The good can be seen through from afar
Even from afar like Himalaya Mountain the good reveal themselves. The wicked though near, are invisible like arrows shot by night.
Pakinnaka Vagga - The Dhammapada

On understanding intentions in Dhamma

Kingsley Heendeniya

Dhamma: The word for 'intention' in the Dhamma is cetana. It is ubiquitous in the teaching. Understanding it correctly is integral. In this short essay, I shall try to explore its meaning.

Consciousness

Let me begin with consciousness [vinnana]. Vinnana is the existential determination determining all experience. No one can know how it came to be incorporated in matter. Characteristically, the Buddha does not speak about its origination because it is irrelevant. He taught a fistful of things relevant to the present problem: arising of dukkha. Thus, the standpoint to understanding vinnana and everything in the teaching is this element, dukkha.

Vinnana is not substance. A sample of it cannot be extracted and examined. That is, no one can be conscious of consciousness. How then are we to understand it?

To be conscious, is to be conscious of something even of 'nothingness' and 'neither-perception-nor-non-perception' in advanced states of meditation.

In everyday experience this 'something' is intention. We intend to see, hear, smell, taste, touch, act, imagine and think. For example, we normally think and ponder before speaking. That is, speech is intentional. But feeling and perceiving are not intentions. They lead to intentions.

How about breathing? While breathing in and out is a body process independent of intention, meditation on air going in and out is intention. We may regard these instances of arising of intention in consciousness as basic.

Before proceeding, we must consider another thing about consciousness in the ordinary person. The all-inclusive feature of consciousness is awareness of 'self'. It is always the case that 'I am' intending. In other words, the 'self' and consciousness are one.

Duality

Consciousness is a thus a duality: in-oneself and in-the-external-world-of-things. On account of this, the self interprets big and small, good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant, ugly and beautiful and so on though there is no duality.

A flower is a flower - neither beautiful nor not-beautiful. If no one sees it, it is as it is - a flower. 'Good' and 'bad' does not inhere in a thing. Only the arhant who has deleted the artefact of 'self' in consciousness tells 'the seen in the seen, the heard in the heard, the sensed in the sensed, the cognized in the cognized.'

This is experience of things as they actually are. There is no intention [as in an ordinary man] in consciousness.

The Buddha says, 'Tell, then, where do earth, water, fire and air no footing find? Where likewise the long and short, small and big, and fair and foul? Where is it that name and matter do without remainder cease? And the answer is this: The consciousness that makes no showing, nor has to do with finiteness, claiming no being apart from all: There it is that earth, water...do without remainder cease'.

We cannot conceive this disappearance of consciousness. But we can understand duality of consciousness in another way. 'Cetana, properly speaking is 'intentional intention' - i.e. ''will' or 'volition' - but the word intention, in its looser meaning is the best translation for cetana.

All consciousness is intentional, teleological. In unreflective consciousness we are 'directed' upon objects, we 'intend' them; and reflection reveals this to be an immanent process characteristic of all experience, though infinitely varied in form.

To be conscious of something is no empty having that something in consciousness. Each phenomenon has its own intentional structure, which analysis shows to be an ever-widening system of individually revealed components.

The intentional structure of a perception must conform to a certain type, if any physical object is to be perceived as there! And if the same object be intuited in other modes, if it be imagined or remembered or copied, all its intentional forms recur though modified in character...Judgment, valuation, pursuit are experiences compounded of an intentional stream.

Intentions

Intentions may be regarded basically as the relation between the actual and the possible...The set of relations between the actual aspect and all the alternative aspects is the same, no matter which one of the various aspects should happen to be actual...There is now exercise of preference (with the pleasant preferred to the unpleasant), this is volition in its simplest form...We must also consider the difference of emphasis or 'weight' possessed by the various aspects...some stand out more prominently than the others...this is attention [manasikara] in its simplest terms: it may be described as 'direction of emphasis'...Every voluntary or reflexive intention is perpetually revocable.

Every involuntary or immediate intention is modifiable... An inclination is an active seeking of a still only possible state of affairs.' [Nanavira Thera]

An intention is essentially negative. It denies the existence of a positive but in the very act of denying, asserts its existence. The intention 'to kill' denies the intention 'not to kill' but asserts that the intention 'not to kill' exists.

There is now voluntary or informed exercise of preference. This is the basis of the division of kamma [action] as unskilful [akusala] and skilful [kusala].

The intention 'to kill' is the native intention of the built-in intentions of greed, hate and delusion [kilesa] in consciousness of the ordinary man. Any action is regarded unskilful as it reinforces the built-in intentions.

The intention 'not to kill' is intention to abstain. It is skilful, as it does not produce arising of action. This is the definition of kusala. That is, actions based on kilesa are intentions that produce arising of action, which is dukkha, because it perpetuates kilesa. It ripens in re-becoming. [Mahacattarisaka Sutta].

Skilful and unskilful intentions

Intentions or actions of the ordinary man arise in the self. He is prone to both unskilful and skilful intentions. One who has heard and learnt Dhamma has the advantage to make an informed choice of intentions. But from wrong view he may intend the unskilful assuming it skilful.

The tendency to greed, aversion and wrong view is likely when akusala and kusala are regarded unwholesome and wholesome, as demerit and merit. It can lead to intentions of collecting whereas the aim in practising Dhamma is to abandon. 'The purpose of understanding [panna], is direct knowledge [abhinna]; its purpose is full understanding [parinna]; its purpose is abandoning.' [Mahavedalla Sutta].

Accordingly, intentions of the arhant are neither akusala nor kusala. Unlike in the ordinary man, they are void of craving [tanha]. Why is that? The dualities imposed by the kilesa are extinct in vinnana of the arahat.

Intention does not imply craving or arhantta would be impossible. 'Craving is a gratuitous parasite on the intentional structure.' [Nanavira Thera].

Abandoning

There are simplistic ways to understand intention. But in whatever way understood, there should be no conflict with the fundamental aim of the Dhamma, namely to abandon, not acquire.

This is the core understanding I want to communicate and intend by this essay.

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Monastic site in peril

by Elmo Leonard

Monastic site: The village of Akbopura of the past, and Giritale, today, rests south of Polonnaruwa and the people here, are dependent on rice farming, as it was in times of yore. Here, live 160 Buddhist families, making this village an all-Buddhist setting.

It was a Full Moon Poya Day and the zealous Buddhist Monk, In-Charge of the village temple Ven. Diyasenpura Sumanajothi Thera looked like a grandmaster attending to the spiritual needs of the Dayakas. The respect they have for Ven. Sumanajothi Thera, now for four years, the Chief Incumbent, is noteworthy.

Ven. Diyasenpura Sumanajothi Thera, the Head of the Sellatharanaya Raja Maha Vihara, here, seems a worthy monk in the light of Buddhist teachings. He says that the Buddhist Temple under his care which sits on the ancient Agbopura monastic site is faced with a major cultural catastrophe.

A document of archaeological interest drawn by J.A.W. Jayasinghe and checked by the Director of archaeology, dated, 10 December 2004, reveals the presence of two Stupas (much buried) at the Agbopura monastic site, one Tempita building, 18 unidentified buildings, a moonstone, highland of suffix, ruins of entrance, five stone pillars, a bathing pond, and terraced walls running round an expanse of acres, which made up this monastic site. "Only the pond was excavated," they said.

And in the same breath, people alleged, that all that the Department of Archaeology was interested in, was the location of treasure, here. Legend has it that this location also, Girithara Nuwara in the past, had its agricultural infrastructure built by King Akhbo II. Perhaps, around 600 - 650 AD and somehow, went into ruin.

Such sites bear rock inscriptions of its date and the builder, but such an inscription was displaced during the flattening of the land 50 years ago, people here, said.

And, Ven. Sumanajothi Thera thinks the historic inscription is possibly buried near the present temple.

In ancient times and even today, the Stupa, symbolises the presence of the Buddha. When near the ruins of a Stupa, a tank for storing water to irrigate rice fields, and the remains of a village are found, it is evident at that place, existed a Buddhist civilisation of the past.

Others, preceding Parakramabahu the Great, followed the norm, but Parakramabahu is known to have said that the Buddhist Temple be built on the highest spot in the village. In this way, rain water which seeped down from the highest point remained pure, when used by man, below. Ven. Sumanajothi Thera said that for the pond below to fill, there had to be high land. And, the old Dayakayas alleged that "bulldozers" had removed the high land.

Restoration of this ancient Buddhist monastery, remains the Ven. Thera's plea. The entrance to this site is over a paddy field, and there is no electricity, here. In the unlevelled land, are two or possibly three Stupas. Treasure hunters have dug out the treasure from one Chetiya, leaving a huge hole at its apex.

Unfortunately, the hole left behind, continues to be filled with branches of trees, which wither away, or with the trees, cut down, to show the presence of a Stupa, by people who come here. Another, deep buried Stupa has towering trees growing on and around it, and little of a dome shape is noticeable.

The Sinhalese kings enshrined treasure in the Stupas for use, in the event of an irrigation tank or what other, in its vicinity, falling under a natural calamity, and necessitating funds for repair.

People here said that there was a treasure hunt in the 1920s and a curse had befallen the treasure seekers, who were from Giritale, and they had to leave the village. A legend says that there was another treasure pilferage, here, "before the Europeans arrived," and a curse had befallen those offenders, too.

Some rock pillars, which would have housed a monastery, are just a few feet above ground level, meaning that the past lay deep down under.

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Buddhism from the Net - Simile of the Lion King

The Lion King: Ever-victorious between heaven and earth is the Lion King. Our Grand Master shall earnestly expound the reason for this. Divine Light produced by the prana, channels an inner-fire, will release the unrestrained Holy Hero from worldly bindings!

On March 24th, while delivering a sermon on the Great Rainbow Brilliance Accomplishment at the True Buddha Tantric Quarters, His Holiness Living Buddha Lian-sheng explained to the assembly the significance of practising Dharma in the spirit of the Lion King.

The Grand Master recollected a question from Ancestry Master Reverend Liao Ming, 'Will you like to be the Lion King living in the hills and woods, or rather be the Lion King that is being fed and tended in the zoo?' Reverend Liao Ming stated, 'If you wish to become the Lion King living amongst the hills and woods, then you must jump beyond worldly confinements!'

Having understood the profound implication behind this allegory, the Grand Master came to realize that to be a monk is to become the lion living in the hills and woods; if choose to remain as a lay person, then one is no different from the lion caged in the zoo.

The Grand Master said, 'What is Spiritual Liberty'? The lion is the lord of all beasts and is thus freed from all restraints. This is spiritual Liberty'.

To have self-control and is able to do whatever one pleases without transgressions, not getting harmed either physically or mentally in the process. This is Spiritual Liberty'.

In addition, the Grand Master pointed out to His disciples, 'You should first cultivate your prana and channels, kindle the inner-fire and generate your own divine brilliance.

Everyone must strive to become the lofty and majestic Ever-victorious Lion King. Do not be like the ordinary beings whose bodies are filled with negative veins', and who have chilled hands and feet, lacking even the slightest tinge of masculine energy?'

His Holiness skilfully illustrated to the assembly the importance of gaining insight into mundane vanities and renunciation, "Once upon a time, there was a king who was tied down by the management of state affairs day and night. He had to bear the worries and sufferings of all his people, be concerned with the loyalty of his ministers, possible invasions from neighbouring countries, disputes and jealousies between his beautiful concubines.

He was mentally tormented everyday. Nevertheless, after he had renounced and left his magnificent royal residence, he found that he could actually live contentedly in his humble straw hut. Thereupon he felt like an unfettered man, and each day he would face the emptiness and exclaimed how wonderful?.

His Holiness cited another example, Shakyamuni Buddha was formerly crown prince Siddharta. If he had not renounced and, pursued the path of spiritual cultivation, but had instead continued to enjoy the luxurious life in His Palace, He would not be a famous person as He is today; But the fact remains that He did renounce to seek spiritual enlightenment.

When Shakyamuni Buddha was meditating under a Bodhi tree, the demonic king appeared and told Him, Devadatta has entered into your fermer palaces and is now enjoying your queen and concubines. You should therefore return immediately and settle the matter.

However, the sagacious Shakyamuni Buddha replied in a casual and nonchalant manner. On this world there are no permanent consorts and spouce.

Shakyamuni Buddha displayed such remarkable spiritual liberty upon renunciation. He is indeed immovable.

Finally, the Grand Master praised the ordained persons of True Buddha school for their wise decision to renounce, and their devotion to spiritual cultivation. The Grand Master also encouraged His disciples to resolve to be a genuine Lion King.

Reverend Hui Jun
(translated by Kether Su and the TBSN Translation Committee)