Today the sky is illuminated with bright orange, and ornamented with swaths of deep red in the horizon. As I enjoy the slow dance of colour in front of me, a different kind of red and orange beyond the valley catches my eye: a forest fire.

The northern face of the mountain which is home to the Sudugala Forest Monastery is burning. It is not a pretty sight.

There are no people living down there, and it is quite far from the monastery. It’s a protected government reserve, home to trees and animals. Elephants live there.

Almost half of the face of the mountain is already ash. Giant tounges of fire lap up trees around the edge of a growing patch of black and grey and smoke. Was it some villager trying to create a barrier so that the elephants don’t come down to the village, as they sometimes do? Or is someone trying to grab land for his hena?

I find another fire – of rage – burning inside me. I turn away from the window.

And then I also encountered the stunning brilliance of Joseph Heller in Catch-22. The story of Yossarian, the antihero of this emotional rollercoaster of a novel, reflects the horrible struggle of a rebel who defies glorified social norms and tries to remain sane among mad men. His quest is of a less noble nature. Nontheless, in its uncompromising reality, no less relevant to us. Through his sheer humanity, Yossarian seems to be closer to us than Siddhartha and Brutha.

Siddhartha

It’s easy to see the attraction of Siddhartha to a Buddhist monk. For one thing, he is an admirer of the Buddha. But he is no follower of the Buddha. A fiercely independent, intelligent and arrogant young man, Siddhartha, unlike the other historical Siddhartha who he meets in Jetavana, keeps taking side alleys and wastes many years of his life before reaching his goal. In his ignorance, Siddhartha seems to be closer to us than the Buddha.

Even closer to us, perhaps alarmingly so, is Govinda, Siddhartha’s childhood friend. Govinda is Siddhartha’s shadow, devoted to him and always looking up to him for guidance. Yet, the encounter at Jetavana changes everything. Govinda’s faith stands in stark contrast to Siddhartha’s ready scepticism. The way their lives unfold after separation is revealing in the way their different attitudes affect their practice.

With half of a smile, with an unwavering openness and kindness, Gotama looked into the stranger’s eyes and bid him to leave with a hardly noticeable gesture.

“You are wise, oh Samana.”, the venerable one spoke.

“You know how to talk wisely, my friend. Be aware of too much wisdom!”

The Buddha turned away, and his glance and half of a smile remained forever etched in Siddhartha’s memory.

I have never before seen a person glance and smile, sit and walk this way, he thought; truly, I wish to be able to glance and smile, sit and walk this way, too, thus free, thus venerable, thus concealed, thus open, thus child-like and mysterious. Truly, only a person who has succeeded in reaching the innermost part of his self would glance and walk this way. Well so, I also will seek to reach the innermost part of my self.

I saw a man, Siddhartha thought, a single man, before whom I would have to lower my glance. I do not want to lower my glance before any other, not before any other. No teachings will entice me any more, since this man’s teachings have not enticed me.

I am deprived by the Buddha, thought Siddhartha, I am deprived, and even more he has given to me. He has deprived me of my friend, the one who had believed in me and now believes in him, who had been my shadow and is now Gotama’s shadow. But he has given me Siddhartha, myself.

Brutha

Dulan introduced me to the Discworld series during our early Vesess days. Small Gods remain my favourite of the series, closely followed by Thief of Time, again partially because of the Buddhist allusions, especially in the form of Lu-Tze, the enigmatic history monk. The entire book is a sustained unrelenting satire on organized religion. A ‘religious’ man admiring this thoroughly unreligious book says as much about the radical nature of early Buddhism as it does about Terry Pratchett’s insightful creativity.

Buddhists don’t pray to a God. At least, not explicitly. Unfortunately, though, it hasn’t prevented the Buddhist teachings from being subjected to the same inevitable changes that affected the Church of Great God Om.

“Right,” said Om. “Now … listen. Do you know how gods get power?”

“By people believing in them,” said Brutha. “Millions of people believe in you.”

Om hesitated.

All right, all right. We are here and it is now. Sooner or later he’ll find out for himself …

“They don’t believe,” said Om.

“But-”

“It’s happened before,” said the tortoise. “Dozens of times. D’you know Abraxas found the lost city of Ee? Very strange carvings, he says. Belief, he says. Belief shifts. People start out believing in the god and end up believing in the structure.”

“I don’t understand,” said Brutha.

“Let me put it another way,” said the tortoise. “I am your God, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll obey me.”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now take a rock and go and kill Vorbis.”

Brutha didn’t move.

“I’m sure you heard me,” said Om.

“But he’ll … he’s … the Quisition would-”

“Now you know what I mean,” said the tortoise. “You’re more afraid of him than you are of me, now. Abraxas says here: ‘Around the Godde there forms a Shelle of prayers and Ceremonies and Buildings and Priestes and Authority, until at Last the Godde Dies. Ande this maye notte be noticed.’”

“That can’t be true!”

“I think it is. Abraxas says there’s a kind of shellfish that lives in the same way. It makes a bigger and bigger shell until it can’t move around any more, and so it dies.”

“But … but … that means … the whole church … ”

“Yes.”

Yossarian

Yossarian’s dilemma is best summed up in these few paragraphs:

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he were sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

“That’s some catch, that Catch-22,” he observed.

“It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed.

Yossarian saw it clearly in all its spinning reasonableness. There was an elliptical precision about its perfect pairs and parts that was graceful and shocking, like good modern art, and at times Yossarian wasn’t quite sure that he saw it at all, just the way he was never quite sure about good modern art or about the flies Orr saw in Appleby’s eyes. (p. 46)

In his insightful analysis of Catch-22, Ven. Bodhesako wrote:

Indeed, in a world in which “men went mad and were rewarded with medals” — p.16 — who is sane, save he who would escape from that world? This is Yossarian’s dilemma, the “vile, excruciating dilemma of duty and damnation” (p.136): he doesn’t want to be in the war. He doesn’t want to die. “He thirsted for life” – p. 331. For Yossarian the enemy is not the Germans, or at least not only the Germans. “‘The enemy,’ retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, ‘is anybody who’s going to get you killed …’” And because of this “morbid aversion to dying” – p. 297 – men shrink from him and regard him as crazy. Clevinger is such a one. “You’re crazy!” Clevinger shrieks at Yossarian on p. 16; but later (p. 75) we are told that the patriotic and idealistic Clevinger was a dope “who would rather be a corpse than bury one”; and finally (p. 103): “Clevinger was dead. That was the basic flaw in his philosophy.” And yet, by the very fact of being part of such a world one cannot be completely sane; and to be not completely sane is to be not sane at all. But if one tries to escape is that not then evidence of a spark of sanity? Perhaps so; but the problem is that when we try to escape we discover that we can’t: every effort to free oneself from (in Buddhist terms) involvement with craving, aversion, and delusion or (in the novel’s terms) the war – every effort apparently brings one back to the same dilemma, and results only in making the problem more urgent (and perhaps also more evident), as will be recognized by anyone who has ever tried to extirpate the root of craving, and failed. Is it not madness, then, to try to escape?

And yet, if to do nothing is regarded as less insane, still that too does not lead to disengagement from a mad world. This is the very crux of Yossarian’s dilemma, and ours as well: a dilemma illuminated in experience by the effort to practice the Buddha’s Teaching and in fiction by Yossarian’s effort to escape from the war.

There lies the beauty of Catch-22. Yossarian’s story is the story of us.

The Island reviewer of the film, though clearly being sympathetic, seems to be fascinated with the suicide rather than Ven. Ñāṇavīra Thera’s writings. According to the article, “[m]uch more controversial to the interested and sympathetic person is Nanavira Thera’s suicide, more than his unique interpretation and exposition of the Dhamma”. The reviewer admits to being “sadly ignorant of his views on the Teachings having not read a single of his books but feeling real karuna at his suffering physically, emotionally and mentally”.

This line of thinking seems to have prevented many Buddhists from making use of Ven. Ñāṇavīra Thera’s writings meaningfully. To quote Dr. John Stella:

Critics have been appalled by the correspondence with his physician and his publisher wherein he contemplates putting an end to his life. They have used it as a weapon to attack him personally and to discredit his Notes on Dhamma. Supposedly, one who could commit such a desperate act was surely non compos mentis and could not possibly perceive the Dhamma correctly: those ‘morbid’ thoughts prove his ideas are flawed, or worse, deluded. But such specious reasoning should really be an object of satire. Had Shakespeare taken his life, would his plays be a whit less meaningful? Should we dismiss the dialogues of Socrates because he drank poison? And what about the arahants mentioned in the Suttas who ‘used the knife’? Did they not comprehend the Buddha’s Teaching?

Clearly, the real question is whether Ven. Ñāṇavīra’s ideas on Dhamma hold up to scrutiny. It is a pity to spend even a few words refuting ad hominem arguments, but as he would say, although the ‘seasoned thinker’ will be wise to them, they could deceive readers unacquainted with logical fallacies.

Apparently the notice sent out announcing the screenings said: “This film looks at the issue of monastic suicide within the context of Ñāṇavīra Thera’s commitment to practicing the Buddhist Dhamma.” I believe what one considers more important here — the suicide or the commitment to practice (and the resultant writings) — is an indication of how serious a person is about the Buddha’s teachings.

The film itself does not go into the details of Ven. Ñāṇavīra Thera’s interpretation. It is no doubt difficult for a 20-minute biographical documentary to adequately cover such a complex topic. Yet it did include a good overview featuring one of my favourite Ñāṇavīra quotes:

Only in a vertical view, straight down into the abyss of his own personal existence, is a man capable of apprehending the perilous insecurity of his situation; and only a man who does apprehend this is prepared to listen to the Buddha’s Teaching.

I was a little disappointed then that the experts interviewed for the film failed to discuss this most important point. Neither Prof. Asanga Tilakaratne nor Mr. Bogoda Premaratne found it worthwhile to say that Ven. Ñāṇavīra Thera’s biggest contribution was pointing out that the Buddha’s teaching needs to be applied subjectively; that it has litle to do with an objective world. In Dr. Stella’s words:

Heavily reliant on twentieth-century Western philosophy and literature, [Notes on Dhamma] boldly introduces existentialist ideas into the Canon, and the meaning to be deduced from it becomes readily apparent. Ven. Ñāṇavīra quickly cautions us that the Existentialists are in no wise a substitute for the Buddha, for whatever their merits, they found ‘No Exit’ to the dilemmas they posed and consequently remained puthujjanas. Nevertheless, he learned from them that one must take a ‘vertical view, straight down into the abyss of his own personal existence’ in order to progress in the Dhamma. He relentlessly asserts that meaning of the Canon relates to me, to my problems, my frustrations, my sorrows, and their resolution—and nothing else. He regarded the ‘horizontal’ or impartial view, so often taken by post-canonical texts, as a kaṇha dhamma: a ‘dark teaching’, not leading to awakening, or to borrow an existentialist idiom, yet another act of ‘bad faith’.

I find this to be the least understood aspect of Ven. Ñāṇavīra Thera’s writings, probably because it is incredibly difficult to change one’s perspective as required, especially if one is entrenched in the traditional interpretation. But without getting this right, I do not see how one can understand or appreciate Notes on Dhamma. Subjectivity is fundamental to the ‘Ñāṇavīrist’ interpretation. Incidentally, this is something ignored by Mr. Bogoda Premaratne in his Sinhala ‘translations’ of Ven. Ñāṇavīra Thera too, thus sadly misrepresenting him.

Though I no longer consider myself a ‘Ñāṇavīrist’, I would always be grateful to Ven. Ñāṇavīra Thera for pointing out this extremely important characteristic of the Buddha’s teachings. I deeply admire him for being such a committed practitioner for whom the Dhamma was the ‘only thing to be taken seriously’. Tom Rosenberg’s film is a beautiful introduction to the life and works of this often misunderstood monastic rebel who has inspired many of us to question the tradition and our own commitment to the Dhamma.

Many months have passed since I met Bhante Ñāṇananda for the first time, and had this series of discussions. More recordings remain to be published than have already appeared here. Unfortunately it seems unlikely that I will manage to transcribe them. I would now like to wrap up this series with one memorable discussion we had:

To end our long discussion, I ask from Bhante: “Does this mean that we should not be afraid to call Buddhism a suññatavāda?”

“We approach the Buddha’s teaching with our precast pigeonhalls: either it has to be idealism, or it must be realism. If one really wants to call this an ‘ism’, they should be calling it ‘let-go-ism’. One picks up only to make use of and let go.

“The entire teaching of the Buddha could be summed up in a single Pāḷi word. What do you think it is?”

I wonder if Bhante is referring to Appamāda.

“Yāvadeva”, comes the unexpected answer. Bhante adds the Sinhala word: “hudek”. In English, it means ‘merely for the sake of’. I am awed by the simple profundity of that statement.

“That one word transcends all those isms. We might as well call this teaching a yāvadeva-ism. Each step on the way is merely for the sake of taking the next, and that too is merely for the next. In other words, one has to reverese paṭiccasamuppāda. We encounter the word āhāra (food, nutriment), for both good and the bad. Hetu, paccaya, āhāra all indicate causality. Later tradition tried to make a distinction between hetu and paccaya but we do not see this in early texts. For example, we find phrases such as ‘ko hetu, ko paccayo’. The teaching was given to be made use of, to go to the other shore, not to get entangled in words.”

I ask, almost rhetorically, if this mess was created by taking the prescriptive teachings of the Buddha as descriptive.

“That’s why we said that it is when pariyatti (scriptural study) overtook paṭipatti (practice) that the decline started. How can one understand the texts without any practice? It would be just a collection of words. We need both: sātthaṃ sabyañjanaṃ (right meaning and right phrasing). If the meaning is wrong, the phrasing would be wrong, and vice versa. However, if the meaning is right, even if the phrasing is wrong, there is the possibility of making corrections. Otherwise we’ll be passing the piṭaka, the basket, in the dark.

“I’m reminded of one beautiful line from a story mentioned in the commentaries, which my teacher (Ven. Ñāṇārāma Mahāthera) used often in his Dhamma talks: añño esa, āvuso, gatakassa maggo nāma^[1] — This path is different, friend, to one who has travelled by it.”

Colophon

This is part 6 of a series on Ven. Katuku­runde Ñāṇananda Thera. In Novem­ber 2009 I had the oppor­tu­nity to stay at his monastery for a few days and have sev­eral long con­ver­sa­tions with him. The arti­cles are based on the record­ings of these discussions.

Notes

1. ^{^} See discussion on Gantho in Visuddhimagga, Chapter 3: Kammaṭṭhānaggahaṇaniddeso, Dasapalibodhavaṇṇanā

Ven. Ñāṇamoli’s translation of the relevant section reads as follows:

If, friends, internally the eye is intact but no external forms come into its range, and there is no corresponding [conscious] engagement, then there is no manifestation of the corresponding section of consciousness. [MLDB (2009) p. 283]

‘Corresponding [conscious] engagement’ is Ven. Ñāṇamoli’s rendering of tajjo samannāhāra. I had taken this to be identical to manasikāra (attention), influenced by Ven. Ñāṇavīra Thera’s writings. In my interview, I ask Bhante Ñāṇananda for an explanation on the difference between the two.

“Earlier we pointed out how, in a discussion that may be categorized as nītattha, the Buddha corrected Ven. Moliyaphagguna’s questions which implied an agent behind action. He rephrased them with the paccaya terminology. Similarly, when we say manasikāra, some may tend to think of an agent behind the attention. But Ven. Sāriputta Thera takes a different approach here when explaining the arising of viññāṇa.

“He discusses three possibilities:

1. The eye is not ‘broken’ – it is functional. External forms don’t come to the vicinity. And Tajjo samannāhāra, whatever that may be, is not present. Then, there’s no eye consciousness.

“Here, we have to be specific about viññāṇa. Again, I’m reminded of something Dr. W.S. Karunaratne said: “There is no ‘the viññāṇa’; it is always ‘a viññāṇa’. Everything has to be concrete – there is no abstract consciousness.” But people think that consciousness exists on its own, and this has given rise to various theories. Ven. Ñāṇavīra Thera also pointed this out when he said “paṭiccasamuppāda is viññāṇa”.^[1] I may not agree with everything he said, but here he did reveal an important matter. The reciprocal relationship between viññāṇa and nāma-rūpa is the vortex of existence, and it is the heart of paṭiccasamuppāda.

2. The eye is not broken, and external forms do come to the vicinity. But tajjo samannāhāra is absent. Then, there is no eye-consciousness.
3. The eye is not broken, external forms come to the vicinity, and there is tajjo samannāhāra. Then, there is eye-consciousness.

“The word tajjo comes from tat + ja. Tat means ‘that [itself]’. It is the root of such important words as tādī and tammaya. So tatja means ‘arisen out of that itself’. What is samannāhāra? You might remember that, in the Caṅkī Sutta, the Buddha happens to see the Kāpaṭhika Brahmin youth. There we find the word upasaṃharati along with samannāhāra,^[2] referring to a sort of focusing that may have not been planned – a chance meeting of eye to eye. Samannāhāra (āharati = brings) refers to a certain ‘bringing together’.

“So tajjo samannāhāra points to the fact that this ‘bringing together’ of the necessary factors for the arising of consciousness is inherent to the situation itself. It is unique to the situation, and does not come from within a person or from the outside. It is not exerted by oneself or an external agent: some thought that there is an ātman inside who is in charge, while others said that it is a God that injects consciousness into the man. Letting go of all these extremes, Ven. Sāriputta Thera pointed out the crucial role of tajjo samannāhāra with his analysis of the three possibilities.”

And then Bhante falls silent, and looks on with a smile.

After a few moments, he asks: “What do you hear?”

There is a bird singing in the distance.

“Did it start singing only now?”

It probably had started earlier (and now that I am listening to the tapes as I transcribe this, I know that it had started many minutes earlier).

“It must have been singing all this while, but only now…” I say.

“Only now…?”

“Only now did the attention went there.”

“There you have tajjo samannāhāra! So is it only because of the sound of the bird that you heard it? Didn’t you hear it only after I stopped talking? There could be other reasons too: had there been louder noises, you may not have heard it. So we see that it is circumstantial. That is why we mentioned in our writings: everything is circumstantial; nothing is substantial.”

Please allow me to interject here and add that the last sentence would remain something that I’ll always cherish from these interviews. Not only because of the simple profundity of the statement or the nice little practical experiment that led up to it, but also because of the gentle kindness in the way it was uttered.

“The attention that is present in a situation is to be understood as having arisen out of the circumstances. If there is anything of value in the Paṭṭḥāna, that would be here, in its analysis of the 24 causes. I can’t say for certain, but it may well be an attempt at systematising the general concept mentioned in this sutta: how a thought is connected to another. Since it is impossible to explain this mechanism by breaking it apart with words, Ven. Sāriputta Thera says it is circumstantial – unique to the situation itself.

“It is because of this nature of the Buddhadhamma that the later Indian philosophers called it a saṅghātavāda – pluralism, or a theory of aggregates, where the causes are not limited to one or two or none. So my silence paṭicca, the sound of the bird paṭicca, absence of other sounds paṭicca etc. there was the arising of a different ear-consciousness.

“It is alright to refer to tajjo samannāhāra as manasikāra as long as we make it clear that the process is impersonal. We may also bring in the Kiṃ Mūlaka Sutta^[3] here. Unfortunately my explanation of it in The Magic of the Mind, in the chapter ‘Essence of Concepts’, was not accepted even by Ven. Nyanaponika. In the sutta we find the statement manasikāra sambhavā sabbe dhammā (born of attention are all things). The commentary limits the discussion just to skillful states, which is a very narrow way of looking at it. Be it sammā or micchā, there the Buddha is pointing out the general principle.

“It is probably because of the importance of the principle discussed that the Buddha brought up the subject without being prompted by anyone. It is as if He declared it because the world would not hear or realize it otherwise. The sutta is a wonderful revelation about what we take as a ‘thing’. It is not something existing on its own in the world but a result of many psychological causes. But when we say that, we are accused of being viññāṇavādins and suññatavādins.

“One has to ask: why did the Buddha say ‘manopubbaṇgamā dhammā, manoseṭṭhā manomayā’ (Mind precedes all dhammas. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought – Dhp 1)? One has to admit that the Dhamma is mano-mūlika. But again, the mind is just one of the senses. What we have here is just a self-created problem. We discussed how existence is a perversion. The arising of dhammas is also the arising of dukkha. Not realizing this, some go looking for the truth among ‘things’.

“The search goes on because of delusion, and it is fruitless because they are chasing illusions. Dhammas, things, are all fabricated. They are all relative. They are all results of maññanā (ideation). Just as those who were entrenched in self-view saw the Buddha as a nihilist, those who are entrenched in materialism cannot grasp the Buddhist philosophy which puts the mind first.”

Here I ask a recurring question, probably because I still can’t bring myself to accept the already given answers due to my own materialistic tendencies (of those days): what would one see if one looks at the world ‘objectively’ – if such a thing were possible? Perhaps this is another way of asking what one sees in the arahattaphala samādhi.

“Suññatā” comes the quick reply.

“Whether people accept it or not, the truth is emptiness. We need not go far: it is already there in the three words animitta, appaṇihita and suññata. One has to go from nimitta (sign) to animitta (signless), with the help of signs. The culmination of paṇidhi (resolve) is appaṇihita (undirected). ‘Thingness’ gives way to emptiness.

“Imagine there were a large box here, with a label saying that the contents weigh 1000kg. If I were to ask you to move it, you’d object saying that it is too heavy for one person to handle. Let’s say I somehow coax you to try. When you try to lift, it comes off almost without effort – there’s no bottom to the box! The 1000kg sign was deceiving you. That’s why the realization of the Dhamma is equated to laying down of a burden.

“To realize emptiness, one has to know what one is aiming at. Yad’anuseti, tad’anumīyati, yad’anumīyati, tena saṇkhaṃ gacchati (If one has an underlying tendency towards something, then one is measured in accordance with it. If one is measured in accordance with something, then one is reckoned in terms of it. [SN 22.36]). As long as there is anusaya there would be measuring, giving rise to the concept of ‘things’. Elimination of anusaya is like the bottom of the box giving way. After that, anyone can lift it.”

Colophon

This is part 5 of a series on Ven. Katuku­runde Ñāṇananda Thera. In Novem­ber 2009 I had the oppor­tu­nity to stay at his monastery for a few days and have sev­eral long con­ver­sa­tions with him. The arti­cles are based on the record­ings of these discussions.

Notes

1. ^{^} … any exemplification of paṭiccasamuppāda in the sphere of experience can be re-stated in the form of the fundamental exemplification of paṭiccasamuppāda in the sphere of experience, which is, as it must be, that beginning with viññāṇa. Thus, viññāṇa and paṭiccasamuppāda are one.
   – Ven. Ñāṇavīra Thera, Notes on Dhamma, “A Note on Paṭiccasamuppāda”, para. 20
2. ^{^} Atha kho kāpaṭhikassa māṇavassa etadahosi: ‘yadā me samaṇo gotamo cakkhunā cakkhuṃ upasaṃharissati, athāhaṃ samaṇaṃ gotamaṃ pañhaṃ pucchissāmī’ti. Atha kho bhagavā kāpaṭhikassa māṇavassa cetasā cetoparivitakkamaññāya yena kāpaṭhiko māṇavo tena cakkhūni upasaṃhāsi. Atha kho kāpaṭhikassa māṇavassa etadahosi: ‘samannāharati kho maṃ samaṇo gotamo, yannūnāhaṃ samaṇaṃ gotamaṃ pañhaṃ puccheyyanti. [MII p. 169 (PTS)]
   Then the thought occurred to Kāpaṭhika the youth, “When Gotama the contemplative meets my gaze with his, I will ask him a question.” And so the Blessed One, encompassing Kāpaṭhika’s awareness with his awareness, met his gaze. Kāpaṭhika thought, “Gotama the contemplative has turned to me. Suppose I ask him a question.” [MN 95]
3. ^{^} […] Rooted in desire (or interest) friends, are all things; born of attention are all things; arising from contact are all things; converging on feelings are all things; headed by concentration are all things; dominated by mindfulness are all things; surmountable by wisdom are all things; yielding deliverance as essence are all things; merging in the Deathless are all things; terminating in Nibbana are all things. [Excerpted from AN 8.83]
   – Translation by Bhante Ñāṇananda (The Magic of the Mind)

The smoke was visible in the distance as the jeep turned from the trail on to the firebreak, and continued the climb towards the top. It reached the end of jeep-able track, and the broomstick brigade sprang in to action.

The fire had started from the other side of the hill, which is next to the village, and spread to the side of the monastery. When the monks reached the scene, the villagers were already present. They were clearing the ill-maintained firebreak. This being the rainy season, no one had expected a bushfire. Apparently a boy from the village had set it off inadvertently while preparing the family hena.

A counterfire was set off from the firebreak towards the fast approaching bushfire. Due to the strong winds, sometimes the safe side also started catching fire, but heavy thrashing from the broomsticks and leafy branches prevented it from spreading.

It took a lot of work to set off counterfires systematically to cover all the prongs of the bushfire, while keeping them under control.

After one and a half hours of fighting, the fire reached nibbāna. Some monks sustained minor burns, and some requisites had to be sacrificed.

The tall grass that cover the mountain were easy objects of upādāna for the fire. It had burnt through most of the hill before letting go.

Now there comes a time, friends, when the external fire property is provoked and consumes village, town, city, district, & country; and then, coming to the edge of a green district, the edge of a road, the edge of a rocky district, to the water’s edge, or to a lush, well-watered area, goes out from lack of sustenance. [MN 28]

So when even in the external fire property — so vast — inconstancy will be discerned, destructibility will be discerned, a tendency to decay will be discerned, changeability will be discerned, then what in this short-lasting body, sustained by clinging, is ‘I’ or ‘mine’ or ‘what I am’? It has here only a ‘no.’ [ibid.]

Usually the grass, growing 6–7 feet tall, is a formidable enough barrier to prevent anyone from reaching the top of this hill. But now that the fire had removed that obstacle, the monks started climbing up.

The view from the top was breathtaking. On the opposite side of the hill, the Knuckles range was visible in the distance.

And the valley below was basking in the rays of the evening sun.

Having done their task and laid down the burden, the group stayed at the top till sunset.

Photo credits: Ven. Saraṇasīla of Ukraine who did a great job of documenting the incident. Images are released under a CC-BY-SA license.

Fires at Karanampotha due to hena preparations are quite common, especially during the dry season.

When I was assisting Bhante Nāṇananda with publishing some of his work online, I got in contact with Ven. Anālayo. He was the one who had transcribed the Nibbāna – The Mind Stilled sermons and prepared, in typical ‘Anālayan’ thoroughness, the impressive list of references for each talk. I used the opportunity to email him a few questions about his monastic life and scholarly work. The questions and answers appear below:

Q: What sparked your interest in Buddhism?

“I had been introduced to the practice of Buddhist meditation and found that this helped me to stay more calm and balanced in stress situations, so I wanted to know more about the background.”

Q: Could you please tell us about your monastic life: how you went forth, who your teachers were etc.?

“My going forth etc. is a little complex. I originally went forth in 1990 in Thailand in a monastery near Huahin (after an inspiring meditation retreat at Wat Suan Mokh, the monastery of Ajahn Buddhadāsa). This was, however, originally only planned to be for the vassa, which I wanted to spend meditating in a cave close by the seaside. I stayed on in robes for two years, in the end, since I found it was the most meaningful thing to do. However, trying to keep the rules strictly combined with my German perfectionism had created some problems in my mind (stiffness, arrogance towards those who are less strict etc.). I anyway had to go back to Germany to settle things, since originally I had not left with the idea of living in Asia, so I went down to anagārika, did what I had to do in Germany, and in 1994 came to Sri Lanka, where in 1995 I took pabbajā again, under Ven. Balangoda Ananda Maitreya.

“My main reference point for the subsequent period was Bhikkhu Bodhi, whom I consider as my teacher, as he guided me in Pāli etc. and we were throughout in regular contact. In order to keep out of dāna obligations and other things, and also out of my earlier experience with the rules of higher ordination, I stayed samaṇera for 12 years. Thus it was only in 2007, after repeatedly being urged to do so by Bhikkhu Bodhi, that I took higher ordination, in the Swejin Nikāya, with Ven. Pemasiri of Sumathipala Aranya as my monastic teacher.”

At first I misundertood the ‘dāna obligations’ Bhante mentions as relating to the way a Bhikkhu is to receive food. The Vinaya does not allow fully ordained monastics (Bhikkhus and Bhikkhunis) to grow, store, cook or even pick up unoffered food for consumption. This stipulation makes them entirely dependent on the lay supporters for their meals, which are ideally acquired through pinḍapāta – begging for alms from door to door. But later he clarified the real reason, which has nothing to do with storing food (which he has never done):

“I went begging every day and did not want to accept invitations for dāna ceremonies. This was sometimes difficult to explain, as the laity is always so keen to invite us, but the fact that I was not a bhikkhu made it easier for me to avoid such ceremonies, as laity usually likes to invite fully ordained bhikkhus, and being a samanera, one is a much less attractive object for such invitations :-) ”

Q: What made you interested in comparative studies?

“After my going forth in Sri Lanka I wanted to balance my practice with a better understanding of satipaṭṭhāna, so I got into the University of Peradeniya and did a PhD on the Satipaṭṭhānanasutta (I had already done a BA degree and some MA studies in other subjects in Germany), which I completed in 2000.

“During the course of that study, I had come to notice the interesting differences between the Pali and the Chinese versions, so after I had completed the PhD, I learned Chinese (Bhikkhu Bodhi had in the meantime left Sri Lanka so I followed him to the US where he stayed at a Chinese monastery, which afforded me the occasion to get into Chinese) and also Tibetan.

“Then I got into a study of the Satipaṭṭhānanasutta and eventually of the whole Majjhima from the perspective of their parallels. This was undertaken as a post-doctoral degree called habilitation in Germany, at the University of Marburg, which I completed in 2007. The book is at present in the final stage of revision and will be published next year with Dharma Drum Academic Publishers in Taiwan.”

Q: How did you get involved with Bhante Nāṇananda’s work?

“I had met Bhikkhu Nāṇananda personally already several times, but when Godwin Samararatne passed away, I found a tape with the first Nibbāna sermon translated into English in his room (at the Lewella Meditation Center). After listening to it, I felt a strong inner calling that this is something important and I should do what I can to help it become available for others. So I went to visit Bhikkhu Nāṇananda and put my services at his disposal. From then one we had regular contacts, as he would send me the tapes as soon as he had finished translating, and I would then transcribe from the tape, search the references and then send him the print out for corrections and regularly visit him to discuss about the sermons etc.”

Q: Are there any instances where you would disagree with Bhante Nanananda’s interpretations?

“There are a few of the translations where I would render the Pali original differently, but this does not really matter so much.”

Like many sincere monks, Ven. Anālayo is reluctant to talk about his personal meditation practice, but his commitment and dedication to it, even while keeping up a thriving scholarly career, is so inspiring that I got permission to mention it here.

Q: How do you handle the—perhaps conflicting—demands of your scholarly work and meditation practice?

“I have kept up and do still keep up a strong practice of meditation throughout. At present, I spend the first three days of every week in silent retreat just meditating, so that together with a long retreat at the beginning of the year I end up spending nearly half of my time in retreat conditions. I just mention it because I feel it is important in some way to make it clear that meditation has to be at the centre of life, otherwise the other things won’t work. It is so easy to get carried away by Dhamma activities and forget about the whole purpose of going forth.”

“We come across this in the Aṅguttara Nikāya: nītattha sutta and neyyattha sutta. Nīta, taken as it is, means you are led to it. Neyya means you have to be led. So nīta means you are already at the meaning; you don’t have to reinterpret it. Whatever is supposed to be the nīta in the Buddha word, you have to take it ‘as such’. Now, it is different when it comes to neyyattha: in that case you have to understand it in the context of the Dhamma; you can’t take it as it appears.

“It is from this distinction that sammuti/paramattha and samvṛti/paramārtha (in Buddhist Sanskrit) have been developed. And also this is the reason I think the Nettippakaraṇa and Petakopadesa were composed, as guides to the commentator. Because it is the job of the commentator to explain a sutta, and how it should be explained is a problem. There are occasions when the Buddha used loka samaññā loka nirutti (worldly conventions, worldly parlance) as they are, according to the context. And on some occasions, especially to monks, he would say something very deep, which you have to take as it is.

“The traditional interpretation, as you get in the commentaries, is very simple: it says neyyattha would be such suttas where the ordinary concepts of beings etc. come in, but nītattha is where you get anicca, dukkha, anattā. That’s a very simple definition of it.

“Among the discourses, there are some, like the Bāhiya Sutta, where you don’t have to reintroduce anything in to it. But the people will have to introduce something to understand them – that’s the whole trouble. A case which came to my attention was that sutta in the Saṃyutta Nikāya, the case of Moliyaphagguna, where, step by step, the Buddha had to correct even the question of Moliyaphagguna.^[1] Ko nu kho bhante phusati? — it goes like that: ‘who, lord, does touch?’ [The Buddha replies:] ‘I don’t say like that. If I did, then you can ask me like that. The correct question should be: Kim paccayā?’

“So the paccaya terminology is actually the nītattha, if I may say so. But you can’t talk with paccaya always. In fact, I remember some people who tried to avoid the ‘I’ concept altogether in conversations, using such phrases as ‘this pañcakkhandha’. But that’s only artificial.

“This I may say is a challenge to understand the discourses. Because you always have to ask yourself: what are the nītattha suttas and what are the neyyattha suttas? Without a criterion to decide, you are in a fix. But if you start on your own, I think you could take instances where the Buddha is talking about the four noble truths, as well as paticcasamuppāda.

“This is an instance where we see the difference between the grammar of nature and the grammar of language. You have to give way to the grammar of language if you’re to talk. Because if you are to explain, you have to make compromises with language, as we say ‘it rains’ or ‘devo vassatu’. Otherwise there is something lacking. The subject, the object and then the adjectives and adverbs and the sentence structure – these are deciding our thinking. The logicians are bound by it. That is why the Dhamma is atakkāvacara. That again is a challenge: what is meant by atakkāvacara?

“Logic has to distinguish one from the other. It is again a logical question when they ask: saññā and vedanā – are they completely different, or are they the same thing? That is the way logic would put it. There’s no half way between. Even that they tried to cover: I’m not very familiar with logic but what is already apparent in the canon is the tetralemma. The question of contradiction comes in: either it has to be this or the other. But there are these grey areas.

“All these problems come up because, first of all, we break reality – the flux of life – in to pieces. We differentiate between a ‘thing’ and its colour: the colour is an adjective; the object is something else. So we create problems for ourselves. But then the Buddha had to convey a message – and in fact I make it a point to say, why the Buddha hesitated to teach was not out of jealousy or any other reason, but the problem was how to present this doctrine in an intelligible way to people. I may say that only the Buddha had that ability. Though it is again an unsolved problem, about the Pacceka Buddha–s, it seems, if ever they remain silent, hence called ‘silent’ Buddhas, it is because they could not, unlike the Buddha, bring these two truths in to alignment.

“Already in the Kalakārāma Sutta you see how deep the problem is. But the Buddha could explain it sufficiently for one to start practicing. And once you start practicing, then, as in the Cūlahatthipadopama Sutta, you are walking the Dhamma-way, and you’ll realize by yourself. You go and see. Now, even though the Dhamma says ehipassika, we don’t want to go; we want to stay where we are and go through logic to understand the Dhamma. That is the problem with the scholars.

“The Buddha’s Dhamma was an invitation. If you start the practice, the rest you will know by yourself. The map can’t be the same as the journey. No map is complete by itself; it may use colours and signs etc. but it is never complete. So is the Dhamma. Much of it, the Buddha left unexplained. That is probably why the people are now complaining that there is no methodology here and that something is lacking in the Dhamma. But you can’t be spoon-fed.

“It is because the Buddha has given sufficient advice that some could realize even by just listening. They didn’t merely listen: they listened with rapt attention. Like in Ven. Bāhiya’s case, they were not leading idle lives. Their plaything was jhāna. So it was easy for the Buddha to make them understand, as they had a sharp receptive apparatus. They only needed saddhā. Without saddhā, with logic if you’re hoping to understand, you’re gravely mistaken.

“So now, getting down to the type of suttas we have, at a glance, perhaps, Bāhiya sutta is a clear cut case, although those who want something objective, with a substantialist view, would find something lacking there. And also, for instance, when the Buddha answered the accusations of the Brahmins, and when we come to the ten indeterminate points, that perhaps is something like nītattha. The Buddha is put to that point where He can’t agree any longer to the convention. Because He used conventional words, people made it an excuse to glean advantage from it. That is the case with Nibbāna: the fire going out.

“If the fire ‘goes out’ some think you should be able to go and locate where it is. Some scholars in the West also follow the same Hindu way where they think when the fire goes out it stays in some ineffable state. When it comes to such points of absurdity the Buddha had to correct them. Otherwise the Buddha would, for all practical purposes, use the convention. Even to Bāhiya He said ‘This is our pinḍapāta time’, as if there’s some strict time for pinḍapāta. As if His whole life is for pinḍapāta. ‘We have to go on pinḍapāta, don’t come and question us’! But when it comes to the Dhamma: ‘in the seen, just the seen, in the heard, just the heard.’ When Bāhiya could master and muster sufficient Samādhi he had built up in the past, when he was sufficiently calmed down, then the Buddha gave the real thing.

“There are also other occasions, for instance in the Saṃyutta Nikāya, where you find the verses:

Ahaṃ vadāmīti pi so vadeyya
Mamaṃ vadantīti pi so vadeyya,
Loke samaññaṃ kusalo viditvā
Vohāramattena so vohareyyā’ti. [SN 1.25]

That monk still might use such words as “I,“
Still perchance might say: “They call this mine.“
Well aware of common worldly speech,
He would speak conforming to such use. (Source)

“So every time the Buddha says ‘I’m going’ and so on, you should not think that He’s contradicted His own anattā doctrine.

“Nītattha could also be in such cases like in the Alagaddūpama Sutta where the brahmins are repremanded for false accusations. The Buddha comes out with the statement: Pubbe c’āhaṃ bhikkhave etarahi ca dukkhañceva paññāpemi dukkhassa ca nirodhaṃ – that is the best criterion to decide on which side you are. ‘All formerly and now, I merely say that there is suffering’ – there is no one suffering, whether it’s a puggala or person or individual – all this rot comes in because of not knowing that the Buddha’s message is also part and parcel of language.

“For all practical purposes, the Buddha’s words are enough. But for those who do not practice, but who are armchair critics, there is so much contradiction in the Buddha’s words. Sometimes He says there is dukkha only, and sometimes He says you are suffering. This is also the reason why there is such a mess in the interpretations of the kamma doctrine also. In sammādiṭṭhi, we may say there’s the ‘lower’ sammādiṭṭhi and the ‘higher’ sammādiṭṭhi.^[2] The dasa-vatthuka sammādiṭṭhi is kammassakatā. When a person takes kamma as his own, he’s bound by it. You are bound by your own grasping. Then it’s a fact that you’re going to these various realms etc.: dependent on avijjā there is saṅkhāra. Such people have to be judged by their own standards.

“By the way, I may also say, now that we are on the point: if you’re translating the Dhammapada, it is wrong according to my understanding to translate the attavagga as the chapter on Self. It should be oneself. Otherwise, as Radhakrishnan finds it, you are on the side of attā. But it is ‘oneself’: reflexive. If you understand that as self there’s a contradiction between attāhi attano natthi and attāhi attano natho. But these are just loke samaññā.

“Similarly in the Poṭṭhapāda Sutta, now and then the Buddha had to come out, especially in the last words of the sutta – they are very powerful: imā kho citta loka samaññā… yāhi tathāgato voharati, aparāmasaṃ (“Citta, these are the world’s designations, the world’s expressions, the world’s ways of speaking, the world’s descriptions, with which the Tathagata expresses himself but without grasping to them.”) I remember reading The Meaning of Meaning by Ogden and Richards; there they quoted from the Poṭṭhapāda Sutta. They understood that there’s something very deep in that simile about milk, curd, butter etc. Though they didn’t get everything, they knew the Buddha was nearer the truth about semantics.

“But now we think that where there’s a word there should be something. It’s the thing that’s causing all the trouble. There’s just a flux of life, a functioning, but no agent in it. But the language requires both. That is why we have to say ‘it rains’, leaving the room for someone to ask ‘what is this ‘it’?’. The fire goes out: where has it ‘gone’? The Buddha from time to time had to show the absurdity of such questions. In such contexts you come across the nītattha.”

Colophon

This is part 4 of a series on Ven. Katuku­runde Ñāṇananda Thera. In Novem­ber 2009 I had the oppor­tu­nity to stay at his monastery for a few days and have sev­eral long con­ver­sa­tions with him. The arti­cles are based on the record­ings of these discussions.

Notes

1. ^{^} SN 12.12 (excerpt below)
2. ^{^} “And what is right view? Right view, I tell you, is of two sorts: There is right view with effluents, siding with merit, resulting in the acquisitions; and there is noble right view, without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path.” [MN 117]

Addendum for Note 1

[…]
“Who, now, Lord, exercises contact?”

“Not a fit question”, said the Exalted One. “I am not saying (someone) exercises contact. If I were saying so, the question would be a fit one. But I am not saying so. And I not saying so, if anyone were to ask this: ‘Conditioned, now, by what, Lord, is contact?’, this were a fit question. And the fit answer there, would be: ‘Conditioned by the sixfold sense-sphere, is contact, conditioned by contact is feeling’.“
[…]

– Trans­la­tion by Bhante Ñāṇananda: Saṃyutta Nikāya – An Anthology

“It is quite common to hear that these two are the same: that rūpa-upādānakkhandha is the same as the rūpa in nama-rūpa, and the other four aggregates are nāma. That is like trying to measure distance in kilograms – a confusion.

“In that beautiful seminar in a moonlit night recorded in the Mahāpuṇṇama Sutta, it is made quite clear that viññāna cannot be a part of nāma. One venerable asks “Ko hetu ko paccayo rūpakkhandhassa paññāpanāya?” and so on — what is the cause for the designation of each aggregate? And the Buddha answers that it is the four great elements that give rise to the designation of an aggregate of form. For vedanā, saññā and saṅkhāra, it is phassa – contact. But for viññāna, the cause is nāma-rūpa.

“We are used to explaining paṭiccasamuppāda in the form of the standard 12 links starting from avijjā. However, always trying to put avijjā at the lead in exegesis led to misinterpretations of certain Suttas. For example, commenting on the Mahānidāna Sutta, Ven. Buddhaghosa Thera brings in the so-called three-life interpretation whereas there is nothing missing from the Sutta itself. As I tried to explain in The Magic of the Mind, it is from the preparations that are done in the darkness of ignorance that the duality of viññāna and nāma-rūpa arise.

“And what is that duality? The same duality seen by the dog on a plank over water.” Bhante Ñāṇananda is referring to a simile he has often used in Dhamma discussions:

A dog is crossing a plank over a stream. Half way through it looks in to the water and sees another dog there. It wags its tail and the other responds. It snarls and the other reacts. It looks away to ignore, but when it looks again the water dog is still there looking on.

The view of an existing self is also due to such an unwise attention. “I think therefore I am” is the resulting wrong conclusion. Neither narcissistic love nor masochistic hate can solve the problem. Ignoring with a cynical sneer is to evade the problem. Therefore one has to thrash-down this problem of the elusive self image to the basic confrontation between consciousness and name and form.

– “Reflect Rightly on the Reflection”, From Topsy-turvydom to Wisdom

“Nāma-rūpa is a deception. It is unreal. But in the illusion of viññāna, wherever you look, it is there. Whatever it may be, whether it’s a sight or a sound or a thought, it is just vedanā, saññā, cetanā, phassa, manasikāra. But here again there is a common misinterpretation: when listing the nāma-dhamma–s, some start from phassa, vedanā,… They put phassa to the front. But phassa has to be at the back.”

He says the above in Sinhala, where the word for ‘back’ is ‘passa’. The pun is lost in translation. As for putting phassa first, it is often seen in the Abhidhamma literature when listing the cetasika–s.

“They say so because in paṭiccasamuppāda, phassa comes before vedanā. That doesn’t apply here. In the Suttas, such as the Sammādiṭṭhi Sutta, the ordering is never in that form. The Buddha and the Arahats were not mistaken; logically one can have phassa first, but psychologically it is vedanā that is primary. It is through vedanā that one recognizes the four great elements, not through phassa. The self notion hinges on vedanā. That is why it deserves to be the first.

“So one develops a saññā according to vedanā, based on which one has cetanā, at which point the ‘personality’ is taken for granted. This creates the duality necessary for phassa. Manasikāra is at the end, somewhat like ekaggatā, unifying them all: manasikāra sambhavā sabbe dhammā – all things arise from attention.

“With vedanā, the self notion ‘awakens’, although here it is more like dreaming. Or like a blind man groping in the dark. The blind man reacts only to the feeling of bumping on to something. That is why Ven. Ananda Thera replied to the Buddha that it is not possible to have any self notion when there is no vedanā. Taṇhā arises from vedanā.

“So where does pañcupādānakkhandha come in? Pañcupādānakkhandhā is the final result of the constant tussle between viññāṇa and nāma-rūpa. This is made clear in the Mahāsaḷāyatanika Sutta. What is gathered from the six viññāṇa–s, at the end, are filtered down to things grasped as “these are my forms, these are my feelings, these are my perceptions, …

“You might remember how the Buddha explained the designation of a khandha, in the Mahāpuṇṇama Sutta: atītānāgatapaccuppannaṃ ajjhattaṃ vā bahiddhā vā oḷārikaṃ vā sukhumaṃ vā hīnaṃ vā paṇītaṃ vā yaṃ dūre santike vā (past, future, present, internal or external, gross or subtle, inferior or superior, far or near). That’s the demarcation of the heap.”

One of the main themes of Bhante Ñāṇananda’s classic The Magic of the Mind is the illusory nature of viññāṇa. Earlier we discussed some of the nuances involved in differentiating between viññāṇa and paññā, and now the discussion moves on to the relationship between viññāṇa and nāma-rūpa.

“It’s a pity that many Buddhists still cannot accept that the goal of this practice is the cessation of viññāṇa. It is a suffering; the simile for viññāṇâhāra is being beaten by a spear 300 times a day. The darkness of avijjā creates the background for it. As I pointed out with the similes of the cinema and the magic show, these things can only happen as long as there is darkness. All this is just an illusion, a drama. In fact, the oldest meaning of saṅkhāra is found in that context of a stage show.

“The connection between viññāṇa and nāma-rūpa can be illustrated with a childish simile: it is like a dog chasing its own tail. The modern Rohitassas who try to overcome a world as seen through viññāna are no different. They chase after what the Buddha dismissed as an illusion. There is nothing to go chasing after here; all that needs to be done is to stay where one is, and to realize that it is merely a shadow. When the darkness of avijjā is dispelled, saṅkhāra–s are stilled. The game is over.

“Viññāṇa and nāma-rūpa revolve around each other at an indescribable speed. That’s why it was told to Ven. Sāti that it is wrong to say “viññāṇaṃ sandhāvati saṃsarati anaññaṃ” (it is this same viññāṇa that runs and wanders, not another). If only the Ābhidhammikas realized that parivatta in lahuparivattaṃ cittaṃ means ‘revolving’: viññāṇa paccayā nāmarūpaṃ, nāmarūpa paccayā viññāṇaṃ.

“The Gāthās in the Sagāthaka Vagga, although often not given enough attention, are very deep. I stopped the Nibbāna series at sermon number 33, but what I had planned for 34, although never delivered, was based on that beautiful verse from the Nimokkha Sutta:

Nandībhavaparikkhayā saññāviññāṇasaṅkhayā,
Vedanānaṃ nirodhā upasamā evaṃ khvāhaṃ āvuso jānāmi
Sattānaṃ nimokkhaṃ pamokkhaṃ vivekan’ti. [SN 1.2]

When delight and existence are exhausted
When perception and consciousness are both destroyed
When feelings cease and are appeased – thus, O friend,
Do I know, for them that live
Deliverance, freedom, detachment.

– Translation by Bhante Ñāṇananda: Saṃyutta Nikāya – An Anthology

“In all other religions, viññāṇa was taken as a unit, and worse, as the soul. It is taught that even if everything else is impermanent, this isn’t. And it is taught as that which reaches Brahmā. But the Buddha pointed out that it is a mere illusion. It can’t exist on its own.

“That brings us to a nice point. What is the simile used by Ven. Sariputta Thera to illustrate the aññamaññapaccayatā (interdependence) of viññāṇa and nāma-rūpa?”

“The simile of the two bundles of bamboo reeds” I reply.

“Why is that? Couldn’t he have chosen something better, some wood with pith – say, two bundles of Sāla wood? See how penetrative they are even in their use of similes. The Pāḷi for bamboo reed is tacasāra. Taca means skin or peel, so tacasāra means that which has just the skin for its pith. The thing taken by the world as being full of pith is summarily dismissed by Ven. Sariputta Thera. It’s not a unit either, but a bundle.

“I’m reminded of something Ven. Ñāṇavīra said: ‘all consciousness is self consciousness.’ That is quite right. Occasionally he came up with brilliant insights like that which shook the establishment. He was one who wasn’t afraid to point out these misinterpretations. It is unfortunate that he was rather extremist in other areas.

“The whole notion of the so-called antarābhava depends on the belief that viññāṇa ‘goes’ on its own. The Buddha’s explanation of the wandering of viññāṇa is not like that of the Upanishads where the simile of the leech is used.^[1] According to the Dhamma viññāṇa and nāma-rūpa are in a state of whirling or turning around.

“The wandering of the mind is not like that of physical things. It’s a circuitous journey of a mind and its object. With the taking up of one object by a mind, a sort of whirling begins; when one end is lost from grasp, the other end is taken up: itthabāvaññathābhāvaṃ saṃsāraṃ n’ātivattati – this-ness and otherwise-ness, that’s all there is in saṃsāra. Our minds keep wandering away but keep coming back to this upādinna. Who likes to let go of it, to die? It always comes back to that which is held dearly. At the last moment, when Māra comes to snatch it away, one does not want to give it up, so there is a contest: the struggle for life. The Buddha asked us to just give it up.

“Think of any kind of existence, and you will see that it depends on grasping. There is no ‘thing’ that exists on its own. Here again, I’m reminded of something Dr. W.S. Karunaratne said: ‘Existence has got to be relative; there is no absolute existence.’ But the world thinks of unitary things existing on their own. They ask, ‘why, even when I don’t look at this thing, doesn’t it continue existing’? But really there is only a diṭṭha, a seen. There is only a suta, a heard. But the moment we think of a seen ‘thing’, a heard ‘thing’, we are trapped. We create things with maññanā, ideation.

“The problem with ‘things’ is solved in the Bāhiya Sutta: there are only diṭṭha, suta, muta, viññāta, nothing else. That is the theme in the Kālakārāma Sutta too. As long as one does maññanā about these, one would be deluded.”

Here we seem to have encountered a more thorough answer to my earlier question about the ‘reality of things’, and it is quite clear that Bhante Ñāṇananda has quite a different view from the standard Theravadin interpretation which is closer to naïve realism. It is also opposed to Ven. Ñāṇavīra Thera’s explanations, and readers who are familiar with Clearing the Path would notice that Bhante Ñāṇananda’s interpretation is close to Sister Vajira’s earlier views. It is easy to see why Bhante is sometimes accused of being a viññāṇavādin by those who are less willing to consider the subtleties involved.

“But how is viññāṇa made to cease?” Bhante adds, discussing the final goal of Buddhist practice. “Viññāṇa has the nature to reflect, and what it reflects is nāma-rūpa. One is attached to the reflection because one doesn’t know that it is a reflection. But when the knowledge arises, attachment drops. In many instances where paññā is discussed, we find the words paṭivedha and ativijjha, meaning ‘penetration’. The view is replaced by a vision.”

Bhante then quotes from his own Concept and Reality:

For the Arahant … all concepts have become transparent to such a degree in that all-encompassing vision, that their boundaries together with their umbra and penumbra have yielded to the radiance of wisdom. This, then, is the significance of the word anantaṃ (endless, infinite). Thus the paradoxically detached gaze of the contemplative sage as he looks through the concepts is one which has no object (ārammaṇa) as the point of focus for the worldling to identify it with. It is a gaze that is neither conscious nor non-conscious (na saññī assa, saññī ca pana assa), neither attentive nor non-attentive (na manasikareyya, manasi ca pana kareyya), neither fixed nor not fixed (na jhāyati, jhāyati ca pana) – a gaze that knows no horizon.

Colophon

This is part 3 of a series on Ven. Katuku­runde Ñāṇananda Thera. In Novem­ber 2009 I had the oppor­tu­nity to stay at his monastery for a few days and have sev­eral long con­ver­sa­tions with him. The arti­cles are based on the record­ings of these discussions.

Notes

1. ^{^} E.g.: “And just as a leech moving on a blade of grass reaches its end, takes hold of another and draws itself together towards it, so does the self, after throwing off this body, that is to say, after making it unconscious, take hold of another support and draw itself together towards it.” [Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 4.4.3] – From The Upanishads – A New Translation by Swami Nikhilananda
   ]]> http://nidahas.com/2010/09/nanananda-heretic-sage-3/feed/ 0 http://nidahas.com/2010/09/nanananda-heretic-sage-2/ http://nidahas.com/2010/09/nanananda-heretic-sage-2/#comments Sat, 18 Sep 2010 12:30:39 +0000 Bhikkhu Yogananda http://nidahas.com/wp/?p=22 paṭiccasamuppāda. My next question is based on a comment by Bhante Ñāṇananda, which considers paṭiccasamuppāda as the golden mean between atthitā (existence) and natthitā (non-existence), replacing them with samudaya (arising) and vaya (passing away). ]]> There is hardly any teaching that has given rise to more internal disputes among Buddhists than paṭiccasamuppāda. My next question is based on a comment by Bhante Ñāṇananda, which considers paṭiccasamuppāda as the golden mean between atthitā (existence) and natthitā (non-existence), replacing them with samudaya (arising) and vaya (passing away).

   “Everyone knows that the middle way is the noble eightfold path. Everyone knows that the first sermon was the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta. But if for some reason Āḷārakālāma or Uddaka Rāmaputta were alive, what we would have as the Dhammacakkappavattana would be something short like the Bāhiya Sutta, because they were facing a duality of a different nature.

   “The five ascetics were given a teaching based on the ethical middle path, avoiding the two extremes of kāmasukhallikānuyoga and attakilamathānuyoga. But the middle path of right view is found in the Kaccānagotta Sutta, beautifully used by Ven. Nāgārjuna. When the Theravadins got engrossed with the Abhidhamma they forgot about it. The Mādhyamikas were alert enough to give it the attention it deserved.

   “Extremism is found not only in ethics, but also in various kinds of views. The duality of asti and nāsti has a long history. I don’t have much knowledge in the Vedas, but I remember in Ṛg Veda, in the Nāsādīya Sūkta,^[1] you get the beautiful phrase nāsadāsīn no sadāsīt tadānīṃ. They were speculating about the beginnings: did existence come from non-existence or vice-versa.

   “All those kinds of dualities, be it asti/nāsti or sabbaṃ ekattaṃ/sabbaṃ puthuttaṃ etc. were rejected by the Buddha: majjhena Tathāgato Dhammaṃ deseti – he taught the Dhamma by the middle. It’s not just the middle path. It’s not a mixture of 50% of each. We usually think that the middle is between two ends. It’s a rejection of both ends and an introduction of a novel standpoint. Again, I remember Dr. W.S. Karunaratne saying how paṭiccasamuppāda, both as a philosophy and as a word, was novel to Indian thinking. There were other vāda–s such as Adhiccasamuppāda and Issaranimmāna, but not paṭiccasamuppāda, and it is not a vāda.

   “The ‘parroting’ method of paṭiccasamuppāda involves dishing out the 12 terms, and even then, the paṭiloma is often forgotten. But the important thing is the principle, embedded in ‘asmiṃ sati…’, as seen in many Suttas. There again, I also made a mistake inadvertently when translating: in early editions of The Magic of the Mind I used ‘this/that’ following the standard English translations. That’s completely wrong. It should be ‘this/this’.

   “In the formula we must take two elements that make a pair and analyse the conditionality between them. ‘That’ implies something outside the pair, which is misleading. Paṭiccasamuppāda is to be seen among the elements in a pair. The trick is in the middle; there’s no point in holding on to the ends. And even that middle needs to be let go of, not grasped.

   “When introducing paṭiccasamuppāda we first get the principle: imasmiṃ sati idaṃ hoti, imassuppādā idaṃ uppajjati… and then yadidaṃ – the word yadidaṃ clearly shows that what follows is an illustration. And then the well known 12 elements are given. But how is it in the paṭiloma? Avijjaya tu eva – there’s an emphasis, as if to say: yes, the arising of suffering is a fact, it is the nature of the world, but it doesn’t end there; from the fading away of that same ignorance this suffering could be made to cease. That is why we can’t categorically say that any of these things exist or not. It entirely depends on upādāna. It is upādāna that decides between existence and non-existence. When there is no upādāna you get anupādā parinibbāna, right then and there. And that is why the Dhamma is akālika.”

   The impossibility of making categorical statements about existence was discussed extensively in Bhante Ñāṇananda’s The Magic of the Mind, and he reminds me again about the importance of the Kālakārāma Sutta which provided the basis for that book. He quickly adds that the Buddha’s stand is not something like that of his contemporary sceptic agnostic Sañjaya Bellaṭṭhiputta, the so-called eel-wriggler; rather, the situation is beyond what could be expressed through the linguistic medium. It can only be known individually: paccattaṃ veditabbo.

   His interpretation of paṭiccasamuppāda, which dramatically deviates from the traditional exegesis, has earned Bhante Ñāṇananda a few vehement critics. He amusedly mentions a recent letter sent by a monk where he was accused of ‘being a disgrace to the Theriya tradition’. This criticism, no doubt coming from a Theravāda dogmatist, is understandable seeing how accommodating Bhante Ñāṇananda is when it comes to teachings traditionally considered Mahāyāna, hence taboo for any self-respecting Theravādin. However, if one delves deeper, one would see that he is only trying to stay as close as possible to early Buddhist teachings.

   “I didn’t quote from the Mahāyāna texts in the Nibbāna sermons,” he says, “because there was no need. All that was needed was already found in the Suttas. Teachers like Nāgārjuna brought to light what was already there but was hidden from view. Unfortunately his later followers turned it in to a vāda.”

   He goes on to quote two of his favourite verses from Ven. Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamādhyamakakārikā (as usual, from memory):

   Śūnyatā sarva-dṛṣtīnaṃ proktā niḥsaranaṃ jinaiḥ,
   yeṣāṃ śūnyatā-dṛṣtis tān asādhyān babhāṣire [MK 13.8]

   The Victorious Ones have declared that emptiness is the relinquishing of all views. Those who are possessed of the view of emptiness are said to be incorrigible.

   Sarva-dṛṣti-prahāṇāya yaḥ saddharmam adeśayat,
   anukampam upādāya taṃ namasyāmi gautamaṃ [MK 26.30]

   I reverently bow to Gautama who, out of compassion, has taught the doctrine in order to relinquish all views.

   Bhante doesn’t bother translating the verses; the ones provided above are by David Kalupahana.

   “When I first read the Kārikā I too was doubting Ven. Nāgārjuna’s sanity” he laughs. “But the work needs to be understood in the context. He was taking a jab at the Sarvāstivādins. To be honest, even the others deserve the rebuke, although they now try to get away by using Sarvāstivāda as an excuse. How skilled Ven. Nāgārjuna must have been, to compose those verses so elegantly and filling them with so much meaning, like the Dhammapada verses. It’s quite amazing. This has been rightly understood by Prof. Kalupahana.”

   Prof. David J. Kalupahana is an eminent Sri Lankan scholar who stirred up another controversy when he portrayed Ven. Nāgārjuna as a reformist trying to resurrect early Buddhist teachings. He had been a lecturer during Bhante Ñāṇananda’s university days as a layman at Peradeniya.

   “If there is no substance in anything, what is left is emptiness. But many people are afraid of words. Like śūnyatā. They want to protect their four.” With that ‘irreverent’ comment about the four paramattha dhamma–s of the Abhidhamma, Bhante Ñāṇananda breaks into amused laughter.

   “If one does not approach the commentarial literature with a critical eye, one would be trapped. Unfortunately many are. In fact, I had to remove a few pages from the manuscript of Concept and Reality on Ven. Nyanaponika’s request”.

   I’m disappointed to hear that, as Concept and Reality had already become my favourite commentary on the Buddhist teachings. There are some delightfully understated criticisms of the traditional views in the book, and I wonder what we have lost in the editorial process at the hands of Ven. Nyanaponika Thera, an undoubtedly very learned yet quite conservative scholar. When I express my dismay, Bhante Ñāṇananda adds that now he tends to agree with Ven. Nyanaponika.

   “I did it unwillingly, but later on I also thought it may have been too much as it was my first book. Perhaps what is left is quite enough. The message still gets through. Some of that I could restate in the Nibbāna sermons as I had the backing of my teacher.”

   This teacher is Ven. Matara Sri Ñāṇārāma Mahathera, then abbot of the Nissarana Vanaya and an illustrious elder of the Sri Lankan forest tradition. I ask Bhante what the response of the Sangha was when those controversial sermons were delivered.

   “Apart from a very few, the others didn’t really understand. Some went around criticising, calling me a heretic. Fortunately it didn’t get out of hand thanks to the teacher. But then some others like Ven. Khemānanda were very appreciative.”

   Our discussion moves on to Ven. Ñāṇavīra Thera. I wonder what influence this radical monk had on Bhante Ñāṇananda, but I can’t muster enough courage to ask directly. So I just let him speak on his views.

   “It is true, Ven. Ñāṇavīra made a start. But I think he went to an extreme in his criticisms, until his followers were dropping even the useful things. And he failed to make the necessary distinctions between saupādisesa and anupādisesa Nibbāna elements. That led to an idealized view of the noble disciple. And now there is a lineage of ‘Ñāṇavīrists’ who fail to see anything beyond Ven. Ñāṇavīra’s views. They are simply idolizing him.”

   I was one of them until I started a correspondence with Bhante Ñāṇananda, so I know the way of thinking.

   To end the discussion I pick up the thorniest of issues. I ask: “What is a ‘thing’? Is it completely imaginary, or is it something made by the mind using the ingredients ‘out there’?” A straightforward answer to that rather extremist question would make Bhante Ñāṇananda’s position clear on the gamut of views.

   “I’m sure you have read Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translation of the Saṃyutta Nikāya. You must have come across the Pheṇapindūpama Sutta. In the notes you’ll see Ven. Bodhi explaining that although the lump is illusory, the ingredients aren’t. It is worse when it comes to the magic show. He says that only the magic is not real; the magician’s appurtenances are. This is a distortion of the simile given by the Buddha. We must appreciate the great work done by Ven. Bodhi, but it is unfortunate that he is bound by the commentarial tradition.

   “What is considered the ‘truth’ is relative to each individual. Each person gives evidence in the court of reality based on his own level of experience. For example, parents often give false explanations to their little children. But these are true to the kids. When asked, the kid will tell what his parents told him. It’s true for the child, but not for us. In the famous commentarial story about Ven. Tissa Thera we find him seeing a woman as a skeleton, and saying so when asked by her husband. The venerable was closer to the truth.

   “When we transcend one level of truth, the new level becomes what is true for us. The previous one is now false. What one experiences may not be what is experienced by the world in general, but that may well be truer. But how do we reach the ultimate truth? This is beautifully explained in the Dhātuvibhaṇga Sutta: Taṃ saccaṃ, yaṃ amosadhammaṃ nibbānaṃ. And from the Dvayatānupassanā Sutta: amosadhammaṃ nibbānaṃ tad ariyā saccato vidū. It is Nibbāna that is of non-falsifying nature, where there is no ‘thing’. Nibbāna is the highest truth because there is no other truth to transcend it.

   “The Buddha called himself the first chick in this era to break out of the egg of ignorance. All these wonderful things we do such as space travel all happen inside this saḷāyatana shell. If paṭiccasamuppāda is presented properly, perhaps a few more chicks would be able to break through today.

   “Ven. Nāgārjuna was right: at the end, all is empty. We are not willing to accept that existence is a perversion. Existence is suffering precisely because it is a perversion.”

   It may not be a categorical answer, and it probably isn’t possible to give one. But I will bring this issue up again later.

   We have been talking for more than an hour, and it is time for Bhante’s meal. I end the discussion, looking forward to another one in the evening.

   Colophon

   This is part 2 of a series on Ven. Katuku­runde Ñāṇananda Thera. In Novem­ber 2009 I had the oppor­tu­nity to stay at his monastery for a few days and have sev­eral long con­ver­sa­tions with him. The arti­cles are based on the record­ings of these discussions.

   Notes

   1. ^{^} Ṛgveda: sūkta 10.129 (English translation)
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