The
Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta is regarded by the Buddhist tradition as the first discourse of the Buddha. Scholars have noted some persistent problems with this view. Originally the text may only have pointed at the
Middle Way as being the core of the Buddha's teaching, which pointed to the practice of
dhyana. This basic term may have been extended with descriptions of the
Eightfold Path, itself a condensation of a longer sequence. Some scholars believe that under pressure from developments in Indian religiosity, which began to see "liberating insight" as the essence of
moksha, the
Four Truths were then added as a description of the Buddha's "liberating insight".
Death, rebirth and karma According to Tilmann Vetter, the Buddha at first sought "the deathless" (
amata/amrta), which is concerned with the here and now. According to
Edward Conze,
Death was an error which could be overcome by those who entered the "doors to the Deathless", "the gates of the Undying". According to Conze, the Buddha saw death as a sign that "something has gone wrong with us." The Buddha saw death as brought on by an evil force,
Māra, "the Killer," "who tempts us away from our true immortal selves and diverts us from the path which could lead us back to freedom." Our cravings keep us tied to Mára’s realm. By releasing our attachments we move beyond his realm, and gain freedom from
saṃsāra, the beginningless movement of death and
rebirth.
Karma is the
intentional (
cetanā) actions which keep us tied to
saṃsāra. Two views on the liberation from
saṃsāra can be discerned in the Śramaṇic movements. Originally
karma meant "physical and mental activity". One solution was to refrain from any physical or mental activity. The other solution was to see the real self as not participating in these actions, and to disidentify with those actions. According to Bronkhorst, the Buddha rejected both approaches. Nevertheless, these approaches can also be found in the Buddhist tradition, such as the four formless
dhyanas, and disidentification from the constituents of the self. Bruce Matthews notes that there is no cohesive presentation of
karma in the Sutta Pitaka, which may mean that the doctrine was incidental to the main perspective of early
Buddhist soteriology. Schmithausen is a notable scholar who has questioned whether
karma already played a role in the theory of rebirth of earliest Buddhism. According to Schmithausen, "the karma doctrine may have been incidental to early Buddhist soteriology." According to Vetter, "the deathless" (
amata/amrta) is concerned with the here and now. Only after this realisation did he become acquainted with the doctrine of rebirth. Bronkhorst disagrees, and concludes that the Buddha "introduced a concept of karma that differed considerably from the commonly held views of his time." According to Bronkhorst, no physical and mental activities as such were seen as responsible for rebirth, but intentions and desire.
Soul According to Bronkhorst, referring to Frauwallner, Schmithausen and Bhattacharya:
The Four Noble Truths According to Eviatar Shulman, the doctrine of the
Four Noble Truths is rooted in "a meditative perception regarding the arising and passing away of mental events" which also includes a "detached attitude" to phenomena. Out of this practice of "meditative observation" developed a theoretical or discursive philosophical understanding.
K. R. Norman concluded that the earliest version of the
Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta did not contain the word "noble", but was added later.
Lambert Schmithausen concluded that the four truths were a later development in early Buddhism. Carol Anderson, following Lambert Schmithausen and K. R. Norman, notes that the four truths are missing in critical passages in the canon, and states: The Four Truths probably entered the Sutta Pitaka from the Vinaya, the rules for monastic order. They were first added to enlightenment-stories which contain the Four Dhyanas, replacing terms for "liberating insight". From there they were added to the biographical stories of the Buddha: According to both Bronkhorst and Anderson, the Four Truths became a substitution for prajna, or "liberating insight", in the suttras in those texts where "liberating insight" was preceded by the Four Dhyanas. According to Bronkhorst, the Four Truths may not have been formulated in earliest Buddhism, and did not serve in earliest Buddhism as a description of "liberating insight". Gotama's teachings may have been personal, "adjusted to the need of each person." This replacement was probably caused by the influence and pressures of the wider Indian religious landscape, "which claimed that one can be released only by some truth or higher knowledge."
The Noble Eightfold Path According to Tilmann Vetter, the description of the Buddhist path may initially have been as simple as the term the
Middle Way. In time, this short description was elaborated, resulting in the description of the Eightfold Path. Vetter and Bucknell both note that longer descriptions of "the path" can be found, which can be condensed into the
Noble Eightfold Path. One of those longer sequences, from the
Culahatthipadopama Sutta, the "Lesser Discourse on the Simile of the Elephant's Footprints", is as follows: •
Dhammalsaddhalpabbajja: A layman hears a Buddha teach the Dhamma, comes to have
faith in him, and decides to take ordination as a monk; •
Sila: He adopts the moral precepts; •
Indriyasamvara: He practises "guarding the six sense-doors"; •
Sati-sampajanna: He practises mindfulness and self-possession (actually described as mindfulness of the body, kāyānupassanā, that is, reflection on the impurities of the body); •
Jhana 1: He finds an isolated spot, sits down cross-legged, purifies his mind of the hindrances, and attains the first rupa-jhana; •
Jhana 2: He attains the second jhana; •
Jhana 3: He attains the third jhana; •
Jhana 4: He attains the fourth jhana; •
Pubbenivasanussati-nana: He recollects his many former existences in samsara; •
Sattanam Cutupapata-nana: He observes the death and rebirth of beings according to their karmas; •
Asavakkhaya-nana: He brings about the destruction of the
asavas (inflow, mental bias), and attains a profound realisation of (as opposed to mere knowledge about) the
Four Noble Truths; •
Vimutti: He perceives that he is now liberated, that he has done what was to be done.
Satipatthana According to Grzegorz Polak, the four
upassanā have been misunderstood by the developing Buddhist tradition, including Theravada, to refer to four different foundations. According to Polak, the four
upassanā do not refer to four different foundations, but to the awareness of four different aspects of raising mindfulness: • the
six sense-bases which one needs to be aware of (
kāyānupassanā); • contemplation on
vedanās, which arise with the contact between the senses and their objects (
vedanānupassanā); • the altered states of mind to which this practice leads (cittānupassanā); • the development from the
five hindrances to the
seven factors of awakening (
dhammānupassanā).
Dhyāna According to Bronkhorst,
dhyana was a Buddhist invention, whereas Alexander Wynne argues that
dhyana was incorporated from
Brahmanical practices, in the Nikayas ascribed to
Āḷāra Kālāma and
Uddaka Rāmaputta. These practices were paired to mindfulness and insight, and given a new interpretation.
Kalupahana argues that the Buddha "reverted to the meditational practices" he had learned from Āḷāra Kālāma and Uddaka Rāmaputta. Norman notes that "the Buddha's way to release [...] was by means of meditative practices." Gombrich also notes that a development took place in early Buddhism resulting in a change in doctrine, which considered
prajna to be an alternative means to "enlightenment".
Dhyāna and insight A core problem in the study of early Buddhism is the relation between
dhyana and insight. The Buddhist tradition has incorporated two traditions regarding the use of
dhyana. There is a tradition that stresses attaining
insight (
bodhi,
prajñā,
kenshō) as the means to awakening and liberation. But it has also incorporated the
yogic tradition, as reflected in the use of
dhyana, which is rejected in other sutras as not achieving the final result of
liberation. The problem was famously voiced in 1936 by
Louis de La Vallée-Poussin, in his text
Musila et Narada: Le Chemin de Nirvana. Schmithausen notes that the mention of the
Four Noble Truths as constituting the core of "liberating insight", which is attained after mastering the Rupa Jhanas, is a later addition to texts such as Majjhima Nikaya 36. Schmithausen discerns three possible roads to liberation as described in the suttas, to which Vetter adds the sole practice of
dhyana itself, which he sees as the original "liberating practice": • The four Rupa Jhanas themselves constituted the core liberating practice of early buddhism, c.q. the Buddha; • Mastering the four Rupa Jhanas, whereafter "liberating insight" is attained; • Mastering the four Rupa Jhanas and the four Arupa Jhanas, where-after "liberating insight" is attained; • Liberating insight itself suffices. This problem has been elaborated by several well-known scholars, including Tilman Vetter, Johannes Bronkhorst, and Richard Gombrich.
The meaning of samadhi Traditionally, meditation is often described as
samadhi, one-pointed concentration, and
dhyana and
samadhi are often referred to interchangeably. Yet,
Schmithausen, Vetter and Bronkhorst note that the attainment of
insight and
mindfulness, which is a cognitive activity, cannot be possible in a state wherein all cognitive activity has ceased. Vetter notes that "penetrating abstract truths and penetrating them successively does not seem possible in a state of mind which is without contemplation and reflection." According to Richard Gombrich, the sequence of the four
rupa-jhanas describes two different cognitive states, namely concentration followed by a sharpened attention. Alexander Wynne further explains that the
dhyana-scheme is poorly understood. According to Wynne, words expressing the inculcation of awareness, such as
sati,
sampajāno, and
upekkhā, are mistranslated or understood as particular factors of meditative states, whereas they refer to a particular way of perceiving the sense objects. According to Gombrich, "the later tradition has falsified the jhana by classifying them as the quintessence of the concentrated, calming kind of meditation, ignoring the other – and indeed higher – element. According to Vetter and Bronkhorst,
dhyāna itself constituted the original "liberating practice". Vetter further argues that the eightfold path constitutes a body of practices which prepare one, and lead up to, the practice of
dhyana.
Liberating insight Discriminating insight into transiency as a separate path to liberation was a later development. According to Johannes Bronkhorst, Tillman Vetter, and K. R. Norman,
bodhi was at first not specified. K. R. Norman: According to Norman,
bodhi may basically have meant the knowledge that
nirvana was attained, due to the practice of
dhyana. Bronkhorst notes that the conception of what exactly this "liberating insight" was developed throughout time. Whereas originally it may not have been specified, later on the Four Truths served as such, to be superseded by
Pratityasamutpada, and still later, in the Hinayana schools, by the doctrine of the non-existence of a substantial self or person. And Schmithausen notices that still other descriptions of this "liberating insight" exist in the Buddhist canon: The developing importance of liberating insight may have been due to an over-literal interpretation by later scholastics of the terminology used by the Buddha, or to the problems involved with the practice of
dhyana, and the need to develop an easier method. According to Vetter it may not have been as effective as
dhyana, and methods were developed to deepen the effects of discriminating insight. Insight was also paired to
dhyana, resulting in the well-known
sila-samadhi-prajna scheme. According to Vetter this kind of preparatory
dhyana must have been different from the practice introduced by the Buddha, using
kasina-exercises to produce a "more artificially produced dhyana", resulting in the cessation of apperceptions and feelings. It also led to a different understanding of the Eightfold Path, since this path does not end with insight, but rather starts with insight. The path was no longer seen as a sequential development resulting in
dhyana, but as a set of practices which had to be developed simultaneously to gain insight. According to Alexander Wynne, the ultimate aim of
dhyana was the attainment of insight, and the application of the meditative state to the practice of mindfulness. According to Frauwallner, mindfulness was a means to prevent the arising of craving, which resulted simply from contact between the senses and their objects. According to Frauwallner this may have been the Buddha’s original idea. According to Wynne, this stress on mindfulness may have led to the intellectualism which favoured insight over the practice of
dhyana.
Insight and dhyana as complementary Rupert Gethin rejects the notion of two opposing paths, arguing that a close study of the
bodhipakkhiyādhammās, particularly the
bojjhangas, shows how there is no conflict between
samadhi and insight practices in early Buddhism, but that "in fact it turns out that the characteristically early Buddhist conception of the path leading to the cessation of suffering is that it consists precisely in the combining of calm and insight."
Bhikkhu Analayo, scholar of the early texts, has also critiqued the view that there are two contrasting views of liberation in the early sources (i.e.
dhyana vs insight). According to Analayo,
samadhi and insight are actually two complementary aspects of the path to liberation. Analayo refers to
Damien Keown who writes that, for the Buddha, "there exist two techniques of meditation precisely because the obstacles to enlightenment are themselves twofold, both moral and intellectual." Analayo also refers to Collett Cox, who noted that it is possible that the Buddhist goal of the elimination of the
asravas “subsumes knowledge and concentration as equally cooperative means rather than mutually exclusive ends,” and that this view is also reflected in Abhidharma. Keren Arbel describes the fourth
jhana as "non-reactive and lucid awareness," not as a state of deep concentration. She sees
samadhi and insight as closely connected, and argues that in the Pali Suttas, "the entrance into the first jhāna is the actualization and embodiment of insight practice."
Dependent origination While
Pratītyasamutpāda, "dependent origination," and the twelve
nidānas, the links of dependent origination, are traditionally interpreted as describing the conditional arising of rebirth in
saṃsāra, and the resultant
duḥkha (suffering, pain, unsatisfactoriness), Theravada questions the authenticity of this interpretation, and regards the list as describing the arising of mental formations and the resultant notion of "I" and "mine," which are the source of suffering. Scholars have noted inconsistencies in the list, and regard it to be a later synthesis of several older lists. The first four links may be a mockery of the Vedic-Brahmanic cosmogeny, as described in the
Hymn of Creation of Veda X, 129 and the
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. These were integrated with a branched list which describe the conditioning of mental processes, akin to the five
skandhas. Eventually, this branched list developed into the standard twelvefold chain as a linear list. While this list may be interpreted as describing the processes which give rise to rebirth, in essence it describes the arising of
duhkha as a psychological process, without the involvement of an
atman.
37 factors of enlightenment According to
A. K. Warder the
bodhipakkhiyādhammā, the 37 factors of enlightenment, are a summary of the core Buddhist teachings which are common to all schools. These factors are summarised in the
Mahaparinibbana Sutta, which recounts the Buddha's last days, in the Buddha's last address to his bikkhus:
Alex Wayman has criticised
A. K. Warder, for failing to present an integrated picture of early Buddhism. But according to Gethin, the
bodhipakkhiyādhammā provide a key to understanding the relationship between calm and insight in early Buddhist meditation theory, bringing together the practice of
dhyana with the development of wisdom.
Nirvana As cessation and ending of rebirth Most modern scholars such as
Rupert Gethin,
Richard Gombrich and Paul Williams hold that the goal of early Buddhism,
nirvāṇa (
nibbana in Pali, also called
nibbanadhatu, the property of nibbana), means the 'blowing out' or 'extinguishing' of greed, aversion, and delusion (the simile used in texts is that of a flame going out), and that this signifies the permanent cessation of
samsara and
rebirth. As Gethin notes, "this is not a 'thing' but an event or experience" that frees one from rebirth in
samsara.
Gombrich argues that the metaphor of blowing out refers to fires which were kept by priests of
Brahmanism, and symbolise life in the world. According to Donald Swearer, the journey to nirvana is not a journey to a "separate reality", but a move towards calm, equanimity, nonattachment and nonself. Thomas Kasulis notes that in the early texts, nirvana is often described in negative terms, including “cessation” (
nirodha), “the absence of craving” (
trsnaksaya), “detachment,” “the absence of delusion,” and “the unconditioned” (
asamskrta). He also notes that there is little discussion in the
early Buddhist texts about the metaphysical nature of nirvana, since they seem to hold that metaphysical speculation is an obstacle to the goal. Kasulis mentions the
Malunkyaputta Sutta which denies any view about the existence of the Buddha after his final bodily death, all positions (the Buddha exists after death, does not exist, both or neither) are rejected. Likewise, another Sutta (
AN II 161) has
Sāriputta saying that asking the question "Is there anything else?" after the physical death of someone who has attained nibbana is conceptualising or proliferating (
papañca) about that which is without proliferation (
appapañcaṃ) and thus a kind of distorted thinking bound up with the self.
As a kind of consciousness or a place Edward Conze argued that Nirvana was a kind of Absolute. He mentions ideas like the "person" (
pudgala), the assumption of an eternal "consciousness" in the Saddhatu Sutra, the identification of the Absolute, of Nirvana, with an "invisible infinite consciousness, which shines everywhere" in
Digha Nikaya XI 85, and "traces of a belief in consciousness as the nonimpermanent centre of the personality which constitutes an absolute element in this contingent world" as pointing to this. Influenced by Schayer, M. Falk argues that the early Buddhist view of nirvana is that it is an "abode" or "place" of prajña, which is gained by the enlightened. This nirvanic element, as an "essence" or pure consciousness, is immanent within
samsara. The three bodies are concentric realities, which are stripped away or abandoned, leaving only the nirodhakaya of the liberated person. A similar view is also defended by C. Lindtner, who argues that in precanonical Buddhism Nirvana is: According to Lindtner, Canonical Buddhism was a reaction to this view, but also against the absolutist tendencies in Jainism and the Upanisads. Nirvana came to be seen as a state of mind, instead of a concrete place. Elements of this precanonical Buddhism may have survived the canonisation, and its subsequent filtering out of ideas, and re-appeared in
Mahayana Buddhism. According to Lindtner, the existence of multiple, and contradicting ideas, is also reflected in the works of Nagarjuna, who tried to harmonise these different ideas. According to Lindtner, this lead him to taking a "paradoxical" stance, for instance regarding nirvana, rejecting any positive description. Referring to this view, Alexander Wynne holds that there is no evidence in the
Sutta Pitaka that the Buddha held this view, at best it only shows that "some of the early Buddhists were influenced by their Brahminic peers." Wynne concludes that the Buddha rejected the views of the
Vedas and that his teachings present a radical departure from these
Brahminical beliefs. ==See also==