PRESENTED TO THE BUDDHA CENTER ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 25, 2015 AND AGAIN TO THE NEW BUDDHA CENTRE ON SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2024 (REVISED)

The Great Discourse on Causation

Digha Nikaya 15

Country: Kuru

Locale: Kammasadhamma

Speakers: Ananda, the Buddha

Date of Composition: late 5th to early 4th cent. BCE

The Buddha is staying among the Kurus, a country in the northwest whose inhabitants are the reputed descendants of Uttarakuru, the quasi-mystical continent to the north of Jambudvipa. Kuru is the name of an ancient Vedic tribal union in the northwest region of the sixteen great states. They were the first known South Asian state about 1000 BCE. There the redactors arranged the Vedic hymns in collections, developing the orthodox rituals of Brahmanism. There Vedic ritual life was born. The Kuru kingdom was also oppressive and warlike. The Kurus are the basls of the legends and traditions of the Mahabharata. Its culture and politics dominated the Middle Vedic period but, after about 850 BCE, its influence waned and, by the Buddha’s time, it was something of a backwater.

The Buddha stayed in the jungle outside a market town called Kammasadhamma. In the Majjhima Nikaya, we learn that the people of Kammasadhamma are good Buddhists.

This discourse features a conversation between the Buddha and Ananda. Ananda famously informs the Buddha how profound and clear he finds the doctrine of interconnectedness.

Ananda is clearly very pleased with himself, but the Buddha chastises him, reprimanding him for thinking that interconnectedness is easy to understand: “Do not say that, Ananda, do not say that. This Dependent Origination is profound and appears profound.” The Buddha declares that “it is through not understanding, not penetrating this doctrine that this generation has become like a tangled ball of string, covered as with a blight, tangled like coarse grass, unable to pass beyond states of woe, the ill destiny, ruin and the round of birth and death.”

On the other hand, therefore, it is through understanding interconnectedness that one untangles the string of the world and so achieves emancipation. Clearly, the Buddha’s implication is that Ananda has not yet achieved emancipation. In fact, according to tradition, Ananda did not become a arhant until after the Buddha’s passing.

Although the Buddha applies the metaphor of the ball of string to “this generation,” tangled, blighted, trapped in worldliness, the image clearly also applies to the doctrine of interconnectedness itself, in which everything is infinitely intervolved based on the operation of the Law of Causality. The Buddha’s attitude to Ananda’s generation is suggestive of the attitude of Jesus or Socrates to theirs.

In his search for the ultimate solution of the problem of dissatisfaction, the Buddha begins with ageing and death. Thus, the Buddha’s inquiry is rational, and it starts with the immediacy of lived, bodily experience, rather than with an abstract metaphysical system or postulate as other ancient systems did, including Indian philosophy. In this respect, the Buddha is exquisitely modern.

Relentlessly, the Buddha pursues the chain of cause and effect: birth (2) conditions ageing and death (1). The connection seems incontrovertible. Becoming (3) conditions birth. Attachment (4) conditions becoming. Desire (5) conditions attachment. Feeling (6) conditions desire. Contact (7) conditions feeling. Mind and body (8) conditions contact. Consciousness (9) conditions mind and body.

The Buddha identifies four kinds of attachment: sensuous attachment; attachment to views, which we might term dogmatic sectarianism; attachment to rituals; and attachment to the personality, which we might call ego (another translation of ‘self,’ which need not imply their conceptual identity).

Together, mind-body and consciousness condition each other. Thus, mind-body conditions consciousness and consciousness conditions mind-body. The arrow of time originating in the double dyad of mind-body and consciousness develops through the chain of cause and effect until it results in birth, ageing, and death, only to recur eternally until the cycle is broken and one achieves emancipation.

The chain of interconnectedness takes different forms in different discourses. Sometimes mental formations condition consciousness, which ignorance conditions in turn, which is the root of the chain.

In this variation, the Buddha focuses on the problem of desirous attachment, and declares that if feeling born of sensory contact ceases, so will desirous attachment. The context suggests that the Buddha is referring to the desire for pleasure and its corollary, the aversion toward pain. If there is absolutely no feeling toward pleasure and pain, the cessation of feeling breaks the chain of cause and effect that leads to desirous attachment, thus effecting emancipation.

THE INTERDEPENDENCE OF CRAVING, TERRITORIALITY, PROPERTY, MONEY, AND WAR

At this point in the discourse, the Buddha segues into another application of the doctrine of interconnectedness, beginning with desirous attachment: “And so, Ananda, feeling conditions craving.” Now the Buddha creates a new chain of cause and effect, showing that the true doctrine is not the diagram but the principle or method, and that many causal sequences are theoretically possible. In this segue, desire conditions seeking, seeking conditions acquisition, acquisition conditions decision-making, decision-making conditions lust, lust conditions attachment, attachment conditions appropriation, appropriation conditions avarice, avarice conditions possessiveness, and because of possessiveness there arise violence, “quarrels, disputes, arguments, strife, abuse, lying, and other evil unskilled states.” In a remarkable anticipation of proto-communal thought, the Buddha identifies property as the root cause of all the rest.
In this way, the Buddha applies the doctrine of interconnectedness to the problem of the origin and development of human society and civil order. In the Buddha’s analysis property, money, and war are interconnected and are bad, connected to desire, which is in turn the cause of bondage to the world. Although the Buddha positions himself in relation to the mercantile economy of his time, there are also favourable references to communalism in the Pali Canon, but although the Dalai Lama has called himself a Marxist, Marxist materialism is inconsistent with the Buddhist spiritual point of view, though not totally so.

The Buddha’s analysis is suggestive of that of Laozi’s Tao Te Ching, for example:

Do not glorify those in power,
And the people will not compete.
Do not display rare treasures,
And the people will not be tempted to steal.
Do not stir up desires,
And the people’s hearts will remain calm and content.
Thus, the sage governs by:
Emptying the mind and calming desires,
Filling bellies and meeting basic needs,
Softening ambitions and strengthening bodies.
By keeping people free from cunning and greed,
And discouraging those who act recklessly,
The sage ensures harmony.
Through actionless action,
And leadership without domination,
Order arises naturally. (3)

Desire, moreover, has two aspects: desire in itself, which serves as the basis of rebirth, and desire in action, or desiring-seeking.

THE INTERDEPENDENCE OF NAME AND FORM AND CONSCIOUSNESS

We have discussed the duality of the psychosomatic complex consisting of mind or ‘name’; cf. Laozi) and ‘matter,’ ‘form,’ or ‘image’, and ‘consciousness,’ ‘life force,’ ‘mind,’ or ‘discernment’. PED refers to name and form as a dyadic unity, so that the duality of (name and form) and consciousness becomes a second or “double” dyad, and therefore a kind of quaternary, like the tetralemma and the structure of the world itself, extended vertically and horizontally. In this complex, which Bhikku Bodhi describes as a “vortex,” a term also used by Padmasambhava, name and consciousness both refer to the mental aspect, which together constitute the nominal body. Similarly, the physical aspect is the ‘form-body’. In both of these constructions ‘body’ has the connotation of an aggregate or assemblage. The Buddha observes that in the absence of mental “properties, features, signs, or indications,” the mind does not grasp at the body, nor does the body grasp at sensory reactions by the “mind-factor.” In his concept of “properties, features, signs, or indications,” the Buddha is getting at the same concept as Laozi’s ming:

The Way that can be spoken is not the eternal Way.
The name (ming) that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth.
The named is the mother of all things.
Free from desire, you see the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.
These two arise together, yet are distinct in their unfolding.
Their unity is the gateway to profound insight. (1)

The Buddha implies that it is consciousness that “enters into” the mother’s womb, whereas the psychosomatic complex (name and form), develops therein. Thus, consciousness is the originating non-corporeal principle, whereas the psychosomatic complex is associated with the body. Thus, consciousness is the psychic element, whereas name is akin to what we ordinarily call bodily consciousness or mind immersed in the somatic context: “Thus far then, Ananda, can we trace birth and decay, death and falling into other states and being reborn, thus far extends the way of designation, of concepts, thus far is the sphere of understanding, thus far the round goes as far as can be discerned in this life, namely to body and mind together with consciousness.”

THE SELF

From consciousness the Buddha segues to various conceptions of the self: as material and limited, material and unlimited, immaterial and limited, or immaterial and unlimited, thus defining the self in terms of the two axes of materiality/immateriality and finitude/infinitude. The Buddha then adds a third axis: time. Either the self is now or will be in the future. The Buddha contrasts all of these theories with the negative form of the same statements, thus positing a sort of tetralemma, the logical quaternary formula.

But what, asks the Buddha, is the self? What are its specific characteristics? Here the Buddha explores various identifications of the self, as feeling or not feeling. With respect to feeling, he points out that feelings—pleasant, painful, or neutral—are impermanent, conditioned, dependently arisen. This quality of impermanence is incompatible with the idea of “self” as a permanent entity, so it is not proper to say that feeling is the self.

On the other hand, the view that the self is not feeling is self-contradictory because in such a state there is no idea of “I am.” Similarly, if one asserts the self to feel but not be identical with feeling, in the absence of feeling there is no idea of “I am this.” Therefore, it is not proper to say that the self is not feeling (“impercipient” in Walshe’s translation).

Thus, “when a monk no longer regards feeling as the self, or the self as being impercipient, or as being percipient and of a nature to feel, by not so regarding, he clings to nothing in the world; not clinging, he is not excited by anything, and not being excited he gains personal liberation.” That is to say, he gains liberation for himself alone. There is no salvation of others, no “vicarious atonement.”

THE POST-MORTEM STATE OF THE TATHAGATA

One question that arises in early Buddhist thought is the post-mortem state of a perfectly enlightened Buddha who is not subject to rebirth (a tathagata). Thus the Buddha says, “if anyone were to say to a monk whose mind was thus freed, ‘The Tathagata exists after death,’ that would be seen by him as a wrong opinion and unfitting.” It seems at first that there is no post-mortem state for a tathagata, despite the Buddha’s persistent references in the Pali Canon to “the Deathless.” This passage seems to affirm a form of nihilism, except that the Buddha continues, “likewise, ‘The Tathagata does not exist…both exists and does not exist…neither exists nor does not exist.’” Thus, the Buddha sets up a tetralemma, refuting every logical alternative regarding the Tathagata’s existence or non-existence after death, including the statement that “the Tathagata does not exist,” which is also false. Bhikku Bodhi suggests that this is because the premise of the question, that there is a self, is mistaken, which raises a whole host of different problems (and is probably false, as Bodhi admits, and as the great Japanese Buddhist scholar Hajime Nakamura, affirms). However, right after this statement the Buddha explains why all of the logical variations of this axiom are false: “As far, Ananda, as designation and the range of designation reaches, as far as language and the range of language reaches, as far as concepts and the range of concepts reaches, as far as understanding and the range of understanding reaches, as far as the cycle reaches and revolves—that monk is liberated from all that by super-knowledge” (gnosis).

Thus, the Tathagata’s post-mortem state is inscrutable not because he does not exist, or because of the non-existence of a self, but rather due to the limitations of rational linguistic understanding. Clearly, gnosis is beyond designations, language, concepts, and (rational) understanding, which is based on static and dualistic conceptions of existence, non-existence, both existence and non-existence, and neither existence nor non-existence. Thus, one can only know the post-mortem state of a tathagata non-dualistically and trans-dualistically; no rational, dualistic statement about it can be true. Similarly, the Buddha rejects static, finite, dualistic conceptions of the self. There is, moreover, a fundamental difference between conceptualization and experience. In the words of Korzybski, “the map is not the territory.”

SEVEN STATIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

The seven “stations” of consciousness correspond to the planes of existence classified according to body and perception. We have discussed the thirty-one planes of existence, of which the seven stations are a simplification, corresponding to people and some divine beings, some in states of woe; Brahma’s retinue; the divine beings of streaming radiance; the divine beings of radiant glory; infinite space; infinite consciousness; and nothingness. The divine beings of Infinite Space transcend the perception of matter, in which the perception of sense reactions vanishes and the perception of variety is not attended to.

The Seven Stations of Consciousness

Station	Deva(s)	Jhana	Body	Perception
1	Human beings, some devas, some in states of woe	N/A	Different	Different
2	Brahma’s retinue	1	Different	Alike
3	Abhassara (Streaming Radiance)	2	Alike	Different
4	Subhakinna (Radiant Glory)	3	Alike	Alike
5	Infinite Space	N/A	N/A	Transcendence of the perception of matter, vanishing of perception of sense reactions, non-attention to the perception of variety
6	Infinite Consciousness	N/A	N/A	N/A
7	“No-thingness”	N/A	N/A	N/A

In addition to the seven stations, the Buddha identifies two ‘realms’ or ‘spheres’, consisting of the Unconscious Beings and the inhabitants of the plane of Neither Perception Nor Non-perception, the latter being the highest worldly plane, above the station of Nothingness. The Unconscious Beings refer to the Mindless Divine Beings, one of the divine realms corresponding to the fourth meditative attainment, corresponding to a realm of beings that have bodies but no consciousness. Rebirth in this plane results from a meditation in which consciousness is suppressed, based on the mistaken notion that the suppression of consciousness is equivalent to liberation. Inhabitants of the plane of Neither Perception Nor Non-perception have consciousness but no body and are unable to hear the teaching. I assume that these two are grouped together because they represent different kinds of non-perception.

EIGHT LIBERATIONS

Finally, the Buddha identifies eight “liberations.” Walshe notes that these represent a sequence of steps that are necessary in order to attain final liberation.

1. Possessing form, one sees forms.
2. Not perceiving material forms in oneself, one sees them outside.
3. Thinking, “it is beautiful,” one becomes intent on it.
4. Completely transcending all perception of matter, by the vanishing of the perception of sense-reactions, and by non-attention to the perception of variety, thinking, “space is infinite,” one enters into and abides in the Sphere of Infinite Space. This corresponds to the fifth station.
5. Thinking “consciousness is infinite,” one enters into and abides in the Sphere of Infinite Consciousness. This corresponds to the sixth station.
6. Thinking, “there is no thing,” one enters into and abides in the Sphere of Nothingness. This corresponds to the seventh station.
7. Transcending the Sphere of Nothingness, one reaches and abides in the Sphere of Neither Perception Nor Non-perception. This corresponds to the first “realm,” in Walshe’s translation.
8. Transcending the Sphere of Neither Perception Nor Non-perception, one enters into and abides in the Cessation of Perception and Feeling. This is the ‘attainment of annihilation’, a synonym for nirvana, from which it is possible to “break through” (Padmasambhava refers to a “leap”) to the state of a non-returner or an arhant.

Concerning this, the Buddha says, “when once a monk attains these eight liberations in forward order, in reverse order, and in forward and reverse order, entering them and emerging from them as and when, and for as long as he wishes, and has gained by his own super-knowledge here and now both the destruction of the corruptions (consisting of sensual pleasures, craving for existence, and ignorance), and the uncorrupted liberation of heart and liberation by wisdom, that monk is called ‘both ways liberated’…there is no other way of ‘both ways liberation’ that is more excellent or perfect than this.” Similarly, in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, when the Buddha passed he “rose” through the planes and descended them again, then reascended to achieve the ultimate state of perfect emancipation from the fourth meditative attainment. Similarly, interconnectedness has two “directions.” The “natural” (entropic) order goes from ignorance (in the variation presented in this discourse, consciousness) to birth, old age, and death, which is the cycle of rebirth, whereas the order that is “against the current” (negentropic), leading from birth, old age, and death to ignorance/consciousness, leads to liberation (cf. the “method of reversal”). Note the emphasis on the “here and now,” the present moment, which alone is real.

The liberation of heart refers to dispassion, based on desire. The liberation by wisdom refers to the antithesis of ignorance, the root of interconnectedness in the complete 12° variation. The former refers to the liberation of an arhant, whereas the latter refers to the liberation of a bodhisattva. Together, they constitute the liberation of an Arhant Buddha, which is the perfect and complete liberation. As the correspondence with the thirty-one planes of existence, the basis of Buddhist ontology, clearly shows, these attainments are not merely psychological; they are also ontological.

Buddha Centre, Saturday, November 16, 2024