You have used here the phrase: 'knowledge and vision of experience as it is'
In previous teachings, I'd had this stage explained to me as ‘knowledge and vision of things as they really are'. (See Sangharakshita’s ‘A Guide to the Buddhist Path’, for example)
But what you have used here (knowledge of experience) makes a lot more sense to me; all we really have direct contact with is our own experience rather Reality itself, surely. So thanks for clarifying that.
Another comment - more a question, really.
OK, sometimes we may feel we have crept along this path a little bit. Especially in meditation: joy -rapture - calm. But all too quickly we fall off again. So presumably we may begin to move along this path many many times and fall back until eventually one makes it all the way through, completely and utterly (maybe the our previous steps along this path were superficial?) Is that how it supposed to work?
Thoughtful comments are always welcome. Yes, I think a lot of us are reassessing Sangharakshita's earlier use of terminology around Reality (capital R) including perhaps Subhuti who I gather has been having a number of conversations with Sangharakshita on this subject. I've written quite a lot about this so have a poke around in the archives for more.
Until we reach the point of no return we can have ups and downs. It is a bit like a house, if the foundations are unsound, the walls are unstable, and without unstable walls the roof can not stay up. A castle *can* be built on sand, but it doesn't *stay* up. I read the sutta as directing our attention to ethics. If we slip back then the foundations need to be shored up - we need to look to the fundamentals to ensure they are strong enough. That is to say we need to address matters of conscience and behaviour if our meditation practice is ineffective. This is perhaps the most demanding aspect of Buddhist practice - we must take responsibility for the state of our own mind.
I'm as wary about terms like "completely" and "utterly" as I am about "Reality", "Absolute" and "Ultimate". It's not a matter of superlatives - these are the province of fundamentalist religion. However the tradition suggests that we can have a decisive experience which make a lasting change to our relationship to sensory experience such that we are freed from delusions about it, we are no longer intoxicated by pleasure. This is knowledge and vision - these two terms are simply synonyms: seeing is knowing and vice versa. We have the same kinds of metaphors in English: see what I mean? It may be a single life-changing event, or it may build up over years and decades. But practice brings us up against the nature of our experience and opens the possibility of understanding not only the experience itself, but the underlying mechanisms for how we process sensory data. We play it down but 'understanding' is one of the possible translations of 'bodhi' and Buddha (the past-participle) can simply mean '[one who has] understood'.
Thanks for your comments.
Best Wishes Jayarava
Sunday, May 16, 2010
[Image]One of Sangharakshita's great contributions to the Dharma has been his exegesis on what he called 'the spiral path'. This is a teaching that was lost to the Buddhist world, despite being preserved in the texts, until it was brought to light by Mrs Rhys Davids in the introduction of her translation to the Saṃyutta Nikāya. It is a vital counterpart to the application of paṭicca-samuppāda found in the twelve-fold nidāna chain. In this long lost twin we find an answer to the question of how enlightenment is possible for unenlightened people. Having lost what seems like the Buddha's original answer to this question, the Buddhist tradition came up with many and varied answers of its own, some more successful than others. But for me none has the simplicity or the raw intensity of this Pāli text. When Sangharakshita wrote about this teaching [1] he was only aware of the Upanisā Sutta (SN 12.23, PTS S ii.29) however myself and other scholars in the Triratna Buddhist Order have subsequently discovered a number of other texts which explore the second form of paṭicca-samuppāda. [2] This one from the chapter of tens from the Aṅguttara Nikāya is my personal favourite.
The Discourse on Forming an intention [3]
The virtuous one, endowed with virtue [sīlavant sīlasampanna] need not form an intention 'may my conscience be clear'. It is natural for the virtuous one endowed with virtue to have a clear conscience. Having a clear conscience [avippaṭisāra] there is no need to will 'may I feel joy'. Joy naturally arises in those who have a clear conscience. The joyful [pāmojja] need not decide 'may I be filled with rapture'. Joyfulness naturally produces rapture. There is no need for the enraptured [pītimana] to resolve 'may my body calm down'. It is natural in the enraptured for the body to calm down. With a body at rest [passaddhakāya] there is no need to form the intention 'may I experience bliss'. With the body at rest they naturally experience bliss. The blissful [sukhina] don't need to will 'may my mind become composed'. The mind of the blissful is naturally composed. When the mind is composed [samādhiyatu] there is no need to think 'may I have knowledge and vision of experience as it is'. With the mind composed one naturally sees and knows experience as it is. Knowing and seeing experience as it is there is no need to form an intention 'May I become weary [of experience], may I become dispassionate [towards it]. It is natural when seeing experience as it is [yathābhuta jāna passa] that one becomes fed up and turns away from experience. Weary of experience and disinterested in it [ nibiddāvirāga] there is no need to wish 'may I experience for myself the knowledge and vision of liberation'. For, weary of experience and disinterested in it one naturally experiences knowledge and vision of liberation [vimuttiñāṇadassana].
Thus knowledge & vision of liberation is the benefit [attha] and blessing [ānisaṃsa] of being fed up and turning away. Being fed up and turning away is the benefit and blessing of knowledge & vision of experience as it is. Knowledge & vision of experience as it is, is the benefit and blessing of absorption. Absorption is the benefit and blessing of bliss. Bliss is the benefit and blessing of serenity. Serenity is the benefit and blessing of rapture. Rapture is the benefit and blessing of joy. Joy is the benefit and blessing of a clear conscience. A clear conscience is the benefit and blessing of moral competence..
Thus each one fills up the next, each one is fulfilled by the next, and goes from the near bank to the far bank. This sutta seems to require very little in the way of commentary. however I do need to say a little about the word I have translated as 'naturally' or 'it is natural'. The word in Pāli is dhammatā. this is an abstract noun formed by adding be abstract suffix -tā to the familiar word dhamma. Bhikkhu Bodhi renders this as 'natural law'. The meaning relies on that sense of the word dhamma corresponding to the English 'nature', and is more literally 'nature-ness' i.e. natural.
The sequence of states (dhammā) mentioned in Pāli is: sīlavant sīlasampanna > avippaṭisāra > pāmojja > pīti(mana) > passaddhakāya > samāhita/samādhi > yathābhūta jānata passata > nibbinna riratta > vimuttiñāṇadassa sacchikaroti.The message of the text is very simple. Enlightenment is a natural process. One thing leads to another, each one 'filling up' (abhisandeti) the next, and becoming its fulfilment (paripūreti). I think it's a very interesting reflection for us moderns who are wont to say "I just want to be happy". In this way of looking at things there is no need to form an intention to be happy. If one wants to be happy than one needs to look at the conditions that bring about happiness, especially by being virtuous.
The text is saying that if only we practice virtue in the Buddhist sense of that word, then all else follows quite naturally. There is a compelling logic to this. But it is also pragmatic, and very much in the spirit of 'come and see' (ehi passiko). It is not that no effort is required, far from it. But if we pay attention to the fundamentals, then the rest will take care of itself. Accepting this scheme as a possibility is the beginning of the spiritual life. Finding it to be true in one's own experience is the beginning of faith. Giving oneself up to it is the beginning of insight.
Notes See: A Survey of Buddhism. 7th Ed. 1993, p.135ff [Chp 1, sect. 14 'Saṃsāra and Nirvāṇa']; and The Three Jewels. 3rd Ed. 1991, p.108ff [chp 13 'The stages of the path']. I discuss the examples that I have located at the end of my essay: A Footnote To Sangharakshita's 'A Survey of Buddhism'. This is in need of a rewrite, but my friend Dhīvan is the expert and his book on the subject, This Being, That Becomes: The Buddha's Teaching on Conditionality[Image], is due out soon. Cetanākaraṅīya Sutta AN 10.2, PTS A v.2. My translation based on the Pāli text as tripitaka.org. Also translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi in his AN anthology 'The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha', p.238-9 as 'The Lawfulness of Progress'.image: Sangharakshita, from Manchester Triratna Buddhist Centre.
The main sources are for the Spiral Path: Upanisā Sutta - SN 23.15 Pamādavihārī Sutta - SN 35.97 AN 10 1-5 and 11 1-5 AN 8.81; which recurs with fewer steps as AN 7.65, 6.50, 5.24, 5.168.Samaññāphala Sutta - D2, repeated in D 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. Dasuttara Sutta - DN 34Vatthūpama Sutta MN 7Kandaraka Sutta - MN 51Visuddhimagga: I.32 (p.13 in Ñāṇamoli's translation).
2 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formGreat post! Thanks.
Mind if I make a couple of comments / questions?
You have used here the phrase: 'knowledge and vision of experience as it is'
In previous teachings, I'd had this stage explained to me as ‘knowledge and vision of things as they really are'. (See Sangharakshita’s ‘A Guide to the Buddhist Path’, for example)
But what you have used here (knowledge of experience) makes a lot more sense to me; all we really have direct contact with is our own experience rather Reality itself, surely.
So thanks for clarifying that.
Another comment - more a question, really.
OK, sometimes we may feel we have crept along this path a little bit. Especially in meditation: joy -rapture - calm. But all too quickly we fall off again. So presumably we may begin to move along this path many many times and fall back until eventually one makes it all the way through, completely and utterly (maybe the our previous steps along this path were superficial?) Is that how it supposed to work?
Many thanks. Enjoy reading your weekly rave.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Hi Michael,
Thoughtful comments are always welcome. Yes, I think a lot of us are reassessing Sangharakshita's earlier use of terminology around Reality (capital R) including perhaps Subhuti who I gather has been having a number of conversations with Sangharakshita on this subject. I've written quite a lot about this so have a poke around in the archives for more.
Until we reach the point of no return we can have ups and downs. It is a bit like a house, if the foundations are unsound, the walls are unstable, and without unstable walls the roof can not stay up. A castle *can* be built on sand, but it doesn't *stay* up. I read the sutta as directing our attention to ethics. If we slip back then the foundations need to be shored up - we need to look to the fundamentals to ensure they are strong enough. That is to say we need to address matters of conscience and behaviour if our meditation practice is ineffective. This is perhaps the most demanding aspect of Buddhist practice - we must take responsibility for the state of our own mind.
I'm as wary about terms like "completely" and "utterly" as I am about "Reality", "Absolute" and "Ultimate". It's not a matter of superlatives - these are the province of fundamentalist religion. However the tradition suggests that we can have a decisive experience which make a lasting change to our relationship to sensory experience such that we are freed from delusions about it, we are no longer intoxicated by pleasure. This is knowledge and vision - these two terms are simply synonyms: seeing is knowing and vice versa. We have the same kinds of metaphors in English: see what I mean? It may be a single life-changing event, or it may build up over years and decades. But practice brings us up against the nature of our experience and opens the possibility of understanding not only the experience itself, but the underlying mechanisms for how we process sensory data. We play it down but 'understanding' is one of the possible translations of 'bodhi' and Buddha (the past-participle) can simply mean '[one who has] understood'.
Thanks for your comments.
Best Wishes
Jayarava
Sunday, May 16, 2010