PRESENTED TO THE BUDDHA CENTER ON SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2014, AND AGAIN TO THE NEW BUDDHA CENTRE ON SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2024 (REVISED)

The Net of Confusion

Digha Nikaya 1

The kind of tolerance that is needed is one that respects the authenticity of Early Buddhism so far as we can determine its nature from the oldest historical records, yet can also recognize the capacity of Buddhism to undergo genuine historical transformations that bring to manifestation hidden potentials of the ancient teaching, transformations not necessarily preordained to arise from the early teaching but which nevertheless enrich the tradition springing from the Buddha as its fountainhead.

Bhikku Bodhi (2010)

When you go into the deepest part of Buddhism you’re finding absolutely no difference whatsoever, not an iota of difference, and the only difference is superficial, on the outside, even the bodhisattva.

Ajahn Brahm (2007)

Preface

I have based this next series of talks on the discourses of the Digha Nikaya, the first book of the Sutta Pitaka of the Pali Canon, optimized for oral presentation.

While the early Buddhist texts, generally identified with the nikayas (lit. ‘collections’), are regarded as canonical by the Theravadin Buddhist sect, the EBTs are by no means sectarian productions and are regarded as fundamental by all Buddhist schools, including the Eighteen Schools  and the Mahayana, including by the Tibetans. Therefore, the EBTs constitute the proper basis for a universal approach to Buddhism. One of my purposes in preparing these talks is to bring out the true richness and diversity of the Buddha’s teachings, rather than preselecting passages in order to justify some sectarian theory. To those who criticize this approach, I can do no better than quote the Buddha himself: “It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.”

I have based these talks mostly on the English translation of Maurice Walshe, Deputy Director of the Institute of Germanic Studies, Vice-President of the Buddhist Society, and Chairman of the English Community Trust. Wisdom Publications, Boston, originally published this book in 1987. I also consulted the English translation of the Pali Text Society, published in three volumes in 1899, 1910, and 1921 respectively and translated by Rhys Davids under the title Dialogues of the Buddha. I also refer to the Chattha Sangayana version of the original Pali text, as well as the great Pali-English Dictionary (PED) of the Pali Text Society and other Pali dictionaries online.

The challenge in commenting on the discourses in this way is the “interconnectedness” of concepts. Numerous discourses allude to many Buddhist concepts, with variations and differences that one must take into account in order to arrive at a true synthetic understanding. Moreover, many doctrines and ideas mutually qualify each other and may lead to wrong conclusions if one does not compare them with one another. Finally, we need a minute collation of every single occurrence of every concept in every discourse. I hope that with the imminent arrival of AI, it will be possible to analyze and publish a Pali-English concordance of the whole Pali Canon and, ultimately, arrive at a comprehensive and meticulous consolidation of the entire philosophy of the Buddha, in detail, excluding nothing. In the meantime, the present work is in the service of the Dharma Transmission to the West, in which (I believe) lies the sole hope for the survival and, indeed, the flourishing of humanity at this time of global, social, political, and environmental crisis and ultimate disaster.

I recommend that you make sure you have read or heard the introduction to the teaching, which we presented over the course of the previous ten talks, if you have not already done so, to acquire a preliminary overview of the teaching.

The Net of Confusion

Country: Magadha

Locale: Round Pavilion in the royal park of Ambalatthika

Speakers: Suppiya, Brahmadatta, the Buddha

Date of Composition: c. 400-350 BCE

The Brahmajala Sutta is the first discourse of the Digha Nikaya, the first book of the Sutta Pitaka. Digha Nikaya means “The Collection of Long Discourses.” One may translate Sutta Pitaka “The Basket of Discourses.” Before we discuss the Brahmajala Sutta specifically, I would like to discuss the Pali Canon itself, since there are Buddhists who study the secondary literature exclusively or Mahayana Buddhists who only study the later sutras and are not familiar with early Buddhism.

According to tradition, Ananda, the personal attendant of the Buddha for the last twenty-five years of his life, when the Buddha was between 55 and 80 years old, memorized the Buddha’s teachings as he gave them. By this time, the community was more or less established and there were already questions arising as to how to preserve authentic teachings. Several months after the Buddha’s passing on, during the rainy season, which most sources place between July and October, the order met to discuss this question. The Buddha’s barber, Upali, recited the Vinaya, which finalized the monastic rules, as they had developed over the course of the Buddha’s life. Ananda recites the discourses of the Buddha as he heard them. Others were involved too because the canon does not attribute all the discourses to Ananda.  These become the nucleus of the Vinaya and Sutta Pitakas respectively, the Abhidhamma being a later production (400-150 BCE).

The First Buddhist Council occurred about the year 400 BCE, according to an increasing number of scholars.  This is a significantly more recent date than the conventional date of 483 BCE. Since the Buddha died at about 80 years of age, his dates are about 480–400 BCE. Bhikkhu Bodhi, Richard Gombrich, Maurice Walshe, K.R. Norman, and many others accept this chronology. From the perspective of authenticity, the later date is a good thing, though this is not the reason for the change.

Over the course of the next three hundred years, the order recited the monastic rules twice a month, at the new and full moons, and the full Vinaya and Sutta Pitakas at unknown intervals, including at the first four Buddhist councils, which they held about 400 BCE, 300 BCE, 250 BCE, and in the first century BCE. It is clear that during this time the core content was received directly from the Buddha’s first followers, who collected, codified, clarified, copied, and passed it down through a rigorous process of oral transmission. Although there are no physical books from that time, the discourses themselves show the evidence of this process of preservation, including the use of repetition, stock phrases, and versification.  They also added additional works to the canon based on older traditions.

The Pali language in which the canon is preserved is a prakrit, a vernacular Indic language, related to Ardhamagadha (‘half Magadhi’), in which the Jains wrote their scriptures. Scholars attribute the earliest use of prakrit to Ashoka by the third century BCE. Originally identified with Magadhi, after the northeast Indian state of Magadha, where the Buddha spent much of his time, Pali is now regarded as a partly Sanskritized mixture of several prakrit languages dating from about the third century BCE. Scholars believe that Pali is an artificial hybrid language that the Buddhists of the time developed as a lingua franca in order to preserve the discourses in a common tongue and to communicate with each other.  The fact that they needed to do this shows that Buddhism was beginning to diversify linguistically, doctrinally, and geographically, which means that the Pali Canon as we have it is an aggregate.

First written down in Sri Lanka in the first century BCE, the Pali Canon seems to have been consolidated in western India, whereas the Buddha died in northeast India, so the tradition that is ultimately codified in the Pali Canon clearly went through successive phases of development as it moved from east to west and then south to Sri Lanka before being written down.

It seems likely that what we know as the Pali Canon achieved something close to its final form prior to the time of Ashoka, who the Pali Canon never mentions or alludes to. Since Ashoka converted to Buddhism about 260 BCE, this is only about 140 years after the passing on of the Buddha. For comparison, therefore, the Pali Canon corresponds to the state of development of Christianity in the second century CE, which is the time of the Apostolic Fathers, the early Christian theologians who codified the faith.

Early in the first century BCE, Sri Lanka experienced a famine during which many monastics died. Up to that time, the oral transmitters of the Pali Canon rigorously maintained the teaching, but fearing that it might be lost, the canon was committed to writing on smoked and dried palm leaves. Since palm leaf manuscripts existed as early as the fifth century BCE, the third century BCE inventors of the Brahmi alphabet of the edicts of Ashoka may have written some discourses of the Pali Canon before the first century and consolidated them in the Pali Canon.

The curvy alphabets peculiar to southern Indian and Southeast Asian alphabets are specifically adapted to writing on palm leaves, since angular letters tend to split the leaves. Ashoka sent out Buddhist missionaries to Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, Greece, Egypt, and other regions. Ultimately, translators translated the discourses into Chinese, Tibetan, and other languages. Each sect has its own canon, and scholars recently found an extensive Sarvastivadin canon in Afghanistan. Written on birch bark and dated as early as the first century BCE, it is the oldest surviving Buddhist text. However, scholars are able to compare many versions of the texts and most now believe that the core set of discourses, the nikayas, are very consistent among  the different sects, with doctrinal differences coming out more in the third section of the Pali Canon, the Abhidhamma. (Each sect had its own Abhidhamma.) Although the origin of the Pali Canon that we have today is Theravadin, a sectarian revival that originates in eleventh century CE Sri Lanka, Peter Harvey opines that “the Theravadins, then, may have added texts to the canon for some time, but they do not appear to have tampered with what they already had from an earlier period.”  However, this does not mean that the surviving discourses are entirely free from ideologically motivated editorial changes.

Although we cannot say that the Pali texts, not even the nikaya discourses, preserve the Buddha’s actual words, Bhikku Bodhi and others note with some justification that they present a self-consistent philosophy, and we can certainly study what they do say as a basis for further evaluation. This seems to be an essential first step, yet often, as Peter Masefield ruefully points out in Divine Revelation in the Pali Canon, the accepted construction of Buddhist philosophy is all too often a superficial and partial reading of the discourses rather than an extensive and rigorous comparative analysis of the whole work. This interpretation has now hardened into dogma, sometimes called “mainstream,” “core,” or “academic” Buddhism.

The alternate approach, whereby Pali linguists try to ferret out the original words of the Buddha based on purely linguistic criteria, is doubtful, such scholars tending to find what they want to find.  Moreover, just because a text is more recent does not mean that it does not incorporate older ideas. Texts that are more recent may also incorporate legitimate inferences implied but not explicit in the earlier texts, or they may systematize older doctrines gathered from multiple sources, and thus represent legitimate processes of clarification and consolidation. They may even present original spiritual insights arising from authentic spiritual practice based on the Buddhist teaching, and are thus “Buddhist.”

The more deeply one studies the Pali Canon, the clearer it is that, as Rupert Gethin, the current President of the Pali Text Society, has said, the whole history of Buddhism may be seen as a working out of the implications of the early discourses, rather like Alfred North Whitehead’s remark that “the European philosophical tradition is … a series of footnotes to Plato.”

The Brahmajala Sutta is the third longest discourse in the Digha Nikaya. Contrary to what one might infer from the name, the discourses of the Digha Nikaya are not only the longest discourses in the nikayas, though the average discourse is about twice as long as the average discourse in the Majjhima Nikaya. The title of the Digha Nikaya, ‘the long collection,’ raises the question of why some shorter discourses are included here and other, longer discourses are included in in the Majjhima Nikaya.

Maurice Walshe translates Brahmajala discourse as ‘the Supreme Net.’ In Pali, jala means ‘net’ or ‘entanglement.’ Brahmas, in Buddhism, are divine beings or devas, but in this context refer to something that is exalted, great, or sublime. According to the PED, the word brahma comes from the root BRH, the root of brahant, which means ‘to increase,’ ‘to be great or strong.’ In this context, brahma seems to mean simply ‘great’ or ‘ultimate,’ combined with ‘net,’ meaning ‘entanglement’ or delusion. Thus, this discourse concerns the great or ultimate entanglement, “what the teaching is not” in Walshe’s words and, by implication, what the teaching is. Bodhi’s translation, “the All-Embracing Net of Views,” is somewhat odd in the context, though possible.

Most discourses begin with the expression, “Thus have I heard” (evam me suttam), a standard way of opening a received narrative. Tradition ascribes these words to Ananda, who is reputed to have recited the entire text of the Sutta Pitaka from memory. However, in his article, “Thus Have I Heard,” Maurice Walshe disposes of the commentarial idea that the phrase was Ananda’s in introducing the various discourses. These words simply identify a traditional discourse.

The location of the discourse is the main road between Rajagaha (modern Rajgir in the Nalanda district of the Indian state of Bihar), the ancient capital of Magadha, and Nalanda, about 15 kilometres (9 miles) north and a major trade route. Magadha was one of the sixteen ‘great states’ and at the municipal level had nascent democratic administrations. It corresponds to southern Bihar and parts of east Bengal today. Magadha was a cultural centre that influenced both Jain and Buddhist beliefs. The Haryanka dynasty ruled it from 544 BCE, and consisted of about eighty thousand villages. Nalanda is the site of the famous Buddhist university named after the city, which flourished from the fifth to the twelfth centuries before Muslim invaders destroyed the site about 1193. Its library burned for three months. At the time of the Buddha, it was a prosperous village.

The Buddha is travelling along this road with his entourage, followed by Suppiya and his younger disciple, Brahmadatta. Suppiya and Brahmadatta are wandering religious mendicants. Some of these were Brahmans, who, unlike some other ascetics, went about clothed; they were philosophers who delighted in intellectual debate. In addition, Suppiya was a follower of Sanjaya Belatthaputta. The Buddha’s two chief disciples, Sariputta and Moggallana, were former disciples of Sanjaya. Some bad blood seems to be involved on Suppiya’s part. Sanjaya seems to have been a skeptical agnostic. Walshe calls him a positivist, neither affirming nor denying such things as other worlds, the fruits of karma, and life after death. Sanjaya and Brahmadatta were engaging in a vigorous discussion of the merits of the Buddha, the teaching, and the order, which Sanjaya was denigrating and Brahmadatta defending, in voices loud enough for all to hear apparently.

At the day’s end, the Buddha, his entourage (to which the discourse assigns the unlikely number of five hundred monastics—inflating numbers is a common conceit of the Pali Canon), Suppiya, and Brahmadatta all stop together at the royal park of Ambalatthika, ‘the mango sapling.’ This seems to have been a kind of rest house in the Bamboo Grove.  Buddhaghosa says, “Here Ambalatthika is the king’s park. At the entrance stood a young mango tree called Ambalatthika by the people. Consequently, the park itself was Ambalatthika. It was well watered, shady, surrounded by a rampart, securely fastened with gates, and protected like a casket. Within the park was a house ornamented with magnificent paintings, for the king’s relaxation. This was known as the royal rest-house.”  Thus, there were two buildings in the park, one for the king’s use, and one for the use of travellers.

Early next morning, the Buddha’s entourage gets up and sits together in a place called the Round Pavilion, perhaps some sort of gazebo. Here it seems that they discussed the things that Suppiya and Brahmadatta were saying about the Buddha. Sometime later, the Buddha joins the monastics and asks them what they are talking about.

The Buddha tells the monastics that they should not be angry, resentful, or upset with someone who disparages the Buddha, the teaching, or the order, as that would be a hindrance to them, since the emotion of anger would bias their judgment. Instead, they should simply explain what is incorrect, with an attitude of perfect dispassion. Similarly, the Buddha tells the monastics that they should not be pleased, happy, or elated with someone who praises the Buddha as that too would be a hindrance, since the emotion of happiness would also bias them. Instead, they should simply explain what is correct.

This first teaching of the Buddha in the Sutta Pitaka is refreshingly unique in the history of religions, since it discounts the value of emotion, whether of anger or happiness, and of faith in favour of calm reflection on the truth and, therefore, the importance of rational, objective analysis, even in the context of spiritual matters. This implies in turn that one can evaluate spiritual matters in this way, or such an injunction makes no sense. How few, even among Buddhists, recognize the importance of these two pivotal principles and apply them to their own way of thinking in the spiritual realm.

The Buddha decisively separates Buddhism from every religion of which I am aware: “It is, monks, for elementary, inferior matters of moral practice that the worldling would praise the Tathagata.”  The word that Walshe translates as ‘worldling’ is puthujjana. This is generally explained as puthu, ‘many’ + jana, ‘folk’—a common, uneducated person.

The Buddha uses the word Tathagata to refer to himself. The meaning of this word is somewhat mysterious. The texts seem to assume that non-Buddhists knew what it meant. According to the PED, the compilers of the nikayas regarded it as pre-Buddhist, but no one has ever found it in any pre-Buddhist work. In general, the Buddha uses it to refer to himself in the third person and, rarely, to arhants.

The word Tathāgata is derived from Sanskrit and Pāli, and its etymology is traditionally understood as a compound of two parts: tathā and gata (or āgata). There are two main interpretations, each reflecting different nuances of its meaning:

1. Tathā + gata: “Thus gone”

• Tathā means “thus” or “in such a way,” referring to reality or truth.
• Gata means “gone,” implying that the Buddha has “gone” or transcended in such a way, having fully realized the nature of existence and moved beyond the cycle of samsara (birth and death).

This interpretation emphasizes the Buddha as one who has “gone” beyond ordinary existence, achieving enlightenment and nirvana.

2. Tathā + āgata: “Thus come”

• Tathā still means “thus” or “such.”
• Āgata means “come,” which could imply that the Buddha has “come” into the world in such a way, having realized the ultimate truth and bringing the teachings to others.

This interpretation focuses more on the Buddha’s presence in the world and his role as a teacher who embodies and communicates the truth.

Other Interpretations:

In some Buddhist traditions, Tathāgata is understood more metaphorically to convey the idea of someone who is beyond conventional dualities (such as coming and going, birth and death). It implies the Buddha’s transcendence of ordinary existence and the limitations of language and conceptual thought.

Literal Breakdown:

• Tathā: “Thus” or “such,” implying truth, reality, or “as it is.”
• Gata: “Gone,” indicating a departure or transcendence.
• Āgata: “Come,” suggesting arrival or manifestation.

In both interpretations, the key idea is that the Tathāgata has realized the ultimate nature of reality and is no longer bound by the ordinary conditions of samsara.

One may gloss this as ‘he who has thus come and gone,’ commonly represented visually as a series of footsteps with no beginning and no discernible end. Buddhaghosa proposes eight possible meanings:

1. He who has arrived in such fashion;
2. He who walked in such fashion;
3. He who by the path of knowledge has come to the real essentials of things;
4. He who has won Truth;
5. He who has discerned Truth;
6. He who declares Truth;
7. He whose words and deeds accord; and
8. The great physician whose medicine is all-potent.

Modern Sanskritists boil the meaning of the word down to two alternatives: ‘the one who has gone to or arrived at suchness’ or ‘one like that,’ with the implication of immobility or freedom from transience. In each case, ‘suchness’ or ‘that’ is essential but mysterious.

At the end of the discourse, the Buddha himself declares the nature of a tathagata:

Monks, the body of the Tathagata stands with the link that bound it to becoming cut. As long as the body subsists, devas and humans will see him. However, at the breaking up of the body and the exhaustion of the life span, devas and humans will see him no more. Monks, just as when the stalk of a bunch of mangoes has been cut, all the mangoes on it go with it, just so the Tathagata’s link with becoming has been cut. As long as the body subsists, devas and humans will see him. But at the breaking up of the body and the exhaustion of the life-span, devas and humans will see him no more. (3.73)

This statement need not imply that the Tathagata ceases to exist at death. In fact, the metaphor of the mangoes suggests the opposite. Rather, he ceases to exist as an ephemeral, samsaric being, and thus becomes invisible to samsaric beings, both devas and humans. The only thing remaining to keep the Buddha embodied is the energy or vitality of the ‘life span,’ after the exhaustion of which he will be freed forever from the cycle of involuntary rebirth. Some traditions, e.g., the Tibetan, regard the Buddha as continuing to be accessible to worldlings and even to emanate in the world, motivated by the power of his compassion, which is infinite.

The Bodhi translation says, “It is, bhikkhus, only to trifling and insignificant matters, to the minor details of mere moral virtue, that a worldling would refer when speaking in praise of the Tathagata.”  Rhys Davids refers to “trifling things, of matters of little value, of mere morality, that an unconverted man, when praising the Tathagata, would speak.”  How utterly distinct from the self-righteous, judgmental moralizing of the religious this statement is! Many students say that morality is the essence of religion. For most religions, morality is all.

How many Buddhists today say that one must first perfect the rules of conduct, especially as a monastic, followed by meditation, in order to obtain wisdom, the final attainment—a construction that, as we shall see, is precisely the opposite of what the Buddha says. For many people, following the rules is the practice and the more rules one follows, the better. From this perspective, a male monastic is superior to a householder because he follows 227 rules, compared to 311 rules for a female monastic, and yet the greater number of rules for women is not an indication of superiority but rather of their (purported) inferior status as a female. However, the Buddha says that these are all elementary and insignificant matters, mere details that a common person would praise but not, by implication, a superior person.

The Short Section on Morality

Perhaps these are merely superficial ethical observances that have little or nothing to do with the spiritual life, like matters of etiquette. However, what the Buddha elaborates are not mere formalities. Rather, he lists the essential rules of the entire Vinaya, starting with Pansil, the Five Precepts, including not killing, not stealing, chastity, and not lying! This is in the first discourse of the Sutta Pitaka that immediately follows the Vinaya.

Note too that the Buddha does not mention alcohol, an omission that occurs frequently.  He then expands the list to include the Eight Precepts: eating at the wrong time; singing, dancing, playing music, attending shows; wearing perfume, and using cosmetics and garlands; and using high or wide beds.

The list expands to include the Ten Precepts, viz., accepting money.

The list continues to include not damaging seeds and crops; not accepting raw grain or flesh, women and young girls, male or female slaves, sheep and goats, cocks and pigs, elephants, cattle, horses and mares, fields and lots; no running errands, buying and selling, cheating with false weights and measures, bribery and corruption, deception and insincerity.

The Buddha implies that these are superficial moral observances that, while appropriate, fall beneath the status of the Tathagata, who is far beyond such considerations, and that the admiration of the “worldling,” including religious, for such things misses the point.

The Middle Section on Morality

These observances are elaborated in greater detail and some new items are added, including not destroying seeds, not enjoying stored up goods, not attending displays, not indulging in idle pursuits, not using high and wide beds, not adorning oneself, refraining from unedifying conversation, refraining from disputes, refraining from errand running, and refraining from lying.

The Large Section on Morality

The Buddha describes making one’s living by the practice of “base arts,” including palmistry, divination, charms, fortune telling, witchcraft, spells, spiritism, theism, magic, and purporting to cure disease.

Many of these observances are associated with Brahmanism, which the Buddha disdained. The short and middle sections on morality appear to be an early version of the Vinaya rules, so esteemed by monastics, yet the Buddha declares them trivial! This is not the only place in the Pali discourses where the Buddha makes such statements about the Vinaya.

The large section on morality includes a variety of observances with certain discernible characteristics, all subsumed under the heading ‘base arts.’ Many of these correspond to practices that we would associate with magic, sorcery, or witchcraft. The third group is particularly associated with wrong livelihood by monastics, which has led some to suggest that the Buddha does not necessarily prohibit these practices in themselves, but only prohibited for monastics, but the phrase “base arts” refutes this.  This leads to some difficulties, however, because not all of the observances described fit into what we might think of as “debased,” including house and garden lore, foretelling a person’s lifespan (insurance companies do this all the time), knowledge of animals’ cries (being studied seriously by scientists, although this might also refer to a form of fortune telling), predicting astronomical phenomena, predicting earthquakes, predicting the weather, agricultural forecasting, accounting, computing, calculating, poetic composition, philosophizing, and medical arts, including prescribing drug remedies and surgeries.

That completes the summary of the things for which the common worldling praised the Buddha, after which the Buddha says, “There are, monks, other matters, profound, hard to see, hard to understand, peaceful, excellent, beyond mere thought, subtle, to be experienced by the wise, which the Tathagata, having realized them by his own superknowledge, proclaims, and about which those who would truthfully praise the Tathagata would rightly speak.”

Based on this passage, we may further clarify the moral observances as superficial, the opposite of profound; obvious, the opposite of hard to see; easy to understand, the opposite of hard to understand; conceptual, the opposite of beyond mere thought; and to be experienced by the ignorant, the opposite of to be experienced by the wise. Therefore, the Tathagata himself is also profound, hard to see, hard to understand, peaceful, excellent, beyond mere thought, subtle, and for the wise to experience. The reference to ‘superknowledge’ or gnosis is an extension of “beyond mere thought.” The implication is that there is a wisdom that transcends mere logic, reserved for those who attain to it, and which transcends mere morality. Buddhist morality is beyond mere virtuous observances; it implies a qualitative transformation. In English, we have a word for this kind of wisdom: gnosis. This trans-rational knowledge or wisdom was the special concern of the early gnostics, both Christian and non-Christian, before the Roman Church destroyed them. The message is that, while morality may be necessary, it is superficial and even unsatisfactory. We will elaborate this under our discussion of ‘skilled means.’

Sixty-Two Kinds of Wrong Views

In the next section, “The Sixty-Two Kinds of Wrong Views,” the Buddha shifts from moral observances to an itemization of erroneous philosophical assertions. This is essentially a catalogue of philosophical views held by other schools at the time of the Buddha, including eighteen speculative theories about the past and forty-four speculative theories about the future.

All of these pertain to various views of the nature of the self and the world, based on one or a combination of three modes of reasoning: empirical observation, logical or rational argument, and direct intuition.

Speculative theories about the past

The Buddha identifies four theories that he calls Eternalist, four theories that he calls partly Eternalist and partly Non-eternalist, four theories that he calls Finitist and Infinitist, four theories that he calls “eel wriggling,” and two theories that he calls “chance origination.”

Speculative theories about the future

Similarly, the Buddha identifies the following speculative theories about the future: sixteen doctrines of Conscious Post-mortem Survival, eight doctrines of Unconscious Post-mortem Survival, eight doctrines of Neither Conscious Nor Unconscious Post-mortem Survival, seven doctrines of Annihilationists, and five ways of proclaiming Nirvana Here and Now.  These make up forty-four theories. These two groups of theories make up sixty-two wrong views.

From the foregoing one arrives at the list of nine essential theories that follow:

1. Eternalism,
2. Partly Eternalism and Partly Non-eternalism,
3. Finitism,
4. Infinitism,
5. Eel Wriggling,
6. Chance Originationism,
7. Post-mortem Survivalism,
8. Annihilationism, and
9. Nirvana Here and Now.

The first six concern the past and the last three concern the future. Let us examine these, remembering that the Buddha rejected them all.

Eternalism asserts that the self and the world are eternal based on four arguments. First, remembering past lives, which results from a state of mental concentration or meditation. This is interesting in itself, in that the Buddha attained this state when he was enlightened. Past-life memories have also spontaneously arisen and documented in recent times in the context of near-death experiences, psychedelic experiences, kundalini awakening, Rolfing, and various traumatic experiences. Dr. Ian Stevenson has studied thousands of cases of spontaneous past-life memory in children. However, the eternalist infers from these experiences that the self and the world are immortal.

The Partly Eternalism and Partly Non-eternalism doctrine is the view that God is eternal but that subordinate beings are not eternal. The first argument for this view is that when a lower world contracts the beings living in that world are reborn in a higher world not subject to contraction.  After a long time the lower world begins to expand again and a being from a higher world is reborn there, either from exhaustion of his life span or the exhaustion of his merit.  When other beings appear, he thinks that he is the First Cause, and they think that he is God. The ascetic who remembers one past life because of meditation concludes that the first being is permanent and that the later beings are all impermanent. Thus, he believes that the world is partly eternal and partly non-eternal.

Another argument is also an a priori logical or rationalist argument in which the objects of the five senses are impermanent but mind is permanent, leading to the same conclusion as above.

Finitism is the belief that the world is finite and bounded, Infinitism that the world is infinite and unbounded. The Buddha also refers to the beliefs that the world is both finite and infinite and that it is neither finite nor infinite. This is the first reference to a logical structure that we also find in later discourses:

1. X is Y;
2. X is not Y;
3. X is both Y and not-Y; and
4. X is neither Y nor not-Y.

This construction, called the ‘fourfold negation,’ tetralemma or catuskoti, is a feature of Indian classical logic that is made much use of by the Buddha.

Each of these beliefs corresponds to a separate argument, but each one amounts to the same thing—the direct realization of the fact because of meditation. Thus, these are less arguments than direct intuitions.

The ‘Eel Wrigglers,’ which can also be translated as ‘endless equivocators,’ are agnostics who refuse to commit themselves to any view, but simply say, “I don’t say this, I don’t say that. I don’t say it is otherwise, I don’t say it is not. I don’t not say it is not.”  The basis of this belief, if we can call it that, is the desire to avoid lying, attachment, and cross-examination, which comes simply from not knowing. These are the first three arguments. (The fourth argument is because one is dull and stupid.)

The final category in the group of speculations about the past is that of the Chance Originationists. This is the belief that the self and the world arise by chance.

The next group of speculations concerns the future. Post-mortem Survivalism asserts that after death the self is healthy and conscious and material, immaterial, both material and immaterial, neither material nor immaterial, finite, infinite, both, neither, of uniform perception, varied perception, limited perception, unlimited perception, happy, miserable, both, and neither (note the recurrence of the tetralemma). These are the sixteen beliefs, which really boil down to four logical variations of four fundamental axioms regarding materiality, finitude, limitation, and happiness.

The basis of the doctrine of Unconscious Post-mortem Survival is two underlying views in all four alternatives discussed above, that after death the self is healthy and unconscious and material or finite (four alternatives each).

The Neither Conscious Nor Unconscious Post-mortem Survivalists hold that the self is healthy and neither conscious nor unconscious with the same eight variations as above.

The Annihilationists believe that death destroys the self, but differ as to the nature of that self. The first view of the self is that it is:

1. Material, composed of four elements (or states of matter), and the product of mother and father (or male and female genes). This corresponds to the dominant view of scientific materialism or secularism today.

The next six views all accept the reality of the first view, but add a second self that also dies. They hold that the self:

1. Is divine, material, sensory, and made of real food;
2. Is divine, material, mind-made, complete and not defective in any sense organ (a kind of “mental body”);
3. Has attained the Sphere of Infinite Space (the first plane of the Formless Realm);
4. Has attained the Sphere of Infinite Consciousness (the second plane of the Formless Realm);
5. Has attained the Sphere of Nothingness (the third plane of the Formless Realm); and
6. Has attained the Sphere of Neither Perception Nor Non-perception (the fourth and highest plane of the Formless Realm).

The final speculation regarding the future is that of Nirvana Here and Now. These are five views regarding the realization of nirvana here and now by existent beings:

1. The self experiences nirvana when it indulges in the pleasures of the five senses.
2. The self experiences nirvana when it experiences the first meditative attainment, characterized by thinking, pondering, dispassion, delight, and happiness. This view rejects the previous view because of angst.
3. The self experiences nirvana when it experiences the second meditative attainment, characterized by inner tranquility and mental concentration, free from thinking and pondering, born of concentration, and accompanied by delight and joy. This view rejects the previous view because of thinking and pondering.
4. The self experiences nirvana when it experiences the third meditative attainment, characterized by waning of delight, equanimity, awareness and clarity, and bodily joy. This view rejects the previous view due to mental exhilaration.
5. The self experiences nirvana when it experiences the fourth meditative attainment, characterized by the abandonment of pleasure and pain, the disappearance of joy and grief, equanimity, and attention. This view rejects the previous view due to joy.

At the end of this dissertation, the Buddha comments on all of these views using the same language:

This, monks, the Tathagata understands: These viewpoints thus grasped and adhered to will lead to such-and-such destinations in another world. This the Tathagata knows, and more, but he is not attached to that knowledge. And being thus unattached he has experienced for himself perfect peace, and having truly understood the arising and the passing away of feelings, their attraction and peril and the deliverance from them, the Tathagata is liberated without remainder. These, monks, are those other matters, profound, hard to see, hard to understand, peaceful, excellent, beyond mere thought, subtle, to be experienced by the wise, which the Tathagata, having realized them by his own super-knowledge, proclaims, and about which those who would truthfully praise the Tathagata would rightly speak. (3.30)

It is easy to jump to the conclusion, based on the foregoing, that the Buddha holds no views on the nature of the self and the world, that he rejects ontology, since all of the sixty-two wrong views relate to the nature of the self and the world in one way or another, including empiricism, rationalism, and direct intuition. Such a view makes the Buddha an agnostic or even a nihilist. However, I will argue that this view of the Pali Canon is wrong.

In the context of this discourse, I would point to the Buddha’s rejection of the eel wrigglers: “When asked about this or that matter, they resort to evasive statements, and they wriggle like eels on four grounds.”  In fact, the Buddha is quite judgmental about eel wriggling, this being the only view the adherents of which he characterizes as dull and stupid. If one reads his conclusion with attention, one notices various statements that imply more than simply not knowing: “the Tathagata understands…the Tathagata knows, and more, but he is not attached to that knowledge…beyond mere thought, subtle, to be experienced by the wise, which the Tathagata, having realized them by his own super-knowledge, proclaims, and about which those who would truthfully praise the Tathagata would rightly speak.”

If we reject ontology altogether, we are left only with moral practices, which the Buddha makes clear is not appropriate when referring to the Tathagata. Moral practices are elementary. Rather, what the Buddha seems to be alluding to is a mode of knowing that transcends reason and that cannot be arrived at merely by experience, logic, or even direct intuition, which is referred to as the gnosis of the Tathagata, but which can be spoken of. His frequent allusion to the tetralemma shows the trans-rational character of this knowledge.

These sixty-two wrong views are suggestive of the Buddha’s rejection of the idea of rebirth in any samsaric state because any samsaric state is subject to suffering. The Buddha rejects the religious notion of “heaven” altogether. Thus, he says, “these viewpoints thus grasped and adhered to will lead to such and such destinations in another world.”  This is the concept of rebirth based on the Law of Moral Causality or Karma—both ontological concepts.

Here one must distinguish two things: the viewpoint itself, which the Buddha designates as “wrong view,” and the attachment that leads to samsaric rebirth. The Buddha says, “This the Tathagata knows, and more”—implying a gnosis that transcends wrong view—“but he is not attached to that knowledge.”  Thus, two things are necessary: the acquisition of a trans-rational gnosis that transcends and corrects the sixty-two wrong views, and dispassion. In other discourses, the Buddha warns his followers against sectarian attachment to rites, rituals, and beliefs. Similarly, when encountering a disputant who does not share the Buddha’s worldview, the Buddha seeks out common ground, and bases any further discussion with them on that, and reasoning from there. Invariably, he leads the inquirer to a higher, larger view, not a lower, smaller view. Thus, he rejects disputatiousness altogether as a method of knowing.

The relationship between knowledge and attachment is made explicit at the end of the discourse, where the Buddha summarizes the sixty-two wrong views, saying of each one, “that is merely the feeling of those who do not know and see, the worry and vacillation of those immersed in craving.”  The implication is that these views are personal, subjective, and rooted in craving or desirous attachment. At the same time, it is clearly implicit that there is something to know and see and that there are those who know and see (“the wise”), since one can only identify falsehood and error in relation to truth. The Buddha analyzes the nature of feeling and craving with reference to contact, the six senses, desirous attachment, becoming, birth, ageing,  and death. These are the fifth through twelfth nidanas, or ‘causes,’ in the chain of interdependent origination or interconnectedness.

The Buddha says, “When, monks, a monk understands as they really are the arising and passing away of the six bases of contact, their attraction and peril, and the deliverance from them, he knows that which goes beyond all these views.”  The six bases of contact are the organs of the six senses—eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind—affirming that the gnosis of a tathagata is trans-mental and that such ‘superknowledge’ is not unknowable but is attainable by realization, despite the previous rejection of direct intuition as a reliable method of obtaining truth.

The Buddha denigrates the views of the ascetics and Brahmans who speculate about the past and/or the future as both “fixed” and “speculative”: “these are all trapped in the net with its sixty-two divisions, and wherever they emerge and try to get out, they are caught and held in this net. Just as a skilled fisherman or his apprentice might cover a small piece of water with a fine-meshed net, thinking: ‘Whatever larger creatures there may be in this water, they are all trapped in the net, caught, and held in the net,’ so it is with all these: they are trapped and caught in this net.”

Armed with this information, let us look again at the nine theories in the light of what we know about Buddhist principles, and see if we can discern the essential error in each case. To recap:

1. Eternalism is the belief that that self and the world are eternal.
2. Partly Eternalism and Partly Non-eternalism is the belief that the self and the world are partly eternal and partly non-eternal. Note that the third logical category, non-eternalism, is absent. Here is our first clue.
3. Finitism is the belief that the world is finite and bounded.
4. Infinitism is the belief that the world is infinite and unbounded.
5. Eel Wriggling is agnosticism. That the Buddha rejects this doctrine is our second clue.
6. Chance Originationism is the belief that the self and the world arise by chance.
7. Post-mortem Survivalism is the belief that after death the self is healthy and conscious.
8. Annihilationism is the belief that after death the self is healthy and unconscious.
9. Nirvana Here and Now is the belief that the self experiences nirvana in some state.

The key to understanding the Buddha’s rejection of all these theories lies in the Buddha’s repeated reference to attachment. Attachment leads to samsaric rebirth. What is attachment? It posits self-identity, permanence, and satisfactoriness, whereas we know from other discourses that the Three Marks of Existence are non-self-identity, impermanence, and suffering.  If we apply this key to the nine theories just enumerated, we find that each one contains as essential flaw that leads to attachment. The views that the self and the world are eternal or even partly eternal, finite or infinite, arise by chance, survive death, or are annihilated, and achieve nirvana in a samsaric state (the fourth meditative attainment is still a samsaric state) all violate the Three Marks of Existence. Similarly, eel wriggling violates the Three Marks of Existence by denying that there is a knowable truth. Thus, we see that the key to the Buddha’s repudiation of these theories is the fact of the desirous attachment that intrinsically posits self-identity, permanence, and satisfactoriness. We might call this process “objectification.” Implicitly, therefore, the gnosis of a tathagata is this realization of the Three Marks, which is an ontological realization, through which intuition is purified of attachment and thus, paradoxically, leads to the realization of the dharma-element, the TAT, ‘suchness,’ ‘reality as it is,’ beyond samsara, which is self-identical, permanent, and blissful.

Ananda asks the Buddha what this discourse should be called, implying that he is self-consciously memorizing the discourses with the Buddha’s approval, and the Buddha replies that it may be called the Net of Advantage, the Net of the Teaching, the Supreme Net (hence, Walshe’s title), the Net of Views, or the Incomparable Victory in Battle. The reference to Ananda implies that this is not the first discourse of the Buddha, but rather that he delivered it during the final twenty-five years of his life, when the Buddha was between 55 and 80 years old, Ananda only becoming the Buddha’s personal attendant twenty years after his Enlightenment. Therefore the placement of this discourse at the beginning of the Suttapitaka is intentional, nor chronological. The discourse reports that the whole universe resonated with the Buddha’s words. This is said of only discourse in the Digha Nikaya, which may explain its position as the first discourse, not just of the Digha Nikaya, but of the whole Sutta Pitaka.

The commentary says, “morality is inferior in comparison with higher qualities, for morality does not reach the excellence of concentration, nor concentration the excellence of wisdom.”   Note the order of excellence of these attainments, with wisdom as the apotheosis of the path.

Revised November 2, 2025

Note

1. See also Hajime Nakamura, Gotama Buddha: A Biography Based on the Most Reliable Texts, trans. Geynor Sekimori (Tokyo: Kosei, 2005), Vol. 2, pp. 216-219.  Nakamura contradicts the PED’s statement that the word is not known in pre-Buddhist sources: “In the epics this word meant ‘having become a splendid being’; in that sense it entered ancient Buddhist verse as an epithet meaning ‘perfect.'” (op. cit., p. 216)

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