acchariyaṃ. The etymology is that it comes from a+√bhū 'unreal' which I quite like. The meaning seems to be more 'terrifying, astonishing, puzzling, supernormal'. So Nibbāna is surprising, wonderful and strange - it is 'unreal' as we might say in the vernacular. This reminds me of the verses from 'The Confounder of Hell' Sadhana which begin: Eh ma oh! Dharma wondrous strange...

anītikaṃ - is slightly tricky because when a is added to a word starting with a vowel it become an (cf a bear, an apple). So the base here is īti meaning 'ill, calamity, plague, distress'. The suffix ka is a possessive and we could render ītika as afflicted with illness, sick etc. So anītka is literally 'not afflicted by illness'. It's quite typical of Pāli to define something in terms of what it is not. More straightforwardly we would call not being afflicted by illness 'health' or 'well-being'.

anītikadhammaṃ is the same word as above in combination with dhamma which in this case means the state of health, i.e. healthiness.

nibbānaṃ - means 'to blow' (vana) 'out' (nir-). What is blown out is not existence, nor the person (or personality), but the fires of craving, aversion, and confusion about the nature of experience.

abyāpajjhaṃ - (from a+vi+ā+pada). Ba and va are frequently transposed - which may be related to the similarity in their written forms (c.f. Devanāgarī ba ब; va व) though could be due to pronunciation. Āpada means to meet with or undergo, and the vi- prefix gives this a negative cast - a bad or divisive meeting. In use byāpajjha means 'trouble, malevolent'. So abyāpajjha means 'trouble-free' or 'benevolent'.

virāgo - rāgo comes from a root √rañj which means 'to redden, to glow red' and is used in an applied sense to refer to those emotions which make us go red in the face, primarily anger and passion, and in the grip of which we lose our reason. Adding vi- makes the word mean the abscence of passions. We tend to think of passion as a good thing - taking it to mean enthusiasm; but the earlier meaning of passion was simply 'suffering'. The crucifixion of Christ is, for example, called 'The Passion'. Also the word fiend 'enemy' is ultimately from the same root.

suddhi - is a verbal noun from √śudh and mean 'purity'. Purity most often refers to moral purity - that is not behaving in a way that causes harm. Here perhaps I think it refers to the state of being undefiled by craving, aversion and confusion about the nature of experience - as per above the very possibility of these inept responses to experience is eliminated.

mutti - is again a verbal noun from √muc 'to abandon, to cut off' and means 'release, freedom'. The sanskrit is mukti. Related terms are the past-participle mutta/mukta 'released'; and mokkha/mokṣa 'releasing, freeing'. The idea is the freedom obtained when one has cut off the defilements of craving, aversion and confusion about the nature of experience.

anālayo is an interesting word. Although PED suggests that it means 'aversion, doing away with' the etymology suggests a more positive sense. The base is ālaya - a word which might be more familiar from Yogacāra Buddhism where as ālaya-vijñāna it came to signify that aspect of consciousness involved in the ripening of karma. In Pāli it means a perch or resting place, and by analogy 'clinging or attachment'. An is the negative prefix and so means 'not clinging' or 'detached'. Bhikkhu Bodhi suggests 'unadhesive' about which I am more than doubtful on aesthetic grounds. Having been liberated one is not attached to any experience.

dīpaṃ - comes from the root √dī 'to shine' which also gives us words like deva, divya which are cognate with English deity, divine. A dīpa is a lamp, and nibbāna is the light which dispels darkness the darkness of confusion.

There is another word dīpa (Sanskrit dvīpa) which derives from dvī + āpa 'two waters' i.e. an island - the image is probably derived from an island dividing the stream of a river. Jambudvīpa - the Rose-apple Island - is an early name for India.

leṇaṃ (from √lī 'to hide'). A mountain cave used as a hermitage or shelter. Caves make good places to meditate because they are cool in the hot season, and dry in the rainy season. The image here is a refuge from the elements where one is insulated from adverse conditions. (Often occurs together with the following two terms)

tāṇaṃ (from √trā) 'shelter, protection'. The root also occurs in the word parittā - the verses and suttas chanted for protection from earliest times. Folk etymologies of the word mantra take it to be something protecting (tra) the mind (manas). PED suggests the original meaning was 'bringing or seeing through'.

saraṇaṃ - (from √śri) this word should be familiar to all Buddhists and primarily means 'protection, guarding' and 'a shelter, a house'. Cognate words might be 'preserve' (Latin. præ- 'before' + servare 'to keep safe') and 'observe' (Latin: ob 'over' + servare 'to watch, keep safe').

So all of these words are epithets for nibbāna, they are all facets of that jewel which we call liberation. The Buddha teaches the... taintless, true, beyond, subtle, very difficult to see, unenfeebled, certain, looked for, without attributes, free from the mental proliferation, peaceful, deathless, sublime, auspicious, a place of safety, marvellous, astonishing, healthy, healthiness, extinguished, trouble-free, abscence of passions, purity, freedom, detached, the light, a hermitage, shelter, refuge; and the way to this.

And these do not exhaust the possibilities of ways of speaking about the ineffable. [3]

Notes

1. SN43.14-43, PTS S iv.369-373. Translated in Bodhi Connected Discourses p.1378
   
2. PED notes that this is a Maghadism (that is an incorporation into Pāli from the older Maghdan dialect) for pariyāya lit 'going around' which amongst other uses can also indicate a way of putting something or a figurative use of language.
3. Ineffable: from Latin in- "not" + effabilis "speakable," from effari "utter," from ex- "out" + fari "speak".

English etymologies from Online Etymology Dictionary.

Image: the Mahābodhi Temple, Bodhgaya at Night. My photo.

Meditation & Scholarship

Over the last couple of years I've sometimes come in for some shtick from colleagues and acquaintances who think that because my writing focuses on doctrine more than meditation I've got nothing useful to say about the Dharma. I've tried pointing out that the subject I write about is what seems best suited to the medium and my own temperament, and that my words are not entirely unrelated to my experience as a practising Buddhist. But the suggestion that my contribution is of less value hangs in the air. For my part I find that my critics who focus on meditation at the expense of study are often self-absorbed, intellectually vague, and inarticulate. So you might imagine that I was quite interested to see that this kind of, shall we say, 'incompatibility' between Buddhists with different proclivities has a long enough history to be recorded in a Pāli sutta. [1] The sutta is one delivered by Mahācunda to a gathering of bhikkhus and the Buddha does not feature in it at all.

The Mahācunda Sutta (AN 6.46) describes two kinds of monks: those 'keen on dhamma' (dhammayogā bhikkhū) and those keen on meditation (jhāyī bhikkhū). Dhammayoga is glossed in the commentary as dhammakathikānaṃ 'a dhamma-preacher' (AA 3.376), but Bhikkhu Bodhi thinks it means someone (like me) who is more focused on study, i.e. a scholar.

In the sutta it says the scholar bhikkhus disparage the meditating bhikkhus:

ime pana jhāyinomhā, jhāyinomhāti - jhāyanti pajjhāyanti nijjhāyanti avajjhāyanti. Kimime jhāyanti, kintime jhāyanti, kathaṃ ime jhāyantī’ti?

"We are meditating, we are meditating" [they say]. They meditate here, they meditate there, they meditate up, they meditate down. Do they meditate? How do they mediate? Why do they meditate?

Similarly the meditating bhikkhus disparage the scholar bhikkhus:

ime pana dhammayogamhā, dhammayogamhāti uddhatā unnaḷā capalā mukharā vikiṇṇavācā muṭṭhassatī asampajānā asamāhitā vibbhantacittā pākatindriyā. Kimime dhammayogā, kintime dhammayogā, kathaṃ ime dhammayogā’ti?

"we are dhamma scholars, we are dhamma scholars" [they say]. They are inflated, showing off, arrogant; they talk too much and loosely, they're unmindful, unfocussed, scattered and their thoughts stray with senses uncontrolled. Do they study? How do they study? Why do they study?

One can almost hear the mocking tone of these taunts. However the text says that there is no profit for anyone in this kind of talk. Thus all bhikkhus should train themselves this way:

dhammayogā samānā jhāyīnaṃ bhikkhūnaṃ vaṇṇaṃ bhāsissāmāti... jhāyī samānā dhammayogānaṃ bhikkhūnaṃ vaṇṇaṃ bhāsissāmāti

We will say that scholars are of equal value to meditators. We will say that meditators are of equal value to scholars.

The meditator is of value because:

...ye amataṃ dhātuṃ kāyena phusitvā viharanti
...they dwell having touched the deathless state with the body.

The scholar is of value because:

gambhīraṃ atthapadaṃ paññāya ativijjha passantī
they see, they penetrate with wisdom into the depths of texts.

The text is noted by Reginald Ray in his book Buddhist Saints in India. He takes the term dhammayogā bhikkhu or dhammayogin [2] to be synonymous with what he calls the settled monastic whose role in Buddhist society was remembering the Buddha's words, preserving them in texts, and studying the meaning of them. In addition they were responsible for basic literacy - monks like this probably were the ones who spread writing across India, Central Asia, Tibet and South-East Asia. Their counterparts, the meditators or jhāyins, are called forest renunciants by Ray. They devoted themselves to meditation practice in out of the way places, aiming for realisation of the truth. This, by the way, marks the sutta was probably a late addition to the canon because this kind of division must have taken some time to emerge. Ray also notes that such divisions are evident in later strata of Buddhist texts and even in contemporary Buddhist discourse. I might also note in passing that Jan Nattier's book A Few Good Men makes it seem likely that early in the Mahāyāna 'bodhisatta bhikkhu' was also synonymous with the jhāyī bhikkhu. [3]

The Mahācunda Sutta is a plea for tolerance of different temperaments leading people towards the Dhamma in different ways. We can all make a contribution to the wider Sangha according to our abilities. This is not to say that scholars need not meditate, or that meditators should not study. We must not only play to our strengths. It is of course entirely necessary to test our theories in practice - to give expression to our faith. On the other hand concepts are required to communicate insights and it benefits everybody if the concepts are clear and put across in ways that can be understood. As well as some frustrating experiences, I have also found that it is possible to get some depth of conversation with meditators and to use their experience as confirmation of the way I think, and on the other hand to help meditators to clarify the way they communicate the experience of meditation, and even to refine their approach especially to vipassana meditation. We can learn from each other.

In both study and meditation we confront our views. This is one thing about study and scholarship which often seems to be misunderstood. The scholar is not seeking certainty, not trying to fix things in words. Indeed the scholar is often intensely aware of the limitations of words, and especially in professional scholarship one's thoughts are subject to constant criticism by one's peers. The scholar is trying to expand knowledge, to make clear what is opaque, to observe new things. If there were nothing new to see and hear, then scholarship would have died centuries ago, but there are always fresh insights that need to be communicated, always unnoticed subtleties to explore. My own exploration of the texts, especially the Pāli texts, has lead me to a much stronger faith in the Buddhadharma. As critical as I can be, as unwilling to accept received traditions and dogmas, I find something beautiful and timeless in the Dharma that I have great confidence in.


Notes

1. Mahācunda Sutta. Aṅguttara Nikāya 6.46 (PTS: A iii.355). My translations. Also translated by Bhikkhus Nyanaponika and Bodhi. Numerical Discourses of the Buddha. p.163-4; and by Bhikkhu Thanissaro on Access to Insight.
2. Ray discusses the term dhammayogin on p.201-2. Ray seems too quick to accept La Vallee Poussin's characterisation of dhammayogins which smacks of polemic. There is no a priori reason to think that a scholar is only interested in the 'intellectual' or that they are interested in metaphysics at all - though I will admit that it seems to have been the pattern through history. I wonder whether things could have got that far before the composition of the Mahācunda Sutta?
   
3. Nattier, Jan. 2003. A Few Good Men: The Bodhisativa Path According to the Inquiry of Ugra (Ugraparipṛcchā). University of Hawai'i Press. See especially chapter 5.
   

image: St Jerome in his study