So, welcome everybody. This is the fourth lecture in my series on Purification, Ethics
and Karma in Early Buddhist Discourses. Now, we first look at the material we have covered
last time. We had a look at three discourses in the Madhyama Agama, Madhyama Agama number five,
where we get all these comparisons, this very strong discourse. We had Buddha asking the monks
what is more pleasurable. Embrace a girl or embrace a fire and then two and three get homage or get
one's limbs cut. Number four on receiving robes or the body being wrapped in a burning iron sheet.
Number five to get tasty food or to have a burning iron ball put into one's mouth.
Number six, bedding or to be put on a hot iron bed and number seven getting a dwelling place or
being put in a hot cauldron. There was a number of comments in the blog. The first one that I would
like to share with you is by Laura de Bernardi on the heap of wood discourse. So, she says,
I understood it as expressing the Buddha's disgust with hypocrisy,
with the worst form of hypocrisy being someone who is pretending to live a holy life.
Hypocrisy is a form of deceit and I've heard it said that deceit and lying are behaviour
the Buddha strongly opposed. Thus, the language of wickedness and evil to describe people who
pretend to be something they are not. It's also fair to say that it is in general difficult to
confront somebody who is acting hypocritically. So, perhaps the discourse is also pointing to
the strength of mind somebody must have in order to tackle a hypocrite, holy or otherwise.
I thought that was very much to the point what Laura said and as you know, I think I said before
to this Madhyama Agama discourses, we do not have a commentary tradition but we have one for the
Pali discourses. So, in the case of the parallel to this Madhyama Agama discourse in the Anguttara
Nikaya, we have a comment to this sutta but it actually comes as the comment to another sutta
that is according to the commentary tradition related to that one. And you might remember that
in the Pali version we got also the information that 600 monks had hot blood coming out of their
mouths whereas both discourses agree that 60 monks became arahants and 60 disrobed.
Now, the commentary gives us the following explanation. It says that those who became
arahants on hearing this fiery discourse were monks that had a perfectly pure morality.
But those monks who disrobed, they were those that were not really keeping the minor precepts so well.
And those who had hot blood coming out of their mouth, they were parajikas. Parajika is the,
we have four rules, parajika rules for monks. If as bhikkhu I were to break any of these,
I lose my status as a bhikkhu. I have to disrobe and I cannot never ever become a bhikkhu again.
But, so I think that the point made by Laura is supported by the commentary explanation we get for
the Anguttranikaya version in that the Buddha was really going for hypocrites, for monks who were
pretending to be monks even though they did not deserve it, the parajikas, or for those who were
acting as monks but were not really careful about the minor rules. But the commentary also gives us
a happy ending for all of these. For the arahants there's no need to give you a happy ending,
but it says that those who disrobed, these are the monks who did not care about the minor rules so
much and so they got so shocked by the Buddhist discourse that they disrobed and became laypersons.
They nevertheless were so inspired that as lay people they practiced and they got
some attainments or were at least reborn in a heavenly realm. And the commentary says the same
also for those who had blood coming out of their mouth, which in brackets confirms my suggestion
I made last time that this Indian notion of having blood coming out of one's mouth doesn't
necessarily mean that somebody will then pass away. So these who had blood coming out of their mouth,
they had to disrobe as monks but then they had the option of re-ordaining as novices.
And as novices they also practiced very sternly and they also got some attainment or rebirth in
a heavenly realm. Yeah, then there is another comment. Is there any question on this point? I
just want to check. No, still with the heap of wood discourses. This is from Darshana Makavita.
He says in MA 5 it seems to me as if the first question on embracing the maiden is different
from all the other six. The difference here is that embracing a maiden while being a monk is
an immoral deed. While the other six deeds are not immoral in itself but are immoral if you are an
immoral monk. I think that's a good point and I believe Darshana is right that there is
some degree of difference but the way I read the discourse and now that we know the commentary it
confirms this impression is that immorality is implied throughout in all these seven comparisons.
And I think if we look at it again then this may also help us to get to develop some perspective
on the practical meaning that such a discourse may have for non-monastics. I mean as Andrew
pointed out last session the implication that this discourse has for somebody like me is
fairly evident, fairly obvious but I think we can also make sense out of it from the perspective of
somebody who is not depending on the offerings of others. The thing is all these comparisons we get
the main point is that it is obviously more pleasurable to hug a girl than to hug a fire
or to put on nice robes or nice clothes instead of getting one's body wrapped in burning iron sheet
or to get nice food instead of getting a hot iron ball into one's mouth. But the point that
I think the discourse is trying to make is a basic distinction between present experience and
future experience and this is something that I believe we can find frequently in the discourses.
This advice very basic simple advice in the present situation if a decision is to be taken
between something that is pleasant now and something that is not so pleasant or even painful now
the real question is not how do I feel about it now but what's what's going to happen afterwards
what what what are the consequences of this
we find often in the discourses four ways of actions distinguished
pleasant now pleasant in future pleasant now painful in future painful now pleasant in future
painful now painful in future so there's no categorical decision that
one should at all cost avoid pleasure and just live in pain or otherwise whatever is nice that's
that's the right way but there's always this this consideration of the of the future effects that
one's action has and I think that is a point that we can take from this discourse
I have quite a lot on this discourse I maybe I'll stop again shortly if there's any
question or comment on this
I don't see anybody typing so I move on this is a comment by one room
she says it seems to me that in the Buddhist scripture the number referring to those who
listen to the Buddhist teachings monks in this case is always a round figure what amazes me is
that in the discourse on the heap of word the number of bibles who got liberated from the
fetters versus those oh there's something missing hang on
oh no there it is who gave up precept and returned form are equally number that is 60 each
yeah that is a very pertinent observation I found
now numbers I think we need to keep in mind that in oral literature in general there is a tendency
for the stereotyping of numbers this is not only specific to Buddhist discourses but we have it in
most oral literatures and in Buddhist text we find this very typically with the number five
five one hand 50 500 so we often get this references to especially like the Buddha is
going anywhere there will be 500 monks with him so I think we shouldn't think that somebody has
been counting they're going ah four hundred eight ninety eight four hundred ninety five hundred
monks exactly but it just means that there was a substantial group of monks with him
then we have the number seven very often for time periods
I discussed that already in my dissertation on satipatana that's very interesting at the end of
the satipatana discourse there's a prediction when somebody I simply said if somebody practices
properly he or she can get non-return or full awakening and this is possible if they practice
for such and such a period of time so the periods of time we get and I found the same in the Chinese
parallel in the madhyama argument is he could be practicing or she could be practicing seven years
six years five years four years three years two years one year seven months six months five months
you get the point after one year it doesn't go down eleven months or ten or nine or eight it
goes seven again the same seven months six months five months four months three months so the
sequence of listing of time periods does not follow numerical logic
and I think again we shouldn't be getting too literal and say oh that means if after seven
months I didn't get it I have to wait for 12 months because eight nine or ten months are not
mentioned it's just that in general in an oral literature numbers have a strong tendency to be
stereotyped and are sometimes not to be taken literal we get the number seven then multiplied
by the 12 months of the year makes 84 and if we blow that up by thousand we get 84 000 and 84 000
is like the number in Buddhist discourses also in later Buddhist texts for saying just
a lot a long time 84 000 years ago it just means really a lot
the number 60 however is not so often found in fact I am often not recalling other instances
of precisely 60 and I mean it's obviously makes us suspicious to see that 60 monks became arahants
and 60 disrobed and in the parley it's another 60 who have hot blood coming out of their mouths
but the number 60 is not one of those frequently stereotyped numbers
yeah I just thought it was nice to to take up the point of numbers this is all I have on reviewing
Madhyama Agama 5 if there's any comment or question on the heap of wood discourse
then now would be a good time to put that
good then I
does this also apply to the number of heavenly and other worlds a question by Robert
hmm I think the heavenly and other worlds are usually not given as a number we usually get
we usually get reference to them by their name or by by their proper name
the scholars question if the very detailed idea of heavenly worlds with all their subsections
was already present at the time of early buddhism
and there could be some signs that there had been a gradual development from a more simple
presentation to a more detailed one but this does not so much affect the issue of numbers
the issue of numbers is more something when a number by itself is mentioned in the text such as
the Buddha goes somewhere with 500 monks or you do this and this and after seven days that happens
after seven years that happens or 60 monks we had here in our discourse get this and 60 monks
happens that that and that happens yeah good point
yeah then the next discourse Mahyama Agama 6 we looked at there have been Manfred and Andrew
and myself we put on some more literature on this intermediate existence on the different
publications that are available there's not much else that I want to add to that basically we had
this description of different non-returners well compared to a splinter that flies off
from a heated piece of iron and then cools down at different stages and we saw that it seems
that early buddhism did envisage an intermediate form of existence in quotation mark between
passing away and being reborn even though the Theravada commentaries the Theravada commentary
tradition does deny that and explains this otherwise
yeah and somebody who has fully realized that there is no further existence whatsoever
let me come to the third discourse that we looked at
was this discourse which was interesting in sofa as it does not have a Pali parallel
and it offers us a distinction between worldly merit worldly merit is when a son or daughter
from a clan's family from a good family they offer a dwelling place bedding robes foot
attendants make personal offerings or protect the practice of the monks
and then Maha Chunda about whom we do not know so much from other discourses asks for transcendental
merit and the Buddha expounds that transcendental merit is when one becomes inspired on hearing
that the Tatarata or one of his disciples stays somewhere or that they will come or that they
have come and then one goes and meets them and pays respect to them makes offerings to them takes
refuge and takes the precepts there's a number of comments on this the first is by Michael Dole
Michael Dole says the seven transcendental qualities can be distinguished from the worldly ones
intention versus action but they completely omit meditation this seems strange how you direct your
intention is important but calling it transcendental seems over the top compared with meditation
and here is Dania Percy she's very active on the blog lots of good points she makes
she says the seven transcendental merits don't seem so deep I don't see how those lead to
liberation and she asks if transcendental something that leads to liberation
yeah that's that's the way I understand it transcendental would be and we will come back
to that a little later would be the corresponding to Pali Lokutra in the Chinese version we get
character for out going out out of the world
and these transcendental merits they are indeed rather basic as Michael points out there is
nothing about meditation there and we can only understand them as providing a basis
for progress on the path but not describing the actual progress on the path
and there is something more to intention in them or being inspired as Michael pointed out
see the others are just are really doing things
and the first three are on inspiration and there's a longer comment by one room
she says I think making offerings under the worldly merits category simply portray that this
act of giving to monks is accustomed in the Indian culture in a way so people give because
everybody everyone does so without thinking much about it well perhaps maybe because it's good to
do so in a way this action is done habitually so to speak hence worldly merits for transcendental
merits as listed in the sutta the first three of the seven has inspired emphasizing the mental
state itself is supreme enough to gain merits that exceeds those who gave actual things
although the fourth mentioned meet and pay respect and the fifth make offering is still
means that if the giver can get inspired merely by hearing the whereabouts of the tatagata and his
disciples he or she must have a mental state that is already above the average this could be due to
meditation to practice of good conduct or to dispositions yeah I thought that was a that was
a good point now comes a question that takes us a little bit away from this discourse but
it's important enough that we should look at it now and then oh there's one piece missing
so that is uh linda grace and i i want to look at this and then come back to the notion of
transcendental locutra so linda says i've always been a little perplexed with the teachings on the
merit of one's actions of generosity being partially determined by the worthiness of the recipient
of course i see the tremendous value in supporting the sangha i have edited out something here
but if one sees merits merit as the creation result of good karma and karma depends on the
intention of the person doing the action i don't see how the type of recipient should be a prime
determining force in the value of the merit of course there's a positive intention in wanting
to support the sangha for example or someone wise or of high ethical behavior but it seems to me
the purity of mind intention of the giver is the key and she gives an example for example someone
giving food food to a hungry stranger who may or may not be of high moral conduct on the street
could conceivably give with a pure intention than someone else offering food to the sangha
yeah i i i agree on the example and i also agree that purity of the mind intention of the giver is
the key and i would just say that i would change here she says how the type of recipient should
be the prime determining force in the value of the merit i think it's not the prime determining
force but it is a determining force and i would like to come back to the passage i think i briefly
mentioned that already i hope you can see it here on the pdf from the dakkinavi bhanga suttam
which speaks of four kinds of purification of offering and this is already a first
little point on our topic of purification which we are going to get either today or next week
for the purification of offering can be by the giver but not by the receiver by the receiver but
not by the giver by neither of the two and by both i think the principle that stands behind there is
that yes buddhism gives a central importance to intention but no intention is not the whole story
there has to also be wise consideration of the effects of what i do in other words i can't just
do anything and completely blend out the rest of the situation you see as long as my intention
is wholesome and correct everything is fine the rest of the world has to deal with whatever i do
as long as my intention is wholesome that doesn't work and i have the little stupid example if i
if i work in the kitchen in a in a kindergarten and after chopping up the food i leave the knife
lying around there need not be any negative or bad intention on my part but i am still responsible
for the little children damaging themselves by playing around with a sharp knife because i've
been careless or i've been distracted so i think in all our our our doings and deeds there is the
question of what is my intention in doing something why why am i sitting here and talking to you
why am i doing this why am i doing that but there is also the question of having a clear
comprehension sampajanya of the suitability of an action of of the way it will affect others of the
results it will have and i think from that perspective we can understand why a purification
of an offering can take place from both ends it's not that the receiver is the prime importance
but it makes a difference if if you give a gift with the same degree of wholesomeness in your mind
to different recipients it makes a difference so yes somebody who gives to come back to the
example to gives to a hungry stranger may have a purer mind than somebody who gives to a
accomplished member of the sangha then the purification of the giver is of different
result different degrees so that has an effect obviously but the receiver is also of considerable
relevance after this little excursion we're going to get more into karma soon one of the topics of
this course i want to come back to the locutor on the transcendental merit this is from andrea
fella she observes i have some thoughts and questions about madhyama agama seven the discourse
on worldly married in particular i am interested in the term transcendent merit this is not a term
i am familiar with from the party discourses i find it interesting that this term is found in a
madhyama agama discourse that does not have a power in the party canon might this point to madhyama
agama seven being a slightly later text i think yeah the notion of something being transcendental
or locutra is not so prominent in the early discourses this one example i just paste in
the reference for you where i think it is early that is in the isukari sutta smajimani kaya
discourse number 96 so there is a brahmin who comes to see the buddha and wants to debate
the caste question the four classes in ancient indian society and their respective duties so he
speaks of of a person's wealth brahmin's wealth is this and so he should only have this type of
occupation and warriors wealth kshatriya is this type of wealth and the buddha gives a very pithy
reply i'll give it to you in english i love the pali i have to read the pali once
i declare the noble superman doing dhamma as a person's own wealth this is a very very very
poignant reply which directs this whole talk of castes and their respective wealth to
the one thing that that is really important the locutara dharma and this is a reference to nirvana
the experience to nirvana that is that is the the true wealth that in a way we we all
are we don't have it right away but we all stand a chance of having it
but then the another occurrence of the locutara notion can be found in the
maha chathari saka sutta that is magimani kaya 117 again i give you the pts reference there
and there's examination of the path factors and the pali version distinguishes several of the
path factors into those that are locutara and those that are not so for example the right view
we get this right view that is the opposite of wrong views right view affirms this and this and
this and that and then we get the locutara right view which is just the the at the moment of the
experience of awakening this this type of rightly seen and so the the the the the maha chathari
saka sutta what it does is it gives two different path factors it adds to the this the contrast
between right and wrong it adds this notion of a locutara path factor of a transcendental path
factor of a super mundane path factor which is usually found in the abhidharma and i've done a
study of this discourse the article is just coming out i still not out so i can't share it with you
right away it seems very clear that this is a later addition to the discourse
this is one of the substantial really substantial findings i made in my comparative study of the
magimani kaya we have a chinese parallel in the madhyama agama and the tibetan parallel
mola sabastivada version they both do not have anything of these transcendental path factors
and when we look more closely at the description of these path factors we find that it uses certain
terminology that is abhidharma terminology that is otherwise not found in the early discourses
so i think that a good argument can be made that in this case the locutara idea is a later addition
and i believe that andrea is also right when she says that in magimani agama seven
it is possible that this notion of a transcendental merit is a later development
now i have one longer thing still to say i think i just stop now and briefly see if there's any
any question on what i have said so far there is something more on the
lateness or otherwise of magimani agama seven that i would like to say but it might get too long
no comments good don't know if it's good or bad but i go on
now at the at the end of the last lecture i mentioned that in principle when we do not have
a parallel to a discourse at all it is a little more difficult to come to a definite conclusion
i said that if we have two discourse parallels and we put them side by side and we see that they
agree they agree but this part is different it's here but it's not there then we can definitely
come to a conclusion but in the case of just not having a parallel at all it's a little more
difficult and i gave as example the case of the jiva kasutta in the magimani kaya where
uh some discussion has been one scholar has developed the the idea that this has a specific
meaning that we don't have a chinese parallel but then later on we found a parallel in the
recently discovered Sanskrit fragments so that whole argumentation collapses
now right away at the conclusion of the lecture linda was quick to point out to me that
my nice point works for a pilot discourse that doesn't have a chinese parallel but for a chinese
parallel that doesn't have a pilot discourse doesn't work so well because my argument had
been based on the chinese arguments being from different schools and i think darshana also
pointed that out on the blog so that's correct my argument made was mainly against
this scholar who has drawn conclusions that certain discourses we can make a general statement
just based on the fact that there's no chinese parallel
but i think that we can still put it the other way around and say that also in the case of a chinese
discourse that does not have a pilot parallel it is not easy for us to immediately be able to
dismiss that discourse i think if we make an argument like we have developed now a little bit
that okay the transcendental merit is something we don't really find in other discourses and
the notion of the opposing worldly and transcendental is somewhat later and so we get
the impression this discourse might be a later teaching i think that is a reasonable way to go
about but the mere fact magma seven no polypara forget it i don't think that works because we have
to take into account the fluidity of the transmission and it's this i would like to go into
a little bit more excuse me as an extract here i have from a scholar named davison that i found
very useful i read it to you now
during the more than 40 years of the buddhist teaching career there were many monks acting as
authoritative teachers of the doctrine throughout the kingdom of magadha and its border areas
they would cross paths with the master from time to time and receive new information as his
doctrine and teaching style developed they would also receive new information from one another
during the fortnightly congregations he is referring to the recital of the patimoca
the summer rain retreats and whenever they met as their mendicant paths crossed
after 40 years of their obtaining new information through such contact we may be certain that by the
death of the buddha the process of receiving new teachers of the teacher had become a well
accepted practice the network of instruction was thus established and doubtless most of the monks
realized that much of what the buddha had said during his lengthy career remained unknown to them
personally i find this very helpful because it gives us a feeling of how fluctuating
the situation would have been already at the buddhist time
you can just imagine i mean there's nothing written no fixed record and all you get is
either you are there when the buddha gives the teaching then you hear it and you can pass it
on to others or others tell you look ah a few weeks ago i met and this and that and then he
gave this and this discourse and that fluidity and continuous growth the buddha keeps on giving
discourses and discourses that would have i think continued then we get the first communal
recitation also sometimes said to be a council the sangeeti and scholars are divided about the
degree of historicity that we should accord to the traditional account i personally think
that it is not at all improbable that at the time when the buddha had passed away
the monks gathered together and that ananda who was the buddha's personal attendant and who is
in all tradition said to be one who literally has heard much he had heard a lot of discourses and
kept them in mind that he would give them the latest version of what davidson has so nicely
described of this fluid passing on of new discourses and new discourses that this was a
council that settled the canon for good this is probably a later interpretation of what happened
that was only necessary that only came into being at a time when different buddhist groups separated
and had disagreement on what is the original teaching but the basic idea the monks meet together
quite a number of monks ananda resides the discourses he knows and so that that there
is a certain amount of like a like a gathering point of information i think that is quite
reasonable to think this is a quite may indeed have happened and we find in the different vinayas
that report this first sangiti chanting together sangiti communal recitation all of them mentioned
the four collections but they always most of them disagree on the sequence like some have the
samyukta as the first in the terawah tradition we get first dheerga or a diga nikaya the long
discourses so the the this even the sequence of these four is not agreed on and as we already saw
in the first lecture the contents can be quite different but the basic idea of having four
collections of discourse seems to be a shared factor now we get this nice incident in the
pali vinaya that i wanted to look at with you it's here on the page after the first
sangiti we get this episode where those who have just finished the sangiti they approach another
monk by the name of purana and here i'm giving you a horness translation so they say reverent
or venerable purana dhamma and discipline have been chanted by monks who are elders submit
yourself to this chanting and purana says your reverences or venerable ones well chanted by the
elders are dhamma and discipline but in that way that i heard it in the lord's presence
that i received it in his presence in that same way i will bear it in mind
uh several scholars have pointed out that this is rather significant that the traditional account
of the first sangiti ends with this note of discordance and that it has not been
taken out or erased by later generations and so it is generally agreed that there must be some
something genuine in this episode because one cannot imagine that this was just
imagined as it runs counter to the whole tendency of the narration of the first sangiti
and i think it it reminds us of the fact that not only what we had here before so nicely described
by davidson during the time when the buddha was still teaching there was fluidity but even at the
very moment where according to tradition a fixed canon was set there was already at that point there
was there was fluidity the purana and his disciples would have remembered the teachings of the buddha
in a different way in a different form from those those elders that have been participating in the
sangiti and we may expect that purana may be remembered some discourse of the others did not
or the other way around there is always a considerable room for this fluidity and we cannot
posit any collection for Pali Nikayas for example as like this is the standard and everything else
has to measure up against this this is complete this is all the discourses and anything that
falls out of that is must be a later edition and i think in keeping this fluidity in mind
and looking after the principles as we did above with those uh transcendental qualification of
merits we will actually we are keeping fully in line with the teaching given according to the
Mahaparinibbana Sutta and its parallels by the buddha on how on on scriptural verification on how
to verify there are scriptures or scriptures is the wrong word suttas that were heard these are
the four great standards the mahapadesa i'm using walsh's translation
suppose a monk were to say friends i heard and received this from the lord's own lips
this is the dhamma this is the discipline this is the master's teaching then monks you should
neither approve nor disapprove his words then without approving or disapproving his words and
expressions should be carefully noted and compared with the suttas and reviewed in the light of the
discipline if they on such comparison and review are found not to conform to the suttas or the
discipline the conclusion must be assuredly this is not the word of the buddha it has been wrongly
understood by this monk and the matter is to be rejected but where on such comparison and review
they are found to conform to the suttas or the discipline the conclusion must be assuredly this
is the word of the buddha it has been rightly understood by this monk the same basic pattern
is then given to three other possible sources where instead of hearing it from the buddha itself
one may have heard it from a whole community of elders from a group many elders were learned or
even from a single elder this makes them four mahapadesas for great standards and i think this
is quite quite significant that the point really and this is what we have just now been doing with
manyama agama seven is to to to take a closer look at the discourse in question and see does does it
fit with the rest this is what i was saying before about the maha chattarisa kasutta where i find
there's something here on supermundane path factors we do not get supermundane path factors
anywhere else in the padi canon and we look closer at it we find that it uses terminology terms that
are found in the abhidharma not in other discourses and then we find also the parallel versions don't
have this so then we we we can really be drawing a conclusion that this is probably a later edition
and i believe to some degree we can also be suspicious about our manyama agama seven
about these transcendental merits
yeah this was what i had from the blogs and from the last lecture has taken me a little
while but i thought it's important to to touch on that topic of karma and also to go a little
bit into the transmission and the sangiti the first sangiti now at this point i definitely
have to catch my breath and ask for any questions or comments on what i've said so far and after
that we will get into manyama agama eight no comments yeah then
then
then we go on
yeah maybe i clear the chat
the discourse we get now is in a way it's a it's a it's a gloss on aniccha vata sankara
on impermanent owl formations this is according to tradition where the words spoken by the
god saka when the buddha had passed away and the last words that the buddha is recorded to have
spoken at that time was also on sankara's vaya dhamma sankara all sankara's are of a nature to
pass away the point of impermanence is central to buddhist insight it's the very basis of the
development of insight in buddhism in fact the faculty of wisdom in the discourse is standardly
described as insight into impermanence and the other interesting aspect is the word sankara
in this discourse the word sankara translated here as formation is used in its very general sense
in the discourses we find three main meanings of the term sankara one is as one of the five
aggregates that make up what according to early buddhism is the individual body feeling perception
sankara's and consciousness and here sankara stands for that part of our mind which which
reacts the volition or intention and in later buddhist thought this yeah i like to call it
a clear-cut distinction into four main aspects with which one can identify as i me or myself
gets a little lost because the term sankara becomes an umbrella term for any mental
factor or quality that cannot easily be fit into the other aggregates
but in the early discourses as the fourth of the five aggregates sankara really stands for volition
and the next big scheme where sankara comes up is the chain of dependent arising
which is the explanation of the arising of dukkha by way of 12 links in the standard
presentation there are several interesting variations but we will not get into that now
and here sankara stands in position number two based on ignorance there are formations
conditionings and based on such ignorant conditionings then the whole
chain continues up to the experience of dukkha again this is just briefly but now what we get
is sankaras in their most general term sankara what makes together and what is made together
anything conditioned anything composite can be a sankara even this computer in front of me is a
sankara if you like so we get on our teaching on impermanence and sankaras
just when had we has to go
discourse on seven suns and this is the parallel to the sattasurya sutta in the angutta nikayana
thus have i heard at one time the buddha was staying at vesali in amba pali's grove
at that time the blessed one addressed the monks all formations these are our sankaras
all formations are impermanent offer nature not to last quickly changing by nature unreliable
by nature thus one should not delight in or be attached to formations one should lose them as
troublesome one should seek to abandon them one should seek to be free from them
why is that
there will be a time when it will not rain at that time when it does not rain all the trees
the hundreds of cereals and all medicinal shrubs will wither entirely come to destruction and
extinction unable to continue existing that is why i say that all formations are impermanent
the discourse continues by describing that different further stages in this
holocaust what my almost want to call it next stage is a second sun appears
the flow of all the streams and riverlets will become exhausted
a third sun appears all the great rivers will become exhausted
a fourth sun appears the great springs from which the five rivers of jambu deep emerge
jambu deeper refers to the indian subcontinent the ganges being the first the yamuna the second
and the sarabhu the third the achiravati the fourth and the mahi the fifth those great
springs will all become exhausted and the fifth sun appears the water of the great ocean will
recede until the water of the ocean will be completely exhausted being not sufficient to
submerge even one finger i have considerably abbreviated this section the description is very
detailed a sixth sun appears the whole great earth together with mount meru king of mountains
will be totally submerged in smoke a single mass of smoke a seventh sun appears the whole great
earth together with meru king of mountains will be all ablaze intensely hot a single mass of flame
i have now told you that meru king of mountains will collapse and be completely destroyed
who can believe this only those who have seen the truth
this is the first part of the discourse and the description of these seven suns and their effect
with some minor variations is similar in the Pali version the discourse has a second section
which is not immediately evident in what relation it stands to the first but before i
get to that again i would like to give a moment opportunity for any questions or comments on this
discourse
Manfred asks how would that relate to me now when these things happen in the far future
give the question back to the others anybody any idea
so
robert the example shows that even things we take as completely granted such as the earth
perish and wither eventually hence what is the point of clinging to all the rest
which is obviously less stable and less permanent than the earth right excellent
so
yeah then i think i continue with the second part of the discourse
monks in ancient times there was a great teacher called suneta
when the great teacher suneta gave teachings about the way to the brahma world some of his
disciples did not adequately put his teaching into practice excuse me at the end of life
some of them were reborn among the four great kings this is one of those heavenly realms that
we talked about before somewhere reborn among the 33 gods somewhere reborn among the yama gods
somewhere reborn among the tusita gods somewhere reborn among the gods who delight in creating
and somewhere reborn among the gods who delight in the creation of others excuse me all these are
realms of the sensual heaven at that time the great teacher suneta had this thought
in my next life i should not be reborn in the same place as my disciples i would now
rather develop and cultivate loving kindness having developed and cultivated loving kindness
at the end of life he attained rebirth among the gods of radiance the abhasara deva loga
monks what do you think the great teacher in ancient times called suneta do you think
this was someone else do not think that know that it was me this identification is
not found in the pali version at that time i personally practiced that part which was of
benefit to myself and of benefit to others benefiting many people out of compassion for
the world seeking the advantage and benefit of gods and human beings seeking their peace and happiness
the teaching i gave at that time did not lead to the ultimate was not the ultimate purity not the
ultimate holy life not the ultimate completion of the holy life at that time i was not able to
abandon birth old age sickness death sorrow and distress i was not able to attain complete
liberation from suffering but now monks i have appeared in the world as a tatagata
the teaching i now give leads to the ultimate is the ultimate purity the ultimate completion of the
holy life i have now abandoned birth old age sickness death sorrow and distress i have now
attained complete liberation from suffering this is what the buddha said having heard the
buddha's words the monks were delighted and remembered them well so i have summarized here
the main points i should mention that the anguttara nikaya version has a set of
verses at the end of the discourses which are not found in the madhyama agama
anyway the main points so we get these seven suns appearing one after the other
and the results is the first trees dry up then the riverlets then the rivers then the springs of
the great rivers then the water of the ocean the earth is in smoke and finally the earth is all
ablaze on fire and then in the second part of the discourse we get this contrast between
sonneta teaching the path to a heavenly rebirth the practice of the divine abode especially loving
kindness leading to rebirth in the brahma world superior to those essential realms in which his
disciples were reborn and on the other side the tatagata the buddha who teaches the path to
liberation yeah any comments or questions on this discourse
so
yeah
jan ask was it sonneta's idea to maintain higher than his students or dtc that this way is not final
i think the idea that we get here is that the sonneta did not know anything better than
practicing the brahma biharas and being reborn in the higher heavenly spheres
so he just saw that the way he was teaching his students were not fully following that
and then he decided that he will however make the best of what he knew and that would lead him to
rebirth in the brahma world and in both version the buddha contrasts this way of practice
which was already considerably superior to his disciples but only leads to rebirth in heaven to
the path to liberation and christopher asked who is or was sonneta well all we know about sonneta is
this information we get in this discourse and so the question really is was he a past life of the
buddha or not and if there are no further comments then i would like to go into this topic a little
bit more yeah who was sonneta christopher has actually very nicely pinpointed the issue
see that oh there is another comment wait robert even though loving kindness alone does lead to
liberation does does not lead to liberation yeah however developing it seems to be an essential
aspect also along the path to liberation a practical question to me is how do i develop
loving kindness yeah that is a nice point that i like to we still have some time i have my last
discussion on who was sonneta put it aside for a moment yeah loving kindness has a considerable
contribution to make to the path to liberation and that in particular for progress from
stream entry to non-returning there are several passages that tell us that
uh loving kindness is developed and made much of leads to non-return and the issue is that
based on the first foundation of insight developed with stream entry the clear understanding of
impermanence dukkha and not self the issue is that now ill will or anger and hatred on the one
side and sensual desire on the other side have to be overcome these are the two fetters that the
stream enter our faces and that for progress via one's return to non-return he or she has to
eradicate and a loving kindness uh catches both in one go if i may say that in this manner the
thing is that the experience of deeper happiness we had a little discussion with dania on suka on
the glob on the blog the experience of that inner spiritual happiness of a deep concentration
divests sensual pleasures of their attraction so any development any successful development
of mental tranquility by any meditation object will help to get out of sensual desire
if and there is an if if at first some degree of distance to sensual desire has been established
if somebody is still engaging in sensual pleasures and has a lot of sensual desire then
actually practicing any form of samatha and particular loving kindness may even make the
situation worse because there has to be a basis and a clear distinction between worthwhile objects
of happiness and those who are not but once somebody has attained stream entry and thereby
experienced nirvana for the first time and gotten some distance to involvement with the sensual world
it can be expected that such a one he or she is able to develop loving kindness without
this going over into essential attraction and if that is possible and deeper attainments are able
like the jhanas that divest sensual pleasures of their attraction then the fact that loving kindness
has been used for this purpose has the additional effect that by developing loving kindness i am
countering anger and ill will these two states are naturally opposed so the more somebody develops
loving kindness the more the other the contrary quality of ill will or hatred will be diminished
so in this way loving kindness as a formal meditation practice and as a form of inter relating
with others becomes a particularly useful for progress from stream entry to non-return
and the question how to develop loving kindness is also of considerable interest because
a minefield puts in that soneta could not have been a non-returner yeah definitely i'm not talking
about soneta i'm just talking in general about the question of loving kindness and its relation
to liberation good that you pointed it out so i'm i'm not meaning soneta i'm i've left soneta
in the past where he belongs and we'll come back to who he is or was in about another two three
minutes but at present i'm just talking about loving kindness in general yeah how to develop
loving kindness and there is this is one of the points that really make me an advocate of study
of the early discourses because the way loving kindness meditation is taught in the commentaries
seems to me to be considerably different there we get a practice of directing thoughts of good will
to a friend a neutral person an enemy this whole approach is nowhere described in the early
discourses there's nothing about friend or myself friend neutral enemy all this is not found at all
what we get there is a is a development of the basic attitude of loving kindness within the heart
and then spreading it in all directions without making any distinctions
this is a somewhat huge topic i am getting into now that i think i have to cut down now i'm
planning to write a book on loving kindness at some point in the future because i find this so
so important and to to introduce the way it's it's practice in the suttas
and this is also the way how i practices myself i have found some find the commentary
instructions very useful and i do not want to speak against that but there are others who do not
and i am one of those and i find that the basic idea of not getting into any kind of intellectual
organizations in terms of words directed to particular persons but instead developing that
basic attitude and then just radiating it out in all directions become a very powerful practice
andrew asked when i will be writing that book on loving kindness there'll be a couple of years
from now of course i have so many other things on my back yeah now i want to come back to christopher's
uh who was suneta as we saw in the pali version he's not identified in the madhyama agama version
he is we are told he is a past life of the buddha he has quite a number of such
issues of such cases i have made a study of them as part of my book on the genesis of the bodhisattva
idea this book was published last year and you can download a pdf file from the webpage of the
center for bodhisattva studies where you enrolled for this course under publications and it's in
publications and it's in the second chapter
let me just see this is the book it's in the in the second chapter so i'm drawing on that
you will you will get more references there anyway there is a few cases that i would like
to go through now the first is and i have put them here on the blackboard so discourse in
the samyukta nikaya has a parallel in the samyukta agama preserved in chinese
and it gives us gives us a tale the buddha gives a a tale the
idea of his teaching is to tell us to tell the listeners that satipatana the practice of
mindfulness is something to which one should stick this is one's proper resort and if one gets out
of that resort getting involved in essential pleasures then one can easily become a victim of
mara and to illustrate this teaching we get this story of a quail and a falcon falcon i hope my
pronunciation is okay for those of you who are native speakers so this quail lives on a
freshly plowed land he always goes around to pick out his food among the pieces of earth
that have been turned up by the plow and so one day the player thinks well let me let me just see
over there by the forest if there's something nice as soon as he leaves his proper ground
goes to the forest he's caught by a falcon
or a hawk whatever now as he's caught by the falcon the quail goes ah i should not have left
my proper resort my home grounds if i would have stayed in my home grounds no way this falcon
could have got me he would have stayed any chance against me so the falcon is caught by his pride
and says what you think you can stand against stand up against me let's have a try you go
and he lets the quail go and so the quail goes back onto the freshly plowed ground and
stands in top of on top of a very big clod of earth and starts shouting hey you falcon come
here come here i'm ready come come and the falcon gets really angry and he swoops down
with full speed on the quail and just the last moment when he's about to catch the quail again
the quail jumps down behind the clod and the falcon hits his breast on the clod of earth and dies
so the parable is clearly meant to convey a teaching the interesting thing is that
in the discourses this is obviously a parable but in the pali jataka collection
we are told this is a story of a past birth of the buddha who was the clever quail in this
story obviously i'm giving you the references here just to the pali versions if you like to
check it up if you like to get the references to any chinese paralettes that i mention as i go on
then you have to consult my book we have another version of this tale also in a chinese udana
collection and there also is no identification of any of the animals as a past life of the buddha
the next story i have there are actually two stories they are from the pa yasi sutta
this is an encounter between a buddhist monk and a skeptic and they have they have a really
nice debate with each other real ancient indian debate and in this debate buddhist monk uses
various examples or similes to illustrate his arguments and so one of these
illustrations he uses it describes two caravan leaders as a group of
one thousand stereotype number one thousand two groups of 500 caravan members and they have to go
through a difficult part of the country and so they decide to split up one of them goes ahead
with 500 and the other waits because they say if we all travel together then water and support
will be difficult to get so you go ahead and we wait for a while and then we follow
and first of the two then on the way they meet a yaka a kind of ghost or goblin who lies to them
he tells them look there's water ahead you can throw away all your provisions and they do that
and there's no water ahead so they all meet with disaster and are eaten up by the yaka
but the second caravan leader after some time has passed he also pursues the same road and when
this yaka comes he is clever and he tells his people listen we don't we don't know this fella
he tells us to throw things away but we are not going to do that and in that way they are safe
and they pass safely through the desert and the other example the idea of this parable is
just to show how foolishness leads us to disaster and the other parable describes two gamblers
they are playing dice the simile can only be understood when we have a little idea of
dice game in ancient india so that is a little different from what we nowadays understand under
dice what they apparently had was not marked dice like we have it now with one two three four five
six on each side or something like that they were unmarked dice so you you may imagine something
like chickpeas or peas a considerable amount of these dice are there and then a certain
number of them is thrown into a particular area and now the task of the other players is that
they have to add to this number that is there another number so that the whole makes up an
auspicious total number so i mean i don't remember exactly what the auspicious numbers
are but let me just give an example i say the first throw has thrown 17 of these dice
then my job would be to very quickly be able to see 17 and then realize okay if i want to get a
auspicious number of 33 i have to add another 16 and grab another 60 and throw them there
just to give you an idea of the game and good gamblers there's i think somewhere in a
in it's not in a buddhist scriptures there's the example of a very good gambler who at one glance
is able to count all the leaves on the tree it just gives you this idea of somebody who at one
glance immediately knows how much is there and then he knows how much to add and the way of
cheating in this type of gambling is obviously when you have thrown one too much or one then
you have to have that let that disappear so that say uh in my example i said 17 and i add 16 and
then i get am i right 33 and 33 is an auspicious number so if i also throw 17 out of quickness
wanting to get there and i got one more and then i got 34 and this is a total loss then i can have
one disappear and turn an unlucky throw a kali throw a black throw into a lucky throw
and this is in this example what one of the gamblers is doing and he swallows the dice
so they are playing and he somehow realizes he has put one too much and he swallows it
to make it disappear and the other notices that and gets angry and says okay let's play
tomorrow again and the next day when they play before he smears the dice with poison
and as they play and the other cheats and starts to swallow the poison our other game gambler then
pokes fun at him in a verse and says you you don't know what you're swallowing
these two parables have again become jataka stories of the past life of the buddha i'm
giving you here the references under number two and as you might already imagine the second case
is not unproblematic because one of the gamblers is a is a cheater and the other one poisons his
opponent so the jataka collection then chooses the second player the one who poisons his opponent
to identify as a past life of the buddha and it solves the problem by reporting that yes he did
poison his opponent but afterwards he gave him a medicine that cured him again
the third tale excuse me i have for you is from the Pali Vinaya
um there's a story the background story is that there's a group of notoriously misbehaving monks
and so they come to a place and they immediately occupy all buildings so much that elder monks
have no place to stay and the buddha next day uh convenes all the monks and says look
uh you have to respect elders and then he gives the example uh one of three animals that live
together a bird a monkey and an elephant and they live together and they find out that for us to live
together in harmony we have to respect the one of us who is older than the others and they find out
by saying look there's some tree over there and the elephant says look when i was very small very
young the branch of this tree just reached up to my shoulders and the monkey says that's nothing
you know when i was young without i could just eat the top leaves of this tree without having
to climb up so it was just up to my level and then the bird says look uh friends uh some time
ago i ate a fruit of this tree and i voided on this place and the seed of what i voided has become
this tree so they all realize that the bird is the eldest of them and decide that from now on we
shall honor this bird now we have uh this tale has become a jataka in the pali jataka collection
and also in three vinayas i just give you their names ma sangeka the moola savasthivara and the
savasthivara but other vinayas the pali vinaya the dharmakubtaka and the maishasaka
do not identify any of these animals as the bodhisattva and then we also have some differences
because several vinayas said that those who identify say that the buddha was the bird
but the ma sangeka vinaya actually says he has been the elephant instead
then there's another vinaya instance now this time the topic is contentment the story goes
that the monks had been asking the local population for this and that so much that
as soon as people just saw a monk they they run around the corner and hide and the buddha wants
to teach these monks a lesson about contentment and gives them the story of rishi an ancient
Indian hermit sage who was visited by a naga this is a serpent king and this naga wears a magical
jewel around his neck and so one day the rishi asked for that jewel and that's too much and the
naga disappears that never comes back again in the terra vara vinaya this is a parable
and this is this also in the maha sangeka and moola savasthivara vinaya
but in the parijadaka collection this has become a past life of the buddha and the same also in
another two vinayas yeah i see i'm running a little bit short of time
yeah i think i think i do a little longer today there's two more stories and i
like to finish them if you have patience with me three four minutes more i hope that's okay i
normally like to finish punctually the fifth case i have is on patience there are some monks
who are in bitter fight for some minor matter and the buddha gives them the king of the tale of
past king the king brahmadatta of one place called benares when has killed another king
of kosala and usurped his country and so the son of this killed king enrolls in the service of the
killing king and wants to get revenge but after he has made himself have have the king confidence
in him at least at last he gets a chance to carry out his plan to kill the king in revenge but at
the moment he's able to do that he decides that that's the wrong course of action his father on
passing away had told him you can never deal with anger by reacting with anger it is only forgiveness
that will lead out of anger and so he decides to spare him and the buddha then says look even even
kings in ancient times spare each other so you are or monks you should also not react to anger with
anger though in the talavada vinayana this is just a parable or a story the same is for madhyama
agama and ekottatika agama discourse but in the pali jataka collection the prince the prince who
did not take revenge is identified as a past life of the buddha and in a chinese jataka collection
however it is the father of the prince who is said to be the buddha in a past life the prince was
ananda the attendant of the buddha and the last example i have is from the kuta dantasuta this
excuse me describes brahmin who gets instructions on sacrifice from the buddha and this situation
which in itself is already a little funny brahmin's were the specialists on sacrifice and the buddha
comes from a kshatriya family and the buddha tells him look in the past there was king who
wanted to conduct a sacrifice and he tells that to his brahmin priest and the brahmin says look
better you give to those in the country who cultivate or engage in trade then people will
live in prosperity if we know the situation ancient india we know this is tongue in cheek
a brahmin would according to the way they are presented in the text that would have been the
last thing he would have done and would have been very happy to get into a sacrifice instead of
telling the king he should give to the poor and needy in the country then we get the description
of the sacrifice no killing whatsoever the sacrifice this is another poking fun at ancient
indian sacrifice where a lot of killing was done nobody is forced to do work with blows or threatening
this is also poking fun but it still gets better than the king is doing his sacrifice and then the
other well-to-do people in the country come and says sir you're making a sacrifice may we give
you some of our own wealth for that this at this point i think our the people in ancient india who
hear this story they must have been rolling on the ground in laughter because as far as we know
the very obvious was opposite was happening in that the king was trying to get wealth from others
for his sacrifice instead of getting it offered and in our story the king man says no no no i don't
need i don't need i have enough of my own no need for your wealth you you just keep it
so this whole story is very obviously it has very obvious farcical traits it's it's it's poking fun
at ancient indian sacrifice and what was normally happening in these situations
and the discourse continues in telling us after the buddha has told this story a brahmin that is
in the audience who had asked about sacrifice he says but strange that the buddha does not say he
has heard of this i wonder if he has witnessed it himself and the buddha says yes that is indeed the
case i witnessed it in the past so this tale is significant in two respects one is it gives a
canonical sanction to the reasoning that when the buddha tells us a tale from the past
without explicitly saying i heard it somewhere then it should be assumed that he remembers it
from his recollection of past lives and the other thing is that the kuta dandasota the palli version
explains that the buddha was this brahmin chaplain in the past the chinese version says instead that
he was the king and the sanskrit fragment version says he was both impossible
so we find that a number of stories i have shown to you the identification of
certain persons in what seems to be a parallel or a tale as a past life of the buddha is
not supported by parallel versions and at times also does not really fit the context
so my conclusion is that with several jadakas canonical jadakas stories found in the discourse
in the vinaya the fact that these are reckoned as past birth of the buddha is a later development
and i think the same would also apply to our tale of sonneta yeah i have to stop at this
point i have overtaxed you for four minutes almost five minutes today i'm sorry but i wanted to
finish my jadaka excursion on which we will be getting some opportunity to discuss the next
lecture and there's one last thing i just wanted to say i think i forgot to mention that at the
outset i am now also posting notes the notes of the lectures on the website i am taking out all
the copyright material all the actual discourse translation which i think i said we cannot put up
freely but i'm just putting like this listing of jadakas will in from tomorrow on will be found
on the webpage also so for all those of you who like to look at things again when you discuss
things on the blog or for those who listen to the lecture only the audio version not able to see the
video it's possible to have that information there yeah that's all for today thank you very
much to all of you for your attention i hope i have said something of some interest to you
and i wish you a good time until we meet next week bye