PRESENTED TO THE BUDDHA CENTER ON SUNDAY, APRIL 12, 2015, AND AGAIN TO THE BUDDHA CENTRE ON SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2024 (REVISED).

The Discourse on the Lion’s Roar at Udumbarika
Digha Nikaya 25

Country: Magadha
Locale: Vulture’s Peak, Rajagaha
Speakers: Nigrodha, Sandhana, the Buddha
Date of Composition: Late 5th to early 4th cent. BCE

The Buddha speaks this discourse at the Vulture’s Peak, near Rajagaha, in Magadha, which the Great Lion’s Roar and the opening of the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, and discourse 19, a deva discourse, also mention. In discourse 8 Nigrodha, described as a “certain practitioner of mortification,” approaches the Buddha, who consults the Buddha about the practice of austerity and is delighted by the Buddha’s reply. This discourse describes Nigrodha as a wanderer and the topic is self-mortification, so it seems that the two Nigrodhas are the same.

The householder Sandhana comes early in the morning to see the Buddha, but he discovers that they are in retreat, so he goes to the Udumbarika lodging, named after Queen Udumbarika, to see Nigrodha instead. He finds Nigrodha in the middle of a large crowd of wanderers, all nosily talking about different things. Nigrodha sees Sandhana coming in the distance and silences the wanderers. Sandhana must have heard them anyway, because the first thing he mentions is to point out that the followers of other sects are noisy, whereas the followers of the Buddha are quiet. Nigrodha asks Sandhana where the Buddha gets his “lucidity of wisdom” and suggests that renunciation has blunted his mental sharpness. Nigrodha suggests that if the Buddha comes to the Udumbarika lodging he will quickly defeat him in argument.

Public open-air debates like this were popular in ancient India; Tibetan Buddhism preserves this tradition. The Buddha descends from Vulture’s Peak and walks up and down—walking meditation? —beside the Sunagadha Tank in the Peacocks’ Feeding Ground. This must be near the Udumbarika lodging, since Nigrodha catches sight of him. Again, he hushes the wanderers, hoping that the Buddha might join them. When he does come, Nigrodha’s obsequious hypocrisy is blatant given his previous derision of the Buddha.

Nigrodha asks the Buddha: “What is this doctrine in which the Blessed Lord trains his disciples and which those disciples whom he has so trained as to benefit from it recognise as their principal support, and the perfection of the holy life?”

Rather than answer the question, the Buddha tells Nigrodha that it is hard for adherents of different views to understand the teaching. Instead, he asks Nigrodha to tell him about his doctrine of extreme austerity. The wanderers are excited about the Buddha appearing to turn the tables on Nigrodha, something to which the wanderers are prone.

Specifically, the Buddha asks him how one does and does not fulfil the conditions of austerity and self-mortification.

Nigrodha’s answer is that they regard the higher austerities as essential. Strangely, he then asks the Buddha another question in return: “What constitutes [the] fulfillment or non-fulfillment [of the higher austerities]?” The Buddha summarizes all the ascetic practices that we reviewed in discourse 8. Ascetics of the Buddha’s time and the Buddha himself during his six years of asceticism practised all of these. The Buddha asks Nigrodha if he believes that these practices fulfill the higher austerity. Nigrodha says that they do. The Buddha tells Nigrodha that this higher austerity is flawed by self-righteousness, pride, enmity, carelessness, worldliness, jealousy, ostentation, deceitfulness, ill temperament, and extremism, among others. Nevertheless, Nigrodha sees a self-mortifier purified of these things as attaining the “peak and the pith” of attainment, introducing the metaphor of the heartwood developed in discourse 18 of the Majjhima Nikaya. The discourse identifies the various layers of a tree trunk with different degrees of attainment, culminating in the attainment of the heartwood or pith, which corresponds to enlightenment itself. Nigrodha thinks that the self-mortifier, purified of the evils itemized by the Buddha, has reached the pith, but the Buddha says that he has merely reached the outer bark.

Nigrodha asks the Buddha to explain how the self-mortifier penetrates to the pith. The Buddha says that he must practise the Fourfold Restraint. As we know, the Five Precepts – not to kill, not to steal, not to engage in adultery, not to lie, and not to drink alcohol, often omit the fifth precept—the prohibition of drinking alcohol—quite frequently, suggesting that these discourses might predate circa 432 BCE, when the alcohol prohibition was introduced. Here we have a name—the Fourfold Restraint—given to just this set of four precepts: not harming (instead of not killing), not stealing, not lying, and not craving sense pleasures (instead of not engaging in adultery), including not engaging in the activity, not being the cause of the activity being engaged in by somebody else, and not advocating or defending the activity. Here we see an original fourfold form of the precepts. This furthers the self-mortifier in the upward path.

Next, he sits cross-legged in a secluded place, “establishing mindfulness before him.” We have discussed the etymology of the word ‘awareness’ before. In general, I prefer ‘attention’ or ‘attentiveness.’ Walshe consistently interprets awareness as awareness of the breathing. One abandons all bad thoughts and emotions and practises compassion toward all living beings, the perception of light, and calming the heart-mind. The perception of light refers to a visualization of the body enveloped by light, even self-identification with the Buddha visualized as a body of light! In Pali, citta means both ‘heart’ and ‘mind.’ ‘Calming the heart-mind’ suggests ‘tranquility’ meditation.

Having abandoned the five hindrances of sensory desire, anger, sloth-torpor, restlessness-worry, and doubt by these methods, one practises the well-known loving-kindness meditation, pervading the four quarters with compassion. The Buddha says that one who follows the path to this point has penetrated to the inner bark. He distinguishes the loving-kindness meditation from practising compassion toward all living beings; perhaps the former is more akin to actual practical generosity (a qualification of a bodhisattva) than to a formal meditation. Elsewhere the loving-kindness meditation results in rebirth in the Brahma world, not arhantship.

To progress further, the self-mortifier must recall their past lives. The Buddha says that one who has realized this level has penetrated the fibres surrounding the pith.

To progress further one must purify the Divine Eye, which gives insight into the inner workings of karma. The Buddha says that such a one has penetrated to the pith.

Here we see an early attempt to work out the architectonics of “the path,” consisting of methods and attainments (“paths” and “fruits”), based on the “ground” of the Fourfold Restraint. The Buddha says to Nigrodha, “when you ask: ‘What, Lord, is this doctrine in which the Blessed Lord trains his disciples, and which those disciples whom he has so trained as to benefit from it recognise as their principal support, and the perfection of the holy life.’ I say that it is by something more far-reaching and excellent that I train them, through which they…recognise as their principal support, and the perfection of the holy life.” This passage is not entirely clear, but based on the reply of the wanderers the Buddha means that his teaching transcends Nigrodha’s comprehension.

In any case, the assembled wanderers start clamouring again, declaring Nigrodha and themselves defeated. Sandhana mocks Nigrodha: “Why don’t you baffle him with a single question and knock him over like an empty pot.” The irony is delicious.

The Buddha chastises Nigrodha for not considering that the Buddha might be telling the truth, since the Buddha abides in the condition of true emancipation. Nigrodha confesses his fault and the Buddha excuses him. The monastics repeat this ritual of public confession at every new and full moon, when the monastics confess their faults and execute whatever penance the rules require. For many minor transgressions, like drinking alcohol, confession alone is enough. As a transgression, drinking alcohol ranked with tickling, playing in the water, and too-frequent bathing. This might surprise some people, who religious fundamentalists constantly tell us is a major transgression. The Vinaya itself says that it is not, even for monastics. The Buddha added it to the Fourfold Restraint to make the Five Precepts later in the Buddha’s career, after a monastic had embarrassed the order by becoming drunk on alms round.

The Buddha accepts Nigrodha’s confession and tells him that he instructs anyone who is intelligent, sincere, honest, and straightforward. In discourse 22, the Buddha says that anyone who practises meditation even for a minimum of seven days will either attain arhantship or stream entry within seven rebirths at most. Here the Buddha says that if one practises the teaching for at least seven days, they will attain “to that unequalled holy life and goal, for the sake of which young men of good family go forth from the household life into homelessness.” I am not aware of any passage that clarifies what the Buddha means exactly by meditating for seven days. When the Buddha attained emancipation, he remained entranced continuously for seven days.

Next, the Buddha explicitly repudiates sectarianism:

You may think: ‘the ascetic Gotama says this in order to get disciples.’ But you should not regard it like that. Let him who is your teacher remain your teacher. Or you may think: ‘He wants us to abandon our rules.’ Let your rules remain as they are. Or you may think: ‘He wants us to abandon our way of life.’ But you should not regard it like that. Let your way of life remain as it was. Or you may think: ‘He wants to establish us in the doing of things that according to our teaching was wrong, and are so considered among us.’ But you should not regard it like that. Let those things you consider wrong continue to be so considered. Or you may think: ‘He wants to draw us away from things that according to our teaching are good, and are so considered among us.’ But you should not regard it like that. Let whatever you consider right continue to be so considered. Nigrodha, I do not speak for any of these reasons. (23)

Therefore, the Buddha’s teaching transcends the wanderers as well as teachers, rules, ways of life, and ethics. The Buddha’s teaching is not a religion. It is higher and more universal than religion. Rather, it is more a constructive critique of religion—a meta-religion. It is not reducible to historically or geographically contingent categories, and when one superimposes historically or geographically contingent categories on it, they lead to the same error as the wanderers—the belief that adherence to external rites, rituals, rules, and speculative and dogmatic beliefs are essential for emancipation.

Rather, the Buddha says that the teaching consists of understanding the mechanics of moral causality, by abandoning the corruptions and cultivating those things that conduce to purification through practice: “If you practice accordingly, these tainted things will be abandoned, and the things that make for purification will develop and grow, and you will all attain to and dwell, in this very life, by your own insight and realisation, in the fullness of perfected wisdom.” Note, once again, the identification of “perfect wisdom” as the essential salvific principle, as well as the Buddha’s declaration that all will attain.

The wanderers fall silent, but none converts, causing the Buddha to declare them all foolish and possessed by Mara, the anti-god of desirous attachment, who binds us to the cycle of rebirth by seducing us with our own desires. Whether the Buddha’s reference to possession is literal or a manner of speech is uncertain, but some forms of Buddhism practise possession, notably in Tibet and Southeast Asia. The Buddha reiterates that one can attain emancipation in as few as seven days, whereupon he returns to Vulture’s Peak. Sandhana too returns to Rajagaha.

Buddha Centre, Saturday, December 28, 2024.