II. Dhammaṁ saraṇaṁ gacchāmi
There are three levels to the Dhamma, the teachings of the Buddha –
A. Pariyatti-dhamma: studying the words of the Buddha as recorded in the Canon – the Discipline, the Discourses, and the Abhidhamma.
B. Paṭipatti-dhamma: following the practice of virtue, concentration, and discernment as derived from one’s study of the Canon.
C. Paṭivedha-dhamma: Nibbāna.
A. The study of the Dhamma can be done in any of three ways –
1. Alagaddūpama-pariyatti: studying like a water viper.
2. Nissaraṇ’attha-pariyatti: studying for the sake of emancipation.
3. Bhaṇḍāgārika-pariyatti: studying to be a storehouse keeper.
Studying like a water viper means to study the words of the Buddha without then putting them into practice, having no sense of shame at doing evil, disobeying the training rules of the Vinaya, making oneself like a poisonous snake-head, full of the fires of greed, anger, and delusion.
Studying for the sake of emancipation means to study the Buddha’s teachings out of a desire for merit and wisdom, with a sense of conviction and high regard for their worth – and then, once we have reached an understanding, bringing our thoughts, words, and deeds into line with those teachings with a high sense of reverence and respect. Some people try to change themselves to be in line with the Buddha’s words. To try to change the Buddha’s teachings to be in line with ourselves is the wrong approach – because when we’re ordinary, run-of-the-mill people, we’re for the most part full of defilements, cravings, views, and conceits. If we act in this way we’re bound to be more at fault than those who try to bring themselves into line with the teachings: Such people are very hard to find fault with.
Studying to be a storehouse keeper refers to the education of people who no longer have to be trained, i.e., of arahants, the highest level of the Noble Ones. Some arahants, when they were still ordinary, run-of-the-mill people, heard the Dhamma directly from the Buddha once or twice and were able immediately to reach the highest attainment. This being the case, they lacked a wide-ranging knowledge of worldly conventions and traditions; and so, with an eye to the benefit of other Buddhists, they were willing to undergo a certain amount of further education. This way of studying the Dhamma is called sikkhā-gāravatā: respect for the training.
B. The practice of the Dhamma means to conduct oneself in line with the words of the Buddha as gathered under three headings:
– Virtue: proper behavior, free from vice and harm, in terms of one’s words and deeds.
– Concentration: intentness of mind, centered on one of the themes of meditation, such as the breath.
– Discernment: insight and circumspection with regard to all fabrications, i.e., the properties, aggregates, and sense media.
To conduct oneself in this manner is termed practicing the Dhamma. By and large, though, Buddhists tend to practice the Dhamma in a variety of ways that aren’t in line with the true path of practice. If we were to classify them, there would be three types:
1. Lokādhipateyya – putting the world first.
2. Attādhipateyya – putting the self first.
3. Dhammādhipateyya – putting the Dhamma first.
To put the world first means to practice for the sake of such worldly rewards as status, material gains, honor, praise, and sensual pleasures. When we practice this way, we’re actually torturing ourselves because undesirable things are bound to occur: Having attained status, we can lose it. Having acquired material gains, we can lose them. Having received praise, we can receive censure. Having experienced pleasure, we can see it disintegrate. Far from the paths, fruitions, and nibbāna, we torture ourselves by clinging to these things as our own.
To put the self first means to practice in accordance with our own opinions, acting in line with whatever those opinions may be. Most of us tend to side with ourselves, getting stuck on our own views and conceits because our study of the Dhamma hasn’t reached the truth of the Dhamma, and so we take as our standard our own notions, composed of four forms of personal bias –
a. Chandāgati: doing whatever we feel like doing.
b. Bhayāgati: fearing certain forms of power or authority, and thus not daring to practice the Dhamma as we truly should. (We put certain individuals first.)
c. Dosāgati: acting under the power of anger, defilement, craving, conceits, and views.
d. Mohāgati: practicing misguidedly, not studying or searching for what is truly good; assuming that we’re already smart enough, or else that we’re too stupid to learn; staying buried in our habits with no thought of extracting ourselves from our sensual pleasures.
All of these ways of practice are called ‘putting the self first.’
To put the Dhamma first means to follow the noble eightfold path –
a. Right View: seeing that there really is good, there really is evil, there really is stress, that stress has a cause, that it disbands, and that there is a cause for its disbanding.
b. Right Resolve: always thinking of how to rid ourselves of whatever qualities we know to be wrong and immoral, i.e. seeing the harm in sensual desires in that they bring on suffering and stress.
c. Right Speech: speaking the truth; not saying anything divisive or inciting; not saying anything coarse or vulgar in places where such words would not be proper or to people to whom they would not be proper to say; not saying anything useless. Even though what we say may be worthwhile, if our listener isn’t interested then our words would still count as useless.
d. Right Action: being true to our duties, not acting in ways that would be corrupt or bring harm to ourselves or others.
e. Right Livelihood: obtaining wealth in ways that are honest, searching for it in a moral way and using it in a moral way.
f. Right Effort: persisting in ridding ourselves of all that is wrong and harmful in our thoughts, words, and deeds; persisting in giving rise to what would be good and useful to ourselves and others in our thoughts, words, and deeds, without a thought for the difficulty or weariness involved; acting persistently so as to be a mainstay to others (except in cases that are beyond our control).
g. Right Mindfulness: being firmly mindful in the correct way; making sure, before we act or speak, not to act or speak through the power of inattention or forgetfulness, making sure to be constantly mindful in our thoughts (being mindful of the four frames of reference).
h. Right Concentration: keeping the mind firmly centered in the correct way. No matter what we do or say, no matter what moods may strike the heart, the heart keeps its poise, firm and unflinching in the four jhānas.
These eight factors can be reduced to three – virtue, concentration, and discernment – called the middle way, the heart of the Buddha’s teachings. The middleness of virtue means to be pure in thought, word, and deed, acting out of compassion, seeing that the life of others is like your own, that their possessions are like your own, feeling goodwill, loving others as much as yourself. When ‘you’ and ‘they’ are equal in this way, you are bound to be upright in your behavior, like a well-balanced burden that, when placed on your shoulders, doesn’t cause you to tip to one side or the other. But even then you’re still in a position of having to shoulder a burden. So you are taught to focus the mind on a single preoccupation: This can be called ‘holding in your hands’ – i.e., holding the mind in the middle – or concentration.
The middleness of concentration means focusing on the present, not sending your thoughts into the past or future, holding fast to a single preoccupation (ānāpānaka-jhāna, absorption in the breath).
As for the middleness of discernment: No matter what preoccupations may come passing by, you’re able to rid yourself of all feelings of liking or disliking, approval or rejection. You don’t cling, even to the one preoccupation that has arisen as a result of your own actions. You put down what you have been holding in your hands; you don’t fasten onto the past, present, or future. This is release.
When our virtue, concentration, and discernment are all in the middle this way, we’re safe. Just as a boat going down the middle of a channel, or a car that doesn’t run off the side of the road, can reach its destination without beaching or running into a stump; so too, people who practice in this way are bound to reach the qualities they aspire to, culminating in the paths and fruitions leading to nibbāna, which is the main point of the Buddha’s teachings.
So in short, putting the Dhamma first means to search solely for purity of heart.
C. The attainment of the Dhamma refers to the attainment of the highest quality, nibbāna. If we refer to the people who reach this attainment, there are four sorts –
1. Sukkha-vipassako: those who develop just enough tranquility and discernment to act as a basis for advancing to liberating insight and who thus attain nibbāna having mastered only āsavakkhaya-ñāṇa, the knowledge that does away with the fermentation of defilement.
2. Tevijjo: those who attain the three skills.
3. Chaḷabhiñño: those who attain the six intuitive powers.
4. Catuppaṭisambhidappatto: those who attain the four forms of acumen.
To explain sukkha-vipassako (those who develop insight more than tranquility): Vipassanā (liberating insight) and āsavakkhaya-ñāṇa (the awareness that does away with the fermentation of defilement) differ only in name. In actuality they refer to the same thing, the only difference being that vipassanā refers to the beginning stage of insight, and āsavakkhaya-ñāṇa to the final stage: clear and true comprehension of the four noble truths.
To explain tevijjo: The three skills are –
a. Pubbenivasanussati-ñāṇa: the ability to remember past lives – one, two, three, four, five, ten, one hundred, one thousand, depending on one’s powers of intuition. (This is a basis for proving whether death is followed by rebirth or annihilation.)
b. Cutūpapāta-ñāṇa: knowledge of where living beings are reborn – on refined levels or base – after they die.
c. Āsavakkhaya-ñāṇa: the awareness that enables one to do away with the fermentations in one’s character (sensuality, states of becoming, and ignorance).
To explain chaḷabhiñño: The six intuitive powers are –
a. Iddhividhī: the ability to display miracles – becoming invisible, walking on a dry path through a body of water, levitating, going through rain without getting wet, going through fire without getting hot, making a crowd of people appear to be only a few, making a few to appear many, making oneself appear young or old as one likes, being able to use the power of the mind to influence events in various ways.
b. Dibbasota: clairaudience; the ability to hear far distant sounds, beyond ordinary human powers.
c. Cetopariya-ñāṇa: the ability to know the thoughts of others.
d. Pubbenivāsānussati-ñāṇa: the ability to remember previous lives.
e. Dibba-cakkhu: clairvoyance; the ability to see far distant objects, beyond ordinary human powers. Some people can even see other levels of being with their clairvoyant powers (one way of proving whether death is followed by rebirth or annihilation, and whether or not there really are other levels of being).
f. Āsavakkhaya-ñāṇa: the awareness that does away with the fermentation of defilement.
To explain catuppaṭisambhidappatto: The four forms of acumen are –
a. Attha-paṭisambhidā: acumen with regard to the sense of the Dhamma and of matters in general, knowing how to explain various points in line with their proper meaning.
b. Dhamma-paṭisambhidā: acumen with regard to all mental qualities.
c. Nirutti-patisambhida: acumen with regard to linguistic conventions. (This can include the ability to know the languages of living beings in general.)
d. Paṭibhāṇa-paṭisambhidā: acumen in speaking on the spur of the moment, knowing how to answer any question so as to clear up the doubts of the person asking (like the Venerable Nagasena).
This ends the discussion of the virtues of the four classes of people – called arahants – who have reached the ultimate quality, nibbāna. As for the essence of what it means to be an arahant, though, there is only one point – freedom from defilement: This is what it means to attain the Dhamma, the other virtues being simply adornment.
The three levels of Dhamma we have discussed are, like the Buddha, compared to jewels: There are many kinds of jewels to choose from, depending on how much wealth – discernment – we have.
All of the qualities we have mentioned so far, to put them briefly so as to be of use, come down to this: Practice so as to give rise to virtue, concentration, and discernment within yourself. Otherwise, you won’t have a refuge or shelter. A person without the qualities that provide refuge and shelter is like a person without a home – a delinquent or a vagrant – who is bound to wander shiftlessly about. Such people are hollow inside, like a clock without any workings: Even though it has a face and hands, it can’t tell anyone where it is, what time it is, or whether it’s morning, noon, or night (i.e., such people forget that they are going to die).
People who aren’t acquainted with the Dhamma within themselves are like people blind from birth: Even though they are born in the world of human beings, they don’t know the light of the sun and moon that give brightness to human beings. They get no benefit from the light of the sun and moon or the light of fire; and being blind, they then go about proclaiming to those who can see, that there is no sun, no moon, and no brightness to the world. As a result, they mislead those whose eyes are already a little bleary. In other words, some groups say that the Buddha, Dhamma, and Saṅgha don’t exist, that they were invented to fool the gullible.
Now, the Dhamma is something subtle and fine, like the fire-potential (tejas) that exists in the air or in various elements and that, if we have enough common sense, can be drawn out and put to use. But if we’re fools, we can sit staring at a bamboo tube [a device for starting fire that works on the same principle as the diesel engine] from dawn to dusk without ever seeing fire at all. Anyone who believes that there is no Buddha, Dhamma, or Saṅgha, no series of paths or fruitions leading to nibbāna, no consciousness that experiences death and rebirth, is like the fool sitting and staring at the bamboo tube.
Here I would like to tell a story as an allegory of those who aren’t acquainted with the Dhamma. There once was a man living in the woods who, with his five sons, started growing crops in a clearing about a mile from their home village. He built a small shack at the clearing and would often take his sons to stay there. One morning he started a fire in the shack and told his sons to look after the fire, for he was going out to hunt for food in the forest. ‘If the fire goes out,’ he told them, ‘get some fire from my bamboo tube and start it up again.’ Then he set out to search for food to feed his sons.
After he had left, his sons got so wrapped up in enjoying their play that when they finally took a look at the fire, they found that it was completely out. So they had the first son go get some fire to start it up again. The first son walked over and tried knocking on the bamboo tube but didn’t see any fire. So they had the second son get some fire from the tube: He opened it up but didn’t see any fire inside. All he saw were two bamboo chips but he didn’t know what to do with them. So the third son came over for a look and, since he didn’t see any fire, he took a knife to cut the tube in half but still didn’t see any fire. The fourth son went over and, seeing the two halves lying there, shaved them down into thin strips to find the fire in them but didn’t see any fire at all.
Finally the fifth son went over to look for fire, but before he went he said to his brothers, ‘What’s the matter with you guys that you can’t get any fire from the bamboo tube? What a bunch of fools you are! I’ll go get it myself.’ With that, he went to look at the bamboo tube and found it split into strips lying in pile. Realizing what his brothers had done, and thinking, ‘What a bunch of hare-brains,’ he reached for a mortar and pestle and ground up the bamboo strips to find the fire in them. By the time he ran out of strength, he had ground them into a powder, but he still hadn’t found any fire. So he snuck off to play by himself.
Eventually, toward noon, the father returned from the forest and found that the fire had gone out. So he asked his sons about it, and they told him how they had looked for fire in the bamboo tube without finding any. ‘Idiots,’ he thought angrily to himself, ‘they’ve taken my fire-starter and pounded it to bits. For that, I won’t fix them any food. Let ’em starve!’ As a result, the boys didn’t get anything to eat the entire day.
Those of us who aren’t acquainted with the brightness of the Dhamma – ‘Dhammo padīpo’ – lying within us, who don’t believe that the Dhamma has value for ourselves and others, are lacking in discernment, like the boys looking for fire in the bamboo tube. Thus we bring about our own ruin in various ways, wasting our lives: born in darkness, living in darkness, dying in darkness, and then reborn in more darkness all over again. Even though goodness lies within us, we can’t get any use from it and so we’ll suffer for a long time to come, like the boys who ruined their father’s fire-starter and so had to go without food.
The Dhamma lies within us, but we don’t look for it. If we hope for goodness, whether on a low or a high level, we’ll have to look here, inside, if we are to find what’s truly good. But before we can know ourselves in this way, we first have to know – through study and practice – the principles taught by the Buddha.
Recorded Dhamma (pariyatti dhamma) is simply one of the symbols of the Buddha’s teachings. The important point is to actualize the Dhamma through the complete practice of virtue, concentration, and discernment. This is an essential part of the religion, the part that forms the inner symbol of all those who practice rightly and well. Whether the religion will be good or bad, whether it will prosper or decline, depends on our practice, not on the recorded Dhamma, because the recorded Dhamma is merely a symbol. So if we aim at goodness, we should focus on developing our inner quality through the Dhamma of practice (paṭipatti dhamma). As for the main point of Buddhism, that’s the Dhamma of attainment (paṭivedha dhamma), the transcendent quality: nibbāna.
