So, welcome everybody.
This is the seventh lecture in my course on Purification, Ethics and Karma in Early Buddhist
Discourse.
There is a number of announcements.
First there was a problem with viewing the lecture video last time and apparently this
was a problem with the server.
So after the last lecture for about three or four days it was not possible to view any
of the lectures.
I am pretty helpless with anything of this type and it's good for me to know but in
future if anything like this happens please contact the support team.
I had given the email address when we started with that email where you got all the information.
I am putting it in here again in the chat.
If there is any technical problem these people are able to help.
They know about the whole software, the background, the make up and all this.
If there is anything I know it's perhaps on the pai and chinese sorta side but these technical
things are pretty helpless.
Then another thing just about these lecture notes.
The notes that I am using here during the course contain copyright material and this
is also why these videos we don't want them to be spread out in any way but after the
lecture is over I am making reduced notes where I take out most of the copyright material
and these are posted on the Olad page at the same place where I also post the video and
the audio recording.
These notes you are free to download them and print them out for your own use.
That's perfectly fine.
There is no problem with that.
Then there was one reply by one query by one person.
There are different ways how we appear on the blog and so the idea again would be not
to create individual blogs for anything but to keep everything under a single blog for
a whole lecture because otherwise if with every individual question we create a separate
blog the webpage actually only displays five blogs.
Then we can't really see any more properly what's been happening and inside this single
blog you have two options.
One is to make your own comment like I am putting the topic this will be lecture seven
so if you have anything about this lecture that you would like to mention you just put
your comment.
But then if somebody else has put a comment and you reply to that, that is a second option
then others cannot reply to you reply then only the delete button appears.
One can only reply to a comment just to clarify this technical stuff.
Then another thing there are two monastics who have both joined us late and one of them
has been trying to discuss things from the first and second lecture with me and the
other one sister Akinchena she has enrolled under the name Lene and Friedgard Lotte Mosen.
She also had some computer problems and has joined us late and she would still like to
continue on the stages of purification and the inside knowledges.
Now basically for me the thing is that like I can't keep going back to topics that we
have already covered earlier I like to continue like I present my things and those people
who are there either live or doing the week look at it there is this time for discussion
but then it's time for us to move on to something else.
But in the case of the purification stages and the inside knowledges sister Akinchena
has created an extra blog.
So any of you who likes to continue discussing this with her then please continue using that
blog for that.
But as far as I'm concerned doing the lecture here now the stages of purification whatever
we have to discuss we discuss and we move on to other topics now.
I'm sorry for that having to streamline things a little bit but otherwise it gets really
out of hand.
In the last announcement and it's a little longer announcement going to be now several
people last week inquired about this course about future courses when the present course
finishes and also some wanted to know about my situation at the university.
So I just thought I briefly explained this once now and then that would be clear.
So the present course we are having now goes until mid-July but there are some holidays
like for example next week Thursday there will be a holiday.
So the next session will only be in two weeks.
And when we have had our last session in mid-July the website will stay open for you to use
the blog and discuss until the end of July.
After that you will have no longer access to the web page.
This is the basic set up this is a university course it goes for one semester and after
that all the passwords everything will be deleted.
However the audio lectures and those notes that I'm already putting up now on the web
page we are now thinking of putting them up somewhere else so that they can be freely
available because the audio lectures and those reduced notes do not contain copyright material.
I'm still in the process of sorting out how this exactly will be done but I will let you
know once we have that.
So after the course is over and the web page is closed down there will still be a possibility
for yourself or for anybody else whom you like to recommend this to listen to the audio
recordings and to download print out look at the reduced notes that I already know on
the OLED web page.
Then my own situation I have an unsalaried teaching assignment as a private dot sent
we call that in German this is the equivalent to an associate professorship in the US system
and to a reader in the UK system.
And the head of our department the Indology department of Indology at the University of
Hamburg and he has founded a center for Buddhist studies and he has invited me to be one of
the board members since the foundation actually.
When I joined because I really like his vision our vision basically is on the one side we
like to provide academically sound information to the broader public and on the other side
we like to bundle different academic disciplines that are related to Buddhist studies because
so far Buddhist studies is not a field of its own in German universities and we like
to create that.
And it was the idea of the head of our department professor Michael Zimmerman that I should
do the present course in English instead of doing it in German because he thought that
would give us broader international range and this obviously as you have noticed already
has definitely happened and yeah on my part I'm basically happy to continue with this
as long as there is an interest on your part.
Now this year we had 340 enrollments from 36 different countries and this is much more
than we expected and we are very happy about this.
If in future enrollments continue to be as high or even higher than that then I will
continue reading through the whole of the Magyama Agama every summer semester just in
the way we are doing it now.
Now next year this is already fairly certain and the course will again be starting in April
and the enrollment will probably begin a little later than this year probably on the 1st of
March there will be announcement on the internet on the webpage and probably again on Thursdays
and perhaps maybe a little earlier in the day I thought maybe of doing it at a quarter
past 2 in the afternoon and the title will be probably the Arahant and the Four Truths
so that the Arahant, the nature of the Arahant and the topic of what is right view, what
are the four noble truths, these will be the central topics similar to now purification,
ethics and karma.
We read through the Magyama Agama and we have these few points where we give special importance
to and next year's course I would also be looking more at loving kindness and meta-meditation
when we come to Magyama Agama 27.
So if you enroll in March and if you perhaps find a way of spreading the good news so that
many others also enroll and come to know about this type of course then I think this kind
of lecturing will continue for quite some time.
So enough with all these announcements now.
Come to the blog.
Yeah, there has been a very lovely discussion on the blog, I really enjoy it.
I feel at least for me the blog is now becoming more interesting than the lecture itself.
There were quite a number of comments on the passage about the Buddha's recollection of
the first Jhana and this is a somewhat broad topic and I like to go on that a little bit
more in detail now.
There was one, Michael Beisert, he just, he says, I would speculate that his Jhana experience
as a child was based on a past life experience, yeah I agree with that, that is a very meaningful
suggestion, that is also the way how I would explain it.
That in a past life, and we have several Jataka stories where we hear that the Buddha had
been practicing Jhanas in past lives, had been attaining the Abhinya, super normal knowledges
and so it would from that perspective not be at all surprising if on being reborn as
a human being this time from one of these past lives he still had a residue of this
ability and as a small child therefore was able to get into the first Jhana.
Now I like to look again at the passage I quoted last time and I am giving it now with
a little more context, so allow me to read this for you.
I considered, this is right after he has found ascetic practices don't lead him anywhere
and just before he moves towards his awakening, I considered, I recall that when my father
the Sakyan was occupied, while I was sitting in the cool shade of a rose apple tree, quiet
secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, I entered upon and
abided in the first Jhana, which is accompanied by applied and sustained thought with rapture
and pleasure born of seclusion.
Could that be the path to enlightenment?
Then following on that memory came the realization, that is indeed the path to enlightenment.
I thought, why am I afraid of a happiness that is separate from sensual pleasures and
unwholesome states?
I am not afraid of a happiness that is separate from sensual pleasures and unwholesome states.
So when we read this in full I think one point first of all becomes clear is that this passage
does not indicate that this was the only time in his life that he had experienced a Jhana
before his awakening.
It just says that he recalls this particular experience from his past, but this does not
mean that he could not also have attained Jhana at a later point in his life before
becoming awakened.
Then another point is that I also think is noteworthy that the kind of description we
get here of the first Jhana secluded from sensual pleasures, etc, accompanied by applied
and sustained thought, etc.
This is exactly the same description we get of any kind of first Jhana anywhere else in
the discourses.
This is the first Jhana that description of anybody who gets awakened, this is the first
Jhana that the Buddha experienced as a small child or as a young man, we don't know exactly.
And it is also the same description we find in the Brahma Jhala Sutta, it's the first
discourse in the Digha Nikai, I just give you the reference.
And there it is Jhana attained by non-Buddhists who hold the view of a self.
They think that by attaining the first Jhana secluded from unwholesome pleasure, etc, etc.
This is how the self attains supreme nirvana here and now.
I think this is significant in so far as it shows us that Jhana was attained by non-Buddhists
according to the Buddhist scriptures.
And to hold Brahma Jhala Sutta, many of the views described there are based on Jhana experiences.
So one cannot, I fail to make sense of Brahma Jhala Sutta unless I assume that contemporary
practitioners at Buddhist time were able to attain Jhana.
And the decisive difference is that they lack right view from a Buddhist perspective.
And Danya Persi has posted something on the blog from Venerable Sujato and I found that
really helpful.
I found he nicely puts things into perspective.
According to this quote from Venerable Sujato, the attainment of Jhanas under the Teaches
Alara, etc. would have been undertaken with a particular perspective on what it means
to attain a Jhana, some kind of self-theory.
And that is from a Buddhist perspective wrong view.
But a shift of perspective by way of implementing right view turns these same Jhana experiences
into tools for progress to awakening.
Now here is another passage I would like to bring in.
This says, after the Bodhisattva has been able to gain the same experience as his teacher
Alara Kalama and later also as Uduka Rama Puta Rama, the father of Uduka.
And by Alara now he is being invited to become a co-teacher.
And so he says, this Dhamma does not lead to disenchantment but only to reappearance
in the base of nothingness.
The Pali, the Kincanya Yatana Upa Patya, that is the word normally used for rebirth.
If this Dhamma, this teaching given by Alara Kalama and the corresponding meditative attainment
only lead to reappearance being reborn in the base, in the sphere, in the realm that
corresponds to nothingness, then it must have been the full-fledged attainment.
It is not possible according to early Buddhist meditation theory and cosmology to do the
same thing with our Jhana abilities.
Therefore I think in our attempts to understand the significance of the passage, the long
passage I quoted above, as far as the texts allow us to judge, we have to assume that
the bodhisattva was able to attain Jhanas and that Alara Kalama and Uduka Rama Puta
were able to attain Jhanas in order to get into these immaterial attainments.
Now, several participants have been considering the possibility in the blog that this early
youth Jhana experience might have been different from what he experienced later or that what
his teachers taught him might be different from the Buddhist type of Jhana.
As I already mentioned now, as far as the texts allow us to tell, always the same description
is found and the discussion has also brought up the notion that there are different types
of Jhanas, some are based on letting go, others are based on effort and these comments reflect
an ongoing discussion about what is the nature of Jhana and I felt that since the topic of
Jhana is not really on the core schedule in the near future, I thought it's worthwhile
to spend a few minutes and just look at these things.
Yeah, I'm going to touch on three main areas of contention in regard to Jhanas but before
I start that, please, I am not presenting the only possible way of understanding, I'm
not claiming this is the only truth, everybody else is wrong, I'm just, this is the way how
based on whatever humble meditation experience I have and whatever humble understanding of
the scriptures I have, this is what it looks like to me, this is just one way of seeing
things and you are completely free to just reject it and forget about it if you think
it's not meaningful.
There's basically three main areas of contention in regard to what it means to attain a Jhana
or not.
One is thinking and Jhana, is one able to think inside a Jhana?
One is sound and Jhana, is one able to hear sound when one is inside a Jhana?
And one is effort and Jhana, effort and willpower.
So the first of these thinking and Jhana, this is related to the first two Jhana factors
in the quote that I have here on the blackboard, this is translated by applied and sustained
thought.
The Pali words are Vitaka and Vichara.
And I have discussed this in some detail in my Satipatana book on page 75, if you like
to further read this up.
The thing is that as far as I can see, Vitaka and Vichara have a broader meaning.
So Vitaka specifically is the point that we should look at now, Vitaka literally translated
means thought and it stands for conceptual thinking.
And so specifically scholars have concluded that the first Jhana then must be a state
of happy reflection if I'm allowed to call it like this.
Now the problem is that and you will find all the references in my Satipatana book starting
on page 75.
If we look through the discourses, the way Jhana is described, it does not seem to be
just a state of happy reflection.
And an interesting passage in the Maha Chaturisa Kausuta shows that Vitaka has a broader meaning,
it can also just mean the direction of the mind, giving the mind a certain direction.
And this is basically an activity of the mind that can apply to speaking, just as I'm
speaking to you now, it can apply to thinking just when we sit somewhere alone and think
something over and it can also apply to deeper stages of meditation where conceptual reflection
is pretty much absent.
It's basically you see like my situation here now I have here my notes, but I haven't fully
formulated what I'm going to say, I've just here it says briefly explain Vitaka and Vichara.
So this gives me a first direction of the mind, there is sort of like now I would like
to talk to the participants of my course about this topic and there's a certain direction
of my mind that I don't stray off into something else and then there is Vichara coming after
and supplying all the words that I want to say.
And I need both of these qualities, I need this sense of stirring in order not to just
go blah blah blah off into something different, but I also need this supplying of the actual
words that I'm now going to use as I'm talking to you otherwise I'm going to get stuck in
the middle.
And this is how Vitaka and Vichara function in speech and this is also how they function
when we think something over some problem.
So now we take time we think okay now I have to think tomorrow this and this is how I'm
going to deal with it and this is the Vitaka it gives this direction tomorrow's problem
how to solve it gives the main theme and then the Vichara goes well I could do like this
I could do like this and sometimes it strays a little bit off course I could go like this
and could talk to this person and hey Vitaka puts us back hey now is the time to think
about this problem.
In the meditation specifically when we attain Jhana it becomes something similar there is
the mind which is pointing at the object usually when we are approaching Jhana for many meditators
there is a so-called counterpart image an emitter a light experience or something similar there
is something that is the object of our mind and the mind has to be pointed at that and
then there is the need for that sustainment to keep with that object both of these are
still gross mental activities and they are left behind when we get into the second Jhana
but they need not be conceptual they need not be mental blah blah blah that is on the
first area of contention I think I go through all three and then I give you time to go at
me with questions and comments.
One here sounds while one is in Jhana this is much discussed among practitioners now there are
two canonical passages to take into consideration for that one is a discourse I give you the
reference here hang on
yeah this discourse says that for the attainment of the first absorption sound is a thorn
and the whole context is about different thorns that are to be removed in order to get into
absorption now these two factors I've just been talking about vitaka and vichara said to be a
thorn for the second absorption and by definition the second absorption is free from vitaka and
vichara from what is it applied and sustained thought here in our translation so this gives
us a very strong passage gives us the idea that if sound is a thorn for the first Jhana it should
not be present in it then there is another passage and this is from the vinaya it's from
the uturi manusa dhamma parajika the rule concerning defeat about false claims to higher
attainments there's the monk mahamogallana and I think we will come to him a little later if I'm
not going to get too talkative on this jhana topic he says to other monks look I was sitting
in the fourth jhana he actually speaks about anindya samadhi the concentration of imperturbability
which is the fourth jhana so look I was in the anindya samadhi and I could hear elephants plunging
making some noise in the fourth jhana now the other monks go rushing up to the Buddha and says
look here vinamogallana is claiming false attainments this is interesting because it
shows us very clearly that the other monks wear off the opinion that this is impossible somebody
who is in the fourth jhana cannot hear any sound so if he says he does he must be making a false
claim to attainment but the buddha exonerates manumogallana he says no no it's possible you know
what happened what seems to have happened is that vinamogallana quickly lost its fourth jhana
heard the sound and then went back inside and if we look at his description of his
meditative development we find that even for developing the lower jhanas according to the
samyutta and nikaya description we have he was not very clear he did not he was a very
eminent and powerful meditator but he did not have this analytical clarity that the discourses
associate with vinamosari putta and so it seems that he had not this this he did not himself
realize that he had quickly emerged from the fourth jhana heard this sound and then gotten back inside
yeah so here i like to give a little story i've thought of a little simile
now imagine you are walking together with me we are somewhere in shrillanka there's a historical
ruins we are visiting the historical ruins of some ancient buddhist site there's also one of
these water tanks they had this water tanks full of water and as we are passing by the water tank
i suddenly slip and head long i fall into the water splash and now you're completely inside the
water so first i was outside of the water as we were walking then i slip i fall inside you don't
see me splash then a little while later i poke my head out and i say i can't get out of here
there's no steps or something can you ask the what you call them the guardians or whatever can
you ask them to give me a letter or a string or something so you walk over to those guardians and
tell him look the monk is in the water and he says give him a letter no the guardian is very clever
he says no what you're saying cannot be true you see if he is inside the water he can't talk
inside the water he is not able to talk if he opens his mouth water will come inside
but if he can't talk he can't be inside the water so he must be outside no need for a letter then no
you see my point when i am up to here in the water with the head outside am i inside the water am i
outside the water it's a little hard to say no you say i'm inside and i can argue well but he can talk
look he can look around how can he be inside the water you say i'm outside the whole body is wet
it's cold i want to get out so there's a question about subjective experience and a question about
everybody is somebody is attaining jhana and then is taking his or her experience as the as the
monk this is the way it is and then on listening it it's a little difficult to to put all these
things together but i think there is considerable space if we see that subjective experiences and
views can be different and we do not cling too much to the words he's on now you know inside the
water is he outside the water is it either this then he cannot is it like this then he cannot
but just see that there is always a gray area and so coming back to this sound thing
putting these two passages together one passage tells us sound is a thorn for the first jhana the
other one tells us even in the fourth jhana one is able to hear but then we get this point that is not
precisely inside the fourth jhana we might be able to develop some perspective on the discussion
that is nowadays often going on on these topics that there is sometimes some gray area
a hundred percent fully immersed in the water a hundred percent fully immersed in the first jhana
i think one does not hear sound but there is this gray area where you poke your head
above the water surface and you you can talk and you can hear and you just have to do a little
look and you're back all inside the water and i think if that simile if with that simile we might
be able to appreciate that somebody might say it's impossible to hear sound in jhana and somebody
else might say it is possible no there are those who stand outside of that water tank and think
they are inside there are those who believe they have jhana and as far as we are able to
tell they have not gotten any so if somebody continuously hears sound and keeps thinking of
this and that then i think it's a little difficult to call this a jhana but for somebody who has
gotten into deeper concentration there is quite a spectrum of subjective experience and we need
not nail it down to one particular definition and then the third area of contention is regarding
the role of effort and will now here i first like to mention that chetanah mental volition or will
is part of nama name and form i give the reference here therefore chetanah is present in any state
of mind there is no such state of mind completely without chetanah so the question is not
completely no chetanah but rather how much of it how strong how prominent we need chetanah to be
in the mind this will and here i like to just mention that according to the suttas
there are four different ways of getting into concentration these are the four idipadas
and so according to this idipada teaching there is a way of developing chandasamadi through desire
virya samadhi through energy chitta samadhi through the nature of the mind itself
and vimansa samadhi through investigation
so again the suttas are giving us a whole kaleidoscope of different possibilities of getting
into concentration and we need not say it's only like this only going by the nature of the mind is
the only way or only going by willpower this is the only way i think every one of us every
practitioner will find his or her own appropriate idipada if i may call it so but none of these
needs to be wrong from the outset and none of these needs to be necessarily related to views of self
and regarding the use of energy there is a very beautiful simile that is being developed and used
by ajahn brahmavang so a very outstanding meditation master and jhana master from australia
it's a simile of the donkey and the carrot so i steal it from him and quote it here because it's
just too beautiful there's a donkey and in order to make that donkey move people dangle a carrot
in front of his mouth and it's such a kind of sticks or the carrot is out there and the monkey
is always moving forwards because he wants to get to that carrot but obviously with every step the
donkey moves forward the carrot also moves a step further now what does the clever monkey
do a donkey i'm sorry the clever monkey the clever donkey do according to ajahn brahm the
clever donkey gets into real high speed he runs very fast and then at a certain moment he stops
so because of the speed of moving the carrot is also moving at the moment he stops the carrot for
a moment goes forward goes even further away but then he comes dangling back until the donkey
and he gets his carrot and i think that's extremely skillful simile for describing
the use of effort in order to get into what is a condition of non-effort
in some every single jhana experience even of one person attaining will be different
the way one person attains will be different from the way another person attains and describes that
but it seems to me that the basic characteristics of jhana the standard description we get in the
discourses and these three aspects of contention that i covered now they seem to be pretty much
applicable to all occurrences in the discourses as far as i can see and i do not see any
textual basis for assuming that there were basically different jhanas that a buddhist's
jhana is in principle different from a giant well giants didn't attain it a hindu jhana or a
christian jhana or whatever i mean the purpose to which these are put is different there are
different views behind that but the nature and experience as such its basic constituents
should be the same yeah long talk on jhanas any comments or questions on this
you got all into jhana i assume
well i try to wake you up again
there's a nice point made by laura de bernardy
she quotes the dveda vitaka sutta magi manikaya discourse number 19 where the buddha describes
that before his awakening he divided his thought into two types into wholesome and unwholesome
and then in regard to my presentation of the first jhana experience and the buddhist understanding
developed from that she asked am i right to say that the wholesome unwholesome distinction is
one that the buddha was already working on and do i take your comment to mean that it was only on
the eve of his awakening that he joined this ethical distinction to the experience of pleasure
i think that puts it very nicely the the basic
idea that there are certain thoughts which are unwholesome like desire and hatred that must
have been part of the ancient indian background that it was known to other teachers that one
should not be full of hate and not be full of sexual desire if one wants to get deeper meditation
states but that same ancient indian background also believed that one has to shun pleasures as such
pleasures is something bad if one is on the spiritual path and so my understanding the way
i understand it is that in this moment when the buddha reflects on his past experience he realizes
that not all pleasures need to be shunned but this distinction between wholesome and unwholesome
can also be applied to pleasure not only to thoughts in the way and described in the dvida
vitaka sutta and it is this and laura had already pointed it out this is also what i see
underlying the instructions in the satipatthana sutta on contemplation of feelings
where we get a very succinct instruction three types of feelings are distinguished
and then these are differentiated into worldly and unworldly types and this introduces an ethical
distinction is this pleasant feeling a worldly type is it an unworldly type
yeah
uh with uh his teachers alara kalam and etc i would expect that from their perspective the
pleasure of jhana was also something that one should better avoid because one can get
stuck in that pleasure this is just my assumption i have no textual basis for that this is just my
idea that they were teaching the attainment of jhana but urging people to to move onward to to
to don't there is pleasure there but uh be careful don't get attached to that pleasure go on go on
get into the fourth i mean they were not using that terminology but we use the buddhist terminology
use the fourth jhana and then get into this immature attainments pure equanimity uh total
no limits boundlessness nothingness etc so they were seeing pleasure as they must have been
encouraging some degree of pleasure otherwise one can't get into jhana at all but i assume that
they would not have given at any value in itself and obviously when he when the bodhisattva leaves
these teachers behind and then goes for ascetic practices the theme of avoiding pleasure becomes
even stronger and so my understanding is that at this point i says no this is the path to awakening
but and it is not necessary to be afraid of this pleasure because this pleasure is a wholesome
pleasure and then from there he he he applies this wholesome unwholesome distinction in a broader
manner then he develops a recollection of his own past lives seeing the passing away and reappearance
of others he sees on a personal long distance history level and on a universal level that this
same principle is is applicable throughout and this is also as far as i can see the meaning of
a passage in a sutta that had also been quoted on the block la panchala chandasutta and samyutta
nikaya i just give the reference again if anybody likes to look him up which says that the buddha
discovered jhana you see as i mentioned the brahmanjala sutta mentions jhana attainments by others
the jatakas tells us of all kinds of past lives of the buddha where he attained jhanas and it it
seems there is too much textual evidence that speaks against the idea that there was no jhana
whatsoever before the buddha's time and the buddha is the one who discovered jhana as such
so according to my understanding again this is just my view
the only way of understanding the only way how i can make sense out of this passage is that he
discovered the potential of jhana exactly what we are getting here in this passage
could that be the path to enlightenment that is indeed the path to enlightenment
and so coming to the end of my jhana talk it's getting more jhana talk than the madhyama agama
talk now today the basic thing is this distinction between wholesome and unwholesome or skillful and
unskillful kusala and akusala and that is actually the reason why i had brought up this passage
so the happiness of jhana is kusala it is wholesome and skillful because it takes us out of the
happiness of sensuality but once we are out of the pleasure of sensuality eventually there comes
a point where the pleasure of jhana will also be left behind it's a gradual path and we need
a stepping stones in between to get to the final goal
yeah again i give a little time for comments or questions on this
everybody's still in jhana
yeah there's a comment on madhyama agama 10 by one room
so she she correlates the seven ways of abandoning the taints with the three-fold training the
morality concentration wisdom in a somewhat random and mixed match pattern and she gives
the correlations that number one has related to concentration wisdom number two to morality number
three to morality and wisdom four to morality and wisdom five to concentration wisdom six to
wisdom and seven to wisdom let us look at them again so in the madhyama agama
version we have the seeing guarding avoiding using enduring removing and attending
and i put the Pali corresponding terms with their Pali equivalents by the side and then again the
number as you remember i i told that one item has moved down in the list but otherwise the
list is fairly similar and the basic
the basic points that these seven activities are about let me see if i can get both
yeah the first the seeing is seeing the noble truths instead of engaging in empty speculation
the second was guarding the sense doors the third was avoiding what is dangerous and unsuitable
the fourth was using things properly the fifth was enduring various vicissitudes
the sixth was remove what is unwholesome and the seventh was attending to the awakening factors
and i think we can make a correlation and here darshana maka vita has been faster than me
i always have these little things up my sleeves for the next time and he always comes out with
them before i can use them he's very to the point he's already noted some of them
some of them
very good so here is the correlations that i propose darshan and i agree on several points
seeing the noble truths corresponds to the factor of right view of the novel eightfold path
guarding the sense doors we can see that as an aspect of right effort and for number four using
things properly these were actually the four requisites of a monk or a nun and so for at least
monastics this is an aspect of right livelihood and removing what is unwholesome is an implementation
of right intention and the awakening factors are found under contemplation of dharmas in each of
the three canonical version of the satipatthana sutra that we have so this is right mindfulness
so we can see that even though we cannot match each of these seven at least for several of them
we can do a correlation with the noble eightfold path and so i think these seven ways of dealing
or countering the influxes or taints the asavas show us very practical possibilities of implementing
several factors of the noble eightfold path and i'm grateful to one ru and to darshana for
having brought up this topic yeah this is my somewhat extended review of the topic we covered
during the last lecture again i invite any question or comment
well then we go into the next topic with this lecture we are moving into the
second chapter of the manyama agama and the second chapter is explicitly said to be the chapter on
karma so after purification and ethics in the last two lectures we are now getting into karma
karma the word karma just means action
and in buddhism as i have put here on the blackboard it stands in specifically for ethically
qualifiable action and it is an affirmation of moral responsibility
responsibility there were several views held in
ancient india according to the way that the texts record and here i'm giving you some excerpts from
the second discourse in the diga nikaya the samanya palasota i quite on purpose do not give
the names of the teachers to which these views are attributed because in the parallel versions
extant in sanskrit and chinese the views and the teacher holds them are gotten are different from
the pali and even within the pai tradition we find some contradictions regarding to what teacher is
holding what kind of view so i think we can be quite certain that the texts agree and that these
types of view were held by someone but the precise name is something that is considerably more
uncertain and so we need not concentrate on that so here comes the first view if with a razor sharp
one were to make this earth one single mass and heap of flesh there would be no evil as a result
of that no evil would accrue if one were to go along the south bank of the ganges killing etc
there would be no evil as a result of that no evil would accrue if one were to go along the
North Bank of the Ganges giving there would be no merit as a result of that no
merit would accrue so this view is in direct contrast to what Buddhism affirms
there is evil and its result and there is doing of good things and the result
of that the next view I have is another denial of conditionality as such there
is no cause or condition for the defilement of beings they are defiled
without cause and condition there's no cause or condition for the purification
of beings they're purified without cause and condition again Buddhism definitely
differs on that and we will see this in the not the next discourse we read but
the one after or a little after we come to that topic there is very clearly a
cause and condition for why beings are defiled according to Buddhism and
there's also cause while they are purified and that here another one
there's nothing given there's no fruit or result of good and bad deeds so this
is another of another instance of the same view that denies karma and its
effect here is a little longer view by attributed to the teacher of the Giants
naganta nata puta the Giants agree with the Buddhists that these views I cited
previously are wrong that there is cause and condition there is retribution but
the Jainer conception is according to what the text tell us somewhat more
absolute than the Buddhist conception so here we have a Buddhist report of this
Jain views which as far as we are able to tell from Jain text does not seem to
be too inaccurate there are some passages where the Buddhists present the
Giants in a way which is not in accordance with Jain beliefs but this
seems to be more or less acceptable so the giant teacher is quoted to be
telling to his disciples you have done evil actions in the past exhaust them
with the performance of piercing austerities when you are here now
restrained in body speech and mind that is doing no evil actions for the future
so by annihilating with a citizen past actions and by doing no fresh actions
there will be no consequence in the future with no consequence in the future
there is the destruction of action the main main point that is important for us
from this passage to be kept in mind is this idea that what has been done in the
past has to be in kind of eradicated it has to be worked out by some form of
asceticism now Buddhism holds a view that not all that we result that we
experience is a result of karma and this passage here this is the Buddha speaking
I read the passage some feelings arise here originating from bile disorders from fling
from wind disorders from an imbalance of the three produced by change of climate produced
by careless behavior caused by assault produced as the result of karma see karma is only one
of the different causes listed in this passage for experiencing certain feelings unpleasant
feelings we can expect the text continues therefore ascetics and brahmins hold such
a view as this whatever a person experiences whether it be pleasant or painful or neither
pleasant nor painful all that is caused by what was done in the past they overshoot what one knows
by oneself and they overshoot what is considered to be true in the world therefore I say this is
wrong on the part of those ascetics and brahmins I mean just very simply said not everything we
experience is because of our past karma much is but not everything yeah regarding the giant Buddhist
conception of karma a distinct differences also the emphasis on on the mind in Buddhism we have
discussion reported in another discourse the jiva kasutta I'll give you the reference again
if anybody likes to look it up where the disciple of the giants says that I paraphrase a little bit
the most important is bodily restraint bodily control bodily action is is the real important
one and verbal and mental action is not so important and the Buddha comes back with the
at first sight surprising argument no no it's the opposite mind is the most important
and so the point is that for any bodily or verbal action there needs to be the
mental action behind it and from this emphasis given to the mind as the principal motor if I
may call it so of comical activity we get this famous dictum passage number four here on the
blackboard monks I reckon intention this is Chetan and Pali to be karma excuse me
having intended one does deeds by body speech and mind
and this emphasis on intention is a very central aspect of the Buddhist conception of karma
and also of Buddhist ethics and the Buddhist theory of purification
and this passage I just quoted it then continues to explain that what one has intentionally done
gives results and these results may happen in this life in the next life or at some later time
they are going to give results however and here I have another passage
neither in the sky nor in the middle of the ocean nor on entering a mountain cave nor elsewhere
is there a place on earth standing on which one could escape the fruit of evil karma
I'm just going through all these different points and and just throwing these different
spotlights on the Buddhist conception of karma and much of it will become clearer if it is not
clear now as we keep reading those discourses on this topic
and another important spotlight I like to throw on karma is that it is perfectly compatible with
the teaching not self and there is here a statement by a monk who did not get that point
and so we have a look at what this monk says he has heard the teaching on not self and so he
wonders so it seems material form is not self feeling is not self perception is not self
formations are not self conscious is not self what self then will actions done by the not self
effect the point of how can there be kamik retribution if there's no self
but the the Buddha gives him a teaching on conditionality I believe
the point for us basically is that not self does not mean nothing
not self means there is no permanent self no eternal self according to Buddhism there is nothing
that is unchanging but there is something that is changing there is a continuity and dependent
arising precisely explains how this continuity functions
and so according to early Buddhism there is no problem in explaining kamik retribution it is
not exactly a hundred percent the same person that experiences the kamik retribution because
by the time retribution ripens that person has become older or changed or even become reborn
but it is a continuity I mean it's a stupid example but if somebody takes a loan
and after two years he or she has to pay it back then even though in those two years many
things have changed and he or she has become older and maybe become divorced or got married
or moved to another town or whatever it is still he or she will have to pay that loan and if they
don't pay it they they will get into trouble I mean it's a very it's not a very particular
profound similarly I know but I just thought of trying to make it very simply
yeah then there is a
the yeah I should point out that in fact the situation of karma is much more complex than
a simple loan and to precisely calculate the fruit of karma is said to be a chintea it's it's
beyond thinking so the the point for us is not to get into precise calculation if I do like this how
much of this that I'll get but to see the basic principle the causality conditions and that we
create the conditions for our own happiness and unhappiness
and it is because of this creating which makes us also
here but also honor and also capable of changing the situation
so there is this famous dictum here from the chula kamavi bangasutta beings are owners of
their actions hairs of their actions they originate from their actions are bound to their actions have
their action as their refuge is action that distinguishes between beings it distinguishes
beings as inferior and superior action is kamma here in the discourse this chula kamavi bangasutta
gives very easily intelligible examples it says like somebody who kills others will in future be
short-lived and somebody who hurts and harms others will in future be sick somebody who is
angry will in future be ugly and somebody who is who does not like to give to others will be poor
himself or herself this discourse actually when I did my comparative study of the magi manika
is the one with most parallels I have a whole host of chinese translations and translation
in different languages it seems that this topic of what do I have to do become so that I can
become beautiful next life and rich and and happy that was a very very interesting and a good topic
for preaching and in the magi manikaia excuse me in the magi manikaia right away the next discourse
the makama vibhanga explains that again this is not absolutely deterministic it says that somebody
who does evil can still be reborn in heaven if in addition to that evil he or she does a lot of good
things and the other way around also somebody who does something good might still end up in hell
if apart from this good deed he or she engages in evil actions and this
non-deterministic nature of the early buddhist theory of karma is in fact the topic of the first
discourse into which we are going to get now so while I'll change here I still give time for
some questions or comments as I said this first overview of karma is not mean to be final
not expecting you to have gotten totally clear all these different aspects but it's just the first
overview and as we go through the discourses in this chapter on karma we will have time to
to look at these aspects one by one
I shouldn't have talked about jhana everybody's just meditating no comments no questions
I will not talk about jhana anymore I promise
so here we go into madhyama agama 11 the discourse on the simile
parallel is the lunaka palasuta the 99th discourse among the threes of the anguttara nikaya
I read the madhyama agama thus have I heard at one time the buddha was staying at savati in
jhita's grove for nata pindika's park at that time the blessed one said to the monks
if one were to say according to the actions a person does he will experience the exactly
corresponding result of those actions then in that case there could be no practice of the holy life
and no attainment of the end of dukkha I am now here I'm dot dot dot I'm leaving out the
second statement there is some translation problem in the madhyama agama and it gives
two times exactly the same statement that makes no sense so I am leaving that out just for you to
know that there is a problem here and I'm just glossing it over so I continue with the discourse
why so consider the case of a person who has done an unwholesome action must experience dukkha
as its fruit by being reborn in hell as a result why must a person who has done an unwholesome
action experience dukkha as its fruit by being reborn in hell as a result
this is the case excuse me when a person has not cultivated the body has not cultivated virtue
has not cultivated the mind has not cultivated wisdom and his lifespan is very short this is
the case of a person who having done unwholesome actions must experience dukkha as the fruit by
being reborn in hell as a result now here we get a simile in the Chinese version the Pali version
has a different pattern it gives the opposite case first and then comes out with the similes
I mentioned this earlier I think we often have this in the transmission that the discourse
basically has the same stuff the same excuse not stuff the same pieces of teaching but somehow the
sequence is different just moving up and down so here we have right away the simile and this is
the simile that gives the name for the title of the discourse it is just as if a person were to
drop an ounce of salt into a small amount of water intending to make the water salty and undrinkable
what do you think could this ounce of salt make that small amount of water salty and undrinkable
and the monks reply yes indeed blessed one and why so because there is much salt but little water
therefore the salt can make the water salty and undrinkable
now we get here opposite case
again there's a person who has done an unwholesome action and must experience dukkha as its fruit
by experiencing the result in this life why must the person who has done an unwholesome action
experience dukkha as its fruit by experiencing the result in this life this is the case when a
person has cultivated the body cultivated virtue has cultivated the mind has cultivated wisdom
and his lifespan is very long this is the case of a person who having done an unwholesome action
must experience dukkha as its fruit by experiencing the result in this life
and we get the simile suppose a person were to drop an ounce of salt into the water of the
ganges intending to make the water salty and undrinkable what do you think could this
ounce of salt cause the water of the ganges to become salty and undrinkable
the monks replied no blessed one and why not because the water of the ganges is much
while an ounce of salt is little therefore the salt cannot make the water salty and undrinkable
so we get the principle that yes the unwholesome action has its fruit but the way how it will have
its fruit depends on the context and we have this simile of the same piece of salt thrown into a
small amount of water or thrown into a vast amount of water has quite a different effect
now we get some more similes and i have abbreviated them a little bit so that it
becomes not so tedious when i read it out it is just as when a person takes away another's goat
the one who took the goat is perhaps a king or a king's minister someone possessing much power
the owner of the goat is poor and powerless because of his lack of power he can only with
his palms placed together implore the other sire please return the goat to me or give me the price
of the goat and now we get the case of somebody who is developed in virtue etc and simile in
illustrating him or her i read again it is just as when a person steals another's goat
and the owner of the goat takes it back by force here and the person who steals the goat is poor
and powerless while the owner of the goat is perhaps a king or a king's minister someone
possessing much power because of their power excuse me they can detain and arrest the thief
and take the goat back by force this is the case of a person who has stolen another's goat
and the owner of the goat takes it back by force
the same principle again the same basic act a goat is being stolen but the results are quite
different depending on the situation of the thief and the owner we get another simile for these two
contextual variations so the first simile is it is just as when a person owes another person
five coins and is arrested by the creditor this is the case when the debtor is poor and powerless
because he is poor and powerless when he owes another person five coins he will be arrested
by the creditor for owing just one coin
five coins and one coin there's some small little error here
anyway he has very little that is the point
now we get the other part of the simile it is just as when a person owes another person a hundred coins
yet is not arrested by the creditor and would not be arrested by him even for owing a thousand or
ten thousand coins this is the case when the debtor has property beyond measure
and is extremely powerful and because of that despite owing another person a hundred coins
is not arrested by the creditor and would not be arrested by him even for owing a thousand or ten
thousand coins okay now i see so the point about the one coin above is just that even if he would
just own one coin yeah there's one another difference in sequence i already mentioned that
the distribution between text explanation and simile is different but also the series of similes
in the palli version is different the grain of salt is the first in both versions but the palli
then continues with the depth of having some or many coins and then comes to the storm goat
so the main point of this discourse is that the result of karma depends on context
and the same deed can have different consequences and we have these three similes just as a grain
of salt turns a glass of water salty but not the river ganges just as a poor thief of a goat is
taken to task but not the rich thief of a goat and just as a poor debtor is arrested for owing
little but not a rich debtor even if he owes much yeah i think this this discourse very nice he
throws into relieve the dynamic aspect of of karma in in early buddhism again for all those
of you who are not in deep jhana if there's any comment or question otherwise i move on to the
next discourse
robert says if everything is connected every effect must have a cause
hence karma just refers ethically qualifiable actions one example given at the beginning was
that a disease can be the effect of careless behavior but since carelessness against oneself
is not ethically effective this is not karma but still cause an effect
what i was trying to say is that the point of ethically qualifiable action is that this is the
emphasis of the idea of karma in buddhism and carelessness is something that has to do with
our intention so it could to some extent be ethically qualified i think but in this discourse
that i quoted before careless behavior was set apart from karma in the sense of what i have done
in the past careless behavior is something that i'm doing in the present and i think it's very nice
that you take that up because there is sometimes a tendency and i've come across that in
in asian context if something happens to just see it as karma and then not do anything about it
anymore and this can even happen in the case of getting sick or so not giving proper care that
could be done and that is actually an instance of careless behavior i think and the result
the sick person gets from such careless behavior cannot be entirely attributed to past karma
oh i must have done something in my past life and therefore now i'm sick
there might be some part of it but some part is present karma present careless behavior and i
think that's a nice point that you brought that up and yeah everything everything is in a way
connected everything is causally interconnected but there's always a room for us to decide and
so the moment i've just been to the dentist this morning so the moment there is a problem with the
teeth it's my decision if i go to the dentist or not or if i just accept it as my bad karma from
the past fortunately i didn't otherwise i would be sitting here yeah
there are more questions coming i think
andrew is typing how does karma manifest itself later on is it pleasant or unpleasant feelings
feelings is one way of how karma manifests yeah definitely but the way karma may manifest is also
as i mentioned from this it is also that which influences the fact whether we are ugly or
beautiful long or short lived rich or poor there's the whole our whole setup being and
doing is in a way a result of our past deeds and there's a comment by lynda somehow i have the
feeling that these similes give one the impression that it is wise to mindfully weigh the risk
before acting certainly this can't be the intention yeah i'm afraid i don't fully understand
the point you're making lynda these similes give one the impression that is wise to mindfully weigh
the risks before acting hmm the way i understand the simile is not about weighing the risk by just
showing that uh that that's showing that the result of an unwholesome deed depends on the context
on the overall situation and the practical injunction that i would take from that is not
to to weigh the risks but rather to make sure that as much as i possibly can i i i am acting
in the area of wholesomeness so that even an occasional lapse that is unavoidable to happen
unless i am an arahant will not really have such an effect this is the way how i would practically
interpret these similes if i am like the river ganges then the little ounce of salt will not
have such an effect but if i am a narrow little glass of water like my glass of water here that
i used to drink then the the salt would have quite an effect
ah good yeah we have six more minutes now
yeah maybe i just quickly go through oh no there are more questions mind fed the idea one could
delete all karma crops of frequently insert meditation circles yeah yeah there is i mean
uh it is not entirely wrong that in meditation old karma comes up and manifests in some way
but only to the extent that this karma has led to certain tendencies in in our mind
and it is not possible to work up our past karma one by one because that would be a task without
end so we we have our basic setup our basic conditioning which we have created ourselves
in the past our anusayas underlying tendencies etc and when we are meditating then these things
crop up the foolish things we have done even in this life manifest first of all in meditation
and we have to work through these and sometimes one just has to be really patient and after
some time these wear out but this is not uh one to one working through old karma and that would
actually be more a jaina idea and yeah and painful feeling as thanks to the comment by
who was it let me just check again i think it was robert yeah yeah that we also have the problem
of careless behavior not only karma here's robert with a with another comment he says
something about andrew's comment our feelings not always the cause of some stimulus from the
environment then can one say that karma always comes to us through the conditions that we are
exposed to this is it sets the stage for certain experiences in our life yeah i just want to check
andrew's not answering to that i don't think that feelings are always the cause of some stimulus
from the environment feelings can arise in relation to each of the sense doors and the
sense of the mind for example is not necessarily dependent on the environment so an experience of
jana that i have been so much talking about at the beginning of our lecture i think we could say
that there we have feelings that really arise independent of the environment precisely in fact
the letting go of the environment helps us to experience those feelings
but it is certainly true that karma that the conditions that we are exposed to
is related to karma as we had this other discourse somebody who is born ugly sick and in a poor living
condition that is his or her karma working itself out in this way this is not that they now have to
accept this situation for the rest of their life and just be
depressed about having such bad karma it's just the starting position but somebody in a
poor ugly sickish condition can still make much out of their lives just as somebody who is
beautiful rich good to do family can make all kind of nonsense and end up in a very bad condition
then there's a comment by andrew he says i think this sutta is very positive that it teaches us
not to passively surrender ourselves to past karma but instead the sutta directs us to the
way to wholesome behavior yeah yeah that is that is in fact the the thing i also feel and it was
good that linda made that comment that made me reflect on it again but it really gives you this
feeling that yeah sometimes lapses are happening and it's not the whole world is collapsing on us
it's just that okay one more spurn on to do something wholesome to put this this this foolish
thing i did as much as i can amend for it i'll amend for it but i put it in an into a context
where there is so much water that it doesn't get so salty manfred isn't every thought affecting a
little change in our mental setup and therefore comically active we could put it like that yeah
there's a this is a constant karma is a constant thing happening every moment we take little
decisions between alternatives these alternatives are rather limited by our conditioning
by our situation but still within that limiting area there is a choice we can take and each of
these choices strengthens our our tendencies and and and changes our mental setup and therefore
becomes comically active andrew i am also intrigued because different people also react
differently to stimulus yeah quite true some people have pleasant feelings and some may have
unpleasant feelings from the same thing yeah yeah there's a there's a lot about mental evaluation
and how we react to things there's a little beautiful story i have one more minute
i just like to share that with you because andrew's comment inspired me to that as many
years ago i was in uh in napalm in a tibetan monastery and there was a tibetan monk and
he was particularly noticeable for being not noticeable at all you simply did not feel or
notice his presence and so nobody noticed him actually until somebody pointed it out to me
and the story was that he had been caught by the chinese and been tortured for 20 years
they thought he knew something or what i don't know the background and they say after it's
been released he had just come to this monastery to spend his final years of his life he was very
thin and emaciated and when asked by others about this 20 years or i think it was 20 years it was a
very long time anyway he said he just he just called to have said just one thing you know it
really improved my practice i think i stop on that now thank you very much and it was very nice
and i look forward to seeing you in two weeks time next week i'll not be there there's a public
holiday so there is no lecture there and so in two weeks time we get into madhyam
argument number 12 thank you and bye bye