The causes for wisdom

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
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Dhammanando
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Re: The causes for wisdom

Post by Dhammanando »

Cormac Brown wrote:Venerable, does the existence of a thought such as, "Oh, here is a desire I must remove it" mean that the practitioner has fallen off the path leading to insight?
He is engaged in an exercise which, if successful, will lead him to a temporary abandonment of unwholesome thoughts, but not to their permanent eradication. Later they will come back again. This is samatha-bhāvanā — the mental development of a state of calm consisting in the mind's temporary remoteness from unwholesome dhammas. If such bhāvanā is developed to an advanced level it will culminate in the attainment of jhāna. What it won't in itself lead to is the permanent abandoning of unwholesome dhammas by cutting them off.

So my answer to your question would be no, he hasn't fallen off the path to insight. He hasn't yet even arrived at the path to insight.
Cormac Brown wrote:Where in the suttas is there evidence for such a view?
Just pick any where the Buddha describes jhāna-attainers as having more work to do; the two Sāropama Suttas, for example. Then look at:

1. What the Buddha says about them if they remain satisfied with what they have already attained.
2. What it is that remains for them to do.

Look also at any suttas (the Brahmajāla, for example) that describe how yogis practising outside of the Buddha's dispensation become highly accomplished in samatha-bhāvanā but then fall into wrong views of one sort or another.

The conclusion is inescapable: the ways of practice that samatha-bhāvanā entails are not in themselves adequate for developing insight or permanently cutting off the kilesas. They effect only a temporary liberation from unwholesome thoughts. This point is really quite uncontroversial; so much so that even Ajahn Thanissaro —whose modern commentaries you seem to prefer over the ancient ones— seems to agree with it. In the annotation to his translation of the Māhāsāropama Sutta the ajahn says:
"Occasional liberation/release is the temporary release from such things as the hindrances, attained when entering right concentration, or the temporary release from some of the factors of lower states of jhāna, attained when entering higher states of jhāna. This release lasts only as long as the necessary causal factors are still in place."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html
Yena yena hi maññanti,
tato taṃ hoti aññathā.


In whatever way they conceive it,
It turns out otherwise.
(Sn. 588)
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ihrjordan
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Re: The causes for wisdom

Post by ihrjordan »

Is all of this to imply that dhamma book study should be a practitioner's number one priority?
Cormac Brown
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Re: The causes for wisdom

Post by Cormac Brown »

ihrjordan wrote:Is all of this to imply that dhamma book study should be a practitioner's number one priority?
I'd say that sutta study is a priority for right view to arise. But perhaps finding a living teacher whose behaviour you find inspiring, free from defilement, arousing conviction, is number one:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html
“I in the present who am a worthy one, rightly self-awakened, am a
teacher of action, a teacher of activity, a teacher of persistence. But the
worthless man Makkhali contradicts even me, (saying,) ‘There is no
action. There is no activity. There is no persistence.’ "
AN 3.138, trans. Ven. Thanissaro
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Re: The causes for wisdom

Post by Cormac Brown »

Dhammanando wrote:So my answer to your question would be no, he hasn't fallen off the path to insight. He hasn't yet even arrived at the path to insight.
Thank you for your replies, Venerable. As you said previously, perhaps there's a confusion over terms. I haven't even attained jhana yet, which seems to be a necessary step prior to gaining liberating insight (going by the frequency with which it precedes it in the descriptions of the gradual training), so I'm sure the confusion is mine. Regardless, to carry on the discussion I feel like I'd just be repeating myself, which would be tedious for all. I'd do better to "go practice jhana"!
Dhammanando wrote:I would use the term to refer only to those things that are directly the cause for the arising of insight and which cannot do otherwise than give rise to insight.
I am, however, interested in this. Would you be so kind as to explain what these things are?
“I in the present who am a worthy one, rightly self-awakened, am a
teacher of action, a teacher of activity, a teacher of persistence. But the
worthless man Makkhali contradicts even me, (saying,) ‘There is no
action. There is no activity. There is no persistence.’ "
AN 3.138, trans. Ven. Thanissaro
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robertk
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Re: The causes for wisdom

Post by robertk »

Cormac Brown wrote:
ihrjordan wrote:Is all of this to imply that dhamma book study should be a practitioner's number one priority?
I'd say that sutta study is a priority for right view to arise. But perhaps finding a living teacher whose behaviour you find inspiring, free from defilement, arousing conviction, is number one:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html
Yes, fortunately it is quite possible to meet up with such* these days.
This photo was taken a couple of weeks ago in my hotel room in Saigon. I am at the back of the pic with shaved head with my son playing on floor. Nina van Gorkom (88 years old) is on the sofa next to Sujin Boriharnwanaket (now 90 years old). Discussing aspects of Dhamma.
saigon.jpg
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*except for the "free from defilement". My teachers and friends certainly don't claim to be arahat.
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robertk
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Re: The causes for wisdom

Post by robertk »

Dear Perkele and venerable Dhammanando,
thanks for clarifying this point: "
robertk wrote:
Or if i have desire arising, as we all do very often - can it be known as
desire, as an element, right there and then? Yes, it can if there are enough
conditions. But if one thought that 'Oh, here is desire I must remove it', then
one is no longer following the path toward vipassana. One is either having
aversion, or another more subtle desire (to get rid of the big desire) or at best the way of samatha.
So in the Satipatthana sutta the section in the section on The Contemplation of Consciousness
the first thing it says is:
"And how, O bhikkhus, does a bhikkhu live contemplating consciousness in consciousness?

"Here, O bhikkhus, a bhikkhu understands the consciousness with lust, as with lust;


of course it further says that also a "Bhikkhu understands the consciousness as without lust". But do we accept that we are ones with lust(lust here is meant all types of lobha) often, or are we trying to rush past knowing that, and getting to the "without lust" moments?
another point I would like to add is that going back over 30 years - as a new Buddhist- I was very concerned with knowing defilements - and not much interested in cakkhuvinnana (seeing) or sotavinnana (hearing) etc. But these are just as real and anatta and trivial (but crucial to understand) as dosa and lobha...
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tiltbillings
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Re: The causes for wisdom

Post by tiltbillings »

Cormac Brown wrote:
ihrjordan wrote:Is all of this to imply that dhamma book study should be a practitioner's number one priority?
I'd say that sutta study is a priority for right view to arise. But perhaps finding a living teacher whose behaviour you find inspiring, free from defilement, arousing conviction, is number one:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html
as robertk wrote:Yes, fortunately it is quite possible to meet up with such* these days.
There any number of really good, experienced teachers, both monastic and lay, who have both studied and practiced the Dhamma, who live the Dhamma, Joseph Goldstein being one of them:Image
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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DNS
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Re: The causes for wisdom

Post by DNS »

robertk wrote: This photo was taken a couple of weeks ago in my hotel room in Saigon. I am at the back of the pic with shaved head with my son playing on floor. Nina van Gorkom (88 years old) is on the sofa next to Sujin Boriharnwanaket (now 90 years old). Discussing aspects of Dhamma.
Nice photo. Glad to see those Dhamma teachers doing well into the nineties. Who are all those European-ancestry people and what are they doing in Vietnam? It looks like you and others get around the world with some interesting travels.

(I know this might be slightly off-topic, but I figured others might be interested to know too, so posting here instead of PM.)
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robertk
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Re: The causes for wisdom

Post by robertk »

Hi David
Do you like my new hairstyle? I thought you looked good in the stair-climbing race so copied you (well you and another 10,000 men).

Yes there are friends in that room who flew in from Sri lanka, Australia, USA, and Hong kong as well as Vietnamese ( and Nina from Holland and me from the Middle east). Dhammafollower on this thread is in the photo too, sitting on floor. During the day Sujin would talk to a large group of Vietnamese monks and nuns and laypeople in a hall.

It's all great fun and all of the people there are pretty seasoned travelers, especially the Europeans. But then it's so easy these days to get on plane and arrive the next day in a new country.
Ivan, a Dhamma friend who died a couple of years ago in bangkok, told me when he first came to Thailand, circa 1971, he took a boat to Indonesia and island hopped all the way to Singapore before spending days in a train to get to Thailand (must have being worth it as he lived there for the rest of his life).

Let us know if you are planning to be in the east anytime and there is a good chance of meeting in one of the Asian countries-
Cormac Brown
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Re: The causes for wisdom

Post by Cormac Brown »

robertK wrote: Or if i have desire arising, as we all do very often - can it be known as
desire, as an element, right there and then? Yes, it can if there are enough
conditions. But if one thought that 'Oh, here is desire I must remove it', then
one is no longer following the path toward vipassana. One is either having
aversion, or another more subtle desire (to get rid of the big desire) or at best the way of samatha.
Hello robertK. Compare with Ven. Sariputta's advice on how to teach Dhamma to intelligent people:
Ven. Sariputta said: "Friends, in foreign lands there are wise nobles & brahmans, householders & contemplatives - for the people there are wise & discriminating - who will question a monk: 'What is your teacher's doctrine? What does he teach?' Thus asked, you should answer, 'Our teacher teaches the subduing of passion & desire.'" SN 22:2
Note: Not the "knowing" of desire "as an element", but the "subduing". If it does not involve subduing desire, it is not the teaching of the Buddha. If it actively denies the role of subduing desire, it is, to quote the Buddha, "no path at all." (Iti 4.11)
ihrjordan wrote:Is all of this to imply that dhamma book study should be a practitioner's number one priority?
To reconsider the answer to this question, in light of the above, perhaps the practitioner's number one priority should be the subduing of passion and desire for the five aggregates. That is, if one is to take the Buddha as one's teacher, rather than those householders and contemplatives who apparently teach otherwise. And, too, if one doesn't want to suffer as those aggregates decay and change.

Ven. Sariputta, in this discourse, is teaching to a group of monks who are about to go and take residence in "the outlying districts". Before they leave, Ven. Sariputta gives them this talk to ensure that they will "speak in line with what the Blessed One has said, will not misrepresent the Blessed One with what is unfactual". When the teaching had been given, the monks didn't add a sub-commentary to it or cling to directly opposing viewpoints, but instead "delighted in Ven. Sariputta's words." Can we do the same?
“I in the present who am a worthy one, rightly self-awakened, am a
teacher of action, a teacher of activity, a teacher of persistence. But the
worthless man Makkhali contradicts even me, (saying,) ‘There is no
action. There is no activity. There is no persistence.’ "
AN 3.138, trans. Ven. Thanissaro
Cormac Brown
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Re: The causes for wisdom

Post by Cormac Brown »

Robert, glad to see that you have so many Dhamma friends. I hope the discussion taking place in the photo was fruitful. Great that your son is getting to be surrounded by such wholesome discussion, too (even if toys currently take priority to Dhamma!). As regards teachers, it seems more appropriate to follow monks (of the Vinaya-following variety) than laypeople. I seem to recall a sutta in which the Buddha quite starkly says to a lay disciple that the reason he's still a layperson is because he's full of defilements. (Incidentally, the disciple expresses confusion as to why he still has greed arising, seemingly looking for a complex and in-depth answer, and the Buddha just tells him it's because he hasn't abandoned it. If he'd just abandon it, it wouldn't arise. Interesting, no? And encouraging. I'll look for the reference.)

Insofar as judging them to be free of defilement, as the Buddha says, this can only be discerned to any extent after spending a long time in their presence, observing their behaviour. They need to keep their precepts pure, keep calm under duress, not display signs of greed/aversion/delusion. One good instruction on the matter is Canki Sutta. Here the Buddha recommends taking a monk as a teacher, one pure in conduct. He manages to win round a brahman who, prior to the discourse, has little time for monks. It also contains a teaching on the causes for "final attainment of the truth".
robertK wrote:*except for the "free from defilement". My teachers and friends certainly don't claim to be arahat.
If they're laypeople I'm glad they aren't claiming to be arahants. And hopefully monks wouldn't claim it to a layperson either, even if they were an arahant.

Ajahn Dtun of Wat Boonyawad, near Chonburi in Thailand, seems to me an admirable monk. He's an esteemed disciple of Ajahn Chah. Report has it that Ajahn Chah held him in very high regard. The monastery is a very pleasant place to practise, too.
“I in the present who am a worthy one, rightly self-awakened, am a
teacher of action, a teacher of activity, a teacher of persistence. But the
worthless man Makkhali contradicts even me, (saying,) ‘There is no
action. There is no activity. There is no persistence.’ "
AN 3.138, trans. Ven. Thanissaro
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Dhammanando
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Re: The causes for wisdom

Post by Dhammanando »

Cormac Brown wrote:Compare with Ven. Sariputta’s advice on how to teach Dhamma to intelligent people:
Ven. Sariputta said: “Friends, in foreign lands there are wise nobles & brahmans, householders & contemplatives - for the people there are wise & discriminating - who will question a monk: ‘What is your teacher’s doctrine? What does he teach?’ Thus asked, you should answer, ‘Our teacher teaches the subduing of passion & desire.’” SN 22:2
Note: Not the “knowing” of desire “as an element”, but the “subduing”. If it does not involve subduing desire, it is not the teaching of the Buddha. If it actively denies the role of subduing desire, it is, to quote the Buddha, “no path at all.” (Iti 4.11)
Your quotation from Sāriputta does not in fact contradict Robert’s point that the path is one of seeing.

Firstly, chandarāgavinaya would be more accurately translated: “the removal of desire and lust”.

Thanissaro’s decision to translate vinaya as if it were a gerund (‘subduing’), when in fact it’s a noun of state, gives the false impression that the elimination of chanda and rāga is something that one does, as opposed to being something that happens when dhammas have been correctly seen.

Secondly, if you research how rāgavinaya (along with dosavinaya and mohavinaya) are used in the Suttas, you will see that Sāriputta’s statement to the monks may be paraphrased: “Our teacher, friends, teaches Nibbāna.” For example:
  • “The removal of desire and lust [chandarāgavinaya], the abandonment of desire and lust [chandarāgappahāna] for these five aggregates affected by clinging is the cessation of suffering.”
    (MN. 28)
That it would be a mistake to conclude from Sāriputta’s words that the immediate task facing one is to make an active and deliberate effort to squelch one’s desires will be evident from any of the numerous suttas expounding the way to rāgavinaya. I’ll leave you with one example (it will have to be my last for a few days, for I’m going to be offline while our local satellite receiver undergoes repairs):
  • “And what, bhikkhus, is the escape in the case of material form? It is the removal of desire and lust, the abandonment of desire and lust for material form. This is the escape in the case of material form.

    “That those recluses and brahmins who do not understand as it actually is the gratification as gratification, the danger as danger, and the escape as escape in the case of material form, can either themselves fully understand material form or instruct another so that he can fully understand material form—that is impossible. That those recluses and brahmins who do understand as it actually is the gratification as gratification, the danger as danger, and the escape as escape in the case of material form, can either themselves fully understand material form or instruct another so that he can fully understand material form—that is possible.”
    (MN. 13)
Yena yena hi maññanti,
tato taṃ hoti aññathā.


In whatever way they conceive it,
It turns out otherwise.
(Sn. 588)
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ihrjordan
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Re: The causes for wisdom

Post by ihrjordan »

1)–(2) “Bhikkhus, for a virtuous person, one whose behavior is virtuous, no volition need be exerted: ‘Let non-regret arise in me.’ It is natural that non-regret arises in a virtuous person, one whose behavior is virtuous...(8) “For one who is concentrated no volition need be exerted: ‘Let me know and see things as they really are.’ It is natural that one who is concentrated knows and sees things as they really are.
AN 10.2: Volition https://suttacentral.net/en/an10.2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Doesn't the bold statement directly contradict the notion that the manner of attaining insight is one of volition? I recall Ajahn Chah comparing concentration and wisdom with both sides of a knife; if you pick up one side you get the other. You don't have to pick up concentration first thus allowing you to pick up wisdom. The Buddha said: "One stage flows into the next stage, one stage fills up the next stage" implying without effort or volition not "The transition will be rocky! you really gotta search for inconstancy or risk remaining dull!
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robertk
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Re: The causes for wisdom

Post by robertk »

Cormac Brown wrote:
robertK wrote: Or if i have desire arising, as we all do very often - can it be known as
desire, as an element, right there and then? Yes, it can if there are enough
conditions. But if one thought that 'Oh, here is desire I must remove it', then
one is no longer following the path toward vipassana. One is either having
aversion, or another more subtle desire (to get rid of the big desire) or at best the way of samatha.
Hello robertK. Compare with Ven. Sariputta's advice on how to teach Dhamma to intelligent people:
Ven. Sariputta said: "Friends, in foreign lands there are wise nobles & brahmans, householders & contemplatives - for the people there are wise & discriminating - who will question a monk: 'What is your teacher's doctrine? What does he teach?' Thus asked, you should answer, 'Our teacher teaches the subduing of passion & desire.'" SN 22:2
Note: Not the "knowing" of desire "as an element", but the "subduing". If it does not involve subduing desire, it is not the teaching of the Buddha. If it actively denies the role of subduing desire, it is, to quote the Buddha, "no path at all." (Iti 4.11)
venerable Dhammanando has already explained this but I add this sutta:
Venerable Upavanna was one of the Buddha's attendants before Ananda. He asked the Buddha (Samyutta, Salayanata Vagga 70 p.1154 Bodhi)

"In what way is the Dhamma directly visible (sanditthiko Dhamma), immediate…to be personally experienced by the wise?

BUDDHA: Here, Upavana, having seen a form with the eye a bhikkhu experiences the form as well as lust for the form. He understands that lust for the forms exists internally thus: `there is in me lust for forms internally.' Since that is so Upavana the Dhamma is directly visible, immediate…"
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robertk
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Re: The causes for wisdom

Post by robertk »

tiltbillings wrote:
as robertk wrote:Yes, fortunately it is quite possible to meet up with such* these days.
There any number of really good, experienced teachers, both monastic and lay, who have both studied and practiced the Dhamma, who live the Dhamma, Joseph Goldstein being one of them:Image
Interestingly in that photo, Sarah, sitting next to Khun Sujin on the sofa near me, knows Joseph from when she studied with Munindra in India - and Jon - sitting on chair next to me, met Munindra (Joseph's teacher) even before that. I met Joseph much later in 1984 when I did a retreat with him.
It's a small world. :anjali:
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