I have often said that words are tricky, but I have never come across as clear an example of this as I found in the phrase diṭṭheva dhamme which appears more than four hundred times in the suttas compiled in the Pali canon. I first encountered it in AN 10.208 where it is used to describe the first possible experience of the results of kamma as being (in traditional translations) in the “here & now”. That seems to be its most popular translation in the suttas, along with “immediately” and “in this present life” though I have also seen it translated as “realized” (DN 6.13 by Walshe) — which is closer to the truth of the Pali — and even in a compromise: “realized in this very life” (DN 8.15 also by Walshe).
The Pali at its most literal means “having definitely seen into the truth” with the emphatic “definitely” being provided by the “eva” that is blended onto the end of the word “diṭṭhe“. “Diṭṭhe” is a past participle, a word formed from a verb by using its past tense, but which can be applied to the past, present, or future in the shape of an adjective or an adverb. That it is a past participle makes it a very flexible word in use, so for example we might have:
- has seen
- has been seen
- having been seen
- is seen
- can be seen
- will be seen
- should be seen
- could be seen
as possibilities, depending on the needs of the speaker.
The word “dhamme“, on the other hand, being locative, is something we are putting something into — apparently putting our vision into reality; we are seeing into the truth of the way things work, seeing it for ourselves — and while it definitely has a sense of “seeing it as it really is” when it’s used to support a Buddhist insight, when the Buddha talks about “dhamma” in terms of wrong view, it cannot actually be making a reference to “seeing accurately”, can it? Then it has to have more of a sense of “a view of the way things are” or “a belief”.
The phrase is used quite often in suttas in which what is important is that the person doing the seeing is actually seeing it for themselves, so in general I think of it as being rendered:
[whomever is the subject of the sentence] has seen into the truth [of whatever is being discussed] for himself
or at least he thinks he has!
Here are some examples of the way it is used in the suttas, and some alternate translations:
MN 6.19 p 117
“If a bhikkhu should wish: ‘May I, by realising for myself with direct knowledge, here and now enter upon and abide in the deliverance of mind and deliverance by wisdom that are taintless with the destruction of the taints…”
“…with direct knowledge, having seen the truth for myself, enter upon and abide in the…”
MN 9.8 p 133
“…he extirpates the underlying tendency to the view and conceit ‘I am,’ and by abandoning ignorance and arousing true knowledge he here and now makes an end of suffering…”
“… and abandoning ignorance and arousing true knowledge in seeing the truth for himself, he makes an end of suffering…”
The “tricky” part of this is that in many of these sentences — and particularly in ones where there is the quite common series of phrases that say essentially the same thing over and over — replacing “seeing it for yourself” with “here and now” will be unnoticeable. They don’t actually mean the same thing, but because “seeing it for yourself” is something you do “in the here and now” — seeing the evidence in the moment — the two can be swapped in most cases without it causing any dissonance, though it does come with a loss of meaning. So, for example, we have a series in MN 86.15 p 714
“Anguilimala, by realising for himself with direct knowledge, here and now entered upon and abided in that supreme goal of the holy life…”
Which has a series about, “realising for himself”, “with direct knowledge”, and so if the next phrase represents diṭṭheva dhamme then its actual meaning as “having seen into the truth of it for himself” will not be missed, because we already have two phrases saying the same thing and “here and now” will fit just as well, and not change the meaning enough to really matter.
A more significant difference can be found in DN 15.29 p 227, where we have a traditional translation in which using diṭṭheva dhamme to mean “the present” adds no useful meaning to the sentence but translating it correctly as “seeing the truth for oneself” does. Here’s the traditional version:
“So anyone who, on experiencing a pleasant feeling, thinks: ‘This is my self’, must, at the cessation of that pleasant feeling, think: ‘My self has gone!’ and the same with painful and neutral feelings. Thus whoever thinks: ‘Feeling is my self’ is contemplating something in this present life that is impermanent, a mixture of happiness and unhappiness, subject to arising and passing away. Therefore it is not fitting to maintain: ‘Feeling is my self.'”
Is there some possibility that we might want to observe the arising and passing away of our pleasant feelings not in this present life? How would we go about that? So the phrase “in this present life” doesn’t add meaning and in fact is confusing. Whereas the meaning becomes clearer if it is correctly translated:
“Thus, whoever thinks: ‘Feeling is my self’ is contemplating something they can see the truth of for themselves that is impermanent… “
That says something quite significant in the Buddha’s scheme of things: that what is important here is that we can see this for ourselves. No wonder it’s a popular phrase, since doing that very thing is what the practice of Buddhism rests on.
In MN 95.14 p 780 we have another example of a traditional rendering that makes little sense:
“These five things may turn out in two different ways here and now.”
How may five things — “may” being a reference to the future — turn out two different ways “here and now”? But if it’s translated like this:
“These five things may turn out in two different ways that you can see for yourself.”
it’s clearer what’s being said. (By stretching the translation a little I’d actually try to clarify it even further by saying: “There are these five methods that you can see for yourselves have two results.”)
Most of the suttas in which the more accurate translation of diṭṭheva dhamme would make a difference, the difference is quite small, but added up over the course of the whole canon, it has an impact. A few more little examples:
MN 14.18 p 188
(speaking to Niganthas) “But, friends, do you know what the abandoning of unwholesome states is and what the cultivation of wholesome states is here and now?” ‘No friend.’
“But friends do you know by having seen the truth of it yourself the abandoning of unwholesome conduct, taking upon oneself wholesome conduct?”
MN 60.9 p 508
“Now whether or not the word of those good recluses and brahmins is true, let me assume that there is no other world: still this good person is here and now censured by the wise as an immoral person, one of wrong view who holds the doctrine of nihilism…”
“… still this good person is seen to be censured by the wise as an immoral person…”
The difference rests entirely on talking about things happening “in this life” (which by inference adds weight — perhaps four hundred phrases? — to the concept that there are other lives one can experience) rather than saying quite clearly that what we are talking about, what we are always talking about, is what we can see for ourselves. Saying that we can see the truth directly for ourselves — four hundred times — adds fair emphasis to the importance of that ability to see it.
And then there are times when the difference is still subtle, and it could be read either way, but the emphasis is important. In the first statement the Buddha is just saying “I’m saying this now” which is a pretty trivial thing to point out (that he is speaking now); in the clearer statement he’s telling us what’s important: “You can see it for yourself.”
MN 63.6 p 535
“… there is death, there are sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair, the destruction of which I prescribe here and now.”
“… the destruction of which I declare can be seen for yourself.”
How this phrase could have gotten into our lexicons as being a metaphor for “here and now” is a bit of mystery, but it may have as its source the phrase I started with, “diṭṭheva dhamme upapajje vā apare vā pariyāye” in which it needed to be translated as “here and now” to bend the phrase to represent two or three possible situations in which one could experience unresolved kamma (see “No Escape“).
Note: All quotes of translations in which “diṭṭheva dhamme” is a variation on “here and now” come from Wisdom Publications’ books, and the page numbers refer to those editions.
Rereading Richard Gombrich’s “How Buddhism Began” (1996) I find a footnote on page 116 that says “I have translated diṭṭhe va dhamma in accordance with the tradition, but have a strong suspicion that the tradition is wrong and that it means ‘when he has seen the truth’. This, however, must be matter for a later article.” A Google search doesn’t turn it up (but the articles of our Pali experts are hard to find)… I wonder if it got written? (He translated it as “in this very life” in the main body of the page.)