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What Is Birth?

March 15th, 2011 . Posted in ayatana, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Bhikkhu Nanamoli, Buddhist Vocabulary, MN 141, paticca samuppada, Piyadassi Thera, responses to blogs &c, Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Translating | 2 Comments »
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“And what is birth? Whatever birth, taking birth, descent, coming-to-be, coming-forth, appearance of aggregates, & acquisition of [sense] spheres of the various beings in this or that group of beings, that is called birth. [MN 141.11 translation by Thanissaro Bhikkhu]

On a sleepless night, not long ago, I went out to visit my old friends at Buddhism Without Boundaries and came across a topic called “Learning Pali” in which one poster asked why the person who started the thread would learn Pali. The suggestion was that in order to do a better translation than those we already have, one would have to understand Pali better than the scholars themselves.

I puzzled over the objection I felt for a while, turning various possibilities over: What if the scholar was great with grammar but had no grace or style in English, but the one seeking a “better translation” wrote beautifully and concisely? And is the assumption that when one does a translation, there’s no peeking at anyone else’s versions allowed, so that our newcomer couldn’t try to locate problems in the new translation by looking at the expert’s old translations? And how do we ever come up with a great new translator if we are too intimidated by scholarship to even start down that road?

But it turns out that my strongest argument for having a go at it is that it may just be that the translations we look at are made with one specific understanding of what the words should be saying in mind, and there is a possibility that this isn’t accurate. The only way we can ever know if this is so is to do what the Buddha suggests we do — go for direct experience: take a closer look.

With any language — never mind one from more than two millennia ago — there is lots of wiggle room, lots of flexibility in word meanings, so we aren’t likely to get to absolute certainty on any particular point, but there is really very little to gain (except preservation of the status quo) from not even taking the time to look.

Because a particular set of phrases gets brought up repeatedly by the people I encounter in conversations about “what the Buddha taught” — and because I could almost interpret the existing translations in terms of my understanding, but not quite — I decided to have a closer look at the Pali that underlay the words.

It turns out it was worth doing.

The translation by Thanissaro Bhikkhu that appears above is somewhat different than the one I worked with, which is the one by Bhikkhus Nanamoli and Bodhi in The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha:

And what, friends, is birth? The birth of beings into the various orders of beings, their coming to birth, precipitation [in a womb], generation, the manifestation of the aggregates, obtaining the bases for contact — this is called birth.

It was that “precipitation [in a womb]” that pushed at my awareness, a catalyst to inspire me to have a closer look. What, I wondered, was in the Pali that suggested that this was specifically a birth in a womb? That and the “obtaining the bases for contact” nailed the meaning as a physical birth.

Read the rest of this entry »

Maiden, Mother, Crone

March 8th, 2011 . Posted in Brahminism, context, the wise | No Comments »
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Last month, at Darwin’s Birthday Party, I sat next to a long-time friend and talked a bit about how the Buddha’s teaching addresses three moral levels, here listed from lowest to highest: (3) lack of regard for others, aka “Wrong View” (2) concern for others and striving to do the right thing aka “Right View, With Taints” and (1) doing the right things out of selflessness, aka “Supramunane View” — and not your usual sort of selflessness, either, but a very special kind.

My friend’s response was to say that this had parallels in the earth-based religions’ considerations around “Maiden, Mother, Crone” — which at the time simply gave me pause. I said, “I can see that,” and set it aside.

Almost a month later it arises again in my thinking (sincere thanks to Matt) so that on one level I can see definite parallels, and on yet another I also see that what the Buddha was saying was truly timeless but the examples he used were deeply embedded in his time, place, culture. I had been trying to understand why he was so hard on those he perceived as being all about “atta” (self) — after all these were the folks who went off into the forest and minded their own business; the worst I can find them doing in the canon is denying the view of others — while he was far kinder to those who were all about karma — yet they were the ones slaughtering animals on the behalf of high officials and rajas. But in stepping back and seeing it in terms of Maiden, Mother, Crone there may be an answer.

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The End of Wholesome Behavior

March 1st, 2011 . Posted in MN 117 Great Forty, MN 121, MN 78 | No Comments »
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In MN 78 the Buddha talks about karma without ever mentioning it once in its merit-producing context. (1)

Lay disciple Pancakanga went to the hall in a nearby park that was set aside for debates, and there he encountered the wanderer Uggahamana who said that a man who is perfected in what is wholesome, an invincible ascetic who has achieved the supreme attainment, is someone who does no evil in action, speaks no evil, has no evil intentions, and doesn’t make his living in an evil line of work. Pancakanga refrained from comment, left, and reported what was said to the Buddha later in the day. The Buddha then pointed out that, by that description, an infant is an invincible ascetic who has achieved the supreme attainment.

What’s interesting about this story so far is that intention was part of the larger discussion in the local hall (so perhaps it wasn’t introduced as a concept by the Buddha alone) and that the original terms used to frame the conversation — wholesome, action, speech, intention, livelihood — are all used in the Buddha’s answers to Pancakanga. Not only are the same terms in use, the answer is framed entirely in terms of the worldview and concerns of the original speaker.

Our familiarity with the Buddha’s concepts of intention and karma may make it obvious to us that this is what he talks about in his answer, yet he doesn’t use those words. Nowadays, if a Buddhist were to try to explain Buddhist morality to a Christian, they are most likely to talk about karma and intention, not reframe the whole thing in terms of sin and faith, but — using the modern frame of reference as a metaphor for what the Buddha does here — if the Buddha were speaking to a Christian, he would be talking about God and salvation, accepting Jesus as savior, and about sin and faith. He seems to have had a remarkable talent for speaking to people in the idiom they were most comfortable with.

The Buddha’s point about the baby is that it isn’t enough to simply do no harm, you have to understand what it means to do harm. Read the rest of this entry »

True Cafeteria Buddhism

October 24th, 2010 . Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »
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Looked at one way, it makes no difference at all what the Buddha said or meant, for example by the various terms in dependent arising.  As long as we understand the general principles of how we’re creating this effervescent self, and how we run afoul of it, it doesn’t matter much if we translate it into modern terms, as long as the tools for seeing the process in our own lives — that is, meditation and mindfulness — are still sharpened by our concepts.

Looked at from another angle, though, failure to understand with precision what the Buddha said, and why, may mean that we miss key insights, or, worse, misunderstand in ways that have us expending a lot of energy on paths that won’t take us where we want to go — efficiently, or not at all.

The assumption that there was no historical person that originated this way of seeing leads to willingness to accept that it’s a fuzzy, disorganized insight from which one can pick and choose because we are all members of the committee that came up with the general directions.  It is willingness to look for evidence of consistency, the assumption that it may be there, that provides the fuel for the search, the persistence to stick with the difficult task of sorting out what’s added from what’s original, and to work at understanding the context and therefore the terms, to see if it all fits.

Mandala’s “Distorted Views of Buddhism”

October 7th, 2010 . Posted in Critical thinking, Rebirth, responses to blogs &c, SN 12.44 | 2 Comments »
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Because the Four Noble Truths were my introduction to Buddhism, and the first two are clear enough to verify for myself (and I did); and the third and fourth truths when investigated also turned out to be valid, my initial understanding of the sort of person the Buddha was, was that he had an excellent grasp of critical thinking, and that he grounded his teachings in everyday evidence of our lives.

This is why when I read

“Whatever in this world – with its devas, maras, and brahmas, its generations complete with contemplatives and priests, princes and men – is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, attained, sought after, pondered by the intellect, that has been fully awakened to by the Tathagata”

I read that as a statement that this man has considered it all and knows the truth of these — but I don’t see in there a statement that these things have real-world validity, only that he understands them as they are. He doesn’t say in there whether these are beings with physical existence, or a separate existence on some cosmic plane, or whether they are just given reality in our minds.

That quote comes as part of B. Allan Wallace’s unfavorable comments on agnostic and atheist approaches to Buddhism, initially centering on Stephen Batchelor’s words, and he cites this as evidence against Batchelor’s comment that the Buddha “did not claim to have had experience that granted him privileged, esoteric knowledge of how the universe ticks.”  Mr. Wallace seems convinced that the Buddha did.

What I find interesting is that this is another example of the point made in “What Do You Know?” that our preconceptions strongly influence our understanding.

Presumably Mr. Wallace has background that disposes him to an understanding that the Buddha did gain such privileged, esoteric knowledge; my preconception, initially based on just the simplest teachings, and then influenced by Mr. Batchelor, who inspired me to read the suttas directly for myself and see what’s there, gives me a view that looks at the quoted texts quite differently.

For example the next quote Mr. Wallace provides is: “the world and its arising are fully known by a Tathagata and he is released from both; he also knows the ending of it and the way thereto…” As evidence of esoteric knowledge of cosmological workings, this has to be read literally — and yet the Buddha was still on the planet, so at least in that sense we have evidence he was not released from the world. But then perhaps it’s release from the cycle of births tied to “the world” that’s meant. If we assume the Buddha is being literal, shouldn’t he have said, “released from the cycle of rebirths” since he had the language to do so? We can’t take “the world” literally because his release from the world would be evidenced by him vanishing from it; so any other interpretation has to reach into “the world” of metaphorical speech, and from there the only good options for interpretation are to look elsewhere for referents that might give us insight.

Having read enough of the Pali canon to get a feel for Gotama’s rhetorical style, and studied the Brahminical way of seeing things around his time, it’s pretty clear to me that “the world” is indeed a metaphor but for our self-created world. That is what he saw the arising of, and through his release from it, saw its ending. For example in SN 12.44 “The World” we have “And what is the origin of the world? Read the rest of this entry »

A Doubly-Bad Dice Throw

October 4th, 2010 . Posted in AN 3.65 Kalama Sutta, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Bhikkhu Nanamoli, MN 60 Safe Bet, Rebirth, Thanissaro Bhikkhu | 14 Comments »
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There are times when, reading these suttas, I am quite non-plused by what appear to me to be intentional distortions of what was originally said. In general, I tend to assume that each person who shifted the meaning either did so without being aware of it (perhaps in copying from one manuscript to another, tea got spilled and he could no longer tell if there was a diacritical mark or not, so he gave it his best guess); or during the process of memorization when pieces get dropped, added, or mixed up; or in having to make choices when translating from one dialect or language to another, simply choosing what best fits his understanding of what’s being said; if his understanding is not exactly accurate, this has the effect of pushing the meaning away from the original.

But sometimes there are sections that are so clearly changed that I cannot imagine how they got away with it. Perhaps everyone at that time supported the change, but has no one since ever noticed these things? Well surely I’m not the first, but iconoclastic readings aren’t going to have been supported by the established authorities, so individuals who objected didn’t get into power, nor did they have their corrections passed on. I hope that Information Age technology changes that, so that the many people interested in what might actually have been said and meant can put their theories out there and join them with the ideas of others to see if it all matches up.

Case in point. I have been deeply bothered by what I think of as the Dice Throw Sutta, MN 60, the Apannaka Sutta: “A Safe Bet” in which as described on AccessToInsight.org “The Buddha explains to a group of householders how to navigate skillfully through the maze of wrong views.” This is another famous sutta used to support the theory that the Buddha taught karma and rebirth as necessary to his path — and certainly, as it stands right now, it is a very strong defense; “incontrovertable” (as Bhikkhus Bodhi and Nanamoli name the sutta in his Wisdom Publications version of the Majjhima Nikaya, “The Incontrovertable Teaching”). At least it’s a strong defense if you have no training in logic and cannot see that what is said is broken by the changes made to the wording. This sutta is so clearly about logic that some English versions come with notes on its logical structure.*

The framing tale has the Buddha visiting a brahmin village and asking the residents there if they have chosen a particular teacher “in whom you have found grounded conviction” (or as in Bhikkhus Nanamoli and Bodhi’s wording, “in whom you have acquired faith supported by reasons”) — this really is all about logic — and they say they have not. Read the rest of this entry »

Kalama Sutta: The Freethinker’s Toolkit aka “The Straw Man”

September 30th, 2010 . Posted in AN 3.65 Kalama Sutta, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Critical thinking, direct experience, Thanissaro Bhikkhu | 5 Comments »
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I’m pretty sure it was Stephen Batchelor’s “Buddhism Without Beliefs” that first pointed out the Kalama Sutta to me, with the little clips that I mentioned in the last two posts heading some portion of the book. I do recall taking the time to locate the whole sutta and reading it, and being clear from the outset that it was guiding us toward not only the remarkable stance that we have within us the wisdom to distinguish between what’s morally sound and what is harmful to others* — remarkable indeed for a religious text — but also toward seeking a balancing perspective by seeking the opinions of “the wise”. This seemed all the more amazing for the extreme subtlety of the line between not relying on outside opinion:

Of course you are in doubt. When there are reasons for doubt, uncertainty is born. So in this case, Kalamas, don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’

and seeking it:

When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness’ — then you should enter & remain in them.

a line so fine as to be almost contradictory. In the first quote we are told not to simply take the word of our teacher, but in the second we are told to listen to what is praised by the wise Read the rest of this entry »

Kalama Sutta Two: The Balance of a Reality Check

September 24th, 2010 . Posted in AN 3.65 Kalama Sutta, Critical thinking, the wise | 1 Comment »
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My last post was on the wisdom offered to the confused Kalamas in sorting out the thicket of views they were exposed to. Because their village was on a crossroads, they got full benefit of hearing the media of their day — talks and debates by folks walking from one place to another. Our modern crossroads are even more confusing, and the points that the Buddha made in answer to their questions, including starting from our own direct experience, still applies. The focus last time was on, first, paying attention to the sources of information that we take in and, second, on becoming aware of how our minds work with that information.

When it comes to the news and what underlies current events, there are some fairly objective facts we can check into if we are willing to spend the time (and as I point out in “What Do You Know?” if we are not willing to spend the time investigating, we shouldn’t be broadcasting opinions based on hearsay and a lack of knowledge). The deeper investigation comes in looking into our own mental processes to see how we know what we know and how other factors play into our perceptions. Learning meditation techniques and mindfulness — keeping awareness on what’s going on with us in any given moment — are critical skills for sorting out “truth from fiction” — sorting distortion from accurate information. But keen awareness of what we see arising in the mind is not an answer by itself because our minds are capable of creating their own realities and convincing us completely that they are true.

We find that even Buddhist masters — historically and in the present — get deluded enough to end up in some dicey moral situations. If they were capable of complete accuracy through just their own insight that might not happen, but it can be very difficult to sort out what’s “real” from what’s “imagined” in the spacious confines, in the twisty little mazes all alike, of one’s own mind. This is why the second piece of advice in the Kalama Sutta is to seek the counsel of the wise.

When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness’ — then you should enter & remain in them.

In just that tiny little section there are three pieces of advice: Read the rest of this entry »

The Kalama Sutta “In The News”

September 21st, 2010 . Posted in AN 3.65 Kalama Sutta, Critical thinking, direct experience, meditation (concentration), mindfulness, Thanissaro Bhikkhu | 10 Comments »
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In these complex times, when President Obama has to come out and warn us to ask questions* it can be hard to figure out how to sort it all out, where to even begin. Though he wasn’t talking about American Politics at the time, the Buddha had some good advice for us in the Kalama Sutta.  The Kalamas lived on a crossroads and had so many different people coming through, each with their own view, and the views conflicted and contradicted each other to the point that they were in doubt about who to believe. Their situation reflects ours with modern media in a way that’s almost painful to see — some things never change, do they? But even if the views the Kalamas were concerned with weren’t over what Big Money does, the confusion and its solution is still the same.

“Of course you are uncertain, Kalamas. Of course you are in doubt. When there are reasons for doubt, uncertainty is born. So in this case, Kalamas, don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.'”

The Buddha suggests not relying on reports (news!), on legends (Rush Limbaugh!), nor on traditional understandings, written scripture, or even sheer logic, reasoning, analogies, or simply working it out for yourself or in discussion with others; don’t even rely on the word of the wisest person you know, even if he is the Buddha himself, but instead:

“When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness’ — then you should enter & remain in them.”

He is talking here about “qualities” in the sense of moral choices we make in our lives, qualities we develop in ourselves, but — and this is the framing point of the story of the Kalamas — who we listen to and what we believe is the basis of our choices. In terms of the choices we make in how to behave every day, we have the ability to test for ourselves whether or not what we do has a good effect in the world. There is nothing written that says that everything we try with good intentions will turn out just as we like — it is, after all, a complex world — but in general, over time, by observation, we can see for ourselves what effect our actions have.

The first suggestion in the Kalama Sutta, then, is that we make sure that we know things for ourselves, Read the rest of this entry »

Jayarava’s Karma and Rebirth

September 5th, 2010 . Posted in Rebirth | 4 Comments »
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I seriously and deeply entered the blogosphere yesterday for the first time, looking for other blogs that related in some useful way to this one. I went looking for folks with interests similar or tangential to mine, who spoke about things that concern me here.

It’s not necessary for my enjoyment for bloggers to agree with me (in fact more power to people whose viewpoints vary) but it’s also nice to find kindred spirits, since my particular obsessions seem to be found only in the most obscure cracks of the tiniest little niches. I believe I’ve found one in Jayarava. Yesterday I responded to one of his posts from last October, which focused on the phrase “by karma, I mean intention”. I mentioned that I interpreted the Buddha’s “intention” as having as its source our underlying worldview, a worldview that is changed when one comes to deeply understand the way the world works. This change in us makes even unconscious actions draw from new experiential knowledge, leaving behind selfish motives. I then talked about how this makes Buddhist morality more effective because it comes from within us, instead of being applied from the outside.

I next started to make comments on two older posts but restrained myself because it felt as though I was getting too far behind the conversational curve, but when I got to his “Karma and Rebirth” even though it is more than two years old, I didn’t want to hold back anymore. Unfortunately my thoughts and questions got longer and longer and it was then that I realized I might not always carry on monologues in my posts here on Just A Little Dust — maybe it’s time for dialog in which someone else gets to start a new subject.

So here, let’s start with Jayarava’s


…growing belief that the Buddha was not offering an ontology, not offering us definite statements on “how things are”, but only ways in which we could experience for ourselves the way things are….

I believe he’s saying that the Buddha was not giving us a description of reality, of metaphysics, when he described karma and rebirth, but was offering it as a method of understanding that which “is beyond words”.

Read the rest of this entry »

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