Book of the Sevens
3 – 4: The seven powers are clearly a core teaching. They pop up in numerous other sutras:
D iii, 253. Sangiti Sutra is almost a mini-Anguttara Nikaya. There are lists, grouped by number – ones through ten. In the section on sevens we have the seven powers, the balani.
M ii, 12. There are five powers – faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom.
S V, 193. 48 Indriyasamutta: Connected Discourses on the Faculties. Faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom. A group of sutras on these powers.
Vism 491 – 493. List overall 22 faculties, which include the standard five above. Incidentally this section contains a very thorough analysis of the Four Noble Truths.
In the sutra:
1. Faith: in the Tathagata’s awakening & the Buddha as arahant, baghava. There is a standard epithet for the Buddha in this list.
2. Energy: working to be rid of wrong things & gain in right things.
3. Conscientiousness: shamed by any misconduct; firmly guided by personal integrity.
4. Fear of blame: the disciple fears to be blamed for any of the issues of personal integrity.
5. Mindfulness: remembers & is alert.
6. Concentration: enters the jhanas and is aloof from sense desires.
7. Wisdom: wise in the Dhamma. (Not book learning, of course.)
In S V, 193 each of the five ( - fear of blame & conscientiousness) are explored repeatedly. There are numerous sutras which describe these five faculties—in terms of being a stream-enterer or an arahant. It is in the understanding of these faculties—origina, cessation, and way leading to cessation—that is the main point.
One definition is found at S 48, 12 (2) (page 1674):
One who has completed and fulfilled these five faculties is an arahant. If they are weaker than that, one is a non-returner; if still weaker, a once-returner; if still weaker, a stream-enterer; if still weaker, a Dhamma-follower; if still weaker, a faith-follower.
Add S 48,13:
Thus, bhikkhus, due to a difference in the faculties there is a difference in the fruits; due to a difference in the fruits there is a difference among persons.
An even more precise breakdown is at S 48, 15:
Arahant…Nibbana in the interval…Nibbana upon landing…Nibbana without exertion…Nibbana with exertion…bound upstream for the Akanittha realm…once-returner…stream-enterer…Dhamma-follower…faith-follower.`
5: There are lists of five faculties as well (- conscientiousness & fear of blame )
6: Expands those lists:
Virtue: following the Five Precepts
Listening: listen carefully and remember thoroughly
Bounty (Generosity): lives at home with a mind free of meanness.
The others are as in the Seven (Five) Powers.
7: Points out that these seven treasures are not subject to fire, water, rajahs, robbers, enemies, heirs. This is a point that Jim has made on numerous occasions: we may think of physical possessions, money, fame, etc., as being issues that will make us happy. And they very well might from one point of view. But they aren’t permanent; they are in fact just as much suffering and impermanence as anything else is, and really no different. But the Buddhadharma is the refuge, the true happiness that can be found that isn’t subject to removal, impermanence, and so forth.
13: This one has a practical side—stay away from homes in which the family makes you feel unwelcome or is begrudging.
14: M I, 477. These are people classified not by their place in the path (sotapanna, etc) but by their dominant faculty.
Liberated-in-both-ways: freed from the physical body by immaterial attainments and from the mental body by the path of arahantship. But there is contact with the body.
Liberated-by-wisdom: taints are destroyed by seeing with wisdom. No contact with the body.
Body-witness: there is contact with the body, some of the taints are destroyed by seeing with wisdom (but not all!). So there is still work to be done.
Attained-to-views: no contact with the body; some taints are destroyed, and has reviewed and examined the teachings of a tathāgata.
Liberated-by-faith: no body contact; some taints are destroyed, has faith rooted in the Tathāgata.
Dhamma-follower: no body contact, taints not destroyed, but has gained a relative acceptance of the Tathāgata’s teachings.
Faith-follower: no body contact, taints not destroyed, but has sufficient faith in the Tathāgata.
15: I love the fun of the one who goes to high ground as “becoming completely cool.” Note: it’s a rendering of “Nibbana.”
16: More people becoming completely cool. Descriptions of Nibana-with-remainder and the like.
19: If the Vajjians should not kidnap and make live with them women and girls of their own clan, is there some implication that itmight be acceptable for them to do this from another clan?
20: Interesting that here the Buddha is doing a little political advising—in that the Vajjians are stronger than the Magadhans. In the dictionary it is said that it was through this teaching that Ajatasattu was converted to Buddhism—which makes him sound quite opportunistic given that he would be gratified by the Buddha’s advice.
Ajatasattu reigned 494 – 462 BCE, thus during the last eight years of the Buddha’s lifetime.
21 – 22: these sutras are found in DN, the Mahaparnibbana Sutta.
31 – 33: A good example of chanting – all’s the same save the last two items in the list:
Reverence for Buddha
Reverence for Dharma
Reverence for Sangha
Reverence for Training (Vinaya)
Reverence for Concentration
Earnestness – conscientiousness – fair speech
Goodwill – fear of blame – good friendship
42: Interesting take on the Eightfold Path – seven are ‘adornments’ to right concentration. I suppose this could be said of each one in turn.
44: I am very pleased by the ending of this sutra, in which the animals go free. It brings up an interesting question – is there an ethical stance as regards sacrifice in other religions? Here the brahmin has thought that he was creating merit, when actually it was demerit – by the Buddha’s words. So here we have a sharp difference of opinion. What about the guy in GMBS who belongs to a group which uses psychedelics as a spiritual practice? What about this as a cover—the way a surprising number of the “medical marijuana” people are healthy young men who just want to get stoned.
More notes: I am intrigued in the way the same phrase might be repeated verbatims—as in Uggatasasira’s first line to the Buddha; the text implies that he just repeated himself twice more & the Buddha replied the same way each time. Even in chanting, why? Or are there subtle differences—using words like “fulfilling” instead of advantageous.
My remarks about these other practies—I would also wonder about certain other ones. I think that the Buddha would probably condemn the use of drugs in religious observance—primarily perhaps because you could not truly know your motivations. Huston Smith’s new book could prove to be very helpful in this regard.
It’s certainly true that in the case of sacrifice, there isn’t much wiggle room—just the thought alone creates demerit, not to mention the word, or worse yet, the deed.
There’s an implication in the second part—the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion—that seems to say that the true motivation is not actually known—demerit ceoms from these, and they guide our thinking.
David Sunseri has recently addressed this issue in the GMBS when he has stated that we cannot “be each others’s teachers” without having access to a realized teacher—otherwise we are a collective set of ideas, all backed up by our delusions—despite how well-eaming, noble, or sincere our intentions.
Later: I brought this up in the sutra group and it brought up some interesting reactions. One of these was a sense that perhaps my bringing up drugs and the like might be considered rather judgemental. In that it’s probably true; obviously I don’t approve of using drugs at all, and certainly not as a spiritual practice.
Jim later on talked to me about it and he pointed out that other people might have a different definition of “spiritual practice” from mine—one that might incorporate altered states of mind, or finding mysterious powers or going to other realms. If that is what is being sought then perhaps they might see drugs in this light. Thus it makes more sense to try to understand this sort of thing from their point of view. However, I wonder where we draw the line on whether this is Dharma or not. David Sunseri has spoken about times when some of his teachers tried some of the mind-changing drugs during the 1970s when they were all the rage, and they would say things like: very interesting, but it isn’t enlightenment.
46: I find it hard to believe that the translator could have been unaware of the double-entendre in “the mind turns back from falling into sex-ways” and “nor is distended thereby.”
“Ill in impermanence”: connection between impermanence & suffering; because things are impermanent, we suffer (wanting this to be permanent.) There are some distinctions between various schools. All impermanence is all suffering would be difficult, wouldn’t it? This represents part of the divide between Hinayana and Mahayana. In Mahayana, you see suffering as a kind of failure to see the Nirvana in everything.
47: Worth noting that to long for deva rebirth is most definitely a hindrance. Further note: rebirth in a deva body is lumped in with sexual wishes. Is there something about devas?
48: This is a slightly different spin from the usual: the desire for a partner (sexual) puts us into bondage to the opposite (or same) sex. Note that various jokes about marriage: the old ball & chain.
49: Apparently this volume has a different translator—which I noted at the beginning when Savatthi was mentioned as the capital of Kosala. Here the word “Observance” is used for Uposatha, whereas in some other volumes it has been translated as “Sabbath.”
50: How about this one for a strong message about the ability of the lay disciple (and women!) to reap the fruits of practice. She was practically an arahant—she just needed to free herself of the higher fetters.
51: About the questions the Buddha doesn’t answer. D I, 188: is the world eternal, not eternal. World infinite or not infinite. Soul same as body, soul one thing & body another. Tathāgata after death, not after death, both, neither. In D I, 188 the Buddha says “that is not conducive to the purpose—does not lead to Nibbana.”
M I, 426 (Culamalunkya Sutta)—the same set of speculative views. This brings up the simile of the arrow, in which the Buddha rebukes Malunkya for insisting on answers to these views, & the arrow which shoots tha man & he insists on being told everything about the arrow and the surgeon, and the person who shot it, so forth. And he dies before he can be treated.
S iv, 375 (Connected Discourses on the Undeclared) (Chapter X, Book IV). These are a whole series of sutras on this same basic topic.
#1: Khema. The nun Khema answers by talking about the ability to count the grainds of sand in the Ganges or the gallons of water in the ocean.
#2: Sariputta describes these concerns as “involvement with form…feeling..perception…volition..consciousness.” Several other sutras expand on this—delight and involvement with the aggregates. Also in existence, clinging, craving.
#7: the questions is asked why other spiritual teachers & their disciples will answers these questions. The answer is that they view the aggregates as the self—especially the six senses.
52: I find this confusing: “If it were not, it would not be mine…” and so forth. It seems to refer to non-self and impermanence—also clinging to notions of existence.
I must say that in this sutra the translator’s decision to translate Nibbana as “the cool” works rather well. But did this create a metaphor where none actually exists?
53: Conze talkes quite a bit about the signless; it’s an important doctrine even if not discussed enough—indeed, Brahmā Tissa didn’t include it in his discourse about the various levels and types of enlightenment among humans. Freed-both-ways, wisdom-freed, seer-in-body, view-winner, faith-freed, Dhamma-follower. See my notes to #14 for a full description of these.
Signless: don’t take things as significations of other things—the Mahayana makes a big deal out of it. Perfection of Wisdom talks about it. Musical structures set up expectations—but one could hear music as a sequence of sounds, without all those expections being met/unmet. Seems like this is a Mahayana doctrine, but occurs here in the Theravada scriptures: is this original to the Hinayana or is it under the influence of Mahayana?
55: This reminds me of one of the more basic benefits found by ceasing from falsehood—you don’t have to remember what it is you said.
56: The true Dhamma (Saddhamma) will last only if we keep it—it cannot last if we don’t. Hence study & practice. Reading sutras becomes a critical practice for the preservation of the Saddhamma to be found in them; practicing meditation and keenly observing the precepts. If we don’t do this, Saddhamma will be lost.
58: How this starts—so delightful as a how-to in order to avoid sleepiness, and then hints around at the twelve links of interdependant transformation.
59: Here’s another of those keep-women-in-line affairs. This almost sounds like the kind of advice my mother used to give my sister. (Everything except for woman’s burden, in fact.)
60: I love the way this one shows how the ill-wish rebounds immediately back to the wisher.
61: This causation chain brought up a question. ¶5 reads “aversion and dispassion are perforce destroyed…” at first this surprised. Then I realized we’re thinking more of understanding the undesirability of conditioned things, of name-and-form, etc.
63: The idea of faith as a pillar is wonderful—and gives some new life to the view of Ashoka’s pillars. I note here the use of “Dhammas” as individual teachings—things that are heard and learned. See page 72, ¶4.
64: It’s worth noting that #7, the person who knows noble from base persons, in practicing the Dhamma, is best when he practices both for self and others—there is a bit of the bodhisattva here.
This brings up that Nikaya (Hinayana) Buddhism cannot be thought of as selfish. When you consider that the constant exhortation is compassion and wisdom, there is really no way that it can be thought of as selfish except perhaps in the very limited sense of seeking enlightenment for oneself. In fact, Mahayana Buddhism tends to lessen or discount enlightenment in preference for the bodhisattva vows, just as a way of dealing with the problem of enlightenment and non-enlightenment.
67: It isn’t what you want—it’s what you do. If you work diligently on the Path you’ll “make-become”, whether or not you have wished to be free of the cankers. You don’t really see how much progress there has been on any given day, but you can see the progress over an extended period of time.
68: This is filled with forceful and surprisingly violent imagery. Especially at the end: 60 monks’s mouths gush blood, 60 leave the religious life, and 60 obtain release.
70: A dewdrop on a blade of grass which evaporates almost the instant the rising sun’s light strikes it; thus is the length of the lifespan.
Bubble in the water
Trace in the water after drawing a stick through it
Mountain river
Gob of spittle, spat out
Lump of meat, cooked in a pot
Cow being led to the slaughter—each footstep closer to death.
It’s worth noting again that the lifespans in the Buddha’s day seem to be roughly comparable to our own—60 – 80 being average and 100 being very long.