Lifestyles and Spiritual
Progress
Newcomers to Buddhism often ask whether a
person’s lifestyle has any special bearing on their ability to progress along
the Buddha’s path, and in particular whether the Buddha had any reason for
establishing a monastic order governed by guidelines quite different from those
that hold sway over the lay Buddhist community. Doesn’t it seem, they ask, that
a lay person who follows the Buddhist precepts in daily life should be able to
advance just as rapidly as a monk and attain the same level of enlightenment?
And, if this is so, doesn’t this mean that the entire monastic lifestyle
becomes something superfluous, or at best a mere matter of personal choice no
more relevant to one’s capacity for spiritual development than whether one
trains to become a doctor or an engineer?
If we suspend concern for questions of
status and superiority and simply consider the two modes of life in their ideal
expression, the conclusion would have to follow that the monastic life, lived in the way envisioned by the Buddha, is
the one that conduces more effectively to the final goal. According to the Páli
Canon, the ultimate goal of the Dhamma is the attainment of Nibbána: the
destruction of all defilements here and now and ultimate release from saísára,
the round of rebirths. This attainment comes about by eliminating craving and
ignorance through the practice of the Noble Eightfold Path. The Eightfold Path
is open equally to both monastics and lay followers; monastic ordination does
not confer any privileged access to the path or an empowerment that enables a
monk to make more rapid progress than a lay follower. But while this is so, the
fact remains that the monastic life was expressly designed by the Buddha to
facilitate complete dedication to the practice of the path in its three stages
of virtue, concentration, and wisdom, and thus provides the optimal conditions
for spiritual progress.
The monastic lifestyle does so precisely
because the final goal is a state of renunciation, “the relinquishment of all
acquisitions” (sabb’upadhi-paþinissagga),
and from the outset the monk’s life is rooted in renunciation. In “going
forth,” the monk leaves behind family, possessions, and worldly position, and
even the outer marks of personal identity, symbolized by hair, beard, and
wardrobe. By shaving the head and donning the yellow robe, the monk has given
up—in principle at least—any claim to a unique identity of his own. Outwardly
indistinguishable from a hundred thousand other monks, he has become simply a "Sakyaputtiya
samaóa," an ascetic who follows the Sakyan son (i.e., the Buddha). The
life of the monk involves radical simplicity, contentment with the barest
requisites, the need to be patient in difficulty. The monastic lifestyle places
the monk in dependence on the generosity and kindness of others, and imposes on
him an intricate code of discipline, the Vinaya, designed to foster the
essential renunciant virtues of simplicity, restraint, purity, and
harmlessness. These virtues provide a sound basis for the higher attainments in
concentration and insight, which are essentially stages in the progressive
purification of the mind and the deepening of insight.
Of prime importance, too, is the external
freedom ideally provided by the monastic life. The monastic schedule leaves the
monk free from extraneous demands on his time and energy, allowing him to
devote himself fully to the practice and study of the Dhamma. Of course, as the
monastic life is lived today, monks take on many responsibilities not
originally mentioned in the canonical texts, and in a traditional Buddhist
country the village temple has become the hub of religious activity, with the
monks functioning as virtual priests for the wider Buddhist community. But here
we are concerned with the canonical picture of the monastic life. If the monk's
life so conceived did not promote smoother progress towards the goal, it seems
there would have been no compelling reason for the Buddha to have established a
monastic order or to have encouraged men and women so inclined to "go
forth from the home life into homelessness."
While the attainment of Nibbána is the
ultimate goal of early Buddhism, it is not the only goal, and one of the
shortcomings in the way Theravada Buddhism has been presented to the West is
the one-sided emphasis placed on the final goal over the provisional aspect of
the Teaching. In traditional Buddhist lands few Buddhists see Nibbána as an
immediately realistic prospect. The great majority, both lay and monastic,
regard the path as a course of "gradual practice, gradual progress, and
gradual achievement” extending over many lives. Their practice as Buddhists
centres around the performance of meritorious deeds and methodical mental
purification, rooted in the confidence that the kammic law of causality and the
spiritual power of the Dhamma will sustain them even through the succession of
lifetimes in their quest for enlightenment and deliverance.
To make clear the choices facing the lay
follower we might posit two alternative models of the Buddhist lay life. On the
first model lay life is seen as a field for gradual progress towards the goal
through the development of wholesome qualities such as generosity, moral
virtue, kindness, and understanding. The immediate aim is not direct
realization of the highest truth but the accumulation of merits leading to a
happy rebirth and gradual progress towards Nibbana.
The second model recognizes the capacity
of lay followers for reaching the stages of awakening in this life itself, and
advocates strict moral discipline and strenuous effort in meditation to attain
deep insight into the truth of the Dhamma.
While there are in Buddhist countries lay people who follow the path of
direct realization, their number is much smaller than those who pursue the
alternative model. The reason should be obvious enough: the stakes are higher,
and include a capacity for inward renunciation rare among those who must raise
a family, work at a full-time job, and struggle to survive in a ruggedly
competitive world. We should note further a point of prime importance: this
second model of the Buddhist lay life becomes effective as a means to higher
attainment precisely because it emulates the monastic model. Thus, to the
extent that a lay follower embarks on the practice of the direct path to
realization, he or she does so by conforming to the lifestyle of a monk or nun.
These two conceptions of the lay life
need not be seen as mutually exclusive, for an earnest lay follower can adopt
the first model for his or her normal routine and also stake out periods to
pursue the second model, e.g., by curtailing social engagements, devoting time
to deep study and meditation, and occasionally going on extended retreats.
Though a monastic lifestyle might be more conducive to enlightenment than a
busy life within the world, when it comes to individuals rather than models all
fixed preconceptions collapse. Some lay people with heavy family and social
commitments manage to make such rapid progress that they can give guidance in
meditation to earnest monks, and it is not rare at all to find sincere monks
deeply committed to the practice who advance slowly and with difficulty. While
the monastic life, lived according to the original ideal, may provide the
optimal outer conditions for spiritual progress, the actual rate of progress
depends both on individual effort and on the store of qualities one brings over
from previous lives. Often it seems that on both counts those deeply enmeshed
in the world are more adequately equipped than those who enter the Sangha.
In any case, whether for monk, nun, or
lay person, the path to Nibbána is the same: the Noble Eightfold Path. Whatever
one's personal circumstances may be, if one is truly earnest about realizing
the final goal of the Dhamma one will make every effort to tread this path in
the way that best fits the particular circumstances of one's life. As the
Buddha himself says: "Whether it be a householder or one gone forth, it is
the one of right practice that I praise, not the one of wrong practice"
(SN 45:24).
Bhikkhu Bodhi
Administrative Changes at
BPS. In mid-June Mr. T.B. Talwatte, our longterm
executive director, retired after nine years of dedicated service to the
Society. Mr. Talwatte had assumed the post of executive director in May 1989
and used his past professional experience in administration and finance to
guide the BPS to its present successful position. A man of upright character,
high standards of personal integrity, and equity in his dealings with others,
he was much appreciated by the staff and the many visitors to the BPS from both
In Memoriam. We sadly report the death, on 18 April
1998, of Maurice Walshe. Born in
Book Review
Forest
Recollections: Wandering Monks in Twentieth-Century
Forest
Recollections is both a
highly informative study of the historical evolution of modern Thai Buddhism
and an inspiring account of the tradition of the wandering "thudong" monks who roamed the
forests of northern and northeastern
Kamala argues that far from being endemic
to Thai Buddhism, this ecclesiastical system was created under the auspices of
the
While the Sangha authorities in
Although the thudong monks saw themselves
as the true heirs of the Buddha's monastic legacy, the Sangha authorities in
Despite my admiration for Forest Recollections as a whole, I did
have critical reservations about Kamala’s portrayal of pre-reformation regional
Buddhism, which struck me as one-sided. Admittedly regional folk Buddhism had
its social and cultural beauty, but reading between the lines of her account
one comes off with the impression that apart from a few Jataka stories the
village monks during this period had very little knowledge of the Dhamma and
Vinaya. This impression is confirmed by the reports of the thudong monks
themselves. For example, Ajan Thate states in his autobiography that when he
was a boy he had been going to the monastery regularly for six years and yet
had never been taught the Five or Eight Precepts “because the Sangha of that
time was seriously deficient in learning.” It seems Kamala draws the contrast
between the Bangkok Sangha and the regional monks in such stark terms that she
seriously underrates the important measures to promote pure discipline and
learning that originated with the formation of the Dhammayut sect. The mistake
the Sangha officials made was not to elevate textual scholarship and monastic
discipline above village tradition and folklore, but to make learning a
passport to status and a clerical career rather than a foundation for spiritual
progress in accordance with the classical triad of learning, practice, and
realization (pariyatti, paþipatti,
paþivedha).
Apart from this minor reservation, I
found this a most interesting study. Well written and carefully organized, Forest Recollections preserves for us
the legacy of one of the most robust and worthy Buddhist lineages of modern
times.
Bhikkhu Bodhi
Bhikkhu Tissa in Dialogue
On a warm summer evening somewhere in the American
countryside a car pulls into the driveway of a small Buddhist temple. The
driver is a youngish man named Gene who has come to visit the redoubtable
Buddhist monk, Bhikkhu Tissa. Gene has a problem weighing on his mind. Having
just passed a major birthday, he has become increasingly aware that he has been
frittering away his life on trivial matters, growing older without getting
wiser. For Gene this is above all a question of meaning: Does life have any
higher meaning or purpose beyond the everyday routines of working, relaxing,
and seeking transient pleasures? Is there any prospect of a deeper fulfilment
and peace? In his characteristic manner the monk does not offer Gene any easy
dogmatic answers. Instead he leads him, with probing questions and astute
observations, to a keen understanding of the human condition and the prospect
of enlightenment and liberation. Their conversation continues over the full
evening and the following morning, and by the time they have finished Gene has
been treated to a most lucid and convincing exposition that covers the entire
groundwork of the Buddha’s teachings. These dialogues—lively, witty, and well
crafted—bring to the fore the timeless relevance of the Dhamma, even in the
comfortable dreamland of middle American suburbia.
The author, Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano. is an American
Buddhist monk ordained in
Also from BPS
The Questions of
King Milinda
An Abridgement
of the Milindapañha
Edited by N.K.G.
Mendis
The Questions of King Milinda is an imaginative record of a series of
discussions between the Bactrian Greek King Milinda, who reigned in the
Also from BPS
The Buddhist
Outlook
Francis Story
Francis Story
(Anagarika Sugatananda) was a British Buddhist who lived in
Guidelines to Sutta Study
The Buddha praises this monk thus:
"If a monk of such virtue, such concentration, and such wisdom eats
almsfood consisting of choice rice and various sauces and curries, even that
will be no obstacle for him." Reading between the lines, we see that these
words imply that the monk is a non-returner. The reason is that a non-returner
has eliminated all sensual desire, i.e. all desire connected with the
"five cords of sensual pleasure," and thus has no attachment to
delicious tastes. Since the monk can eat choice food without encountering any "obstacle"
(antaráya)--namely, any craving for
tastes--this means he has overcome the fetter of sensual desire, which implies
he is a non-returner. Thus elsewhere (SN 12:63/II 99) the Buddha says:
"When the nutriment of edible food has been fully understood, the lust
based on the five senses is fully understood; and when the lust based on the
five senses is fully understood, there is no fetter bound by which the noble
disciple will come back to this world."
In the last
instalment, we saw that the Buddha praises the monk who has partly purified
himself of the mind’s defilements by saying that even eating choice almsfood
would be no obstacle for him. The implication we read into this is that the
monk is a nonreturner (anagami), for
he cannot be fettered by sensual desire occasioned by delicious food.
The next
paragraph lends support to this hypothesis. Here the Buddha says that this monk
abides pervading the whole world with a mind imbued with lovingkindness,
compassion, altruistic joy, and equanimity. This is the practice of the four brahmavihára, the “divine abodes” or
sublime states. Although any meditator can practise the brahmavihára and even
reach the jhánas through them, the practice becomes especially natural for the
nonreturner. The nonreturner can practise the divine abodes with speicaly ease
because he has eliminated the major impediments to this method of meditation.
The major obstacles to the first three divine abodes are ill will, cruelty, and
envy, mental states all rooted in hatred (dosa),
which has been fully eliminated by the nonreturner.
Thus the two
descriptions the Buddha offers of this monk establish his identity as a
nonreturner. First, the fact that he can partake of delicious food without
being fettered by craving shows that he has overcome sensual desire. Second,
the fact that he can easily develop the four brahmaviháras shows that he has
overcome ill will. As sensual desire and ill will are the two fetters
eliminated by the nonreturner, we can see that the ancient commentators had
sound reasons for identifying this monk as a nonreturner.
But though he
has removed the two most powerful emotional obstructions to liberation—sensual
desire and ill will—the nonreturner is not yet fully released, for the subtle
fetters still remain embedded in his mind: craving for existence, the conceit
“I am,” restlessness, and ignorance. Thus in the next portion of the sutta the
Buddha shows how the nonreturner advances further to the final stage of
awakening, arahantship. The exposition is extremely concise, even to the point
of obscurity, but by applying valid principles of interpretation we can draw
out its meaning.
The Buddha
simply says: “He understands: `There is this, there is the inferior (hìna), there is the superior, and beyond
there is an escape from everything connected with perception.’” The first hint
to draw upon in making sense of this statement is the context. The statement
immediately precedes the stock passage, found in countless other suttas,
describing the liberation of the mind from the taints. Usually the theme of the
Dhamma to be understood to attain final liberation of mind is the Four Noble
Truths. When we turn to our passage we can see at once that it consists of four
portions, and this reinforces the hunch that the Four Noble Truths are being
indicated.
The commentary
makes the meaning explicit. The phrase “there is this,” it says, signifies the
truth of suffering. The meditator, having attained a jhána on the basis of one
of the divine abodes, emerges from the jhána and examines it carefully. He sees
that the jhána, as lofty as it is, is still impermanent and conditioned, and
thus bears the mark of dukkha, suffering. Since even such a lofty state as a
boundless meditative absorption is imperfect and bound up with suffering, he
extends this realization to all the “five aggregates” and sees that there is
nothing among the aggregates that is immune from these qualities of
impermanence, suffering, and voidness of selfhood.
The phrase
“there is the inferior” points to craving, the truth of the origin of
suffering, which is called “inferior” precisely because it lies at the root of
all the misery of the round of rebirths. “There is the superior” indicates the
Noble Eightfold Path, the way to liberation, especially the supreme path of
arahantship, which eliminates the final residue of defilements. Finally, “the
escape from everything connected with perception” is Nibbána, the ultimate
release from the entire conditioned world.
After giving
this brief indication of the Four Noble Truths, the Buddha states that the mind
of one who “knows and sees thus” is liberated from the taints. This passage has
been analysed in a previous issue of these Guidelines and the explanation need
not be repeated here (see Newsletter No. 34). In the version found in the
Simile of the Cloth, however, the Buddha adds another sentence unique to this
sutta: “This bhikkhu (the arahant) is called `one bathed with the inner
bathing’ (sináto antarena sinánena).
The expression “inner bathing” alludes to the brahmanical belief that spiritual
purification can be achieved by a ritual bath, and its use shows how the Buddha
adapted the terminology of the brahmins to his own ends. Whereas the brahmin
scriptures extolled bathing in sacred rivers, the Buddha stressed instead the
importance of “inner bathing,” the purification of virtue and understanding to
be achieved by following the Noble Eightfold Path.
The contrast
between the two points is view is acted out in a little debate recorded at the
end of the sutta. When the Buddha spoke of “inner bathing,” a brahmin named
Sundarika Bháradvája, who was listening to the discourse, asked if Master
Gotama goes to bathe in the sacred
At the end of
the poem the brahmin applauds the Buddha’s words, declares himself a follower
of the Master, and requests ordination as a monk. Then, we are told, not long
after his ordination, the Venerable Bháradvája went into seclusion and realized
for himself “that supreme goal of the holy life for the sake of which clansmen
rightly go forth from the home life into homelessness.”
(concluded)