Contents
· Introduction
· I. The Background Stories
· The Long Duration of Samsara
· Kammic Cause and Effect
· II. The Teachings of the Poems
· Trivial Incidents Spark Enlightenment
· Entering the Sangha after a Child's Death
· The Four Noble Truths
· Reaching the Goal after a Long Struggle
· Contemplation on the Sangha
· The Danger of Worldly Desire
· The Danger of Attachment to One's Beauty
· Further Conversations with Mara
· The Doctrine of Anatta
· Men and Women in the Dhamma
· The Five Aggregates and Nibbana
· Kamma and Its Fruit
· About the Author
Introduction
In this booklet we will be exploring poems composed by the Arahat bhikkhunis
or enlightened Buddhist nuns of old, looking at these poems as springs of inspiration
for contemporary Buddhists. Most of the poems we will consider come from the
Therigatha, a small section of the vast Pali Canon. The Therigatha has been
published twice in English translation by the Pali Text Society, London: first
in 1909 (reprinted in 1980) by C. A. R. Rhys Davids in verse under the title
Psalms of the Early Buddhists: The Sisters; and second in 1971 by K. R. Norman
in prose under the title The Elders' Verses, II. We have used quotations from
both translations here, referring to Psalms of the Early Buddhists by page number
and to The Elders' Verses by verse number. Mrs. Rhys Davids' translations have
sometimes been slightly modified. Our discussion will also draw upon the verses
of bhikkhunis from the Samyutta Nikaya (Kindred Sayings), included by Mrs. Rhys
Davids at the end of Psalms of the Sisters.
From the poems of the enlightened nuns of the Buddha's time contemporary followers
of the Noble Eightfold Path can receive a great deal of instruction, help and
encouragement. These verses can assist us in developing morality, concentration
and wisdom, the three sections of the path. With their aid we will be able to
work more effectively towards eliminating our mental defilements and towards
finding lasting peace and happiness.
In some respects, the inspiration from these poems may be stronger for women
than for men, since these are in fact women's voices that are speaking. And
when the theme of the poem is the mother-child bond, this is bound to be the
case. However, at a deeper level the sex of the speakers is irrelevant, for
the ultimate truths which they enunciate explain the universal principles of
reality which are equally valid for men and for women.
The verses of the nuns, if systematically examined, can help serious Buddhist
meditators to understand many central aspects of the Dhamma. The background
to the verses, including biographical information on the nuns who uttered them,
is provided by the ancient commentary on the Therigatha by the venerable Acariya
Dhammapala. Mrs. Rhys Davids has included some of these background stories in
Psalms of the Early Buddhists, and in the first part of this essay we will look
at these stories and consider the themes they suggest that are relevant to contemporary
students of Buddhist meditation. Then we will go on to discuss a selection of
the poems themselves, which deal with many specific teachings of the Buddha.
We of the twentieth century who are seeking to attain liberation will find ourselves
deeply grateful to these fully awakened Buddhist nuns of old for their profound
assistance in illuminating the Dhamma for us in their own distinctly personal
ways.
I. The Background Stories
The ancient commentaries give us information about each nun's background and
also explain the poems themselves. Two major themes of relevance to contemporary
students of the Dhamma run through these stories: (1) the immeasurably long
time that we have all been lost in samsara, the round of birth and death; and
(2) the working of the impersonal law of kammic cause and effect which brought
these women into contact with the Buddha's teachings in what was to be their
final lifetime.
The Long Duration of Samsara
In the original Pali commentaries, the tales of the nuns began many, many rebirths
and eons prior to their final existence at the time of Buddha Gotama. We read
how over ages and ages all these women had been living out the results of their
old kamma and how they created powerful new kamma based on wisdom, which finally
culminated in the attainment of Arahatship, full awakening. Each woman -- or,
more accurately, each succession of aggregates -- had to undergo infinite eons
of suffering in its gross and subtle forms before she was prepared to gain complete
insight. But finally she gave up all clinging and was freed from the need ever
again to be reborn and suffer, on any plane.
Vipassana meditators trying to develop this same understanding of the ultimate
nature of conditioned existence can find inspiration if they would apply these
tales to their own lives. When we realize how long we ourselves have been wandering
in ignorance, constantly generating more and more unwholesome kamma, we will
be able to remain patient when our early efforts to train the mind tend to falter
or fail. Some of the bhikkhunis who had sufficient paramis -- virtues cultivated
in previous lives -- even to gain Arahatship, still had to put in many years
of arduous and sometimes seemingly fruitless effort before they could attain
the goal.
For example, Siha entered the Sangha as a young woman but could not learn to
contain her mind's attraction to external objects for seven years. Another nun
worked for twenty-five years without finding any substantial peace because of
her strong attachment to sense desire. But both these bhikkhunis, when all the
appropriate conditions were finally fulfilled, found their patience and continued
efforts fully rewarded. So too will we, if we diligently and strictly keep to
the Noble Eightfold Path until we become Ariyas, noble ones. Once we have done
this, we are assured that we will completely eliminate the causes of all suffering.
By making this effort to live in accordance with the Dhamma and to understand
the true nature of existence, we begin to develop strong wholesome mental volitions,
kamma that will have effects in future births as well as in this one. The continued
efforts in this direction become easier and more natural because, as we wear
away ignorance and the other defilements through insight meditation, our minds
come to be more strongly conditioned by wisdom (pañña). Recollecting
this infinite span of time behind us, and the vast mass of wholesome volitional
activities accumulated therein, will help us keep our efforts at purification
balanced and strong.
These rebirth stories, illustrating the continuous suffering which every sentient
being has undergone during the rounds of samsara, can also encourage us to work
hard in the Dhamma. Understanding this weighty aspect of the First Noble Truth
stimulates us to put forth the great effort required to overcome suffering by
penetrating and uprooting its causes, which the Buddha explains are basically
craving and ignorance.
Bhikkhuni Sumedha, in her poem, repeats one of the Buddha's powerful injunctions
to eliminate the source of the ceaseless stream of suffering that has rushed
on in our previous lives, and will otherwise continue on in the same way throughout
the infinite future. Sumedha is pleading with her parents and fiance to allow
her to enter the Sangha rather than force her to marry:
Journeying-on is long for fools and for those who lament again and again at
that which is without beginning and end, at the death of a father, the slaughter
of a brother, and their own slaughter.
Remember the tears, the milk, the blood, the journeying-on as being without
beginning and end; remember the heap of bones of beings who are journeying-on.
Remember the four oceans compared with the tears, milk and blood; remember the
heap of bones (of one man) for one eon, (as) equal (in size) to Mount Vepula.
(vv. 495-497)
"Journeying-on" is samsara. In the lines beginning "Remember
the four oceans compared," Sumedha is reminding her family of a discourse
which they must have heard from the Buddha. Each of us, the Buddha tells us,
has shed vast oceans of tears over the loss of loved ones and in fear of our
own doom as the succession of aggregates has arisen and vanished throughout
samsara's weary ages. During all these lifetimes, as the verse declares, we
have drunk seas and seas of mother's milk, and the blood that was shed when
violent death ended our lives also amounts to an immeasurable volume. How could
even one gory death be anything but terrible suffering? The Buddha perceived
all this with his infinite wisdom and so described it to his followers.
The vastness of samsara that we endured before meeting the Dhamma in this life
can easily be extrapolated from the stories of these nuns. We must also sustain
the patience in our endeavor to wear down ignorance and to develop the awareness
of omnipresent suffering which is life in samsara, as the First Noble Truth
makes known.
Kammic Cause and Effect
The second commentarial theme that can be helpful to us in developing our own
understanding of the ultimate nature of reality is the working of the law of
kammic cause and effect. None of these nuns was emancipated because one day
she decided, "Now I am going to cut off all craving." Nor did the
grace of a guru or the power of God or the Buddha himself enlighten them. Rather,
it was a very long process in the evolution of the "life continuum"
that gradually permitted the conditions for liberation to develop and eventually
culminate in Arahatship. Freeing the mind of ignorance, like all activities,
is an impersonal cause and effect process. Natural laws of this sort are cultivated
and utilized by mental volition to bring about purification. By repeatedly seeing
all the phenomena of life as they are by means of concentrated Vipassana meditation,
we gradually wear away the defilements that becloud the mind and cause rebirth
with its attendant misery.
For example, Sela took robes when she was a young woman and "worked her
way to insight and because of the promise in her and the maturity of her knowledge,
crushing the sankharas (conditioned phenomena), she soon won Arahatship"
(p. 43). For eons, Sela had done many good deeds, such as making offerings to
and looking after previous Buddhas and their monks. As a result of these meritorious
actions over many lifetimes, she was reborn in the heavenly deva planes or in
comfortable situations on earth. Eventually, at the time of Buddha Gotama, each
of the bhikkhunis, including Sela, came into the Sangha in her own way. Because
the time was right for their paramis to bear fruit, all the factors conducive
to enlightenment could develop, their defilements could be effaced, and the
goal could be achieved.
Sukha left the world under one of the earlier Buddhas, but she died without
becoming an Ariya. Under subsequent Buddhas "she kept the precepts and
was learned and proficient in the doctrine." Finally, "in this Buddha
era she found faith in the Master at her own home, and became a lay disciple.
Later, when she heard Bhikkhuni Dhammadinna preach, she was thrilled with emotion
and renounced the world under her" (pp. 40-41).[1] All her efforts in past
lives then bore their appropriate fruit as Sukha attained Arahatship and became
in turn a great preacher of the Dhamma. Only a small number of nuns are renowned
for their skill in teaching, and it is likely that the need to develop the extra
paramis to teach the Dhamma made it necessary for Sukha to study under earlier
Buddhas for so long without gaining the paths and fruits.
Similar stories tell of how other bhikkhunis performed good works and put forth
effort in previous lives, building various kinds of paramis which allowed them
to completely give up all attachment to the world at the time of our Buddha.
If we consider the process by which they gradually matured towards liberation,
we can see how every mental volition and every deed of body and speech at some
time or other bears fruit.
It is due to our own paramis, our own good kamma of the past, that we have the
rare and great opportunity to come into contact with the teachings of a Buddha
in this lifetime. It is because of wisdom already cultivated that we now have
the opportunity to develop greater wisdom (paññaparami) through
insight meditation. Wisdom has the power to obliterate the results of past kamma
since it comprehends reality correctly. In addition, if we continue to generate
such wholesome volitions now, more good kamma is built up which will continue
to bear beneficial fruit and bring us closer to the goal.
However, wisdom cannot be cultivated in the absence of morality. The Buddha
taught that in order to move towards liberation, it is necessary to keep a minimum
of five precepts strictly at all times: abstention from killing, stealing, sexual
misconduct, lying and consuming intoxicants. If the precepts are broken, the
bad kamma thus created will bring very painful results. Without purity of body
and speech, purity of mind cannot be developed as the mind will be too agitated
by sense desires, regrets and aversion to settle on its meditation subject properly.
Some of the earlier rebirth stories of Arahat bhikkhunis tell of lives in which
they did not keep the precepts. Several of them suffered the results of their
unwholesome deeds in animal births or in low forms of human existence. Addhakasi,
for example, had a mixed background. She had become a bhikkhuni established
in morality under Kassapa Buddha, the Buddha immediately preceding Gotama. But
once, due to anger, she referred to a fully liberated senior nun as a prostitute.
As a result of that wrong speech, she was reborn in one of the lower realms,
for to say or do anything wrong to an Ariya creates worse kamma than to say
or do the same thing against a non-Ariya. When the fruit of that bad deed was
mostly used up, as a residual effect she herself became a prostitute in her
final life. By this time her previous good kamma was the stronger and she ordained
as a nun. Keeping the bhikkhuni life pure, Addhakasi attained the goal.
Causes and effects work themselves out and keep the life process going through
samsara. So long as the mind is attached to anything at all, we will engage
in volitional actions, make new kamma, and will have to experience their results.
Cultivating good kamma will save one from much suffering and prepare the mind
for the most powerful wholesome kamma of all, that born of wisdom, which can
eliminate all kammic creation.
II. The Teachings of the Poems
The actual poems composed by the nuns exhibit a wide range in tone and subject
matter. They were almost all spoken after the author had realized that rebirth
and all its associated suffering had been brought to an end by the perfection
of insight and total elimination of defilements. So virtually all the poems
contain some form of "lion's roar," an exclamation that the author
has become awakened.
Trivial Incidents Spark Enlightenment
In some cases the poems describe the circumstances which brought the woman into
the Sangha or which precipitated her awakening. Both of these can inspire contemporary
followers of the Buddha. Sometimes the most mundane event stimulates a ripe
mind to see the truth perfectly. Bhikkhuni Dhamma returned from her almsround
one day exhausted from heat and exertion. She stumbled, and as she sprawled
on the ground a clear perception arose in her of the utter suffering inherent
in the body, bringing about total relinquishment. She describes the incident
in the following lines:
Having wandered for alms, leaning on a stick, weak, with trembling limbs I fell
to the ground in that very spot, having seen peril in the body. Then my mind
was completely released.
(v.17)
If someone could gain awakening based on such an event, surely there are an
infinite number of potentially enlightening experiences available to all of
us for contemplation. Systematic attention (yoniso manasikara) given to any
subject will show up its impermanence (anicca), unsatisfactoriness (dukkha),
and essenceless nature (anatta) and so encourage us to stop craving. However,
unless we carefully apply our minds in Vipassana meditation under the guidance
of a competent teacher, it is unlikely that we will be able to utilize our daily
encounters with these basic characteristics as means towards liberation. This
is because the mind's old conditioning is based on ignorance -- the very inability
to see things as they really are. Only concentrated mindfulness of phenomena
in meditation can enable us to comprehend correctly our everyday experiences,
because such methodical culture of insight through Vipassana meditation loosens
the old mental tendencies by giving us direct experience of the impermanence
of our mind and body.
Entering the Sangha after a Child's Death
Quite a number of women entered the Sangha after their small children had died.
Grief is put to good use if it is made the motivation to develop the "path
leading to the cessation of suffering." Ubbiri greatly mourned the death
of her infant daughter until the Buddha pointed out to her that right in the
same charnel ground where she had left this baby's body, she had similarly parted
with thousands of children to whom she had given birth in previous lives. Because
she had acquired strong merit in the past, this brief personalized discourse
was enough to turn Ubbiri from a lamenting mother into an Arahat on the spot.
As she clearly saw the vastness of samsara, she was prepared to leave it behind.
Her profound gratitude to the Buddha is described in these simple lines:
He has thrust away for me my grief for my daughter... I am without hunger, quenched.
(vv. 51, 53)
With the quenching of ignorance and craving, nothing remains but a pure mind,
inherently peaceful. Ubbiri had a pliable, well-prepared mind, and thus she
understood, through the Buddha's instructions, that the source of all her suffering
had been craving. After countless millions of lifetimes spent rolling in samsara,
Ubbiri realized how her deep motherly attachment to her children had always
caused her much anguish; for sons and daughters, like everything else, are subject
to the law of impermanence. We cannot make our loved ones live beyond the span
set by their own kamma. This was an insight so powerful for her that no object
at all seemed worthy of interest any longer because of the potential pain permeating
them all. Thus all tendency to cling was broken, never to reappear.
The life story of Patacara before she came to the Dhamma, described in considerable
detail in the commentary to the Therigatha, is even more dramatic. She lost
her entire family, her husband, two small children, parents and brothers in
various accidents within a few days. She went insane from the sorrow, but the
Buddha's compassion combined with Patacara's paramis from the past enabled her
to regain her right mind. When she came into his presence, he taught her to
understand how often before she had hopelessly exhausted herself grieving for
the dead. She became a Stream-enterer (sotapanna), one at the first stage of
irreversible progress on the path to liberation, and she was ordained. Later,
as she was one day pouring water to wash her feet and watching it trickle away
-- as life does sooner or later for all beings -- her mind became utterly free
from clinging. Patacara, like Dhamma, had thoroughly developed seeds of understanding,
so a very minor mundane incident at just the right moment cleared her mind of
every trace of ignorance.
Many other women entered the Sangha in circumstances similar to those of Ubbiri
or Patacara. A woman distraught over the death of a child must have been very
common in India in those days when limited medical knowledge could not counter
a very high infant mortality rate. Theri Patacara spoke to a group of five hundred
such grief-stricken mothers, expressing what she had so powerfully learned from
similar experience herself:
The way of which men come we cannot know;
Nor can we see the path by which they go.
Why mourn then for him who came to you,
Lamenting through the tears?...
Weep not, for such is the life of man.
Unasked he came and unbidden he went.
Ask yourself again whence came your child
To live on earth this little time?
By one way come and by another gone,
As human to die, and pass to other births --
So hither and so hence -- why should you weep?
(p. 78)
In this way Patacara illustrates for these mothers the natural connection, the
invisible, impersonal causal nexus between death and life, life and death. They
too took robes and eventually became Arahats. Their joint "lion's roar"
culminates in the lines:
Today my heart is healed, my yearning stayed,
Perfected deliverance wrought in me.
I go for refuge to the Buddha, the Sangha, and the Dhamma.
(p. 77)
Because of their physiology and their conditioning by family and society, women
are more prone to attachment to their offspring than are men, and so will suffer
all the more from their loss. However, if women train their minds to understand
how clinging causes enormous suffering, how birth and death are natural processes
happening as effects of specific causes, and how infinite the history of such
misery is, they can utilize their feminine sufferings in the quest for awakening.
In the Kindred Sayings (Vol. IV, pp. 62-163), the Buddha himself pointed out
the five kinds of suffering unique to women. Three are physiological -- menstruation,
pregnancy, and childbirth. The other two are social, and perhaps not as widely
relevant today as they were in ancient Indian society: having to leave her own
family to live with her husband and in-laws, and having "to wait upon a
man." All five must be the results of past unwholesome deeds, yet each
one can be made a basis for insight. Women can train their minds to turn to
advantage these apparent disadvantages. They can then make full use of their
stronger experiences of the universality and omnipresence of suffering to condition
themselves to let go of everything in the conditioned realm.
For some individuals, intense suffering is needed to make the mind relinquish
its misconceptions and desires. Patacara is one example of this; Kisa Gotami
is a second. The latter was so unwilling to face the truth of her child's death
that she carried the dead baby around with her hoping to find one who could
give her medicine to cure him. The Buddha guided her into a realization of the
omnipresence of death by sending her in search of some mustard seed. This is
a common ingredient in Indian kitchens, but the Buddha specified that these
seeds must come from a household where no one had ever died.
Kisa Gotami went looking for this "medicine" for her baby, but because
of the prevalent joint family system in which three or more generations lived
together under one roof, every house she went to had seen death. Gradually,
as she wandered through the village, she realized that all who are born must
die. Her great paramis then enabled her to understand impermanence so thoroughly
that soon afterwards the Buddha confirmed her attainment of Stream-entry. She
then spoke these lines:
No village law is this, no city law,
No law for this clan, or for that alone;
For the whole world -- and for the gods too --
This is the law: All is impermanent.
(p. 108)
Kisa Gotami thus transcended the limits of a woman's personal grief to understand
one of the basic characteristics of all existence.
Kisa Gotami later attained Arahatship. Some of the verses she spoke on that
occasion give useful lessons to any striver on the Noble Eightfold Path:
Resorting to noble friends, even a fool would be wise. Good men are to be resorted
to; thus the wisdom of those who resort to them increases. Resorting to good
men one would be released from all pains.
One should know suffering, the cause of suffering and its cessation, and the
Eightfold Path; (these are) the Four Noble Truths.
(vv. 213-215)
The company of the wise, especially the guidance of a teacher, is an invaluable
help in getting oneself established on the path. But the company of people not
involved in the Dhamma will tend to be distracting. Those who are not trying
to practice the Buddha's teachings will usually lead us in the worldly direction
to which their own minds incline. Thus, when we can, it is best to choose our
friends from among meditators.
The Four Noble Truths
As Kisa Gotami urges in the final lines quoted above, meditators need to train
their minds constantly to see the Four Noble Truths in all their ramifications.
This is wisdom, pañña, the remedy for the ignorance and delusion
which are at the root of all suffering as shown in the formula of dependent
origination. To develop wisdom one has to ponder these four truths over and
over again: (1) the Noble Truth of Suffering (dukkha) which includes all forms
of suffering from severe agony to the pervasive unsatisfactoriness and instability
inherent in individual existence in all planes of becoming; (2) the Noble Truth
of the Cause of Suffering -- craving (tanha), which drives the mind outwards
after sense objects in a state of perpetual unrest; (3) the Noble Truth of the
Cessation of Suffering -- Nibbana, which is attained when the causes of suffering,
ignorance and craving, have been utterly uprooted; and (4) the Noble Truth of
the Way leading to the Cessation of Suffering -- the Noble Eightfold Path discovered
and taught by the Buddha, consisting in the assiduous practice of morality (sila),
concentration (samadhi) and wisdom (pañña).
The Four Noble Truths are concisely expressed in a verse spoken by Maha Pajapati,
the Buddha's maternal aunt who brought him up when his own mother, Queen Mahamaya,
died a week after his birth. It was at the insistence of Maha Pajapati that
the Buddha founded the Bhikkhuni Sangha. In her poem she first praises the Buddha
for the unique help he has given to so many beings by training them in the way
to liberation; then she briefly sums up the Four Noble Truths which she has
so thoroughly experienced as ultimate truth. It would be beneficial for modern
meditators to consider these lines carefully:
Now have I understood how ill does come,
Craving, the Cause, is dried up in me.
Have I not walked, have I not touched the End
Of ill -- the Ariyan, the Eightfold Noble Path.
(p. 89)
Buddhist meditators have to train themselves to know these truths as deeply
as they can by seeing them in every aspect of existence. We follow the mundane
level of the Noble Eightfold Path in order to reach the supramundane (lokuttara)
path with the attainment of Stream-entry. Then the constituents of the path
-- morality, concentration and wisdom -- are cultivated to the highest degree
and the end of suffering, Nibbana, is realized.
Reaching the Goal after a Long Struggle
When we read the stories of these great bhikkhunis, we see that many of them
attained the highest fruits either instantaneously or soon after coming into
contact with the Buddha or his Dhamma. This could have happened because they
had built up paramis in many previous lives, creating pure kamma of body, speech
and mind, while simultaneously wearing out the effects of past kamma.
Yet not all the people whose paramis permitted them to actually hear the Buddha
preach were able to become Arahats so quickly in their final lives. When we
confront our rebellious minds as we try to follow his path, we can take heart
from the tales of nuns who had to put forth years and years of intense persistent
effort before they eliminated all their defilements.
A youthful Citta ordained at her home town of Rajagaha and spent her whole adult
life as a nun striving for enlightenment. She finally attained her goal only
as a weak old woman, as she laboriously climbed up the landmark of Vultures'
Peak. When she had done so, she said:
Having thrown down my outer robe, and having turned my bowl upside down, I propped
myself against a rock, having torn asunder the mass of darkness (of ignorance).
(v. 27)
If we diligently, strictly, and vigorously practice the Noble Eightfold Path,
developing insight into the true nature of existence, the opacity of delusion
must eventually become completely transparent, cleared by wisdom. It may require
many years or many lifetimes of work, but then patience is one of the qualities
we must cultivate from the time we first set foot on the path.
Another bhikkhuni who took years to reach enlightenment was Mittakali. She took
robes after hearing the Satipatthana Sutta. In her "lion's roar" she
describes the errors that cost her seven years to gain Nibbana. Her poem can
be instructive to other meditators both within and outside the Sangha:
Having gone forth in faith from the house to the houseless state, I wandered
here and there, greedy for gain and honor.
Having missed the highest goal, I pursued the lowest goal. Having gone under
the mastery of the defilements, I did not know the goal of the ascetic's state.
(vv. 92-93)
The Buddha pointed out on many occasions that it is dangerous for monks and
nuns to pursue gains or favors from the laity, as such activities nullify any
attempts they may make to purify their minds. The layman gives gifts to bhikkhus
and bhikkhunis to earn merit. If the mind of the recipient is pure, free from
greed and other defilements, the merit accruing to the lay disciple is far greater
than if the recipient's mind is filled with craving. One of the epithets given
to Arahats, whose purity is permanently perfect, is "worthy of the highest
offerings." All those, ordained or not, who allow craving to overtake them
and waste the precious opportunity they have to practice the Dhamma, will delay
their own liberation and increase their suffering.
In the simile of the poisonous snake in the Middle Length Sayings (Vol I, pp.
171-72), the Buddha points out that his teaching has only one aim, freedom from
suffering. An incorrect approach that seeks to misuse the Dhamma will lead to
increased suffering, just as grasping a snake by the body or tail will result
in one's being bitten. The same venomous snake, if grabbed with the help of
a forked stick by the neck just behind its head, will safely yield up its poison
for medicinal use. The Buddha declares that similarly only those who wisely
examine the purpose of his teachings will be able to gain insight and actually
experience their purpose -- the elimination of the causes of suffering.
When Mittakali perceived that old age and death were rapidly approaching, she
finally came to realize the urgency of the task after wasting years in the pursuit
of gain and honor. Since we can never be sure how much longer we will live,
it is risky to put off meditation. We have come into contact with the Dhamma
under conditions conducive to pursuing the Buddha's goal. Such conditions as
youth and human birth will come to an end -- either gradually or abruptly --
so we can never be certain that the conditions to practice the Dhamma will remain
ideal. Mittakali took years to comprehend that with advancing age, rigidity
of mind and bodily ailments were making the job of purification ever more difficult.
But once she did realize this, she was able to achieve the goal. Studying this
verse of hers may help us to avoid wasting precious time:
I felt a sense of urgency as I was seated in my little cell; (thinking) "I
have entered upon the wrong road; I have come under the mastery of craving.
"My life is short. Old age and sickness are destroying it. There is no
time for me to be careless before this body is broken."
Looking at the arising and passing away of the elements of existence as they
really are, I stood up with my mind completely released. The Buddha's Teaching
has been done.
(vv. 94-95)
By observing the rise and fall at every instant of body, feelings, perceptions,
mental formations, and consciousness, Mittakali's mind was freed from misconceptions
of any lasting "I" or self. After those seven long years of being
trapped in the net of desires, she saw through her foolish and dangerous interest
in mundane matters. She was then able to see the elements or aggregates as they
actually are: utterly transient (anicca), hence incapable of providing any satisfaction
(so dukkha), working automatically without any lasting core (anatta). All her
worldly involvements dropped away as she attained Arahatship and thenceforth
passed beyond all sorrow and suffering.
Perhaps the most moving story of a nun who had to undergo a long struggle from
the time she first ordained until she became fully enlightened is that of Punna.
Under six earlier Buddhas, in the vast eons prior to the Buddha Gotama's dispensation,
Punna was a bhikkhuni "perfect in virtue, and learning the three Pitakas
[the Buddhist scriptures] she became very learned in the Norm and a teacher
of it. But because of her tendency to pride [each time], she was unable to root
out the defilements." Even at the time of Buddha Gotama, she had to work
out some bad kamma and so was born as a slave. Hearing one of the Buddha's discourses,
she became a Stream-enterer. After she helped her master clear his wrong view,
in gratitude he freed her and she ordained. After so many lifetimes of striving,
the paramis she had built up as a nun under previous Buddhas ripened. Pride
or conceit, always one of the last defilements to go, finally dissolved and
she attained Arahatship.
By pondering the accounts of women who attained full awakening after much application
and effort, we can be encouraged to continue our own exertions no matter how
slow our progress may appear at a given time. In the Gradual Sayings (Vol. IV,
pp. 83-84), the Buddha gives an analogy of the wearing down of the carpenter's
ax handle to illustrate how the mental impurities are to be gradually worn away.
Even though the woodcutter cannot say, "This much of the handle was rubbed
off today, this much last week," it is clear to him that slowly, over time,
the handle is being destroyed. Similarly, a meditator who has a good guide and
who constantly attempts to understand the Four Noble Truths and to live in accordance
with the Noble Eightfold Path, will gradually eliminate his defilements, even
though the steps in the process are imperceptible. Even the Buddha declined
to predict the amount of time that will elapse before the final goal is reached.
This is conditioned by many interacting factors, such as the good and bad kamma
built up in the past and the amount of effort put forth now and in the future.
Whether it takes us millions of more lifetimes or a week, we will be sustained
in our efforts by the faith that perfection of morality, concentration and wisdom
will bring utter detachment and freedom from all suffering.
Liberation means renouncing attachment to oneself and to the world. We cannot
rush the process of detachment; insight into the suffering brought about by
clinging will do it, slowly. While trying to eliminate mental impurities, we
have to accept their existence. We would not be here at all were it not for
the ignorance and other defiling tendencies that brought us into this birth.
We need to learn to live equanimously with the dirt of the mind while it is
slowly being cleared away. Purification, like all other mental activities, is
a cause and effect process. Clarity comes slowly with the repeated application
of the wisdom of impermanence. If we are patient and cheerfully bear with moments
of apparent backsliding or stupidity, if we continue to work energetically with
determination, not swerving off the path, the results will begin here and now.
And in due time they have to ripen fully.
Contemplation on the Sangha
The Sangha, the order of monks and nuns, preserves and perpetuates the Buddha's
pure teachings, and its members have dedicated their lives to practicing them.
Thus contemplation on the Sangha is recommended by the Buddha to help cultivate
wholesome mental states. We could begin such contemplation based on the poem
of a bhikkhuni named Rohini.
Her father had asked her why she thought recluses and monks were great beings.
He claimed, as might many people today -- particularly in the West with its
strong "work ethic" -- that ascetics are just lazy; they are "parasites"
who do nothing worthwhile and live off the labor of others. But Rohini proclaimed
her faith in the work and lives of pure recluses. She thereby inspired her father's
confidence, and at her bidding he then took refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma,
and the Sangha. Her poem can also inspire us:
They are dutiful, not lazy, doers of the best actions; they abandon desire and
hatred...
They shake off the three roots of evil doing pure actions; all their evil is
eliminated...
Their body-activity is pure; and their speech-activity is likewise; their mind-activity
is pure...
They are spotless like mother-of-pearl, purified inside and out; full of good
mental states...
Having great learning, expert in the doctrine, noble, living in accordance with
the doctrine, they teach the goal and the doctrine... with intent minds, (they
are) possessed of mindfulness...
Traveling far, possessed of mindfulness, speaking in moderation, not conceited,
they comprehend the end of suffering...
If they go from any village, they do not look back (longingly) at anything;
they go without longing indeed...
They do not deposit their property in a store-room, nor in a pot, nor in a basket,
(rather) seeking that which is cooked...
They do not take gold, coined or uncoined, or silver; they live by means of
whatever turns up...
Those who have gone forth are of various families and from various countries;
(nevertheless) they are friendly to one another; therefore ascetics are dear
to me.
(vv. 275-285)
The Buddhist texts speak of two kinds of Sangha, both referred to in this poem,
the Ariya Sangha and the Bhikkhu Sangha. In the opening lines Rohini describes
the Ariyas, "noble ones," and those striving to attain that state.
The three lower kinds of Ariyas may be lay disciples or ordained monks and nuns.
But because of their utter purity, the highest type, the filly liberated Arahats,
can continue to live only within the Bhikkhu Sangha. It is Arahats who have
completely rid their minds of greed, hatred and ignorance, the three roots of
evil which Rohini mentions. Other Ariyas are striving to abandon whatever of
these three still remains in their minds. All Ariyas to some extent "comprehend
the end of suffering," the Third Noble Truth, for it is this experience
of Nibbana which sets them apart as "noble."
Beginning with the next line, Rohini specifically talks about the behavior of
monks and nuns. They wander on almsrounds through the streets with their eyes
trained just a few steps ahead of them. "They do not look back" as
they have no idle interest in the events that are going on around them. They
do not handle money and are content with the minimum by way of the requisites
-- whatever their lay followers may offer them. Students of the Dhamma who are
not in the monastic order would also do well to cultivate the monk's lack of
interest in his surroundings. A good monk does not let his gaze wander about
uncontrolled, especially when he is on almsround, because when going into the
village every morning he encounters a plethora of sense objects that might entice
him if he does not restrain his senses and maintain mindfulness. Attentively,
the good bhikkhu goes silently from door to door and leaves when there is enough
food in his bowl, without letting craving disturb his balance of mind. Such
a monk is not interested in the details of the lives of those around him. His
focus is always on the ultimate nature of things -- their impermanence, painfulness
and essencelessness. As lay meditators we too need to train ourselves to be
like these bhikkhus, to remain equanimous and detached amidst all the clamor
and distractions of life by reminding ourselves that none of these things is
worth running after.
Rohini also states that the noble monks are not greedy about money or other
possessions. They do not save up their requisites out of fear for the future.
Instead, they trust their good kamma to fulfill their daily needs. While, as
laymen, we must work for our living, we should heed this behavior and similarly
adopt a detached attitude towards wealth. We work in order to sustain our bodies
and those of the people who are dependent on us. But if we can learn to do this
without intense longing for the "security" that money seems to provide,
we will see how the law of kamma works.
The last verse states that within the Sangha, the family, class or national
background of its members does not impede their cordial relations with each
other. This kind of open good will is surely useful for laymen to put into practice
in their daily lives too. Since it is by ordaining that individuals can completely
dedicate their lives to the Dhamma, bhikkhus and bhikkhunis offer us laymen
many examples of how we should try to apply the teachings within the limitations
of "the dust of household life." Rohini's poem has pointed out some
of these.
The Danger of Worldly Desire
A large number of poems by the nuns emphasize the danger of worldly desire.
The bhikkhuni named Sumedha shaved off her hair herself in order to force her
parents to cancel her proposed marriage and permit his to enter the Sangha.
But before she left home, Sumedha convinced her whole family and its retinue
of the validity of the Buddha's message. To her fiance, King Anikaratta, she
explained the futility of sense desires and the insatiability of the senses:
Even if the rain-god rained all seven kinds
Of gems, until earth and heaven were full,
Still senses would crave and men die unsatiated.
(p. 176)
No matter how large a quantity of worldly goods we may have, if the mind has
not gained insight, craving will recur. If ignorance has not been uprooted,
desire will seek more and different objects, always hoping for lasting satisfaction.
Durable happiness is impossible in the mundane sphere because all sense objects
change and decay every moment, as does the mind itself. This perpetual state
of underlying dissatisfaction -- craving looking for gratification -- is one
of the many forms of present suffering. In addition, desire itself generates
the kammic energy which propels life towards rebirth in order for it to continue
its efforts at finding fulfillment. If desire is present in the mind at the
moment of death, rebirth has to ensue.
After speaking the above verse, Sumedha gave a lengthy discourse to the whole
assembly in her palace on the great value of a human birth in the infinity of
samsara. Life in this world is precious because it provides a very rare opportunity
for learning the way to put an end to rebirth and suffering, for putting into
practice the teachings of the Buddha. Sumedha also spoke on the danger inherent
in sensual joy and sense desire and she uttered verses about the Noble Eightfold
Path as well. She enthusiastically exhorted her audience:
When the undying (Nibbana) exists, what do you want with sensual pleasures which
are burning fevers? For all delights in sensual pleasures are on fire, aglow,
seething.
(v. 504)
When craving momentarily gains its aim, mind's enjoyment of the sense object
brings it to a feverish state of excitement and activity. Sumedha urges her
family to look beyond such unsettling, binding pleasures and to heed the words
of the Awakened One which show the way beyond all desire to utter peace. She
exhorts them to keep in mind their long-term benefit and not get caught up in
the fragile momentary happiness that comes with the occasional satisfaction
of sense desire. She reminds them in words we too should recall: "Desires
of sense burn those who do not let go" (p. 176). Clinging to pleasure always
brings pain. Such agitated emotions, although perhaps pleasant in a gross way,
are gone in a moment. They arise and cease due to conditions we cannot completely
control. We always tend to want the pleasant to last in spite of the fact that
its nature is to change, vanish, and give way to the unpleasant. Sumedha's poem
expounding this wisdom is the last one in the original Therigatha and it summarizes
what the Buddha taught about the dangers of craving.
The bhikkhuni named Subha also dwells at length on the dangers of mundane wishes,
using some terrifying metaphors to show the tremendous dangers inherent in attachment
to the world. In the following poem taken from the Samyutta Nikaya a meditator
can discover much by reflecting on Subha's intense imagery:
May I not meet (again) with sensual pleasures, in which no refuge is found.
Sensual pleasures are enemies, murderers, like a mass of fire, pain-(ful).
Greed is an obstacle, full of fear, full of annoyance, full of thorns, and it
is very disagreeable. It is a great cause of stupefaction...
Sensual pleasures are maddening, deceiving, agitating the mind; a net spread
out by Mara for the defilement of creatures.
Sensual pleasures have endless perils, they have much pain, they are great poisons,
they give little enjoyment, they cause conflict, drying up the virtuous.
(vv. 351f., 357f.)
These lines show us the peril and suffering we must face when we allow ourselves
to become entangled in mundane desires. Only personal comprehension of these
dangers motivates a meditator to become truly mindful, aware of his physical
and mental activities with ever-present detachment. Otherwise his "mindfulness"
may be forced, suppressing reactions without helping to untie mental knots.
Studying the suffering we have to encounter if we are carried away by our desires,
naturally loosens their hold on the mind. We will realize along with Subha that
worldly lusts are enemies and that they herald all the misery of successive
births.
One of our tasks in seeking liberation is to train our minds to see desire as
it arises at the sense doors. We must also see desire as it persists and as
it passes away. Having done this over and over again, we will understand that
all desire or attachment is bound to result in unhappiness. In this way we will
gradually train our minds to let go of all craving and aversions towards sense
objects.
To try to practice this mindfulness without any specific training is likely
to fail because the worldling, the average person, perceives no suffering in
craving. A worldling can only see the expected happiness. He invariably thinks,
"If only this would happen just right, all would be well." But as
we purify our bodily and vocal activities through morality, still our minds
through concentration, and take up insight meditation under a good teacher,
we will come to see more and more clearly how all desire is suffering and brings
still more suffering in the future. We will then also realize how often attaining
a desired object turns out to be an anti-climax which leaves -- not the anticipated
happiness -- but only emptiness. With a calm mind we can clearly perceive the
tension, distress, and uneasiness caused by the continual dissatisfaction, which
in turn is due to craving impelling the mind to various sense objects.
Thus the mind is always running -- now towards what it foolishly regards as
a "desirable" thing, now away from what it considers "undesirable."
In Vipassana meditation, the one-pointed mind is trained to experience directly
the transitory nature of body and of mind itself, and also of external sense
objects. With this direct knowledge or experiential insight, the "happiness"
which is so avidly sought by the worldling is seen as really just another form
of suffering, and the perpetual tension caused by the ignorance and craving
latent in any unliberated mind becomes evident. As sensual pleasure is understood
to be the seething fire described by our bhikkhunis, the mind naturally lets
go of all these different manifestations of craving. Such a mind has thoroughly
learned the lesson that the nuns gleaned from their Master and passed on to
us: suffering is inherent in desire.
The Danger in Attachment to One's Beauty
In ancient times as well as at present, women in all stations of life have used
various means to enhance their beauty and to hide the signs of advancing age.
This, however, is just a futile attempt to pretend that the body is not growing
old, to keep it from showing outwardly that it is actually falling apart. But
if, instead of creams and lotions, wisdom is applied to the aging process, it
can deepen our understanding of impermanence on all levels.
Ambapali was a wealthy and beautiful courtesan during the time of the Buddha.
Before she heard the Buddha preach, her main concern had been to cultivate and
maintain her renowned beauty. With the Buddha's guidance, she was able to face
the inevitability of aging and the loss of her beauty and to comprehend the
suffering of old age. Her verses can also stimulate our own understanding:
My eyes were shining, very brilliant like jewels, very black and long. Overwhelmed
by old age, they do not look beautiful. Not otherwise is the utterance of the
speaker of truth...
Formerly my hands looked beautiful, possessing delicate signet rings, decorated
with gold. Because of old age they are like onions and radishes. Not otherwise
is the utterance of the speaker of the truth...
Formerly my body looked beautiful, like a well-polished sheet of gold. (Now)
it is covered with very fine wrinkles. Not otherwise is the utterance of the
speaker of the truth...
Such was this body. (Now) it is decrepit, the abode of many pains, an old house
with its plaster fallen off. Not otherwise is the utterance of the speaker of
the truth.
(vv. 257, 264, 266, 270)
Ambapali sees how all the body's charms give way to ugliness and pain as the
aging process takes its toll, as the Buddha teaches it must. All physical beauty,
no matter how perfect it might seem at one youthful moment, is utterly impermanent.
Even at its peak, the brilliance of the eyes is already, if invisibly, starting
to grow dim; the firmness of limbs is withering; the smoothness of skin is wrinkling.
Impermanence and decay, Ambapali reminds us, is the nature of all bodies and
of everything else in the universe as well.
Khema, the queen of King Bimbisara, was another woman who had been enthralled
with her own beauty prior to meeting the Buddha. But Khema had made a vow before
one of the earlier Buddhas to become great in wisdom under the Buddha Gotama.
During the dispensations of several of the intervening Buddhas, she had parks
made which she donated to each Buddha and his Sangha.
But in her final lifetime Khema strongly resisted going to see the Buddha Gotama.
Perhaps her "Mara forces" were making a last effort to keep her in
samsara. They were, however, doomed to fail since by the force of her merits
this was to be her final existence. King Bimbisara almost had to trick her into
going to the Buddha because Queen Khema was so attached to her looks and was
afraid that this would provoke the Buddha's disapproval. If we ever find ourselves
resisting the Dhamma, we can use Khema's example to remind ourselves of the
temporary nature of this mental state. Then we will not take it as a major personal
fault. Mind's old habits are not pure, so at times it is bound to struggle against
the process of purification.
But the Buddha knew how to tame Khema's vanity and conceit. He created the vivid
image of a woman even more attractive than she was. When she came into his presence,
Khema saw this other lady fanning the Buddha. Then, before the queen's very
eyes, the Buddha made the beautiful image grow older and older until she was
just a decaying bag of bones. Seeing this, first Khema realized that her own
beauty was not unmatched. This broke her pride. Second and more important, she
understood that she herself would likewise have to grow old and decrepit.
The Buddha next spoke a verse and Khema became a Stream-enterer. Then in rapid
succession she went through all the stages of enlightenment to attain Arahatship
on the spot. Thereupon the Buddha told King Bimbisara that she would either
have to ordain or to pass away, and the king, unable to bear the thought of
losing her so soon, gave her permission to ordain. So, already an Arahat, she
was ordained -- one of the very rare cases of a human being who had achieved
Arahatship before entering the Sangha. Khema had clearly built up truly unique
paramis by giving great gifts to earlier Buddhas and by learning their teachings
thoroughly.[2] Here again we see the great importance of creating in the present
strong good kamma based on wisdom, even if we do not attain any of the paths
or fruits in this lifetime. The more good deeds accompanied by wisdom that we
do now, the easier will it be when the time actually comes for us to reach the
goal. Meditation is, of course, the most valuable of such deeds.
In the Therigatha, Khema's poem takes the form of a conversation with Mara,
the being who controls and symbolizes the forces of evil. Mara praised her beauty,
and her reply shows how totally her view of herself and of life had changed
now that she fully understood the true nature of things:
Through this body vile, foul seat of disease and corruption,
Loathing I feel, and oppression. Cravings of lust are uprooted.
Lusts of the body and mind cut like daggers and javelins.
Speak not to me of delighting in any sensuous pleasure!
All such vanities cannot delight me any more.
(p. 83)
Then she identifies Mara with those who believe that mere ritual observances
will lead to mental purification. Khema states that such people, who worship
fire or the constellations, etc., are ignorant of reality and cannot eliminate
their defiling tendencies through such practices. This is why the belief that
rites and rituals can bring about liberation has to be eliminated to attain
even the stage of Stream-entry.
Khema concludes her verses with an exclamation of deep gratitude to the Buddha,
the supreme among men. Her last line is a resounding "lion's roar":
(I am) utterly free from all sorrow,
A doer of the Buddha's teachings.
(pp. 3-4)
Khema had "done," i.e., put into practice, the message of all the
Buddhas, and this had taken her beyond the realms of suffering.
Further Conversations with Mara
Some of the other discourse-type verses in the Therigatha also take the form
of a discussion with Mara. Typically, Mara asks the Arahat nun why she is not
interested in the "good things of life." Mara urged Sela, for example,
to enjoy sensual pleasures while youth allowed her to do so. The theri's reply
on the dangers of such delights offers similes as powerful as those used by
Bhikkhuni Sumedha:
Sensual pleasures are like sword and stakes; the elements of existence are a
chopping block for them; what you call 'delight in sensual pleasures' is now
'non-delight' for me.
(v. 58)
Surely many of us have also heard our own internal Mara urge us to "go
have a good time and never mind the long-term kammic consequences." But
if we can remind ourselves often enough and early enough of the painful after-effects
of such "joys" -- especially of those that involve breaking moral
precepts -- we may see through the pleasures of the senses and so gradually
lose our attachment to them.
In one of the discourses from the Samyutta Nikaya, Cala tells Mara that, unlike
most beings, she finds no delight in birth in spite of the so-called sensual
pleasures that life makes possible. With clear simplicity she shows that ultimately
all that birth produces is suffering:
Once born we die. Once born we see life's ills --
The bonds, the torments, and the life cut off.
(p. 186)
We too should cultivate this understanding in order to develop detachment from
the poison-soaked sensual pleasures offered by mundane life.
The Doctrine of Anatta
One of the unique aspects of the Buddha's teaching is its doctrine of anatta,
the impersonal, essenceless, egoless or soul-less nature of all phenomena. This
universal characteristic is difficult to comprehend as it is contrary to our
most deeply held assumption that "I" exist, that "I" act
and "I" feel.
Sakula, in the following lines of her poem in the Therigatha, briefly expresses
her understanding of the impersonal quality of all compounded things:
Seeing the constituent elements as other, arisen causally, liable to dissolution,
I eliminated all taints. I have become cool, quenched.
(v. 101)
Sakula has attained Nibbana because she saw with total clarity that everything
normally taken to be "myself" is, in fact, devoid of any such self.
She knew that all these phenomena arise and dissolve every moment strictly dependent
on causes. This comprehension has rooted out all tendency to cling to the sankharas
or "constituent elements" and so all the defiling mental tendencies
have ceased.
When Mara asks Sister Sela, "Who made this body, where did it come from
and where will it go?", she gives him in reply (in one of the poems added
from the Samyutta Nikaya) a discourse on egolessness:
Neither self-made the puppet is, nor yet
By another is this evil fashioned.
By reason of a cause it came to be;
By rupture of a cause it dies away.
Like a given seed sown in the field,
Which, when it gets the taste of earth,
And moisture too -- by these two does grow,
So the five aggregates, the elements,
And the six spheres of sense -- all of these --
By reason of a cause they came to be;
By rupture of a cause they die away.
(pp. 189-190)
After the seed analogy, the last four lines discuss the "self" as
it actually is -- a compound of conditioned, changing phenomena. The five aggregates
make up nama (mentality) and rupa (materiality), each of which is turn made
up of groups of ephemeral factors. Nama, the mental side of existence, consists
of the four immaterial aggregates -- feeling (vedana), perception (sañña),
mental formations (sankhara), and consciousness (viññana) -- which
arise together at every moment of experience. Rupa, which may be external matter
or the matter of one's own body, consists of the four essential material qualities
-- solidity, cohesion, temperature, and vibration -- along with the derivative
types of matter coexisting with them in the very minute material groupings called
kalapas, arising and passing away millions of times per second.
Each aggregate arises due to certain causes and when these causes end, the aggregate
also ceases. Causes, or conditions, are connected with effects in the law of
dependent arising (paticcasamuppada), which is at the center of the Buddha's
own awakening. The refrain from Sela's poem (lines 3-4 and 10-11) is, in fact,
a reformulation of the most general exposition of that law often stated thus
in the suttas:
When there is this, that comes to be;
With the arising of this, that arises.
When this is absent, that does not come to be;
With the cessation of this, that ceases.
The specific link in the cycle of dependent arising most relevant to Sela's
verse is: "With consciousness as condition, mentality-materiality arises."
That is, at the moment of conception, nama-rupa (in this case excluding consciousness)
arises due to rebirth-linking consciousness. Later on, during the course of
an existence, nama, the mental aggregates, comes into being due to ignorance,
past kamma, objects at the sense doors, and many other conditions. Rupa, the
matter which makes up the body, arises during life because of food, climate,
present state of mind, and past kamma.
Sela also refers to the elements, dhatu, a word which the Buddha uses for several
groups of phenomena. Let us look here at the eighteen elements. The five sense
faculties (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body), their objects (sights, sounds, smells,
tastes, touches), and the five types of consciousness dependent on their coming
together make up fifteen of the elements. Mind as a faculty, mental objects
(ideas), and the mind-consciousness that arises when those two come together
are the sixth in each set, completing the eighteen.
The Buddha analyzed the totality of conditioned phenomena into ultimate constituents
in a number of ways for the benefit of listeners of varying proclivities. To
some, the eighteen elements are clear, to others, the five aggregates. Either
way, what we need to understand as Sela did is that none of these things is
"me" or "mine" or "my self." All these phenomena
-- the aggregates, the elements, the spheres -- arise because of certain conditions,
and when those conditions end, naturally they also have to end. When the relevant
causes have expended their force, all these aspects of what we erroneously take
to be "me" and "mine" cease. So we see with Sela that nowhere
is there any real, independent, or lasting "I" with the power to create
and sustain itself. There is only the concept "I am" which is conditioned
by ignorance, i.e., our inability to see mind-and-body as it really is. The
idea "I" is itself essenceless, it arises due to causes; and it is
also inherently impermanent, bound to completely disappear when the ignorance
and other supporting conditions behind it are uprooted. This is the attainment
of Arahatship.
The removal of ignorance takes place step by step in Vipassana meditation. Every
aspect of the mind-body complex comes to be clearly known at its ultimate level
as conditioned, essenceless, transitory, oppressive. One comes to fully understand
that only when the appropriate conditions come about will a so-called "being"
be born. Only then will a five-aggregate life-continuum commence a new life
with its bases, elements and sense organs. If we explore Bhikkhuni Sela's seed
analogy, we will see in relation to ourselves how a strict succession of causes
and effects, kammic and other, governs all of life. We will discover that there
is no underlying or ongoing "I" doing or experiencing anything, and
will begin to loosen our attachment to this non-existent "self." Then
we start to eliminate the dreadful suffering that comes attendant on this delusion.
Suffering follows from the mistaken belief in an "I," technically
called sakkayaditthi, wrong view of a lasting self. On the basis of this idea
the mind generates all its thoughts of craving: "I must have this,"
"I don't like that," "This is mine." It is basically due
to this misconception of a controlling self that we have been wandering and
suffering throughout eons in samsara. If we are to eliminate all the dukkha
of existence, as Theri Sela did, we must develop insight through Vipassana meditation
to the point at which understanding of the ultimate truth about mind and body
dissolves the mistaken belief in an "I." We can use this bhikkhuni's
words to stimulate our own personal meditative experience of the essenceless
nature of the five aggregates.
Men and Women in the Dhamma
The difference between the male and female in connection with the Dhamma is
a minor theme running through the Therigatha. It takes two forms: poems whose
subject matter is the irrelevance of one's gender for gaining insight, and instances
in which a nun specifically inspires or instructs a man with a discourse. The
stories of Sumedha and Rohini already discussed fit into the latter type.
An example of the first type is Soma's challenge to Mara's query about women's
ability to attain Arahatship. Soma showed Mara that the capacity to gain the
requisite insight for liberation need not be hindered by "woman's nature."
Soma's encounter with Mara in the Therigatha proper is explained in her verses
from the Samyutta Nikaya, where she rhetorically asks him:
What should the woman's nature do to them
Whose hearts are firmly set, who ever move
With growing knowledge onward in the Path?
(pp. 45; 182-183)
If one is really developing morality, concentration and wisdom, it does not
matter whether one was born male or female. The insight to "truly comprehend
the Norm" is completely irrespective of superficial distinctions of sex,
race, caste, etc. Soma adds that if one even thinks, "Am I a woman in these
matter, or an I a man, or what not am I then?" one is under Mara's sway.
To be much concerned with such subjects is to remain on the level of conventional
truth, clinging to the non-existent self. Repeatedly worrying about which sex
is better or about the "inequities" women suffer generates unwholesome
kamma. Thoughts like this are rooted in attachment to "I" and "mine"
and are associated with ill will or desire.
Moreover, spending time on such matters distracts us from the urgent task of
self-purification. Meditators who wish to escape Mara's net need to cast off
such thoughts as soon as they are noticed. We should not indulge in or expand
upon them. Soma and all the other nuns follow the Buddha's advice closely when
they urge us to stick exclusively to the work that will allow us to liberate
ourselves from all suffering. All side issues will lose their importance and
so pass away with further growth of wisdom. When we know fully that all beings
are just impersonal, unstable mind-body processes, generating kamma and feeling
its results, our minds will remain with the ultimate truths and have no interest
in any conventional concerns.
The story of the bhikkhuni known as "Vaddha's Mother" is one in which
a nun specifically guides a man in the Dhamma. This woman joined the Sangha
when her son Vaddha was small; thus he had been brought up by relatives. Later,
he too ordained and one day went to visit his mother in the bhikkhunis' quarters.
On that occasion, she exhorted and inspired him to seek and attain the highest
goal:
Vaddha, may you not have craving for the world at any time. Child, do not be
again and again a sharer in pain.
Happy, indeed, Vaddha, dwell the sages, free from lust, with doubts cut off,
become cool, having attained self-taming, (being) without taints.
O Vaddha, devote yourself to the way practiced by seers for the attainment of
insight, for the putting an end to pain.
(vv. 204-205)
From these lines Vaddha deduced that his mother had reached the goal, a fact
she confirmed. She again urged him to develop "the path leading to the
cessation of suffering" himself. Vaddha, being deeply inspired by his mother's
words, also attained the goal and then spoke the following lines praising her:
Truly my mother, because of being sympathetic, applied an excellent goad to
me, (namely) verses connected with the highest goal.
Having heard her utterance, the instruction of my mother, I reached a state
of religious excitement in the doctrine, for the attainment of rest-from-exertion.
(vv. 210-211)
Here we find a woman's example of perfect sainthood, combined with her timely
Dhamma instruction, inspiring a man whose paramis were ripe to put forth the
utmost effort and attain complete liberation.
The Five Aggregates and Nibbana
The Culavedalla Sutta (Middle Length Sayings, Vol. I) is another sutta in which
a bhikkhuni instructs a man. This important text takes the form of a discourse
on some fine points of the Dhamma given by the theri Dhammadinna in reply to
questions put to her by her former husband, the lay disciple Visakha. They had
been married for some time when he attained the third stage of holiness, that
of the Non-returner (anagami), by eradicating all traces of ill will and sense
desire. Dhammadinna then learned from him that women too could purity their
minds and she obtained his permission to take robes as a nun. By the time of
this discussion, she must have already attained Arahatship, the fourth and final
stage of holiness.
Visakha first asks Dhammadinna what the Buddha actually refers to when, using
conventional language, he says "own self."[3] As a Non-Returner, Visakha
knew the answer to this basic question, but he put it by way of introduction
to his progressive series of queries. Dhammadinna's reply is something for us
to ponder. She says that the "five aggregates of grasping" (pañcupadanakkhandha)
comprise "own self." She defines the aggregates or groups of grasping
as:
the group of grasping after material shape,
the group of grasping after feeling,
the group of grasping after perception,
the group of grasping after habitual tendencies,
the group of grasping after consciousness.
The aggregates are viewed and clung to as myself or mine: this is sakkayaditthi,
the view that there is a lasting self. Actually, there is no lasting controller
or core corresponding to the concept "me" or "I." It is
merely the grasping after these five groups, which are all that actually makes
up "myself," that perpetuates our illusion that there is something
substantial. If we can see this, we will be attacking sakkayaditthi and will
come to know that in reality there is no essence, just these five aggregates,
all of whose components are continually changing.
The next question Visakha asks Dhammadinna concerns the reasons for the arising
of the aggregates. Quoting the Buddha, she replies that the cause for the aggregates
is "craving (that is) connected with again-becoming, accompanied by delight
and attachment, finding delight in this and that, namely, the craving for sense
pleasures, the craving for becoming, the craving for annihilation."
All craving contributes to the arising of the aggregates over and over again.
Being attracted to the things of this world or of the heavenly planes ("craving
for sense pleasures") will lead to rebirth there with renewed suffering,
gross or subtle. Wanting to keep on going ("craving for becoming")
strengthens clinging and ignorance to force us to continue in samsara. The belief
that there is no form of life after death (rooted in "craving for annihilation")
undermines the doctrine of kamma and its result, the understanding of which
is essential to moral living.
After a long series of questions and answers which cover the Four Noble Truths,
the attainment of cessation, feeling, etc., Visakha asks a final question: "And
what, lady, is the counterpart [i.e., equal] of Nibbana?" Here Dhammadinna
has to stop him:
This question goes too far, friend Visakha, it is beyond the compass of an answer.
Friend Visakha, the Brahmafaring is for immergence in Nibbana, for going beyond
to Nibbana, for culminating in Nibbana.
Nothing can possibly be compared with Nibbana as everything else, be it mental
or physical, arises and ceases due to conditions. Nibbana alone is unconditioned
and unchanging. Going beyond the realm of transitory, unsatisfactory phenomena
to the utter peace of Nibbana is the aim of the teaching of the Buddha and so
of serious Buddhists. It is useful to keep this goal in mind even during the
early stages of meditation, when it may seem remote and vague. The aspiration
to attain Nibbana is cumulative. If it is frequently considered, repeated and
combined with the practice of Vipassana, this aspiration will become a supporting
condition for the attainment itself. Frequent recollection of the goal will
also keep us from being sidetracked by the pleasurable experiences one may encounter
on the path.
After this question and answer session, Dhammadinna suggests that Visakha should
ask the Buddha about all this so that he is certain and learns the answers well.
Visakha takes up the idea and later repeats to the Buddha his entire conversation
with the theri. The Lord replies in her praise:
Clever, Visakha, is the nun Dhammadinna, of great wisdom... If you had asked
me, Visakha, about this matter, I too would have answered exactly as the nun
Dhammadinna answered.
Kamma and its Fruit
Finally, let us look at a poem in which a bhikkhuni describes in detail a few
of her previous lives and shows her questioner how she comprehended the law
of kammic cause and effect working out behind her present-life experiences.
Isidasi had built up many good paramis long ago during the times of former Buddhas.
But some seven lifetimes back, when she was a young man, she had committed adultery.
After passing away from that existence Isidasi had to suffer the results of
this immoral action:
Therefrom deceasing, long I ripened in Avici hell
And then found rebirth in the body of an ape.
Scarce seven days I lived before the great
Dog-ape, the monkey's chief, castrated me.
Such was the fruit of my lasciviousness.
Therefrom deceasing in the woods of Sindh,
Born the offspring of a one-eyed goat
And lame, twelve years a gelding, gnawn by worms.
Unfit, I carried children on my back.
Such was the fruit of my lasciviousness.
(p. 157)
The next time she was born a calf and was again castrated, and as a bullock
pulled a plow and a cart. Then, as the worst of that evil kamma's results had
already ripened, Isidasi returned to the human realm. But it was still an uncertain
kind of birth as she was the hermaphroditic child of a slave. That life too
did not last long. Next, she was the daughter of a man oppressed by debts. One
of her father's creditors took her in lieu of payment. She became the wife of
that merchant's son, but she "brought discord and enmity within that house."
In her final lifetime, no matter how hard she tried, no home she was sent to
as a bride would keep her more than a brief while. Several times her virtuous
father had her married to appropriate suitors. She tried to be the perfect wife,
but each time she was thrown out. This inability to remain with a husband created
an opportunity for her to break through the cycle of results. After her third
marriage disintegrated, she decided to enter the Sangha. All her mental defilements
were eliminated by meditation, insight into the Four Noble Truths matured, and
Isidasi became an Arahat.
She also developed the ability to see her past lives and thus saw how this whole
causal chain of unwholesome deeds committed long ago brought their results in
her successive existences:
Fruit of my kamma was it thus that they
In this last life have slighted me even though
I waited on them as their humble slave.
The last line of her poem puts the past, rebirth and all its sufferings, completely
behind with a "lion's roar": "Enough! Of all that now have I
made an end." (p. 163)
In Isidasi's tale we have several instructive illustrations of the inexorable
workings of the law of kamma. The suffering she had to undergo because of sexual
misconduct lasted through seven difficult lives. But the seeds of wisdom had
also been sown and when the force of the bad kamma was used up, the powerful
paramis she had created earlier bore their fruit. Hence Isidasi was able to
become a bhikkhuni, purify her mind perfectly, and so eliminate all possible
causes of future suffering. The beginning, the middle, and the ending of every
life are always due to causes and conditions.
* * *
We have now come full circle with these stories of the theris and have returned
to the theme of impersonal causes and effects working themselves out, without
any lasting being committing deeds or experiencing results. The infinite sequence
of lifetimes steeped in ignorance and suffering is repeated over and over until
accumulated paramis and present wisdom, aided by other factors, become sufficiently
strong to enable one to see through the craving which has perpetually propelled
the succession of aggregates. Through this process these bhikkhunis clearly
perceived that their attachments and aversions were the source of all their
suffering. Because of this insight, they were able to dissolve the knots of
old delusion-based conditioning.
With their completed understanding of suffering, the First Noble Truth, and
the abandoning of craving, the Second Noble Truth, their practice of the Noble
Eightfold Path, the Fourth Noble Truth, was perfected. They attained the cessation
of suffering, the Third Noble Truth, in that very lifetime, and were never reborn
again.
The poems of these enlightened nuns, telling how they came to meet the Buddha,
how they had built up wisdom and other meritorious kamma over many previous
lives, how they understood the Buddha's teachings, and how they attained Arahatship,
offer us inspiration and guidance. They can help us present-day Buddhists to
practice Vipassana meditation and to gain insight into suffering and its causes.
Then we too will be able to give up all craving by developing wisdom. We can
use the messages of the theris to assist us in putting an end to our own suffering.
Grateful for their assistance, may we all follow in the footsteps of these great
nuns, true daughters of the Buddha. May our minds be perfect in wisdom, perfectly
pure, and utterly free from all possibility of future suffering.
About the Author
Susan Elbaum Jootla was born in New York City in 1945 and obtained B.A. and
M.A. degrees in Library Science from the University of Michigan. She is married
to an Indian, Balbir S. Jootla, with whom she lives in the Western Himalayan
hill station of Dalhousie. They have both been practicing Vipassana meditation
in the tradition of the late Sayagyi U Ba Khin of Burma since 1970 and are now
students of his leading disciple, Mother Sayama, who directs the International
Meditation Centres in England and Rangoon. Her previous BPS publications are
"Right Livelihood: The Noble Eightfold Path in the Working Life" in
The Buddhist Layman (Wheel No. 294/295) and Investigation for Insight (Wheel
No 301/302). Her book Buddhism in Practice, about the meditation tradition of
U Ba Khin, is scheduled for publication by Motilal Banarsidass of India.
Notes
1. Dhammadinna will be discussed at greater length below, pp. 46-49. {See "The
Five Aggregates and Nibbana," below}
2. This story is related in the Commentary to the Dhammapada, translated as
Buddhist Legends by E. W. Burlingame, published by the Pali Text Society. See
Part 3, pp. 225ff.
3. In Pali, sakkaya. I. B. Horner's translation of this term here as "own
body" may be misleading. Although the work kaya does literally mean "body,"
it is often used to refer to a collection or assemblage of things, such as a
"body of people." Here it signifies the assemblage of psycho-physical
phenomena that the worldling identifies as his self. [
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Revised: Sun 16 September 2001