Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, trans. Lynn Solotaroff (New York: Bantam, 1981), 44.↵
T. S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton,” in Four Quartets (San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1943, 1971), 14.↵
The Greater Discourse to Saccaka26.28, in Bhikkhu Ñānamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi, trans. The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of theMajjhima Nikaya, (Somerville, MA: Wisdom, 1995), 339. ↵
11
“I Am Awake”
For six years following his departure from palace life, Siddhattha Gotama fervently practiced the contemplative and ascetic arts. At last, he concluded that he was no closer to liberation than when he had begun. It occurred to him that all his life, he had been an extremist. As a youth in his father’s house, he knew nothing but pleasure and delight. Following his renunciation, he knew nothing but self-denial and mortification. He now realized that neither extreme was the path to what he sought, and he surmised that steering a course between them, avoiding the pitfalls of both, was the more promising approach. He called this method the Middle Way and decided to follow it.
The Awakening
The legends tell us that shortly after making this decision, Gotama went to a nearby river and washed off the dust that had accumulated on his body for many months. A local village girl gave him a bowl of milk-rice to eat. With this new approach, he would have to care for his body, not as an end in itself but because physical well-being was necessary to pursue liberation. The harsh forms of self-mortification had to be relinquished. Gradually, he returned to health. When his five students witnessed his change, they concluded that he was simply not up to the demands of the ascetic life, so they left, just as he had left his teachers years before.
A short time later, sitting beneath a tree near the village of Gaya in the present Indian state of Bihar, Gotama began to contemplate his next steps. Resting in the shade revived an old memory of sitting under a rose-apple tree as a child, during a Sakyan agricultural festival. He recalled that as his father was engaged in ceremonial plowing, he became bored and restless and, with nothing else to do, began to pay close attention to his breath. In those moments, he discovered a heightened sense of awareness and a pervasive calm that dissolved his boredom and restlessness. Remembering that time, Gotama thought that this gentle practice of meditation might provide the wisdom he was looking for. What distinguished this form of meditation from the practices of his teachers was its emphasis on the quality of mindfulness. Whereas the goal of other forms of meditation was to become absorbed in extraordinary states of mind, mindfulness meditation aimed at reaching a sharpened awareness of the immediate moment, so that one became attentive to what was happening in the mind, body, and external environment and witnessed these processes without judgment. Without trying to force particular states of mind, the mindfulness meditator simply observed without controlling. By letting go of goals and releasing preconceptions and judgments, Gotama believed, the mind would become more receptive to insight into the true nature of the world and the self.
Buddhist tradition says that on the evening of the full moon in the month of Vesakha (April–May according to Western calendars), Siddhattha Gotama sat beneath a huge tree—which later became known as the “bodhi,” or wisdom, tree—and vowed not to leave the spot until he had realized the liberating knowledge that he had sought for so many years. He said, “Let only my skin, sinew, and bones remain, let the flesh and blood dry up in my body, but I will not give up this seat without attaining complete awakening.” Thus Gotama began his meditation.
In the course of the night, his contemplations took him deeper than he had ever gone before. One tradition says he was even able to recall over 100,000 of his previous lives. But far more important was the deeper insights into the human condition that he attained. This was the liberating knowledge he had been searching for. As he made these advancements, he was approached by Mara, the demonic tempter, who tried to lure him away from his objective by offering him the pleasures of the world and taunting him with threats and doubts, much as Satan tried to do to Jesus in the New Testament. But Gotama was undeterred. At dawn, as the morning star first appeared in the sky, he knew he had won the understanding that liberates and conquers samsara. Later he told his followers that in that instant, “The knowledge and the vision arose in me: ‘Unshakable is the liberation of my mind. This is my last birth. Now there is no more renewed existence.’”[1] At that moment and not before, Gotama earned the title of the Buddha, “the Awakened One.”
Setting in Motion the Wheel of Dhamma
What does one do after attaining permanent, unconditional happiness? For forty-nine days, according to tradition, the Buddha enjoyed his liberation and pondered whether it would be worthwhile to teach his insights to others. But could others realize the truths that he saw? He ultimately concluded that while not everyone would understand, many would be receptive and might benefit from his new awareness. He decided to begin with his two teachers, but discovered that they had recently died. He next thought of his former disciples, the five who ridiculed him for giving up the ascetic path. He traveled on foot to the holy city of Banaras, the most sacred city in India, to find them. He learned they were staying at the nearby Deer Park, a refuge for shramanas. The Buddha exuded such serenity and happiness that on the way he was accosted by an individual who wanted to know whether he was a god. The Buddha said, “I am no god; I am awake.”
When the five ascetics saw their former mentor approaching, they too were astounded by his demeanor and recognized that something of profound significance had transpired in him. His calm appearance melted the resentment they still felt toward him, and they welcomed him into their company and invited him to speak. The Buddha’s formal talk consisted of a concise formulation of the insights he had received under the bodhi tree. This speech contained what the Buddhist tradition now calls the Four Noble Truths. The talk is sometimes called the Buddha’s first discourse or “Turning the Wheel of Dhamma.” The Pali word Dhamma, or the Sanskrit word Dharma in the Buddhist sense, refers to the Buddha’s teachings. It might be translated simply as “the truth that leads to liberation.”
“The Four Noble Truths are considered by many to be the essence of Buddhism. Most of the Buddha’s subsequent teachings might be thought of as explanations and amplifications of these basic points.”
The Four Noble Truths are considered by many to be the essence of Buddhism. Most of the Buddha’s subsequent teachings might be thought of as explanations and amplifications of these basic points. As recorded in the Pali Canon, his first discourse seems rather terse for those unfamiliar with his ideas. As we discuss these teachings, we will use the Noble Truths as a basic framework for convenience, but we will also draw upon other locations in the Pali scripture to assist in clarifying the Buddha’s insights. The Buddha was a masterful teacher and was skilled in addressing his audiences in ways that suited their intellectual capacities and temperaments, so drawing upon these later teaching contexts will enrich our understanding of the fundamental principles.
The Buddha never expected his teachings to be accepted on his authority. In fact, he positively discouraged it. In his travels, the Buddha once came to a community of people known as the Kalamas, who were confused about what or whom to believe in this age of innumerable gurus and doctrines. The Buddha gave the Kalamas the following advice on how to assess the many teachings and teachers they were encountering:
Do not accept anything simply because it is said to be revelation;
Do not accept it merely because it is traditional;
Do not accept anything that is hearsay;
Do not accept anything because it comes from sacred texts;
Do not accept it only on the grounds of pure logic
or because it seems rational;
Do not accept it because you
agree with it after reflecting on it;
Do not accept it on the grounds
that the teacher is competent or simply because he is re
garded
as “our teacher”;
But when you know for yourselves that these
things are wholesome; that these things are blameless;
that these things are praised by the wise; and that these things,
if undertaken and practiced, lead to benefit and happiness, then
you should accept them and abide in them.[2]
This advice has a very modern tone. It concisely characterizes the Buddha’s ideal for practicing his teachings. It encourages individuals to take responsibility for their own convictions and rejects many of the common reasons for which people accept religious and philosophical beliefs.
But the Buddha’s advice is misunderstood if it is taken as an endorsement of mere subjectivity, of accepting something as right or wrong on the basis of a “gut feeling” or even because it accords with one’s conscience or reasoning faculty. One might be surprised to hear the Buddha rejecting pure logic and reasoning as sufficient grounds for accepting a viewpoint. But he believed that reasoning may be no more reliable than judgments based on texts or charismatic individuals. Postmodern thinkers, especially, have come to appreciate the way what we call “reason” is itself a cultural construction and not the universal and self-evident function of the mind many philosophers have considered it to be.
Because the Buddha viewed truth as liberating, it is not enough for a belief or idea to be “merely” reasonable. According to him, a view or belief must be tested by the results it yields when put into practice. The Buddha would have us ask: Does this belief accord with reality, and is it conducive to one’s own and others’ happiness and freedom? This is a form of what philosophers call the pragmatic criterion of truth. The Buddha further maintained that for a person to guard against the possibility of bias or limitations in his or her understanding, one must check acceptable views against the experience of those who are wise. Of course, these criteria still leave us with other questions: How do we know who is wise? How do we recognize happiness and freedom? The Buddha addresses these issues in other places. At this point, it is necessary only to underscore that a fundamental aspect of Buddhist methodology is the principle of criticism. The Buddha encouraged his followers to subject their beliefs and ideas to rigorous personal testing and not to accept anything—even the Buddha’s own teaching—on the mere basis of authority, antiquity, or rationality.
One can imagine what the principle of criticism did when held against the traditions of emerging Hinduism. In effect, the Buddha’s teaching implicitly undermined the authority of the Brahmins and their sacred Vedic texts. Throughout its history, Hinduism has regarded the Buddha’s teaching as a major Hindu philosophy but always considered it “heterodox,” or nonorthodox, because the Buddha and Buddhists did not recognize the authority of the Vedas.
First Noble Truth
In his discourse to his five former disciples, whom he calls bhikkhus, the Pali word for monks, the Buddha declares the first of his Noble Truths, essentially setting out the primary issue for his worldview: “Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering.”[3] Later in his life, the Buddha stated that he taught only one thing: suffering and the end of suffering. He was not interested in abstract philosophical questions or dealing with many of the speculative matters that had exercised other teachers of his day. Obviously, it will be necessary to know what the Buddha means by suffering.
The word that has been translated as “suffering” is the Pali term dukkha. Most scholars of Buddhism think “suffering” is probably the best English term we have to translate dukkha, yet almost all of them agree that it is still an inadequate word. Suffering simply does not effectively convey what the Buddha meant by dukkha. Accordingly, there are a host of alternative or additional translations such as pain, illness, unsatisfactoriness, stress, boredom, discontentment, and discomfort. The problem with “suffering” as the basic translation of dukkha is that it is sometimes too strong and too limited to express the Buddha’s intent. The word suffering conjures images of physical pain and agony or tremendous grief and other forms of emotional distress. Certainly, these connotations are carried by the term dukkha.
But these images represent only what the Buddha called “ordinary” dukkha, the suffering that accompanies injury, sickness, old age, and death. There is also the dukkha of change, the kind of suffering caused by loss and being associated with things one finds unpleasant. The dukkha of change means the Buddha did not deny that there are moments of real pleasure, but even such delightful times are subject to dukkha because they do not last. Friends and family members die or move away; disagreements break up relationships; money comes and goes; our prized possessions are lost, broken, or they decay; happy times come to an end. The Buddha took seriously the impermanent nature of reality and applied it in a thoroughgoing fashion in his Dhamma. Impermanence, or anicca, the Pali term, is a salient aspect of the Buddha’s vision. He sees the entire world in constant flux, changing from moment to moment, and nothing is exempt from this process. Impermanence is not a cause of dukkha, but our unwise and unskillful response to the world of change is.
Dukkha, however, is not limited to these kinds of experiences. When the Buddha refers to dukkha, he is describing the fundamental quality of the whole of existence and not merely pointing out that life has moments of tragedy and sorrow. For the Buddha, dukkha is insidious and pervasive. Our whole lives, not simply certain occasions or episodes, are saturated with the quality of dukkha. This is one of the implications of the Buddha’s statement “The five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering.” As we will discover in chapter 12, the aggregates refer to the constituent elements of human life. The Buddha suggests that the very makeup of human existence is entangled in dukkha.
When we think of dukkha in these terms, as comprehensive and constant and not simply as episodes in human life, it becomes clear that understanding dukkha is not just a problem of translation; it is an experiential problem as well. We might ask: Why did the Buddha even think it was necessary to say that life is suffering? What kind of insight is that? Perhaps what makes dukkha a noble truth, and possibly why the Buddha felt it essential to articulate it, is our failure to fully appreciate the extent to which we suffer or feel the unsatisfactoriness of existence. The First Noble Truth is not the Buddha’s statement of a self-evident fact of life but a challenge for individuals to discover for themselves the depth and breadth of dukkha by means of introspection and observation. The Buddha himself hinted at such when he said, “This Dhamma that I have attained is profound, hard to see and hard to understand, peaceful and sublime, unattainable by mere reasoning, subtle, to be experienced by the wise.”[4] One cannot fully realize the nature and extent of dukkha until the moment of complete awakening, as the Buddha himself did on the full moon of Vesakha. The true depth of suffering can be seen only from the perspective of the enlightened mind.
These aspects of dukkha invite us to use a word other than or in addition to suffering. The word disappointment works well. Disappointment, like dukkha, is a pervasive feature of our lives though we are not always aware of it. We condition ourselves to ignore many—maybe most—of our disappointments. But consider how often during the course of a day we are disappointed or frustrated. We learn to ignore these disappointments, but they soon add up and begin to affect our mood and disposition toward others and ourselves.
Besides their insidious and pervasive quality, disappointment and dukkha are both the consequence of our own habits of mind. Disappointment is the result of one thing: the failure of reality to conform to our desires and expectations. To call this phenomenon a “failure” of reality is an odd way to put it, but we often experience it that way. Reality, of course, is not to blame. Reality just is what it is; the problem is with our
desires and expectations. It would be more accurate to say that our desires and expectations often do not conform to reality, and when they don’t, we are liable to suffer. So when the Buddha characterizes dukkha as not getting what you want, and getting what you don’t want, he is implicitly putting the onus on us, not on the thing we want or don’t want.
Elsewhere, the Buddha mentions another element that contributes to dukkha. No doubt, not getting what you want causes disappointment, but so does getting what you want. Both the frustration of desire and the fulfillment of desire contribute to human suffering. In contemporary American society, in which the way to happiness is virtually defined as the fulfillment of wishes, such a claim must sound odd. For the Buddha, the problem with achieving our desires is that it does not really satisfy us in the way we had hoped, and we end up desiring more and more to try to attain the kind of satisfaction we so badly want. “Were there a mountain all made of gold,” said the Buddha, “doubled that would not be enough to satisfy a single man.”[5]
Comparing dukkha to disappointment emphasizes the role of desire in creating unhappiness. The Buddha also made this connection. But his analysis did not stop there. Desire itself has antecedents, basic causes that urge us to want and crave for things. In the Second Noble Truth, the Buddha explained the factors that lead us to desire in the first place. In the next chapter, we will examine his view on the deeper sources of dukkha. Once we have considered those sources, we will be prepared for understanding his prescription for the end of suffering.
The Age of the Sages Page 14