To a child, objects and subjects are all one big blur. Gradually the child learns the skills of accomodation to objects, and increasingly differentiates between the operations of accomodation and assimilation—especially itself as subject.
Reality is then constructed as one containing autonomously existing subjects and objects, with an interface between them across which something seems to flow. It is this flow, perhaps, that is the asava of Buddhism.
Neither objects nor subjects are now regarded as inherently existing.
Another way of seeing this is as kamatrishna, which is craving (trishna) for sensual desire—I suppose desire therefore as a flux or flow between subject and object.
We no longer see life as inherently good so we want to live forever, or inherently bad so we want to kill ourselves.
This is bhavatrishna, the craving for existence. There is also a craving for self-annihilation as well, which would have to be under this heading.
We see reality as spacelike, not imposing apparently autonomous patterns on it.
This is probably the root flux—it isn’t separate so much as it is a comprehensive way of speaking about the other three.
Avidya—which conditions trishna, is the root of everything unwholesome.
This is the first of the many stories in this Book which remind me vividly of Jesus’s ability to make a critical point through an easy-to-understand story that holds the attention.
Here the story is about looking deeply to understand the difference in the well-prepared and deeply-known issue, and that which is hasty or superficial. This is incredibly valuable in the modern world given that so often we are encouraged to make the ‘quick’ wheel—that is, the one that looks good but upon further investigation is shown to be noticeably inferior to the one that was made over a long period of time. This is becoming more and more difficult for modern people to accept given this emphasis in our culture on outcome—we confuse the end product with the process all the time, and figure that if it looks good, it is good.
I’ve had a lot of fun with this one, noting that I have students that fall nicely into mostly the first two categories. Especially given the metaphors of the people sitting with pot of water in his lap (or a pile of food in his lap), and the way they get up and knock the pot of water off the lap (or have a pot of water that is turned upside down.)
The ruler of the hells (naraka). Yama was originally a king of Vaisali, who, during a bloody war, wished himself the ruler of hell. In accordance with this wish he was reborn as Yama. His eight generals and his retinue of eighty thousand accompany him in the hell realm. Three times a day he and his helpers have molten copper poured in their mouths as a punishment. This will last until their evil deeds have been expitiated. Yama sends human beings old age, sickness and approaching death as his messengers to keep them from an immoral, frivolous life. Yama resides south of Jamdubvipa in a palace made of copper and iron. Yami, Yama’s sister, rules over the inhabitants of the hells.
NOTE: discussions on hells and Jamdubvipa is in the section on cosmology.
There is a much more detailed description of this in the Majjhima Nikaya, iii, 184. The Great Hell has four walls from which flames surge out and dash against the opposite walls. People in the Great Hell attempt to traverse out of one of the four doors (one in each wall) and go through horrible pains in order to reach the door—but they do not. Eventually they do come out of the door, and they reach other hells:
In both Hinduism and Buddhism this is the center of the universe and the meeting/dwelling place of the Gods.
These live in the realm of desire (at the lowest level of the six deva realms—the deva realms are immediately above the region of humans); they are powerful deities that are guardians of the four cardinal directions
These live on the summit of Mount Meru.
Their realm is immediately above that of the Four Great Kings. The actual number of devas seems to be murky but they are ruled over by a council of 33, who sit in the Hall of Righteousness in the palace of Vishnu (or Indra).
These are wrathful deities, as opposed to devas, which are peaceful deities. Devas always have to be on guard against asuras.
These are the hungry ghosts—they are too good for rebirth in hells (naraka) but too bad for rebirth as an asura. Animals, pretas, and humans inhabit the same realm, but pretas are traditionally invisible.
Also known as Indra, king of the Gods.
The various realms of the devas involve a time-dilation in which the higher you go, the more time you spent relative to those below. The standard cycle (kalpa) is quite long to begin with, but then the life of a Deva of Infinite Space is 20K cycles, then then one of Infinite Consciousness if 40K cycles, and one in the sphere of Nothingness is 60K cycles.
Means “the true doctrine”.
A yakka is a supernatural being who lives in the forest in solitary places, and often disturbs the meditation of monks by making noise. (I would therefore consider my downstairs neighbor’s television as a yakka.)
This would appear to refer to Vaccagotta the wanderer who is not the same as the disciple. The disciple was one of the 41 ‘great monks’ mentioned in the Anguttara. This one is a wandering ascetic, who also appears in the Samyutta nikaya, asking the Buddha if there is anything such thing as the self or not, which the Buddha declined to answer.
In this issue of the newsletter we have combined the feature essay with the "Sutta Study" column as we take a fresh look at an often quoted discourse of the Buddha, the Kalama Sutta. The discourse -- found in translation in Wheel No. 8 -- has been described as "the Buddha's Charter of Free Inquiry," and though the discourse certainly does counter the decrees of dogmatism and blind faith with a vigorous call for free investigation, it is problematic whether the sutta can support all the positions that have been ascribed to it. On the basis of a single passage, quoted out of context, the Buddha has been made out to be a pragmatic empiricist who dismisses all doctrine and faith, and whose Dhamma is simply a freethinker's kit to truth which invites each one to accept and reject whatever he likes.
But does the Kalama Sutta really justify such views? Or do we meet in these claims just another set of variations on that egregious old tendency to interpret the Dhamma according to whatever notions are congenial to oneself -- or to those to whom one is preaching? Let us take as careful a look at the Kalama Sutta as the limited space allotted to this essay will allow, remembering that in order to understand the Buddha's utterances correctly it is essential to take account of his own intentions in making them.
The passage that has been cited so often runs as follows: "Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing, nor upon tradition, nor upon rumor, nor upon scripture, nor upon surmise, nor upon axiom, nor upon specious reasoning, nor upon bias towards a notion pondered over, nor upon another's seeming ability, nor upon the consideration 'The monk is our teacher.' When you yourselves know: 'These things are bad, blamable, censured by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill,' abandon them...When you yourselves know: 'These things are good, blameless, praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,' enter on and abide in them."
Now this passage, like everything else spoken by the Buddha, has been stated in a specific context -- with a particular audience and situation in view -- and thus must be understood in relation to that context. The Kalamas, citizens of the town of Kesaputta, had been visited by religious teachers of divergent views, each of whom would propound his own doctrines and tear down the doctrines of his predecessors. This left the Kalamas perplexed, and thus when "the recluse Gotama," reputed to be an Awakened One, arrived in their township, they approached him in the hope that he might be able to dispel their confusion. From the subsequent development of the sutta, it is clear that the issues that perplexed them were the reality of rebirth and kammic retribution for good and evil deeds.
The Buddha begins by assuring the Kalamas that under such circumstances it is proper for them to doubt, an assurance which encourages free inquiry. He next speaks the passage quoted above, advising the Kalamas to abandon those things they know for themselves to be bad and to undertake those things they know for themselves to be good. This advice can be dangerous if given to those whose ethical sense is undeveloped, and we can thus assume that the Buddha regarded the Kalamas as people of refined moral sensitivity. In any case he did not leave them wholly to their own resources, but by questioning them led them to see that greed, hate and delusion, being conducive to harm and suffering for oneself and others, are to be abandoned, and their opposites, being beneficial to all, are to be developed.
The Buddha next explains that a "noble disciple, devoid of covetousness and ill will, undeluded" dwells pervading the world with boundless loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity. Thus purified of hate and malice, he enjoys here and now four "solaces": If there is an afterlife and kammic result, then he will undergo a pleasant rebirth, while if there is none he still lives happily here and now; if evil results befall an evil-doer, then no evil will befall him, and if evil results do not befall an evil-doer, then he is purified anyway. With this the Kalamas express their appreciation of the Buddha's discourse and go for refuge to the Triple Gem.
Now does the Kalama Sutta suggest, as is often held, that a follower of the Buddhist path can dispense with all faith and doctrine, that he should make his own personal experience the criterion for judging the Buddha's utterances and for rejecting what cannot be squared with it? It is true the Buddha does not ask the Kalamas to accept anything he says out of confidence in himself, but let us note one important point: the Kalamas, at the start of the discourse, were not the Buddha's disciples. They approached him merely as a counselor who might help dispel their doubts, but they did not come to him as the Tathagata, the Truth-finder, who might show them the way to spiritual progress and to final liberation.
Thus, because the Kalamas had not yet come to accept the Buddha in terms of his unique mission, as the discloser of the liberating truth, it would not have been in place for him to expound to them the Dhamma unique to his own Dispensation: such teachings as the Four Noble Truths, the three characteristics, and the methods of contemplation based upon them. These teachings are specifically intended for those who have accepted the Buddha as their guide to deliverance, and in the suttas he expounds them only to those who "have gained faith in the Tathagata" and who possess the perspective necessary to grasp them and apply them. The Kalamas, however, at the start of the discourse are not yet fertile soil for him to sow the seeds of his liberating message. Still confused by the conflicting claims to which they have been exposed, they are not yet clear even about the groundwork of morality.
Nevertheless, after advising the Kalamas not to rely upon established tradition, abstract reasoning, and charismatic gurus, the Buddha proposes to them a teaching that is immediately verifiable and capable of laying a firm foundation for a life of moral discipline and mental purification . He shows that whether or not there be another life after death, a life of moral restraint and of love and compassion for all beings brings its own intrinsic rewards here and now, a happiness and sense of inward security far superior to the fragile pleasures that can be won by violating moral principles and indulging the mind's desires. For those who are not concerned to look further, who are not prepared to adopt any convictions about a future life and worlds beyond the present one, such a teaching will ensure their present welfare and their safe passage to a pleasant rebirth -- provided they do not fall into the wrong view of denying an afterlife and kammic causation.
However, for those whose vision is capable of widening to encompass the broader horizons of our existence, this teaching given to the Kalamas points beyond its immediate implications to the very core of the Dhamma. For the three states brought forth for examination by the Buddha -- greed, hate and delusion -- are not merely grounds of wrong conduct or moral stains upon the mind. Within his teaching's own framework they are the root defilements -- the primary causes of all bondage and suffering -- and the entire practice of the Dhamma can be viewed as the task of eradicating these evil roots by developing to perfection their antidotes -- dispassion, kindness and wisdom.
Thus the discourse to the Kalamas offers an acid test for gaining confidence in the Dhamma as a viable doctrine of deliverance. We begin with an immediately verifiable teaching whose validity can be attested by anyone with the moral integrity to follow it through to its conclusions, namely, that the defilements cause harm and suffering both personal and social, that their removal brings peace and happiness, and that the practices taught by the Buddha are effective means for achieving their removal. By putting this teaching to a personal test, with only a provisional trust in the Buddha as one's collateral, one eventually arrives at a firmer, experientially grounded confidence in the liberating and purifying power of the Dhamma. This increased confidence in the teaching brings along a deepened faith in the Buddha as teacher, and thus disposes one to accept on trust those principles he enunciates that are relevant to the quest for awakening, even when they lie beyond one's own capacity for verification. This, in fact, marks the acquisition of right view, in its preliminary role as the forerunner of the entire Noble Eightfold Path.
Partly in reaction to dogmatic religion, partly in subservience to the reigning paradigm of objective scientific knowledge, it has become fashionable to hold, by appeal to the Kalama Sutta, that the Buddha's teaching dispenses with faith and formulated doctrine and asks us to accept only what we can personally verify. This interpretation of the sutta, however, forgets that the advice the Buddha gave the Kalamas was contingent upon the understanding that they were not yet prepared to place faith in him and his doctrine; it also forgets that the sutta omits, for that very reason, all mention of right view and of the entire perspective that opens up when right view is acquired. It offers instead the most reasonable counsel on wholesome living possible when the issue of ultimate beliefs has been put into brackets.
What can be justly maintained is that those aspects of the Buddha's teaching that come within the purview of our ordinary experience can be personally confirmed within experience, and that this confirmation provides a sound basis for placing faith in those aspects of the teaching that necessarily transcend ordinary experience. Faith in the Buddha's teaching is never regarded as an end in itself nor as a sufficient guarantee of liberation, but only as the starting point for an evolving process of inner transformation that comes to fulfillment in personal insight. But in order for this insight to exercise a truly liberative function, it must unfold in the context of an accurate grasp of the essential truths concerning our situation in the world and the domain where deliverance is to be sought. These truths have been imparted to us by the Buddha out of his own profound comprehension of the human condition. To accept them in trust after careful consideration is to set foot on a journey which transforms faith into wisdom, confidence into certainty, and culminates in liberation from suffering.
Preface
The instruction of the Kalamas (Kalama Sutta) is justly famous for its encouragement of free inquiry; the spirit of the sutta signifies a teaching that is exempt from fanaticism, bigotry, dogmatism, and intolerance.
The reasonableness of the Dhamma, the Buddha's teaching, is chiefly evident in its welcoming careful examination at all stages of the path to enlightenment. Indeed the whole course of training for wisdom culminating in the purity of the consummate one (the arhat) is intimately bound up with examination and analysis of things internal: the eye and visible objects, the ear and sounds, the nose and smells, the tongue and tastes, the body and tactile impressions, the mind and ideas.
Thus since all phenomena have to be correctly understood in the field of Dhamma, insight is operative throughout. In this sutta it is active in rejecting the bad and adopting the good way; in the extracts given below in clarifying the basis of knowledge of conditionality and arhatship. Here it may be mentioned that the methods of examination in the Kalama Sutta and in the extracts cited here, have sprung from the knowledge of things as they are and that the tenor of these methods are implied in all straight thinking. Further, as penetration and comprehension, the constituents of wisdom are the result of such thinking, the place of critical examination and analysis in the development of right vision is obvious. Where is the wisdom or vision that can descend, all of a sudden, untouched and uninfluenced by a critical thought?
The Kalama Sutta, which sets forth the principles that should be followed by a seeker of truth, and which contains a standard things are judged by, belongs to a framework of the Dhamma; the four solaces taught in the sutta point out the extent to which the Buddha permits suspense of judgment in matters beyond normal cognition. The solaces show that the reason for a virtuous life does not necessarily depend on belief in rebirth or retribution, but on mental well-being acquired through the overcoming of greed, hate, and delusion.
More than fifty years ago, Moncure D. Conway, the author of "My Pilgrimage to the Wise Men of the East," visited Colombo. He was a friend of Ponnambalam Ramanathan (then Solicitor General of Ceylon), and together with him Conway went to the Vidyodaya Pirivena to learn something of the Buddha's teaching from Hikkaduve Siri Sumangala Nayaka Thera, the founder of the institution. The Nayaka Thera explained to them the principles contained in the Kalama Sutta and at the end of the conversation Ramanathan whispered to Conway: "Is it not strange that you and I, who come from far different religions and regions, should together listen to a sermon from the Buddha in favor of that free thought, that independence of traditional and fashionable doctrines, which is still the vital principle of human development?" -- Conway: "Yes, and we with the (Kalama) princes pronounce his doctrines good."
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Supplementary Texts
"Friend Savittha, apart from faith, apart from liking, apart from what has been acquired by repeated hearing, apart from specious reasoning, and from a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over, I know this, I see this: 'Decay and death are due to birth.'"
Samyuttanikaya, Nidanavagga, Mahavagga, Sutta No. 8
"Here a bhikkhu, having seen an object with the eye, knows when greed, hate, and delusion are within, 'Greed, hate, and delusion are in me'; he knows when greed, hate, and delusion are not within, 'Greed, hate, and delusion are not in me.' Bhikkhus, have these things to be experienced through faith, liking, what has been acquired by repeated hearing, specious reasoning, or a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over?" -- "No, venerable sir." -- "Bhikkhus, this even is the way by which a bhikkhu, apart from faith, liking, what has been acquired by repeated hearing, specious reasoning, or a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over, declares realization of knowledge thus: I know that birth has been exhausted, the celibate life has been lived, what must be done has been done and there is no more of this to come."
Samyuttanikaya, Salyatanavagga, Navapuranavagga, Sutta No. 8
The term ‘sabbath’ is actually ‘uposatha’, which are days of special observance.
Uposatha days are times of renewed dedication to Dhamma practice, observed by both lay people and monastics throughout the world of Theravada Buddhism.
For monastics, these are often days of more intensive reflection and meditation. In many monasteries physical labor (construction projects, repairs, etc.) is curtailed. On New Moon and Full Moon days the fortnightly confession and recitation of the Patimokkha (monastic rules of conduct) takes place.
Lay people observe the eight precepts on Uposatha days, as a support for meditation practice and as a way to re-energize commitment to the Dhamma. Whenever possible, lay people use these days as an opportunity to visit the local monastery, in order to make special offerings to the Sangha, to listen to Dhamma, and to practice meditation with Dhamma companions late into the night. For laity not closely affiliated with a local monastery, it can simply be an opportunity to increase one's efforts in meditation while drawing on the invisible support of millions of other practicing Buddhists around the world.
The calendar of Uposatha days is calculated using a complicated traditional formula that is loosely based on the astronomical (lunar) calendar, with the result that the dates do not always coincide with the actual astronomical dates. To further confuse matters, each sect within Theravada Buddhism tends to follow its own calendar.
For example, the Vesakha Puja that I celebrated on May 11 was an uposatha.
This description is helpful given that there is a later mention of it at III, 13, §123 (§126 in some renderings)—right after the typical closing sentence of “the monks were indeed satisfied and delighted…” there is this rather fascinating addition: “Moreover when this pronouncement was uttered the thousandfold universe was shaken.” Another translation is: “That is what the Blessed One said. Gratified, the monks delighted in the Blessed One's words. And while this explanation was being given, the ten-thousand fold cosmos quaked.”
This is the twice-monthly uposatha—see the section above on the ‘Sabbath’
There is a marvelous image in here: “He refuses food when a couple are eating, or from a pregnant woman, from one giving suck, from one having intercourse with a man.”