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"I do not, monks, see any other single thing that so leads to the arising of unskillful things [akusala], or to the growth and development of unskillful that have arisen as wrong view. I do not, monks, see any other single thing that so leads to the non-arising of skillful [kusala] things that have not arisen, or to the decline of skillful things that have arisen, as wrong view" [Anguttara].
'Just as the dawn heralds and foretells the rising of the sun, so right view [sammaditthi] heralds and foretells the penetration to the Four Noble Truths, according as they really are.' [Sariputta, Sn. 56.37]
Let me try to help you to understand these words of the Master and His foremost pupil that lead onwards [opanayiko] to a particular insight of the Dhamma. In consideration of space, I shall necessarily be concise.
Consciousness [vinnana] differentiates the animate or the sentient from the inanimate. In the Teaching, there is no subdivision into [false] sub-consciousness and un-consciousness states as taught by psychologists. We are conscious all the time, when sleeping and dreaming, and when even in the so-called 'vegetative state' after say, brain injury, until it ceases at death.
Consciousness arises from, and is dependent on the six internal bases [ayatana] - eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind. With their counterparts or percepts of visible form, sound, smell, taste, touch and ideas, they are the six kinds of vinnana that inherent in all living beings. Understanding vinnana as thus taught by the Buddha in this exegesis is fundamental to arrive at insight of His Teaching. Any other is wrong view.
Consciousness is therefore intentional, purposive or teleological.
Thus understanding vinnana necessarily leads to understanding of intentions or cetana - which leads to other things. No understanding is however possible if one does not always ask the question: 'Why did the Buddha put it this way?' That is why dhamma-vicaya [investigation-of-things] is the second of seven factors [bojjhanga] leading to enlightenment.
It is done from a backdrop of the first, mindfulness [sati]. Discursive thinking has ceased - and anapanasati is helpful though not essential. What is essential is the mode of mindfulness and awareness [satisampajanna]. This is the way Dhamma is practised. Scholarship, learning and repeating things parrot-wise cannot lead from inferential knowledge to insight and experiencing the Teaching.
Let me now discuss negative thinking assuming the reader is familiar with the actual words of the Buddha as found in the suttas. But first, let us examine what others have said on the subject, chiefly the existentialist thinkers such as Heidegger, Husserl, Sartre, Kierkegaard where their mode of thinking and analysis is essentially satisampajanna - being in the present by reflexion upon the immediate experience. Pulling back, or re-observing the immediate experience is reflexion or awareness.
Reflection contains reflexion; but on the other hand, there is no reflection in reflexion. Long before the existentialist thinkers, the Buddha said, 'But, Udayi, let be the past, let be the future, I shall set you forth the Teaching: When there is this this is, with the arising of this this arises; when there is not this this is not, with the cessation of this this ceases.' It is a statement from negative thinking at the nuclear level. It is arisen from the seminal insight of the Buddha: the fundamental structure of dependent arising and cessation [paticcasamuppada].
A determination or intention, says Spinoza, is essentially negative. A negative or negation exists as a denial of the positive but it ipso facto affirms its existence. The Buddha thus framed the first noble in the negative: 'There is dukkha', affirming that the positive parama-sukha [Nibbana] exists. Dukkha is the present: 'When there is this [craving] this is [dukkha]'.
He did not frame it: 'There is parama-sukha' since if the positive [Nibbana] were evident there would have been no need for a Buddha to arise. If the man enjoying the pleasures of the senses from craving knew that extinction of craving is the purpose of existing, we should then all have become Buddha.
Kierkegaard says: 'Negative thinkers therefore have one advantage, in that they have something positive, being aware of the negative element in existence; the positive have nothing at all, since they are deceived...But the genuine subjective existing thinker is always as negative as he is positive, and vice versa.
Let us examine the structure of a sutta such as the Sammaditthi Sutta by venerable Sariputta or its more definitive construction, 'The Discourse on the Great Forty' by the Master himself.
Sariputta teaches 16 ways of arriving at right view and begins by describing unskillful action - the negative present everywhere in existence. 'And what, friends, is the unskillful, the root of the unskillful? What is the skillful, what is the root of the skillful?
Killing living beings, taking what is not given, misconduct in sensual pleasures, false speech, malicious speech, harsh speech, gossip, covetousness, ill will, wrong view, is unskillful. This is called the unskillful.' They are the inclinations the Buddha speaks about. They deny the existence of positive intentions of not killing living beings etc but affirm that positive intentions or cetana of not killing living beings exist.
Thus the Dhamma is about abandoning, about abstaining and letting go of inclinations. There is no exhortation to give succor to life and promote continued existence of living beings. For example, the Buddha always put away what was left over after a meal where no life exists. He did not feed it to a cat or a rat.
Space limits me from developing this line of investigating the Dhamma. Unlike Saint Ignatius Loyola who says that 'the sacrifice of the intellect is pleasing to God', the Buddha insists that his teaching should be scrutinized, adding from his own experience that it cannot be realised by reasoning alone.
That is to say, intentions of abandoning negative intentions leading to cessation of both negative and positive intentions cannot be reached by mere inferential thinking. True knowledge, from cessation of reference by inference from an alleged self is directly intuitive. It is hidden by the negative that is present everywhere.
This is the essence of the teaching of Bahiya when the wise man met the Buddha on the road while on alms round. 'When for you, Bahiya, in the seen is only the seen, in the heard is only the heard, in the sensed is only the sensed, in the cognized is only the cognized, then you shall neither be here [in the internal base] nor there [in the external percepts], nor in between the two [in consciousness].
It is the end of dukkha'. In other words, 'When there is not this this is not; with cessation of this this ceases.' Dependent arising - dependent on impact of the six senses, of both the negative and the positive upon a non-existent self - has ceased [phassanirodha]. It is the end of ethics, of negative and positive thinking.
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Kucchivikara vattu - the monk with dysentery
Even unpleasant people need to be cared for when they are ill. In this sermon, the Buddha tells us to care for anyone who needs our help, and goes on to describe how to be a good patient and a good nurse.
Now, at that time a certain monk was sick with dysentery. He lay fouled in his own urine and excrement. Then the Blessed One, on an inspection tour of the lodgings with Ven. Ananda as his attendant, went to that monk's dwelling and, on arrival, saw the monk lying fouled in his own urine and excrement. On seeing him, he went to the monk and said, "What is your sickness, monk?"
"I have dysentery, O Blessed One."
"But do you have an attendant?"
"No, O Blessed One."
"Then why don't the monks attend to you?"
"I don't do anything for the monks, lord, which is why they don't attend to me."
Then the Blessed One addressed Ven. Ananda: "Go fetch some water, Ananda. We will wash this monk."
"As you say, lord," Ven. Ananda replied, and he fetched some water. The Blessed One sprinkled water on the monk, and Ven. Ananda washed him off. Then - with the Blessed One taking the monk by the head, and Ven. Ananda taking him by the feet - they lifted him up and placed him on a bed.
Then the Blessed One, from this cause, because of this event, had the monks assembled and asked them: "Is there a sick monk in that dwelling over there?"
"Yes, O Blessed One, there is."
"And what is his sickness?"
"He has dysentery, O Blessed One."
"But does he have an attendant?"
"No, O Blessed One."
"Then why don't the monks attend to him?"
"He doesn't do anything for the monks, Lord, which is why they don't attend to him."
"Monks, you have no mother, you have no father, who might tend to you. If you don't tend to one another, who then will tend to you? Whoever would tend to me, should tend to the sick.
"If one's preceptor is present, the preceptor should tend to one as long as life lasts, and should stay until one's recovery. If one's teacher is present, the teacher should tend to one as long as life lasts, and should stay until one's recovery.
If one's student is present, the student should tend to one as long as life lasts, and should stay until one's recovery. If one's apprentice is present, the apprentice should tend to one as long as life lasts, and should stay until one's recovery.
If one who is a fellow student of one's preceptor is present, the fellow student of one's preceptor should tend to one as long as life lasts, and should stay until one's recovery. If one who is a fellow apprentice of one's teacher is present, the fellow apprentice of one's teacher should tend to one as long as life lasts, and should stay until one's recovery.
If no preceptor, teacher, student, apprentice, fellow student of one's preceptor, or fellow apprentice of one's teacher is present, the sangha should tend to one. If it does not, (all the monks in that community) incur an offence of wrong-doing.
"A sick person endowed with five qualities is hard to tend to: he does what is not amenable to his cure; he does not know the proper amount in things amenable to his cure; he does not take his medicine; he does not tell his symptoms, as they actually are present, to the nurse desiring his welfare, saying that they are worse when they are worse, improving when they are improving, or remaining the same when they are remaining the same; and he is not the type who can endure bodily feelings that are painful, fierce, sharp, wracking, repellent, disagreeable, life-threatening. A sick person endowed with these five qualities is hard to tend to.
"A sick person endowed with five qualities is easy to tend to: he does what is amenable to his cure; he knows the proper amount in things amenable to his cure; he takes his medicine; he tells his symptoms, as they actually are present, to the nurse desiring his welfare, saying that they are worse when they are worse, improving when they are improving, or remaining the same when they are remaining the same; and he is the type who can endure bodily feelings that are painful, fierce, sharp, wracking, repellent, disagreeable, life-threatening. A sick person endowed with these five qualities is easy to tend to.
"A nurse endowed with five qualities is not fit to tend to the sick: He is not competent at mixing medicine; he does not know what is amenable or unamenable to the patient's cure, bringing to the patient things that are unamenable and taking away things that are amenable; he is motivated by material gain, not by thoughts of goodwill; he gets disgusted at cleaning up excrement, urine, saliva, or vomit; and he is not competent at instructing, urging, rousing, and encouraging the sick person at the proper occasions with a talk on Dhamma.
A nurse endowed with these five qualities is not fit to tend to the sick. "A nurse endowed with five qualities is fit to tend to the sick: He is competent at mixing medicine; he knows what is amenable or unamenable to the patient's cure, taking away things that are unamenable and bringing things that are amenable; he is motivated by thoughts of goodwill, not by material gain; he does not get disgusted at cleaning up excrement, urine, saliva, or vomit; and he is competent at instructing, urging, rousing, and encouraging the sick person at the proper occasions with a talk on Dhamma. A nurse endowed with these five qualities is fit to tend to the sick."
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Reflection on the Buddhist Global Conference
New Buddhist relief organisation - a cornerstone of compassion
On March 19 and 20, Saturday and Sunday, my master, Bhante Chao Chu; my Dhamma brother, Dhammapala, and I attended the Buddhist Global Conference. After two days of dialogue, at the BMICH, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, the participants of the Buddhist Global Conference adopted a resolution assigning an Interim Organizing Committee comprised of Sri Lankan and international Buddhist representatives with the responsibility of presenting a draft constitution for a new Buddhist relief organization within the next three months.
The Interim Organizing Committee is headed by Dr. Hema Goonatilake and Olcott Gunaserkera. The Conference entitled Buddhist Humanitarian Services in a Post-Tsunami Context was well attended with over five hundred monastic, cleric, and lay participants, and headed by the Most Venerable Mahanayaka Theras.
The new relief organization, which will be similar to the Red Crescent or Red Cross, has as its objective the establishing of a world-wide network of Buddhist humanitarian services to facilitate more effective charitable efforts through the entire world.
The new organization will work tirelessly to coordinate humanitarian services at the national and international level. It has been suggested that the new organization, which is expected to be operational by the end of March 2006, incorporate a practical plan for utilizing the international organizational facilities of the World Fellowship of Buddhists (WFB), now based in Bangkok. The WFB was founded in 1950 by Dr. Gunapala Malalasekera.
The need for such a relief organization became clear with the tsunami disaster, and the efforts exhibited by the BhikkhusŸ?(tm) as well as the Buddhist laity proved that the world Buddhist community is up to the task.
The actions by the temples to throw their doors wide open to anyone seeking help, regardless of their religion, ethnicity or national origin, displayed to the entire world the true spirit of Buddhism.
I would personally like to salute one particular tsunami hero, Ven. Telwatte Nanda Tissa Thero. His example of courage during this disaster was the embodiment of Buddhist selflessness and compassion, and one which we would all be wise to emulate.
As the story was told to me: Venerable was in his temple leading a Dhamma discussion, when a young boy came running in shouting about a big wave. Of course, all the adults thought the child was just playing and imagining. But seconds later they realized what he was saying. Venerable Nanda Tissa mobilized everyone present to hurry out and help. He swam and waded into deep water to rescue victims.
He went to an overturned passenger bus, where the people inside were at risk of drowning, and broke windows with his bare hands to help the victims escape certain death. He brought the injured to the safety of his temple bandaged their wounds and helped transport them to the hospital.
During one of the breaks at the conference, I had the privilege of talking with some of the younger monks and nuns in attendance; and, if the youthful enthusiasm of these young monastics, in addition to the enthusiasm of the young Buddhist laymen and laywomen I met, is any indication of the quality of the next generation of Buddhist leaders, then the Buddhist tradition is in great shape!
Having said this, I believe that those of us who are older must resolve to plot the course they will traverse. And one of the best things we can do for their posterity, as well as ours, is to lay the ground work for a relief organization like this.
And, of course, if these young people have the ethical Buddhist core of Ven. Telwatte Nanda Tissa Thera, and Buddhists like him, this relief organization will one day be a cornerstone of compassion in the world.
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