And the Blessed One addressed Venerable Ananda: ‘Ananda, it might occur to you: “In the past we had the guidance of our Teacher ‑ now we have no Teacher!” But it should not be regarded thus. The Dhamma and Vinaya I have taught and laid down for you will be your Teacher when I have gone.” [1]
What is our standard? Who should we believe? Amid the shifting sands of opinion, is there a solid rock of certainty on which to stand? The Buddha insisted that personal experience must be the ultimate criterion. But for the unenlightened, personal experience can be ambiguous, even misleading. To complicate matters further, in these times of information overload there is a bewildering diversity of teachers and teachings, all claiming to be based on experience. In this work I aim to address, not the question of the Kalamas – ‘How do we decide between different religious teachings?’ ‑ but rather: ‘How do we decide between different interpretations of the Buddha’s teachings?’ This question also arose for the Buddha’s followers as his life drew near its end. His answer, known as the four great references, is recorded as follows:
‘Here, monks, a monk may say this: “Face to face with the Blessed One, friend, have I heard, face to face with him have I received this: ‘This is Dhamma, this is vinaya, this is the message of the Teacher’ ...”
‘Again, monks, a monk may say: “In such and such a dwelling lives a Sangha with an elder, a leader. Face to face with that Sangha have I heard: ‘This is Dhamma, this is vinaya, this is the message of the Teacher’...”
‘Again, monks, a monk may say: “In such and such a dwelling live many elder monks of much learning who have mastered the tradition, Dhamma experts, vinaya experts, systematized summary experts. Face to face with them have I heard: This is Dhamma, this is vinaya, this is the message of the Teacher’…”
‘Again, monks, a monk may say: “In such and such a dwelling lives a monk, an elder, of much learning, who has mastered the tradition, a Dhamma expert, a vinaya expert, a systematized summary expert. Face to face with this elder have I heard, face to face with him have I received it: 'This is Dhamma, this is vinaya, this is the message of the Teacher’...”
[In all of the above cases:] ‘Monks, the speech of that monk should neither be delighted in nor disparaged. Every word and phrase should be well apprehended, placed beside the sutta and compared with the vinaya. Should they not fit in with the sutta or accord with the vinaya, you should conclude: “Certainly this is not the word of the Blessed One, and has been wrongly apprehended by that elder.” Thus, monks, you should reject it. If they fit in with the sutta and accord with the vinaya, then you should conclude: “Certainly this is the word of the Blessed One, and has been rightly apprehended by that elder.” ’[2]
It seems that the Buddha, though aware of the possibility of breakdown in transmission, nevertheless trusted the Sangha to adequately preserve his teachings; most practitioners and scholars today agree this has occurred. The suttas offer the seeker a unique opportunity to engage with a direct expression of perfect enlightenment. Lucid, immediate, and pragmatic, this Dhamma emerged at a time when experiments in democracy could form a model for organization of the Sangha; when freedom of religious creed and practice was unquestioned; and when the religious establishment was straining under the weight of the rituals, hierarchies, and mystifications of age-old tradition, unable to address the issues most relevant to people's lives. The spirit of inquiry responded to these conditions with a bewildering diversity of religious sects, of which the Buddha's best stood the test of time. The universal, timeless quality of the Buddha’s words, like an arrow aimed straight at the heart of the human condition, inspired an unprecedented effort to preserve his Teachings ‘for those who feel’. The following passage clarifies both what the Buddha meant by ‘sutta’ and why this standard is important.
‘In future times there will be monks undeveloped in bodily conduct, virtue, mind, and understanding... when suttas spoken by the Tathagata are taught ‑ profound, profoundly meaningful, transcendental, dealing with emptiness ‑ they will not listen, they will not lend an ear, they will not set their minds on profound knowledge, they will not think those teachings worth apprehending and mastering. But when suttas composed by literati are taught ‑ literary, with fancy wordings, fancy phrasings, irrelevant, spoken by disciples ‑ they will listen, they will lend an ear, they will set their minds on profound knowledge, they will think those teachings worth apprehending and mastering.’
‘Thus, monks, from corrupt Dhamma comes corrupt vinaya; from corrupt vinaya comes corrupt Dhamma. This is the fourth future danger as yet un-arisen, which will arise in the future. Be alert, and strive to abandon it.’ [3]
The texts relied on here are the only ones considered authoritative by all schools of Buddhism. My intention is to establish an interpretation of the crucial features of the path acceptable to all Buddhists by not relying on later authorities peculiar to any particular school. These texts are the five Nikayas of the Pali Sutta Pitaka ‑ excluding later additions to the fifth Nikaya such as the Patisambhidamagga ‑ together with the Vinaya Pitaka. There are, no doubt, some extraneous additions even within this limited body of texts; yet such additions seem to be limited to supplementary matter, especially verse, and do not substantially affect the doctrine. These Nikayas correspond to the Agamas preserved in the Chinese and Tibetan traditions. Where they differ, the Nikayas usually seem to be more reliable, although in any case such differences probably do not significantly affect the present discussion. [4]
I have been conscious throughout of avoiding writing a ‘fundamentalist’ critique of contemporary schools of meditation or of the traditional commentaries. It seems that the commentaries in particular have become a favorite target of criticism, particularly for Western scholars. This might be influenced by the generally odious image of institutionalized medieval monasticism in the West. But time and again initially plausible critiques turn out to be shortsighted, and, worse, the critics then proceed to make as many or more new blunders. In fact the commentaries are an invaluable mine of information on Dhamma, Pali, history, and much else, and any translator owes them a great debt. However, I am resolutely committed to interpreting the suttas on their own terms, and try as I might to see the matter from the commentarial position, I have in several instances reached conflicting conclusions. I have noted some important points of divergence; the points of agreement are too many to mention. I have mentioned such differences, not out of desire to criticize, but because the commentarial system is highly influential in contemporary meditation circles and therefore has a direct effect on people’s lives. I believe that a careful appraisal of the tradition in the light of the suttas will facilitate appreciation of its true value.
I have yet to see any satisfactory study along historical and comparative lines of the development of Theravadin thought in these issues. I may simply add that the commentaries universally praise jhana and devote great lengths to explain what it is and how to develop it. However, certain variations in their explanations of key points suggest that they may incorporate some divergence of opinion. Thus ‘purification of mind’ is defined in the Digha Nikaya commentary as ‘the thoroughly mastered eight attainments [i.e. form and formless jhana] as a basis for vipassana’, whereas in the Visuddhimagga it is ‘the eight attainments together with access [samadhi]’. Again, where the Visuddhimagga treats ‘mind’ as absorption and access samadhi, the Samyutta Nikaya commentary to the same verse defines ‘mind’ simply as ‘the eight attainments’. Again, ‘momentary samadhi’ occurs only twice, both times subordinate to jhana, in the Visuddhimagga, but more often and with more independence in its commentary. These differences could be explained away as mere variations in the letter; but the natural conclusion in the face of the evidence is that there is a divergence in meaning, perhaps a historical development. Far from being a uniform emanation of enlightened wisdom, the commentarial literature is a complex and evolving scholasticism. The tradition itself is quite happy to chronicle un-reconciled differences of opinion. In any case, the task I have set myself is to explain what the suttas say, and so I have throughout avoided relying on the commentaries. Nor, with two slight exceptions, have I relied on the testimony of contemporary meditators, as such testimony is diverse and unverifiable.
A problem can arise: since even learned scholars can disagree on the meaning of sutta passages, is the above standard any use? Two related principles of interpretation can help clarify obscure passages. One we call the principle of proportion, the second, the principle of historical perspective.
Bhikkhu Sujato
A Swift Pair of Messengers
Saadu saadu saadu! !!!!!!
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