No.
37
Subrahmà's Problem
Today, in both East and West, a general breakdown of law and order has planted in us an implacable sense of unease that assails us on the streets, in our workplace, and even in our homes. The rising number of drug addicts, the increase in petty thuggery, the decline of respect for othersÞall these have jointly led to an intensified atmosphere of suspicion that infects our most ordinary human encounters. Many people only feel at ease behind double-locked doors, with windows secured by metal bars and gates guarded by high-alert sensors. Yet, it is often only when we have armoured ourselves with the most impregnable defense systems, that we discover a still more intrusive source of insecurity. This sense of fear and dread, which can eat away at our most precious moments of enjoyment, does not stem from outside threats but swells up inexplicably from within. Though it may wrap itself around our everyday affairs, sparking off thoughts of worry and concern, its true cause is not so much external dangers as an unlocalized anxiety floating dizzily along the edges of the mind.
A little known sutta tucked
away in the Devaputta-saüyutta gives us an insight
into the nature of this hidden anguish far more poignant and realistic than our
most astute existentialist philosophers. In this short sutta,
only eight lines of print in the Pàli, a young god
named Subrahmà appears before the Awakened One and
explains the problem weighing on his heart:
ßAlways frightened is this
mind,
The mind is always agitated,
About unarisen problems,
And about arisen ones.
If there exists release from fear,
Being asked, please explain it to me.û
It is perhaps ironic that it takes a deva
to express so succinctly, with such elegant simplicity, the dilemma at the crux
of the human condition. Subrahmà's confession also
makes it clear that neither the deva world nor any
other set of outer conditions offers a final refuge from anguish. Luxurious
mansions, lucrative jobs, unchallenged authority, high-alert security systems:
none of these can guarantee inner stillness and peace. For
the source of all problems is the mind itself, which follows us wherever we may
go.
To understand Subrahmà's
distress we need only sit down quietly, draw our attention inward, and watch
our thoughts as they tumble by. If we do not fix on any one thought but simply
observe each thought as it passes by, we will almost surely find waves of
anxiety, care, and worry running through and beneath this ceaseless procession.
Our fears and concerns need not assume vast proportions, booming forth bold
metaphysical decrees. But beneath the melody of constantly changing thoughts,
punctuating them like the thumping of the bass in a jazz quintet, is the
persistent throb of worry and care, the second rhythm of the heart.
Subrahmà underscores the predicament he facedÞthe
predicament faced by all ßunenlightened worldlingsûÞby repeating the words ßalwaysû
(niccaü) in
the first two lines. This repetition is significant. It does not mean that
every thought we think is plagued by worry and dread, nor does it rule out the
joy of successful achievement, the pleasure of requited love, or courage in the
face of life's daunting challenges. But it does underscore the stubborn
persistence of anxious dread, which trails behind us like a gruffy
mongrelÞgrowling when we cast a backward glance,
ready to snap at our heels when we're off guard.
Fear and anxiety haunt the corridors of the mind because
the mind is a function of time, a rolling glimmer of awareness that flows inexorably
from a past that can never be undone into a future that teases us with a
perpetual, undecipherable ßnot yet.û
It is just because the mind attempts to clamp down on the passage of time,
wrapping its tentacles around a thousand projects and concerns, that the
passage of time appears so formidable. For time means change,
and change brings dissolution, the breaking of the bonds that we have forged
with so much toil. Time also means the uncertainty of the future, plummeting us into unexpected challenges and inevitable old
age and death.
When Subrahmà came to the
Buddha with his urgent plea for help, he was not seeking a prescription of
Prozac that would tide him through his next round of business deals and his
dalliance with celestial nymphs. He wanted nothing less than total release from
fear, and thus the Buddha did not have to pull any punches with his answer. In
four piquant lines he told Subrahmà the only
effective remedy that could heal his inner wound, heal it with no danger of
relapse:
ßNot apart from awakening
and austerity,
Not apart from sense restraint,
Not apart from relinquishing all,
Do I see any safety for living beings.û
The ultimate release from anxiety, the Buddha makes
clear, is summed up in four simple measures. The most decisive are ßawakeningû (bodhi) and ßrelinquishmentß (nissagga), wisdom
and release. These, however, do not arise in a vacuum but only as a consequence
of training in virtue and meditation, expressed here as restraint of the sense
faculties and ßausterityû (tapas), the energy of
contemplative endeavour. The entire programme is directed to digging up the hidden root of
anguish, which the existentialists, with all their philosophical acumen, could
not discern. That root is clinging. Asleep in the deep night of ignorance, we
cling to our possessions, our loved ones, our position and status; and most
tenaciously of all, we cling to these ßfive aggregatesû of form, feeling, perception, volitional
activity, and consciousness, taking them to be permanent, pleasurable, and a truly
existent self.
To cling to anything is to aim at preserving it, at
sealing it off from the ravenous appetite of time. Yet to make such an attempt
is to run smack up against the fixed decree written into the texture of being:
that whatever comes to be must pass away. It is not only the object of clinging
that must yield to the law of impermanence. The subject too, the one who
clings, and the very act of clinging, are also bound to dissolve, perish, and
pass away. To sit back trying to shape a world that will conform to our heart's
desires is to fight against the inflexible law of change. But try as we may
there is no escape: the sonorous truth swells up from the depths of being, and
we can either heed its message or continue to stuff our ears.
The cutting irony in the solution the Buddha holds out
to Subrahmà lies in the fact that the prescription
requires a voluntary assent to the act we instinctively try to avoid. The final
escape from anxiety and care is not a warm assurance that the universe will give
us a cheerful hug. It is, rather, a call for us to take the step that we
habitually resist. What we fear above all else, what causes the tremors of
anxiety to ripple through our heart, is the giving up of what we cherish. Yet
the Buddha tells us that the only way to reach true safety is by giving up all:
ßNot apart from relinquishing all do I see any safety
for living beings.û In the end we have no choice: we
must give up all, for when death comes to claim us everything we identify with
will be taken away. But to go beyond anxiety we must let go nowÞnot,
of course, by a premature act of renunciation, which in many cases might even
be harmful or self-destructiveÞbut by wearing away
the clinging, attachment, and acquisitiveness that lie within as the buried root
of fear.
This relinquishment of clinging cannot come about
through the forcible rejection of what we love and cherish. It arises from
wisdom, from insight, from awakening, from breaking through the deep dark sleep
of ignorance. The sovereign remedy is to see that right now, at this very
moment, there is nothing we can truly claim as ours, for in reality ßAll this is empty of self and of what belongs to self.û Form, feeling, perception, volition, and
consciousness: all are to be given up by seeing them as they really are, as ßnot mine, not I, not my self.û
To see the truth that all conditioned things are impermanent, disintegrating,
and bound to perish, is to turn away from clinging, to relinquish all. And to
relinquish all is to find ourselves, not barren and empty-handed, but rich with
the wealth of the noble ones. For one without clinging, there is no fear, no
tremor of agitation, no dark winds of anxiety. The one without clinging is akutobhaya, one
who faces no danger from any quarter. Though dwelling in the midst of aging,
sickness, and death, he has reached what lies beyond aging, sickness, and
death. Though the leaves fall and world systems shimmer, he sees security
everywhere.
Bhikkhu Bodhi
1998 Subscriptions. We wish to remind our subscriber-members to renew their
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BPS Sinhala Line. After an inordinate
delay we are finally ready to launch our line of full-size Sinhala
Dhamma books, to provide a badly needed counterpart
to our fine collection of English-language publications. The move from planning
to implementation has been made possible by the appointment of Ven. Wattegama Dhammavasa Thera as managing
editor of our Sinhala line. The capable and dynamic
abbot of Subodharama Buddhist Centre in Peradeniya, Ven. Dhammavasa has already proved his talents in this field
with the independent publication of Sinhala
translations of several works by the Thai meditation master, Ajahn Chah. With the assistance
of his team of dedicated and intelligent young monks at Subodharama,
he promises to offer a breath of new life to our Sinhala
publishing line and an uplifting vision for the future. His help will be a
great relief to Ven. Piyadassi
Nayaka Thera, our veteran
executive editor of the Sinhala line, who still
continues strong at 83 despite a persistent heart condition.
In Memoriam. Over the past few months two of the most esteemed
members of the Sri Lankan Sangha, widely known both
locally and abroad, have succumbed to the law of impermanence. One was the Ven. Rerukane Chandavimala
Mahàthera, who expired on 4 July 1997, just two weeks
short of his 100th birthday. Ven. Chandavimala
had been the most popular and widely read Buddhist writer in
The other monk who recently expired was the Ven. Dr. Walpola Ràhula Mahàthera, who died on 18
September 1997 at the age of 90. Ven. Ràhula is best known for his popular book, What the Buddha Taught, which has been
in print for almost forty years and has introduced so many to the Dhamma. He was also the original inspiration behind the
concept of the bhikkhu as political and social
activist, an ideal he articulated in his controversial work, The Heritage of the Bhikkhu.
Ven. Rahula's cremation was
also performed in an extremely simple manner, with no media publicity, and at
his request his ashes were dispersed in the
The Majjhima Makes American TV. One of our correspondents, John Bullitt, who had
served as production manager for the Wisdom-BPS edition of the Majjhima Nikàya, recently wrote
to us: ßYou might be pleased to know that the Middle
Length Discourses recently made a brief appearance on prime-time American
television. It appeared in Seventh Heaven, a situation comedy about an
adolescent girl who faced some sort of existential crisis, and so had borrowed
a small pile of religious books from the library: a Bible, a Torah, and a copy
of the Middle Length Discourses! So there was our heroine, sitting on the
living room sofa, holding a copy of the Middle Length Discourses for millions
of TV-watching Americans to see.û
The
The Mahàparinibbàna Sutta (MPS) is one of the most popular and best known suttas in the Pàli Canon, the
story of the Buddha's last journey to his final resting place at Kusinàrà. As the most poignant exemplification in Buddhist
literature of the Buddha's own message of impermanence, the text is replete
with human drama, emotional inspiration, and memorable counsel. From the time
it first became known in the West the sutta has
attracted the attention of Western scholars, who have applied the refined
techniques of critical analysis to the task of determining the text's
historical development. Two full studies have been devoted to this subject, one
a comparison of the different versions of the MPS by Ernst Waldschmidt
(in German), the other a study of the text's composition and evolution by AndrŽ Bareau (in French).
The present book, a welcome addition to the scholarly
literature on the MPS, is all the more remarkable in that it comes from the pen
of a Sri Lankan Theravàda bhikkhu
who shows, by his penetrative commentary, that a detached, critical approach to
Buddhist sacred literature can comfortably coexist with faith and personal
commitment. In his examination of the sutta, Ven. Gnanarama has not confined
himself merely to the Pàli version, but has also
consulted, via the secondary literature, the Chinese and Tibetan translations
from Indian originals. While he often refers to the more accessible scholarly
literature on early Buddhism, however, his Bibliography does not mention the
important studies by Waldschmidt and Bareau. No doubt this is due to the linguistic barriers
that stand between their works and the scholar without knowledge of German and
French.
Ven. Gnanarama takes as his
working hypothesis the consensus reached by Western scholars, that the MPS is a
compilation that evolved over several centuries. He contends that the sutta available to us today, in its various recensions, expresses ideas, attitudes, and modes of
religious practice [is] characteristic of distinct historical periods. Thus,
just as a geologist might use chemical analysis to stratify a buckled mountain
into its individual layers, he proposes to dissect the document into its
successive strata, taking his cues both from the text itself and from the
testimony of history. To proceed in this way holds out at least two attractive
promises: first, that of uncovering the original archaic core of the sutta, the ßfirst draftû as it read before the processes of embellishment and
interpolation imposed themselves; and second, that of arriving at a picture of
the Buddha dating from a very early period, before that picture was redrawn in
accordance with later conceptions of Buddhahood.
Ven. Gnanarama's methodology
testifies to the dual influence of modern Western scholarship and the
humanistic strain dominant in present-day Theravàda
circles. At the outset he lays down a clear-cut guideline which he follows with
painstaking thoroughness in his analysis: Those portions of the sutta that depict the human side of the Buddha's
personality and mission are to be regarded as the most authentic, those that
cast the Buddha in a superhuman light to be treated as interpolations. If one
were to begin with different assumptions, rooted more firmly in traditional
spirituality than in modern humanism, one's investigations might lead to
different conclusions more congenial to the ßsupernaturalû
elements in the sutta.
Ven. Gnanarama does not take us
on a direct linear tour through the MPS, episode by episode, assigning each to
its temporal stratum. Instead, he has organized his study thematically, using a
number of key topics as standpoints from which to survey the material and judge
its relative antiquity. This method naturally leaves several noticeable gaps in
his analysis, but the omissions are compensated for by his stimulating,
thoughtful, and at times provocative observations. The author is clearly not a
docile apologist pledged to uphold ßTheravàda orthodoxy.û He displays, rather, a striking capacity for
independent judgement and does not hesitate to
question deeply entrenched tradition, even to probe into the canonical texts
themselves for evidence of distortions governed by hidden agendas.
In a limited review such as this we can only briefly
note some of the topics that Ven. Gnanarama
touches on and his more prominent conclusions and hypotheses. One of his most
provocative chapters is ßThe Dispensation and the
Position of Womenû (ch.7). Here, beginning with the
Buddha's reported final advice on how monks should behave towards women, the
author reviews the whole story of the founding of the Bhikkhuni
Sangha and points out, quite convincingly, several
implausible features in the Cullavagga account. His
conclusions in this chapter are bound to raise eyebrows in traditional monastic
circles but will surely draw cheers from reformists.
The most mysterious and tantalizing section of the MPS
is the Buddha's dialogue with ânanda at the Càpàla Shrine near Vesàlã, where
he hints at his ability to live on for the rest of the kappa, a hint the
disciple fails to catch. Ven. Gnanarama
insistsÞand I agreeÞthat
kappa here must mean a cosmic aeon and not ßa full human lifespan,û
the gloss given to the word in the commentaries. But for Ven.
Gnanarama this interpretation is evidence, not of the
Buddha's superhuman power, but of the weakness of his later followers, who
could not admit that their Master died a normal death and thus turned him into
a superman. He assigns this episode to a fairly late period in the composition
of the MPS, when attitudes of devotional awe were beginning to bend the
original naturalistic image of the Buddha in the direction of a supernatural docetism (ch.8).
Other chapters deal with the question of the lesser and
minor rules (on which the author adopts a surprisingly conservative stance, not
even querying the implications of the Buddha's allowance to the Sangha to abolish these rules); the four great references
(a later interpolation designed to prevent dissent); the Buddhist concept of
gods (largely, if not entirely, a concession to popular beliefs not
incompatible with the Dhamma); and the philosophical
concepts and path of training in the MPS. In his final chapter (ch.14) he
sketches the portrait of the Buddha that he sees emerging when the accretions
have been stripped away and the authentic core laid
bare. This is the picture of a great human teacher whose supremacy flowed, not
from divine cosmic stature or mystic powers, but from his magnanimous
character, perfect wisdom, and boundless compassion. It is perhaps the most
compelling testimony to the Buddha's greatness that even this lean, naturalistic
conception of the Master, though divested of the awe-inspiring features of the
established version of our text, is sufficient to arouse wonder and veneration.
Bhikkhu Bodhi
Also received: An Approach to Buddhist Social Philosophy. Ven. Pategama
Gnanarama.
Reminder: The Buddha has enumerated sixteen `defilements
of the mind.'
After enumerating the sixteen defilements of the mind,
the Buddha says, with respect to each one: ßHaving
known (such and such) to be a defilement of the mind, the monk abandons it.û This statement appears simple and straightforward
enough, but, as is so often the case in the Suttas,
the surface simplicity rides upon an implicit meaning of great depth and
complexity. To understand what lies behind these words, we need to focus on the
verb ßabandons,û which leads
us to the noun ßabandonmentû (pahàna). Abandonment is one of
the major aims in the practice of the Dhamma; in
fact, the entire path of practice can be regarded as simultaneously a process
of development and abandonment. What has to be
developed are the wholesome qualities, particularly the thirty-seven aids to
enlightenment (bodhipakkhiyà dhammà). To
develop these is simultaneously to abandon the unwholesome qualities of mind,
such as the sixteen defilements mentioned in our sutta.
The texts speak of abandonment often, and the Buddha already introduced the
term in his First Sermon at
The word ßabandonmentû is not
used in the texts with an unequivocal meaning. Like other technical terms, it
has several levels of meaning, and which one is relevant in a particular
passage is dependent on the context. The Pali
commentators distinguish three principal types of abandonment, and to
understand the purport of a particular passage it is necessary to determine
from the context precisely what type is being referred to.
The first is temporary abandonment through an act of
mental resolve. This type of abandonment, called tadaïga-pahàna, ßabandoning in a particular respectû
or ßfactor-specific abandonment,û is especially prominent in the practice of moral
discipline. When one has undertaken a precept, one abandons the immoral action
that the precept is intended to regulate. Thus it is said of a virtuous
disciple, ßHaving abandoned the destruction of life, he abstains from the destruction of life. Having abandoned
the taking of what is not given, he abstains from taking what is not given.û Factor-specific abandonment is also
employed in the training of the mind. As we sit in meditation, when we notice a
defiled thought ariseÞa thought of lust, or of anger,
or of violenceÞwe do not yield to it, but note it
mindfully and make an effort ßto abandon it, dispel
it, eliminate it, and abolish it.û This is another
type of factor-specific abandonment, which can become a self-contained system
of meditation in itself. Under the name ßthe
perception of abandonmentû (pahàna-sa¤¤à), this method is
taught by the Buddha in the famous Girimànanda Sutta (AN 10:60). The commentaries
also mention, as still another form of factor-specific abandonment, the
replacement of the various distorted perceptions by the insights arisen in the
course of insight meditation.
When we cultivate a meditation subject to a deep level
of concentration, the defilements are abandoned in still a different mode. This
mode is called ßabandonment by suppressionû
(vikkhambhana-pahàna).
Suppression is not the same as repression. The term ßrepression,û as used in contemporary psychoanalytic theory,
denotes the act by which we unconsciously prevent certain distressing ideas or
memories from entering full awareness; it is a process, occurring beneath the
threshold of consciousness, by which we consign ourselves to ignorance about
ourselves in order to preserve a sense of psychological security. Suppression,
however, is a deliberate process, voluntarily undertaken, with full awareness
of what we are about. It is not intended to shield us from the threat of
self-knowledge, but to prevent the mind from being driven by psychological
forces that are explicitly recognized as unwholesome.
The means of suppressive abandonment is the practice of samatha-bhàvanà,
the development of calm. By fixing the mind on a single meditation subject and
excluding other thoughts, we develop one-pointedness,
the ability to fix the mind on its object without vacillation or disturbance.
In such a state of concentration the defilements cannot infiltrate the thought
process. They have not yet been eliminated, but they no longer erupt at random
and sully the luminosity of the mind. As concentration deepens to the level of
full jhàna, the mind becomes radiantly serene and
pure. This type of abandonment is spoken of in the stock passage on the
abandoning of the five hindrances: ßLike debtlessness, like good health, like release from prison,
like freedom from slavery, like arriving at a place of safetyÞjust
so a monk sees that these five hindrances have been abandoned in himselfû (DN 2.74).
However, while suppressive abandonment offers relief
from the defilements, it does not dissolve them at the root, and thus the
relief it offers is not the same as release. In other words, suppression is not
ßthe final solutionû to the
problem of human bondage, not the last step along the way to the end of
suffering. Release, or full liberation from the defilements, can only be
attained through the third type of abandonment, abandonment by eradication (samuccheda-pahàna).
This is the decisive mental act by which one cuts off the defilements at their
deepest hideout within the mind, extirpating them so that they don't leave
behind any residue. This type of abandonment can be achieved only by the wisdom
faculty of the supramundane pathÞthe
wisdom that penetrates the Four Noble Truths. This wisdom arises from the
development of insight (vipassana-bhàvanà),
the direct seeing of the three characteristics of all phenomena: impermanence,
suffering, and non-self. As insight deepens it gradually peels away layer after
layer of the manifest defilements, until, when it reaches its culmination, it
gives rise to the supramundane path, which in four
graded stages eradicates the defilements totally, leaving them `cut off at the
root.'
Thus when the Buddha says, ßHaving
known (such and such) to be a defilement of the mind, the monk abandons it,û his statement implies this entire threefold process of
abandonment. We can assume that at the beginning of his training, the monk (or
any meditator, for that matter) practises
the ßfactorial abandonmentû
by undertaking moral precepts, which prevent the defilements from acting as
causes of misbehaviour. Then, by training in
concentration, he abandons the defilements at a deeper level, by suppressing
them through one-pointedness of mind. And finally, by
developing insight into the three characteristics, he arrives at the supramundane path. He thereby abandons the defilements by
eradication, ensuring that they will never trouble him again.
(to be continued)