June 2004 Edition
For those who are knowledgeable
This is a state making for joy -
Living the life of Dhamma
Under the noble ones perfected in mind.
They clarify the true Dhamma,
Shining forth and illuminating it,
Those light-bringers, heroic sages,
Endowed with vision, dispelling faults.
Having heard their teaching,
The wise with perfect understanding
By directly knowing the end of birth
Come no more to renewal of being.
(Itivuttaka 4, 104)
July Course
Our final online Meditation Course for 2004 begins on July 24th. The course has been offered since 1997 and serves as a practical introduction to samatha (tranquility) and vipassana (insight) techniques from the Theravada tradition of Buddhism. Intended primarily for beginners, the 90 day course is also suitable for experienced meditators who wish to explore different aspects of the tradition. The course is led by Andrew Quernmore, an experienced meditation teacher based in England.
Registration details are available at:
After the July 2004 course, the next course will be offered in January 2005.
Precision
A course participant writes:
In attempting to feel the breath as it enters the nostrils, there is no sensation of breath hitting the nostrils except for the slight drying of the mucosa lining the nostrils as the dry air goes past; no sensation so far with exhalation. However with concentration on the tip of the nose, seeking sensation, a strong awareness of the pulse becomes apparent. I have heard that it is not advisable to meditate on the heart beat. Should this sensation be treated like any other distraction? I have caught myself several times counting my pulse during the breaths.
Andrew replies:
We are sensing the first touch of the breath as it enters the body. The precise location will vary for each of us and there is no necessity to "place" it anywhere specific in order to meet with convention. The simple guideline is to treat every inhalation as a new and entirely unique experience, and to notice the first impression (of any kind) that the breath makes on its way into the body. If the first contact is the drying sensation you mention, then that is where your attention should rest. As our practice deepens, the noticing of the first contact becomes earlier and earlier: we become attuned to the most subtle impressions that the breath makes in its journey.
Try to keep the awareness as close to the breath as possible. The moment that one strays into associating its touch with anything else (such as the heart beat) the focus has become softer; less clear. The final section is a training in precision of focus and it is extremely important that any form of distraction (such as analysis and complex thoughts within the session) are not permitted to distort our contact with the object. Simply observing the breath for what it is can be very tricky indeed. We are so used to searching for meaning and goals that such a pure action can present quite a challenge. The moment that we become aware of anything that is not the breath, then there needs to be a gentle acceptance of the momentary loss of contact and a disciplined return to the object. By repeatedly bringing the attention back to the object we have chosen the strayings will be fewer and contact will become more sustained.
With metta
Andrew
Our Buddhist Heritage
For the past few months, this Newsletter has been exploring a little of the history of Early Buddhism. We continue our series here. Earlier chapters are available by following the Newsletter link on our website.
Early Buddhism
by T.W. Rhys Davids (1843-1922)
CHAPTER 5
THE LIONS
IN THE PATH
Though the texts are full of assurance of the possibility of happiness here, in this world, without waiting for a better, they are not blind to the opposite side of the question, and recognise, frankly and fully, the obstacles and dangers. As usual, in the absence of books, these were arranged, for the convenience of memory, into classes. The most dangerous are the five Hindrances, the ten Bonds, and the four Intoxications.
The Bonds are:
1. Delusions
about the soul
(Sakkaya-ditthi ).
2. Doubt
(Vicikiccha ).
3. Dependence on
works (Silabbata-paramasa
).
4. Sensuality (Kama ).
5. Ill-will
(Patigha
).
6. Desire for rebirth
on earth (Rupa-raga ).
7. Desire for
rebirth in heaven (Arupa-raga
).
8. Pride (Mano ).
9. Self-righteousness
(Uddhacca
).
10. Ignorance (Avijja ).
These words are all perfectly simple, except six and seven, which are explained below. The curious thing is that these evil dispositions are supposed to be conquered in order - so that, for instance, to conquer delusions about the soul is the very entrance on the Path, and to conquer Ignorance (the direst foe, the worst enemy of the human race) is only possible at the end of it. I am not prepared to say there is not some reason in this, especially when we consider the frequent instances, in the texts, of individuals, in moments of spiritual exaltation or insight, breaking three, or four, or five of the Bonds at a bound. To have broken the first three Bonds is what we should call conversion, what they call 'the entrance into the stream.' And as the doctrine of Final Assurance is part of early Buddhism, there can then be no permanent relapse. Sooner or later, in this or another birth, final salvation is assured.
The Intoxications. - The intoxications were originally three - the mental infatuation arising from sensual pleasures, from the pride of life, and from ignorance respectively. Then there was added a fourth. This addition must have been made very early in the progress of the new movement; and it is of remarkable interest from the point of view of the history of human thought. It was the infatuation arising from speculation - speculation as to uncertainties, ultimate causes, questions of no moment for the practical conduct of life. The stigma thus attached to this sort of speculation was the most formidable attack that had been made so far, in the history of the world, on theology and metaphysics. The rival theories purported to explain the origin and end of all things, to be able to give a clear and absolute decision as to the finiteness or infinity of the world, as to the eternity of the soul, and of those bigger souls, the gods. Buddhism declares that everything has a cause, the cause (or causes) included; that there is nothing permanent; and that it is not only a sufficient, it is the only true, method to argue from one cause back to the next, and so on, without any hope, or even desire, to explain the ultimate cause of all things. The most famous of all Buddhist stanzas, found engraved on ten thousand votive gifts to Buddhist shrines in India, put, in the Canon, into the mouth of the fifth of the Arahats, and quoted as authoritative in the works of all but the very latest of the various schools of Buddhist thought, tells us:
"Of all the phenomena
sprung from a cause
The Buddha the
cause hath told,
And he tells too how each shall come to its end,
Such
alone is the word of the Sage."
[Vinaya, i. 40. Compare Isa Upanishad, 14. E. Hardy in the Netti, p. xxiii.]
The Indeterminates. - This position seemed to many of Gotama's contemporaries to be a confession of failure. And it was a failure from the point of view of those to whom precisely such questions seemed of the utmost importance. But Gotama was perfectly firm. He refused not only to answer, but even to discuss such points. They were of course being constantly raised. His answer was a list of Indeterminates, questions barred.
1, 2. Whether the world is eternal or not.
3, 4. Whether
the world is infinite or not.
5, 6. Whether the soul is the same as the body,
or different from it.
7-10. Whether a man exists in any way, or not, after death.
[For references, see my discussion of the Indeterminates in Dialogues of the Buddha, vol. i. p. 186 fol.]
There were others ; but these are the ones most frequently mentioned.
"On such points brahmins
and recluses stick,
Wrangling
on them they violently discuss ;
Poor folk! they see but one side of the shield."
Such expressions as the following are several times found in the Dialogues:-
"The jungle, the desert, the puppet-show, the writhing, the entanglement of such speculations is accompanied by sorrow, wrangling, resentment, the fever of excitement. It conduces neither to detachment of heart, nor to freedom from lusts, nor to tranquillity, nor to peace, nor to wisdom, nor to the insight of the higher stages of the path, nor to Nirvana." [Majjhima, i. 431, 485.]
We find here two propositions : Do not let us discuss things on which we have not good evidence. Do not let us discuss things which are no use, no good, but the contrary, for us. Whether right or wrong, both propositions seem to me quite intelligible. Subtle arguments have, however, been brought forward to show that, behind this deliberate silence of Gotama, there lay, after all, a covert and esoteric belief, not communicated to his disciples, in a future life and other points of his opponents' creed. That, to me, is not intelligible.
How possible Gotama's position is can be seen from Frederic Harrison's description of a similar view held now in Europe:-
"When men of high moral and intellectual power assure us that they find rest, unity, and fruit in . . . conceptions about themselves, their own natures, the external world, its origin, construction, and maintenance, the future state of what they conceive to be some part of, or the essence of, themselves.... far be it from us to dispute the value and reality of this knowledge. ... If we do not adopt them, it is not because we believe them to be false, but because they fail to interest us. We can get no practical good out of them." [Philosophy of Common Sense (London, 1907), p. 40.]
Or compare this, from a very different school. Professor James says:-
"Is the world one or many? fated or free? material or spiritual ? - here are notions either of which may or may not hold good of the world ; and disputes over such notions are unending. The pragmatic method in such cases is to try to interpret each notion by tracing its respective practical consequences." [Pragmatism (London, 1907), p. 45.]
The Buddha was neither Comtist nor Pragmatist. But these extracts may show how unnecessary it is to try to read between the lines of very distinct passages to the contrary in order to find in them the metaphysical sweetmeats dear to so many hearts. In any case, it is clear that to the early Buddhists the habit of theosophic speculation was by no means the least dangerous of the Lions in the Path.
To have realised the Truths, and traversed the Path; to have broken the Bonds, put an end to the Intoxications, got rid of the Hindrances, mastered the craving for metaphysical speculation was to have attained the ideal, the Fruit, as it is called, of Arahatship. One might fill columns with the praises, many of them among the most beautiful passages in Pali poetry and prose, lavished on this condition of mind, the state of the man made perfect according to the Buddhist faith. Many are the pet names, the poetic epithets, bestowed upon it, each of them - for they are not synonyms - emphasising one or other phase of this many-sided conception - the harbour of refuge, the cool cave, the island amidst the floods, the place of bliss, emancipation, liberation, safety, the supreme, the transcendental, the uncreated, the tranquil, the home of ease, the calm, the end of suffering, the medicine for all evil, the unshaken, the ambrosia, the immaterial, the imperishable, the abiding, the further shore, the unending, the bliss of effort, the supreme joy, the ineffable, the detachment, the holy city, and many others. Perhaps the most frequent in the Buddhist texts is Arahatship, 'the state of him who is worthy'; and the one exclusively used in Europe is Nirvana, the 'dying out,' that is, the dying out in the heart of the fell fire of the three cardinal sins - sensuality, ill-will, and stupidity. [Samyutta, iv. 251, 261.]
The choice of this term by European writers, a choice made long before any of the Buddhist canonical texts had been published or translated, has had a most unfortunate result. Those writers did not share, could not be expected to share, the exuberant optimism of the early Buddhists. Themselves giving up this world as hopeless, and looking for salvation in the next, they naturally thought the Buddhists must do the same; and in the absence of any authentic scriptures to correct the mistake, they interpreted Nirvana, in terms of their own belief, as a state to be reached after death. As such they supposed the 'dying out' must mean the dying out of a 'soul'; and endless were the discussions as to whether this meant eternal trance, or absolute annihilation, of the soul. It is now thirty years since I first put forward the right interpretation. [In the first edition of my manual Buddhism, published by the SPCK in 1877.] But outside the ranks of Pali scholars the old blunder is still often repeated. It should be added that the belief in salvation in this world, in this life, was really implicit, though never clearly or openly expressed, in pre-Buddhistic thought. And it appealed so strongly to Indian sympathies that from the time of the rise of Buddhism down to the present day it has been adopted as a part of general Indian belief, and Jivanmukti, salvation during this life, has become a commonplace in the religious language of India.
(Concludes in the next Newsletter)
Buddhist News
Ven Dr. Rewata Dhamma (1929-2004)
Venerable Rewata Dhamma, Buddhist scholar and founder of the Birmingham Buddhist Vihara (UK) has died. His outstanding translation and commentary on the Buddha's first sermon is published by Wisdom Publications. Among his many achievements was his mediation between the Burmese military authorities and Aung San Suu Kyi.
Myanmar hosts international summit on
Buddhism
The three-day World Buddhist Summit will be held in the
capital city Yangon from December 9th. The global meeting of Theravada Buddhists
is organised once every two years.
Russia refuses Dalai Lama visa
The president of Russia's
internal republic of Kalmykia spoke out at Thursday's cabinet session,
criticizing the Federal Government's refusal to a grant the Dalai Lama a visa to
attend a Buddhist forum in the predominantly Buddhist republic in south-east
Russia. President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov said that the Dalai Lama was denied a visa
last week. The spiritual leader has repeatedly been denied a visa to visit
Russia, in what is seen as a signal from Russia's Foreign Ministry to China.
Referring to the Russian Constitution, which proclaims freedom of religion,
Ilyumzhinov said that the country's Buddhists plan to go to the Constitutional
Court to contest the visa denial.
The Vipassana Fellowship Newsletter is published about 10 times each year and is sent only on request and to previous participants of our courses. Vipassana Fellowship is an organisation dedicated to the dissemination of accurate and useful information on Buddhist meditation practices as found in the Theravada tradition. Our next mailing will be in July. Our site can be accessed via the vipassana.com and vipassana.org domains.
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