גלות רוחנית : spiritual exile

The Four Truths Seen by the Buddha

Buddhist hagiography tells a story of a young man that at the age of twenty-nine left his wife and young child and became an ascetic nomad who sought the complete end of misery. After practicing various techniques for six years, he became disillusioned with the practice of self inflicted torment. He than sat down and agreed to receive some food. Having gained some strength, he realized that there should be another way, a middle way between self inflicted torment and sensual pleasure. On the same night through a serious of meditative states he faced his demons and learned about the ways suffering is create and extinguished. By that he became fully awakened, a Buddha.

The night of awakening is definitely a central reference point in the life story of the Buddha. After his awakening, when he decides to teach what he has understood, he went to find his old companions, a group of five ascetics who left him earlier in his journey. To them, it is said, he spoke about the dharma for the first time.

The first discourse contains some of the most important features of Buddhist doctrine that are also common to all Buddhist traditions and sects. They are generally referred to as the four Noble Truth. In this discourse, called in Pali dhammacakkappavattana-sutta (the Discourse Setting in Motion of the Wheel of Dharma) the Buddha explains four basic truths he realized: suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the way.

There can be some confusion about the word Truth in this context and certainly about Noble Truths, the standard but probably erroneous translation of the Pāli compound ariyasaccāni into English. Ariya means ”noble“. Sacca or Sanskrit satya is derived from the sat, ”being“, and means ”truth“ or ”real“. Something is true (sacca) because it accords with what is (sat). One sees truth when one sees things ”as they really are“ (yathābhūtadassana), the famous Buddhist phrase that describes the kind of knowledge that liberates.

K.R. Norman has pointed out that the compound ariyasacca can indicate different relations between its parts: ”a truth for nobles“, ”the nobles‘ truths“, ”the nobilising truths“ and ”the truth of, possessed by, the nobles“ (1990-6 vol. 1993 p.174). As a matter of fact, he points out that the common translation ”the noble truths“ (i.e.,“the truths which are noble“) is the least important in the eyes of the traditional commentators; he suggests that the best translation would be simply ”the truths of the noble one“ that is, the truth as seen by the Buddha (1997 p.16).

Suffering

What are the truths seen by the Buddha? First, he saw the nature of suffering. The Pāli discourse states:

birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, illness is dukkha, death is dukkha, union with the unpleasant is dukkha, seperation from the pleasant is dukkha, not getting what one wants — this is also dukkha; in brief: clinging to the five aggregates is dukkha.

Dukkha is sometimes translated as suffering but this paragraph and many others suggests that it is much more comprehensive than mere discomfort. The text provide a three layered explanation: (1) suffering is the very process of life - from birth to death, (2) it is an unwise relationship with the pleasant and the unpleasant, relationship that involves craving and frustration (3) it is the misguided clinging to anything that is changing within us.

This is not, as one might think, a pessimistic view that everything we experience is misery. Buddhists do not deny the existence of happy states and joyful times. The truth about dukkha points to the undeniable limits that life imposes unto us, and to the fact that the constant craving for pleasant and permanent states is never fulfilled. It is never fulfilled not because we are not trying enough. It is never fulfilled because this is the nature of the world. This is how things are. There is no (ultimate) satisfaction in pleasant feelings, and there is no ultimate satisfaction in just being alive and going through the process of ageing and dying. This unsatisfactoriness, which is closely connected to the fact that objects, including ourselves, are impermanent, is dukkha.

Aggregates

The last item in the paragraph, ”Clinging to the five aggregates“ (pañc‘upādāna‘kkhandhā) refers to the Buddhist understanding of what is it to be human, or in other words, how the individual experience himself from within, from a phenomenological perspective. Khandha (Sanskrit: skhandha), means ”aggregate“ or ”heap“. A person is said to be compounded of five different aggregates: physical form, sensation, apperception, formation (e.g., volitions, intentions and drives) and consciousness.

We see that we have physical bodies. This is rūpa, a form. We see that the contact with the world through our senses evokes various emotional reactions. These are called vedanā, sensations, which are classified as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Vedanā refers to the operation of the six senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and sensing through the mind. In Buddhism, as much as in other Indian systems, the mind is considered a sense ”organ“, or more precisely a sense ”base“, because it has the ability to collect (or sense) memories, thoughts, dreams, visions etc.

Vedanā is the process of simple perception, and saññā is apperception: the faculty that distinguishes between objects and recognizes them through cognitive process that uses pre-existing knowledge. When we slice reality and analyze our experience we use saññā. We use it to recognize.

We also see that we have certain tendencies, wishes and desires of many kinds and strengths. They are saṃkhāra, volitional formations that stands behind our actions. Finally consciousness, viññāna is what enables us to be aware of phenomenal reality, in and out. We are conscious of ourselves as thinking, feeling, and wanting subjects and we call this awareness consciousness.

This is in a nutshell how Buddhists organize the experience of being human. The concluding sentence of the first Truth states that clinging to these five aggregates is dukkha, suffering, because when we cling we fail to see the true impermanent nature of them, and mistake them for our permanent selves.

Impermanence (anicca) is a central feature in Buddhist phenomenology. In a nutshell it mean that things are actually not ”things“ - they are processes. Everything we know through our minds and senses — including extraordinary meditative states and the teaching of the Buddha — are subject to change. They are constantly in the process of arising and passing. Failing to see that, human beings, we, cling to all kinds of objects and states and as a result we suffer when they change or disappear.

Origin

The second Truth is concerned with the origin of suffering. The Pali text states:

This is the noble one’s truth of the origin of dukkha: it is craving (taņhā) that leads to renewed existence, craving endowed with passionate delight, craving that finds delight [once] here [once] there; that is: craving for senses, craving for being, craving for not-being.

First, we should note that the truth of origin is not about the historical origin of suffering; it is about the psychological condition that leads to it. Buddhist theory does not try to trace the origin of suffering in a mythological past of humanity or the world. In the same manner it does not encounter the problem of suffering in the face of an allmighty benevolent god.
Craving, Taņhā, is not, as one might think, mere wanting. The passage makes it clear that it is not about wanting to go somewhere, cook lunch, or talk to a friend. The cause of suffering is a deeply rooted craving that underlies our basic tendencies. It is an unfocused craving for sensual delights that can never be fulfilled, it is the metaphysical craving for living forever, or being reborn again and again, the craving for continuous being (i.e., being eternal) and its counterpart: the craving for being annihilated.

Rupert Gethin explains that sensual craving, the most common and probably the easiest to understand, is only one manifestation of the basic tendency. To that he adds:

I may crave to be some particular kind of person, or I may crave fame and even immortality. On the other hand, I may bitterly and resentfully turn my back to ambition, craving to be nobody; I may become depressed and long not to exist, wishing that I had never been born;“ (Gethin, 1998 p.70).

The causal process that fuels dukkha is elaborated in the Buddhist formula of dependent origination. This is the Buddhist traditional way to portray the way in which various conditions contribute to the arising of suffering. As a general formula, it mainly indicates the fact that specific conditionality governs our world and that with the eradication of the conditions, the result ceases to be: ”This existing, that exists, this arising, that arises; this not existing, that does not exist, this ceasing that ceases“ (translated by Gethin, 1998 p.141).

The revelation that the entire unfolding process of life is a self-less web of causal connexion is probably the most significant feature the Buddha’s teaching. It locates ignorance as the prime condition on which our very existence is structured, including the way we sense, interpret, and construct ourselves and the our worlds. Among the various formulae found in the ancient texts — some differ quite dramatically form each other — the tradition has picked up a twelve-link chain that has become the ”classic“ and most common formula.

With ignorance as condition volitional formation [comes to be]; with volitional formation as a condition, consciousness; with consciousness as a condition, name-and-form, with name and form as a condition, the six sense base; with the six sense base as a condition, contact; with contact as a condition; feeling; with feeling as a condition, craving; with craving as a condition, attachment; with attachment as a condition, becoming; with becoming as a condition, birth; with birth as a condition, aging-and-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair come to be. Such is the origin of this whole mass of suffering. (SN ii,1)

Within the Buddhist tradition there has been different approaches to the formula. At least some involve discussion of links between past and future lives — almost a taboo subject for Western scientific thinking. Nevertheless, the importance dependent origination is in its uncompromised treatment of phenomenal world as arising in dependent of specific conditions, regardless of the Buddhist views about rebirth.

The description of the process of dependent origination is as follows: Ignorance conditions (1) volitional formations (2) that determines the arising of consciousness (3). Without consciousness there is no development of the body-mind compound (4). Body-mind is the condition for becoming a sensual being (5). Having senses makes sense contact possible (6). Contact makes feeling (7) possible. With no feeling there is no craving (8), and with no craving no attachment (9). Becoming (10) is the operation of karma, determined by the persons attachments that leads after death to new birth (11). Birth leads to death (12) with the entire misery associated with it. Some parts of the formula like the link between attachment and becoming are far from being self-explanatory. Almost every Buddhist scholar had to address this formula in the course of understanding Buddhist doctrine, and there seems not to be great clarity on what the original meaning of the formula was. I tend to agree with Paul Williams who writes that ”it may be impossible at the present stage of our scholarship to work out very satisfactorily what the original logic of the full twelvefold formula was intended to be, if there ever was one intention at all.“ (2000 p.72)

From a psychological point of view, the sensation-feeling-craving-attachment cycle is the most interesting. (We need not concentrate on the metaphysical aspects of rebirth and past lives.) Within the formula craving is dependent on feelings, for without emotional reaction to sensual stimuli no craving is formed. Craving conditions attachment or clinging (upādāna), for as we crave something we try to get hold of it and make it ours. Buddhist texts generally talk about four kinds of attachments: attachment to the objects of sense desire, attachment to views, attachment to precepts and vows, attachment to the doctrine of self.

It may be said that attachment is the cause of suffering, for when we are attached to something we fail to see its impermanent nature and grasp it as if it will exist for us forever. If we cling to sensual pleasure, we suffer when we are separated from it; if we cling to views, we suffer when they are contradicted or attacked; if we cling to precepts and vows, we suffer when they no longer agree with our life situation; if we cling to a doctrine of self, we suffer when our image of our self meets reality. Attachment stands in opposition to impermanence (anicca). Phenomenal reality is impermanent, therefore attachment can only bring about suffering.

Despite of what is said in the previous paragraph, in the four Truths attachment is not the origin of suffering. Craving is the origin because it conditions attachment and thus conditions the arising of dissatisfaction. But craving itself depends on feelings. Why are feelings not the origin of suffering? In a way they are, as much as any of the factors in the formula of dependent origination preconditions suffering. However, feelings are unavoidable for humans. The mere sensations, pleasant and unpleasant are a matter of fact, and Buddhist tradition insists that even Buddhas do not loose their ability to feel pain and joy. If sensations were a necessary and sufficient cause for craving, there would not have been any escape from suffering. But the second and the third Truth indicate differently: craving is the cause and craving can be removed. With the removal or craving, the vicious cycle breaks and liberation is known. This means that sensations are necessary cause for craving, but not sufficient. It needs to be fuelled by ignorance.

Cessation

With the discovery of craving as the prime origin of dukkha, the solution automatically followed. The end of suffering comes about with the end of craving, for without craving no attachment is formed and without attachment one enjoys freedom from dissatisfaction. Cessation is spoken of in terms of releasing, letting go and giving up:

This, bhikkhus, is the noble one’s truth of the cessation of dukkha — this is the complete absence and termination of craving, the renouncing and giving up of craving, its release and elimination.

When the Buddha meditated in the night of his awakening, he gave up craving and attained nirvana. The word nirvana has been accepted into English and may loosely indicate a state of happiness or perfect joy. But its original derivation (Sanskrit: nirvāņa, Pali: or nibbana) is actually grammatically negative — it means ”extinguishing“ or ”blowing out“ (of a flame). When someone attains nirvana, his deepest craving tendencies are extinguished.

These tendencies are also described as the three ”roots“ of dukkha: desire, aversion, and delusion. Desire and aversion are basically forms of cravings, two basic tendencies to crave the pleasant and to hate the unpleasant. Adding delusion points to the fact that at a final account ignorance, the first factor in the formula of dependent origination, is the origin of suffering. It is being ignorant of the true nature of reality that leads to desire and aversion. When wisdom and knowledge counteracts ignorance, craving is abandoned.

Knowledge was also important for pre-Buddhist religious thinking in India. It is described by scholars as ”magical“ knowledge that allows the knower to control something (Collins, 1982 p.59). This notion is based on the principle identification mentioned above (ch. 2). Control is possible because somehow the things that can be manipulated directly are identical, or correspond, to the bigger picture which is out of direct reach. Thus the Vedic sacrifice has power over the universe. In the Vedas and the Brāhmaņas the holder of magical knowledge seeks mundane goals like prosperity and long life or, sometimes, good rebirth in god’s realm or the realm of ”the fathers“ after death. He does that by correctly performing a sacrifice, and forcing the desired outcome. Gradually the instrumental use of knowledge was generalized until in the Upanişads knowing one thing is said to control everything. However, the principle stays the same: seek for identity relations between something within your power and something out of reach.

There are good reasons for wanting to find something within one’s power that corresponds to the underling principle of the universe — this would allow one to control anything one wishes in order to avoid anything that is considered unwanted. The Upanişads proclaim that such correspondence exists between the essential self (ātman) and the power behind the universe (brahman). By knowing one’s self, one gains control over everything, because in essence ātman is identical to brahman. Those who know that, not only create whatever they desire, but are also released from the effects of good and bad acts (karma), and so are not reborn again within the cycle of life and death (Collins, 1982 p.62).

The framework is very similar to that of Buddhism. Not knowing preconditions a vicious cycle. Only one who knows and sees the true nature of things is liberated from the cycle. The importance of knowledge to Buddhism explains why it is appealing to modern science. But there should be a degree of caution. While the content of knowledge may seem at times rather similar — a rejection of self/soul philosophies, preoccupation with processes and causality, and immense interest in human psychology — the objectives are different. In science knowledge is the purpose, though in some cases it may indirectly bring happiness to the human race. For Buddhists knowledge is a way to transform the individual who knows. This means, I suggest, that Buddhists and scientists are talking about slightly different things when they talk about ”knowledge“.

Desipte the the similar framework, Buddhism actually propagates a very different kind of knowledge to that of the Upanişads. It claims that knowledge of not-self (anātman Pali: anattā) is what liberates. Although some scholars have previously claimed that early Buddhism teaches self, and even brahmanical Ultimate Self, it is widely agreed today both in Buddhist traditions and in Scholarship that this claim is wrong.

The teaching of the Buddha may not have argued directly against brahmanical texts, but it is very clear they reject the doctrine of Self that these brahmanical texts imply. The Buddha’s message clearly denies that there can be found an eternal self and that there can be found a self in full control of one’s destiny and the world.

If the self is a constant and fixed entity that somehow keeps us together and ensures our continuity, it follows that it has to be permanent and unchanging. But the Buddhist understanding of reality stresses that everything we ordinarily know is impermanent. Self cannot be traced within any of the five aggregates that constitute the human being (see above), because the five aggregates constantly change. Not only the content of the five aggregates changes (e.g., different feelings at different times), but also the way they are experienced changes: in one moment I think the body is myself, in another I think I am what I feel, and so on.

Buddhism does not claim that nothing transcend the impermanent existence in time and that no one has any influence over his or her future. The idea of not-self only means that holding onto a theory of self does not lead to liberation, because it only fuels craving for more erroneous sense of control over desired future destinies (becoming) or desired escape and annihilation (non-becoming).

Things, or better said, phenomena, are connected in a causal web: ”This existing, that exists, this arising, that arises; this not existing, that does not exist, this ceasing that ceases“. Nothing in the structure of the human being escapes this observation. This is why the Dhammapada states: ”all conditioned phenomena are impermanent“ (Dhp 20 v5). In this whole web of arising phenomena, almost nothing can be found that is unconditioned and permanent. Almost, but not all. In the Pali texts the unconditioned (asankhata) is a synonym for liberation or nirvana.

There is, monks, a domain where there is no earth, no water, no fire, no wind… I do not call this coming or going, nor standing nor dying, nor being reborn; it is without support, without occurrence, without object. Just this is the end of suffering“ (Ud. 80 in Gethin, 1998 p.76-77)

Could it be that after denying permanent existence and Ultimate Self, the mystical idea of Ultimate Reality creeps into Buddhist thinking in the form of nirvana? This is definitely true in the cases of some popular Buddhist beliefs. However in the context of early Buddhist thought it seems not to be the case.

Paul Williams (2000 p.50-51) presents a persuasive argument which I wish to briefly summarize. He argues that describing two things in similar negatives does not mean that they are identical. For example: both a banana and an orange are ”not apple“, but they definitely not the same. There is no reason to think, therefore, that nirvana and Ultimate Reality are the same because both are described as ”nor dying“ and ”nor being reborn“. Williams continues and notes that the only positive term in the above-cited passage is ”domain“. But the Buddhist use of āyatana and dhātu (domain and realm respectively) is not limited to spatial descriptions. These words often refer to ”realms“ of perception and cognition. Therefore, when the text talks about domain, it does not talk about nirvana but about the perception of it.

When nirvana is described as an intentional object of a cognitive ”realm“, it is described using almost entirely negatives, because in the Buddhist account it simply cannot be grasped by cognition (I use ”intentional“ here in its philosophical technical sense, as used by Brentano). Mind, with its arsenal of relative concepts, falls short of grasping complete absence. And this is exactly why nirvana, the complete extinction of craving and suffering, evades positive definition. What could be the cognitive content of a lack of something? The description is bound to be negative. Otherwise it would become another object of craving, another physical or mental realm to be born into, and another conditioned phenomenon that, by nature, has to be impermanent. Such a thing could not possibly be unconditioned, it would not be free of suffering, and it would not be nirvana.

The way

The fourth Truth presented in the Discourse Setting in Motion of the Wheel of Dharma is the truth about the way leading to the cessation of suffering. In this text, and in many others, it is described as an eightfold path holding eight different aspects of the Buddhist way to liberation. The aspects are: (1) view, (2) intention, (3) speech, (4) action, (5) livelihood, (6) effort, (7) mindfulness and (8) concentration; all preceded by the term sammā (Sanskrit: samyak) meaning, ”perfect“, ”right“ or ”appropriate“.

In this discourse, right view (sammā-diţţhi) is defined as seeing the four noble truths. Seeing, in this case, is crucial because in Buddhism view (diţţhi) is in many cases a pejorative term, which is associated with attachment to a theory (like a theory of self as we have seen earlier). But scholars dispute on whether diţţhi means ”pro-attitude“ towards Buddhist doctrine, that is, accepting certain Buddhist ideas, or it means directly seeing something as true on a non-theoretical level. Traditional interpretations seems to favour the latter and think that right view pertains to knowledge that liberates, not just theoretical knowledge (Gethin, 1997). This debate demonstrates a more general complex issue regarding the eightfold path.

The path is a course of practice, but sometimes is described also as the result of attaining liberation (hence the noble eight fold path, ariyo aţţhańgiko maggo). What was the original intention? As we saw in the case of dependent origination there might not have been a single original intention. In addition to this Richard Gombrich has pointed our that Indian thought, Buddhism included, often does not make a distinction between what is and what should be (2002 p.34). In other words, the ever so important positivistic distinction between facts and values did not exist. With regards to the eight fold path, it is both a description of the wholesome life and prescription for it. This observation I think is important for those who compare Buddhist philosophy to modern science. The former uses a blend of value laden principles to reveal the ”true nature“ of reality. The latter avoids values as much as possible in order to get hold of purer image of the cognitive processes that eventually determine human values.

Right intention is explained as intention free of selfishness, free of craving and driven by compassion. It pairs with right view under the heading of paññā, the wisdom division of the Buddhist path. The other divisions are sīla, morality, and samadhi, which in this case means mental training (as in meditation).

The morality division includes avoiding various types of harmful speech and action, and keeping to a non-harmful livelihood. Mental training includes right effort, which is practiced to prevent the arising of unwholesome states of mind and to abandon unwholesome states that have already arisen; it is effort to arouse wholesome states and to promote wholesome states that have already arisen.

Right mindfulness (sati) means keeping track of various objects (traditionally body, feeling, mind and dhammā) while being aware of their impermanent nature. Being mindful in this way one abandons any notion of attachment to these objects and any notion of them being one’s self.

Right concentration refers to developing one-pointedness of mind, focusing the awareness on a single object and thus attaining stages of absorption (jhāna Skt: dyāna). These are stages of gradual happiness and equanimity that help the meditator to transcend, as it were, the mundane realm of thoughts, views, cravings and suffering. They are not considered as nirvana for they are clearly states of mind, and are clearly conditioned by the practice. However, the gradual development of focus and calm is said to support insight and help the person to know and see the final end. Peter Harvey’s writes that the mind absorbed in the fourth jhāna is

”‘workable‘ and ’adaptable‘ like refined gold, which can be used to make all manner of precious and wonderful things. It is thus an ideal take-off point for various further developments. Indeed it seems to have been the state from which the Buddha went on to attain enlightenment.“ (cited in Williams & Tribe, 2000 p.55).

This is the eightfold path with its threefold division: wisdom, morality and meditation. It concludes the overview of the four truths realized by the Buddha at the time of his awakening: dukkha, its origin, its ending and the way leading to its ending. The whole Buddhist understanding can be seen as a variation on this medical-like formula — disease, its cause, its cure and the prescription. It contains allusions to all central Buddhist themes like not-self, the structure of the individual, the process of perception as dependently arising, causality, karma and ethics. I will return to some of them below when exploring the Buddhist understating of intention and action.

Books and articles mentioned in this post:

Collins, S. (1982). Selfless Persons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Buy it with Amazon

Gethin, R. (1997). Wrong View (micchā-diţţhi) and Right View (sammā-diţţhi) in the Theravada Abhidhamma. In K. Abhayawansa (Ed.), Recent Researches in Buddhist Studies: Essays in Honour of Professor Y. Karunadasa (Reprinted with corrections by Rupert Gethin ed., pp. 211-229). Colombo: Y. Karunadasa Felicitation Committee.

Gethin, R. (1998). The Foundations of Buddhism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Buy it with Amazon

Gombrich, R. (2002). How Buddhism Began; The Conditioned Genesis of the Early Teachings. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers. Buy it with Amazon

Williams, P., & Tribe, A. (2000). Buddhist Thought: a Complete Introduction to the Indian Tradition. London: Routledge. Buy it with Amazon