Here’s where we start getting into the fun stuff.

Most Westerners, if they have any notion of Buddhism at all, associate Buddhism with the notion of kamma (Sanskrit karma) and rebirth. The idea, at its most basic, is that you’re reborn again and again; if you’ve made good kamma (e.g. been kind, generous, honest, etc.), you’re reborn into fortunate circumstances; if not, you’re reborn less fortunately. The goal of enlightenment is to bring rebirth to an end. (And really, who would want that?)

In our session on Thursday, we’re going to look at the Buddhist notion of rebirth (and its inevitably accompanying re-death) with a little more nuance. The understanding that I will present is my own understanding. While it is rooted in canonical sources and is in general accord with an understanding of kamma and rebirth that has been articulated by many modern Buddhist scholars and practitioners, it is far from an orthodox view of the subject (if the idea of orthodoxy even makes much sense in the context of Buddhism). It is certainly not how an ordained Buddhist monk is likely to present the idea. For one sample of such a presentation, you might want to look at Bhikkhu Bodhi’s start at an essay on the subject. He’s clearly uncomfortable with the whole idea of having to justify the notion of rebirth as it is presented in the canonical teachings, but he is also unwilling to accept that a changing scientific view of the world might give one permission to interpret the canonical teachings in a way that is too very different from the interpretations offered by the classical commentators.

When one is presented with a new idea, especially one that seems to conflict with ideas that one already holds, the temptation is to assume that we understand the new idea, on first hearing, well enough to evaluate it. We do so, decide whether we’re for it or against it, and dig our heels in. From that point on, our strategy is more or less to interpret any argument we’re given, or any evidence that’s offered, in light of our entrenched position, and to push back against the argument, reject or re-interpret the evidence, and ridicule or revile the motives of anyone who disputes our entrenched position. Unfortunately, that’s how most public discourse proceeds in this country today.

There is another way. That is to assume, if something makes no sense to us, or seems to conflict with a deeply held belief, that we may not be understanding it rightly. We can make an effort to understand it differently, so that it begins to make a little more sense, or to pose a less certain threat to our existing views. If we assume a certain level of good will on the part of those who confront us with new ideas, we may even begin to find some common ground: shared assumptions about how things are, or about how we’d like things to be.

That is the approach I’ve tried to take with my essay on kamma and rebirth. The idea of rebirth has never made much sense to me, and my instinctive rejection of that idea caused me, for many years, to reject Buddhism in general. As I’ve come to understand Buddhism better, and especially as I’ve come to admire the Buddha himself and to find relevance and wisdom in his core teachings, I’ve had to re-evaluate my instinctive reaction of an idea that was clearly close to the center of the Buddha’s own conceptual universe.

There is no question that the Buddha accepted the fact of rebirth; it was part of his cultural milieu, and it is an important component of very many of the teachings we have in the Pali Canon. But it’s also true that the Buddha resisted, strongly and consistently, any attempt to define exactly what happened in the course of rebirth. Indeed, views about the detailed workings of the rebirth process – just what was reborn and how the influence of kammic action emerged in an individual’s life – were among the most pernicious views of all; the most difficult fetter to break. The Buddha’s reticence on this topic, along with his general encouragement to think things through for yourself and to give authoritative precedence to direct experience, justifies, I believe, the kind of redefinition of kamma and rebirth that I’ve tried to work out in my essay. I encourage you to read that essay before this coming week’s session, and also, if you have time, to read Bhikkhu Bodhi’s more orthodox understanding.

I anticipate a good discussion, and I look forward to seeing you all on Thursday.

One of the most significant changes that was accelerating in Northern India through the course of the Buddha’s life is the development of trade and the rise of an increasingly powerful merchant class. That development increased the net wealth of the region, and the increasing wealth meant more taxes for the reigning kings, which enabled them to consolidate power, raise armies, and, eventually, subordinate the representative republics that had been, up until then, the dominant form of government in the region. With disciplined armies under effective central control, the kings were also able to bring a measure of law and order to the roads and trade routes of the region, which had always been dangerous routes to follow – if the tigers didn’t get you, the highwaymen would. And safer trade routes, in turn, led to further increases in trade, more rich merchants, and even more taxes for the king.

Another consequence of increasing wealth was that almost everyone had some excess, with which they could support the Buddha’s growing sangha. In a poor region, or a declining economy, living as a bhikkhu – i.e. living on alms freely given by the householders in a region – would not have been a particularly viable option. But the Buddha’s sangha of bhikkhus and bhikkhunis were, apparently, able to get along quite well on the largesse of a newly and increasingly wealthy laity. Indeed, many of the Buddha’s retreat communities – the areas where the sangha gathered during the three months of the rainy season – had been donated to the Buddha and his sangha by wealthy urban merchants. (Anathapindika is perhaps the best-known of these lay followers; he purchased a large park-like grove from Prince Jeta of Kosala, near the Kosalan capital city of Savatthi, and donated that the the sangha. The Buddha spent about 25 consecutive rains retreats in Anathapindika’s park.)

One reason that the Buddha’s teachings appealed so strongly to the rising urban middle class was that those teachings were eminently practical, rooted in the Buddha’s keen understanding of the way his lay followers lived, their responsibilities and their needs. Another is that the teachings involved nothing in the way of ritual, and no particular need to involve Brahmin priests in the process of gaining either success in the world or a fortunate rebirth in the next life. According to the Buddha, all those good results were rooted, quite definitely and intelligibly, in one’s own actions. To those who were used to working hard and getting what they wanted and needed by their own intelligent and diligent action, that was a message they could relate to.

The sutta we will discuss on Tuesday is a good demonstration of the Buddha’s ability to connect with the newly wealthy urban class. The teaching is delivered in what is identified as “the market town of the Koliyans”, one of a string of market towns between Savatthi, the capital city of the kingdom of Kosala, and Rajagraha, the capital city of the kingdom of Maghada; the Buddha’s home town of Kapilavattu was probably another one of those market towns. The Koliyans and the Sakyans were cousins, and the Buddha’s mother and stepmother were both Koliyans. The Koliyans and the Sakyans were frequently in dispute regarding rights to the water of the Rohini river which separated the republics; the Buddha was called upon on several occasions to act as peacemaker in those disputes, since he had gained the trust of both branches of the family.

The Buddha’s questioner in this sutta was known as Dighajanu, which mean’s “long shins”, and his family name was Vyagghapajja, which means “tiger’s path”. Dighajanu asks the Buddha for a Dhamma for people like him, with lots of family responsibilities and a life full of pleasures that he is not likely to give up to become a dropout like the members of the Buddha’s sangha.

The Dhamma that the Buddha teaches Dighajanu is simple, wise and accessible. It demonstrates that the Buddha was very much in touch with the life that Dighajanu led, and was in no way condemnatory of that life. But, as the Buddha almost always did, he goes on, after answering Dighajanu’s question about how to live in a way that guarantees happiness in his daily life, to give him some very brief additional teachings about how to live in ways that guarantee the preservation of that happiness in the future.

Briefly, the Buddha mentions four attainments – four fortunate accomplishments – that will produce that guarantee; saddha-sampada, the accomplishment of faith, sila-sampada, the accomplishment of virtue, cāga-sampada, the accomplishment of generosity, and pañña-sampada, the accomplishment of wisdom. Each of those receives its own extensive exposition in other teachings; faith, virtue, generosity and wisdom are essential accomplishments in the development of the Buddha’s path. Here each one is presented telegraphically, almost aphoristically, but still in a way that is easily understood and easy to grasp intuitively. The sutta concludes, as many suttas do, with a brief verse summary of the teachings presented.

I’ve given my own rendering of the Dighajanu sutta, which we’ll use as the basis for our discussion. In the introduction to that rendering, I’ve linked to two translations of the sutta, each more complete and authoritative than my rendering; I’d recommend that you read them all to get a feel for the full import of this brief but important teaching.

In Session 1, we discussed the first of Buddhism’s “Three Refuges”, the Buddha; in session 2, we discussed the Dhamma; and now in Thursday’s session, we will be looking at the third Refuge—the Sangha. I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to get a posting up with some relevant readings; I’ve been fighting a pulled muscle in my back, and it’s painful to sit at the computer for more than about 10 minutes. I do have the materials mostly ready for next week’s session, and I’ll have those posted by the weekend.

A typical Buddhist group session—a sitting or a dharma talk—opens with the participants “taking the three refuges”:

I take refuge in the Buddha
I take refuge in the Dhamma
I take refuge in the Sangha

For a second time, I take refuge in the Buddha
For a second time, I take refuge in the Dhamma
For a second time, I take refuge in the Sangha

For a third time, I take refuge in the Buddha
For a third time, I take refuge in the Dhamma
For a third time, I take refuge in the Sangha

That’s not like a religious person taking refuge in God, or in Jesus. It’s more like an expression of confidence:

• I have confidence that the Buddha did, in fact, achieve awakening to a set of truths that are hard to see and important to know if we wish to lead a fulfilled life.
• I have confidence that his formulation of those truths, and of the Path that will allow us to realize their benefits in our lives here and now, is comprehensible and practical; I can understand those truths, and I can follow that Path, and, if I do, I will be better off.
• I have confidence that the community of those who have followed the Buddhadhamma over the centuries—not only Buddhist monks and nuns, but committed and diligent lay followers—has developed a body of techniques and guidance teachings within which I can find the particular words and practices that resonate with my unique condition and can help me reach the goal of liberation that the Buddha claimed as the essence of his teaching.

In session 3 of the Topics course, we will review, briefly, the first two refuges, and we will look into the meaning of the third from several points of view; we will look at the historical development of the sangha, at the role of the sangha within Buddhist doctrine, and at the nature of the sangha today, both in traditionally Buddhist cultures and in our Western society.

At Integral Options Café, a very fine Buddhist website, there is a good review of a new book on Mindfulness as a way of dealing with everyday difficulty. I think you might find it interesting in light of the brief mindfulness meditations with which we’ve been opening our class sessions.

For Tuesday’s class, I’d like you to have read the Sigalovada Sutta, The Buddha’s Advice to Sigala, on the Access To Insight website. The translation to which that link will take you is by John Kelly, Sue Sawyer, and Victoria Yareham; it is a little more contemporary and colloquial than the other good translation on that site by Narada Thera (a German, one of the first Europeans to ordain as a Theravada monk at the beginning of the 20th Century); Narada’s translation is just a little stilted, and his use of explicitly numbered and lettered lists, to my mind, gets in the way of understanding that we are expected to be listening to an actual discourse delivered by one man to another. I’ve been working on my own rendering, but it’s slow work, and it won’t be done in time for class on Tuesday.

If you can, print the sutta out and bring it to class. I’ll bring a couple of copies, but not enough for everyone.

The Sigalovada Sutta is long, but there is nothing difficult or complicated about it. In it, the Buddha comes upon a young Brahmin householder, Sigala, conducting his morning prayers—taking the ritual bath at one of the bathing ghats that would have lined the river that ran through Rajagaha, and then saluting the six cardinal points (East, West, North, South, Zenith and Nadir) with his hands joined in the gesture signaling reverent worship. When the Buddha asks him why he is doing that, Sigala tells him it is because his father, before he died, enjoined the ritual performance on his son. The Buddha then takes the opportunity to teach Sigala what it really means to be reverent, and how the cardinal points might be worshipped by one who lives nobly, in accordance with the Dhamma.

The sutta has been called the layperson’s vinaya, a word that refers to the set of rules governing the behavior of Buddhist monks and nuns. But that implies a particularly Buddhist focus that misses the point of the teaching, I think. In fact, the instruction that the Buddha gives to Sigala in this discourse is the most concentrated collection of generally good advice that I know of. Anyone, professing any faith at all or following any ritual tradition, who undertakes to live according to the advice given in the Sigalovada Sutta will certainly, barring accident or just bad luck, live happily, have good friends, and attain a measure of worldly success.

In our discussion of that advice, I’d like to focus on a few points that I find particularly interesting:

• The structure of the discourse is interesting. While the starting point is the Buddha’s statement that Sigala is doing it wrong, and that there is a way to pay homage to the six directions that is in accord with the Aryan Dhamma (arya is the Pali word translated in the English renditions as “noble”), it’s not until the last part of the long discourse that the Buddha finally gets back around to those directions and the meaning they have according to the Dhamma. The first three-quarters of the discourse focuses on general principles of good behavior. The implication here, I think, is that unless one starts with good behavior—that is, refraining from the four evil actions, resisting the four motivations that lead one to behave badly, and avoiding the six courses of behavior that dissipate health, wealth and happiness—then it really doesn’t matter how one worships the cardinal directions; there’s no ritual magic in worshipping the directions that can save one who’s hell bent on destruction.
• Although it’s a small point in the context of a long discourse, I think it’s important that the Buddha’s starting point is with four of the five precepts that every Buddhist lay person accepts as guides to a well-lived life—not taking life, not taking what’s not given, not speaking falsely, and not misbehaving sexually. The fifth precept, to avoid intoxicants that make one careless and stupid, is given ample coverage in the rest of the discourse.
• The discourse is intensely pragmatic. Nothing is to be taken on faith; the Buddha gives perfectly good and believable reasons for the ethical principles and behaviors that he recommends to Sigala. The results of behaving badly do not come as punishments, and the results of behaving well do not come as rewards; it is all a matter of natural consequences.
• The focus on companionship and the detailed analysis of the difference between good companions and bad ones is moving and convincing; it is also a frequent theme in the teachings. In the Upaddha Sutta, Ananda and the Buddha are sitting together at the end of the day, and Ananda says, “This is half of the holy life, lord: admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie.” “Don’t say that, Ananda,” replies the Buddha. “Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life. When a monk has admirable people as friends, companions, & comrades, he can be expected to develop & pursue the noble eightfold path.” In the Sigalovada Sutta, he extends that to lay people as well as monks.
• When the discourse finally gets back around to the worship of the six cardinal directions, the Buddha presents a symbolic interpretation of those directions, in terms of the relationships that are significant in a householder’s life, that is actually a model for the structure of a civil society. All relationships are reciprocal, purposeful, and humane. The relationships themselves cover the most important aspects of our lives, as those were understood in the Buddha’s Dhamma—one’s relationship with one’s parents and children, with one’s teachers and students, with one’s friends and companions, with one’s colleagues—employees and supervisors, with one’s husband or wife, and with one’s spiritual counselors. Again, nothing important is left out (or couldn’t be fit in with some minimal interpretation), and everything is kept practical: relationships are defined and ways of maintaining those relationships are commended, not based on theory, dogma, or categorical imperatives, but simply on common experience.

It is illuminating, I think, to compare the advice given in the Sigalovada Sutta to other bodies of advice recorded in other traditional texts—the ritual imperatives in the Analects of Confucius, the tribal prescriptions and prohibitions in the Torah, the revelations of the Old Testament prophets and of Mohammed, the rules governing hierarchies of power in the law books of Manu, Solon, and many others. The Buddha’s advice is different, not only in its pragmatism and freedom from dogma, but also in the kind of results it seeks to achieve—happiness, material success, conviviality, contentment, the attainment of wisdom—and the scope of those results, the fact that they are to be experienced right here and right now.

As you’re reading this, try to imagine the terms that the Buddha might use if he were giving this advice today—to a young man, for example, recently graduated from Miami University (where, perhaps, he’d had a reputation for heavy partying), with a wife and a couple of young children, a house in Montgomery, and a position in sales with P&G.

Class Notes, Session 2

Session 2 is the only session in which both the Topics course and the Teachings course will be dealing with the same subject—the Buddha’s first Discourse, Turning the Wheel of the Law, The Dhammacakkappavatthana Sutta. We’ll take a different approach to that Discourse in each class, sufficiently different, I would hope, so that those who are in both courses will not be bored or find the two classes repetitive.

In the Teachings class, we’ll look at the events leading up to Gotama Siddhatta’s Awakening as the Buddha, his formulation of his enlightenment experience as the Dhamma—the set of regularities and fundamental principles that determine how processes and events emerge from precedent conditions; essentially, the “natural law” that governs not only events in the physical world but also the course of our human lives and the progress of our well-being. We will then focus our attention on how that Dhamma was articulated in this first teaching and how it must have been received by its audience, the five monks, all born into the Brahmin caste, who had been Siddhatta’s companions during the period when he was practicing a path of austerity and extreme renunciation.

In the Topics class, we’ll cover those same subjects much more telegraphically, and then spend much of our time looking into the philosophical implications of the truths enunciated by the Buddha; we’ll look in more detail at the multiple ways in which he applied the concept of a “Middle Way”, and we’ll examine in some detail the particulars of the Eightfold Path.

Prior to both classes, it would be good if you could find the time to read two documents:

• The Dhammacakkappavatthana Sutta itself, both the rendering I have supplied, and the more literal translations that are linked to from that document. This is, after all, the most fundamental text in Buddhism, and it would be a good idea to see how different translators have handled some of the difficult technical terms it introduces.
• An essay I wrote some time ago, borrowing extensively from material on Access to Insight, on the Buddha’s Early Life and Development. Essentially, the events covered in this essay take us from Siddhatta’s birth right up to the point at which he is ready to deliver the Dhammacakkappavatthana Sutta.

For the Topics course, I’d also recommend that you take a look at a precîs I prepared of a long piece by Bhikkhu Bodhi on the subject of the Eightfold Path. The original is on Access to Insight; there’s a link to the original in the precîs if you want the whole story.

Another superb resource, especially for those of you with mp3 players (iPods or the like), is the strong selection of talks by Stephen Batchelor at DharmaSeed.org. Stephen has visited Spirit Rock Insight Meditation Center in Marin County every other year since 2005, and all of his seminar talks are available from that site. I attended the retreat he led this past November, and it was a thrilling experience. In particular relation to the topics we discussed this past week and that we will be discussing this coming week, I recommend talks #1, #2, and #3 from the 2007 retreat. Go to this page; if you just want to listen on the computer, you can click on the “Stream” button; if you want to download the audio file to your computer for transfer to your player, right-click on the “Download” button.

I’ve posted a rendering of the discourse we will be starting with on Tuesday, The Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta, the Shorter Discourse to the monk Malunkya. If you have the time to read it before class, please do so; we will read it in class – the discourses were meant to be heard, and they still, I believe, carry most meaning when they are read aloud. But reading the discourse in advance may give you a head start on questions you might want to ask.

One fundamental thing about the Buddha’s teachings is that they are rooted in the world; in words that are repeated many times in the texts, those who follow the Path realized by the Buddha will come to enlightenment “right here and right now.” And because those teachings, like everything else we experience in the normal course of events, are contingent upon the conditions and circumstances from which they emerged, it helps, in understanding the teachings, to understand (however dimly we might understand across a gulf of half a planet and 2500 years of time) the place and the culture into which Siddhattha Gotama was born and in which he delivered the discourses through which we know him.

I’ve created and compiled a set of maps that can help us with that understanding; the maps will be useful in both courses, and it would be good to print them out, especially the second one—the political map—and bring the printed map(s) to class with you.

The Buddha. There is no longer any doubt among scholars and historians that the Buddha was an historical figure who was born among the Sakyan people of Northern India about 2500 years ago. He was the son of a powerful and wealthy leader of the Sakyans, a member of the Gotama clan; his given name was Siddhattha and he was known as Siddhattha Gotama. All of the evidence indicates that he was uncommonly intelligent and well-educated, with a charismatic personality. At the age of 29, dissatisfied with the transient nature of human life and the inability of even great wealth and power to deliver lasting happiness, Siddhattha left home and accepted the discipline of a renunciant wanderer; for the next six years he traveled on foot through northern India, studying with some of the finest teachers of his time, learning the techniques of yoga, living on alms, practicing severe austerities, and developing the meditative method that would form the basis of the practice he came to teach.

At the age of 35, sitting in meditation under a fig tree close to the village of Bodh Gaya, near the modern city of Rajgir, Siddhattha achieved the enlightenment he had been seeking: he came to an understanding of how things unfold in this world, and especially how the inescapable impermanence of the world is experienced as pain and distress, and how a person can live and train the mind to reduce or end that experience of pain.

With the attainment of that direct and powerfully experienced insight, Siddhattha became “The Buddha”, a term meaning “Enlightened One” or “Awakened One”. For several weeks following the experience, the Buddha contemplated the implications of his insight and developed his Dharma, his formulation of the truth that he’d come to understand about the world and the human condition. He then proceeded, over the next 45 years, to teach that Dharma to a growing community of male and female followers, disciplined, loyal, and self-reliant.

Welcome to the Dharma Study website. The site is maintained to provide support for the classes I teach at the University of Cincinnati’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (at Adath Israel Synagogue) and at St. John’s Unitarian Universalist Church in Clifton, as part of their Religious Exploration Program. A description of the two courses, along with links to a detailed syllabus for each, is posted on the site Welcome Page.