DETERMINATION
From the Buddha’s discovery of the path to awakening, taken up in the preceding chapter, I now proceed to his strong determination to follow this path through to its final goal. This strong determination finds expression in a passage in the Mahāgosiṅga-sutta and its parallels. The discourse features several eminent monastics who engaged in what appears to be a playful competition. In the course of this, each eulogized a particular quality of an accomplished practitioner that could match the beauty of the moonlit grove where they were meeting, a quality in which the respective speaker was particularly accomplished. When the monastics approached the Buddha to receive his verdict regarding which of them had spoken well, he endorsed all of their statements by replying that they had all spoken well. Then he added yet another quality, which the context suggests was the one the Buddha considered to be characteristic of himself. In the Madhyama-āgama parallel to the Mahāgosiṅga-sutta, this characteristic is as follows:1
Suppose when the night is over, at dawn, in compliance with dwelling in dependence on a town or village, a monastic puts on the robes and takes the bowl to enter the village to beg for food, with the body well guarded, all the faculties well collected, and mindfulness well established. Having begged for food, after midday, having put away robes and bowl as well as washed hands and feet, with a sitting mat placed over the shoulder [the monastic] approaches a forest, the foot of a tree, or an empty quiet place. Spreading out the sitting mat, [the monastic] sits down cross-legged [with the determination]: “I will not release the cross-legged sitting until the influxes are eradicated.” [The monastic] in turn does not release the cross-legged sitting until the influxes are eradicated.
The Mahāgosiṅga-sutta gives fewer details regarding what needs to be done previous to the sitting and does not explicitly state that the strong determination (not to break posture until liberation from the influxes has been attained) is indeed carried out to its successful completion. The same appears nevertheless to be implicit in its presentation.
Two other discourses in the Madhyama-āgama associate this strong determination with the occasion when the bodhisattva approached the seat of awakening.2 The Lalitavistara and the Saṅghabhedavastu of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, as well as the introductory narration to the Jātaka collection, confirm that this was indeed the bodhisattva’s determined attitude when sitting down for the meditation session that resulted in his awakening.3 This episode appears to be the nucleus out of which the hagiographic account developed that depicts the Buddha seated under the tree of awakening and assailed by Māra and his host who are unable to displace him from his seat.
When evaluating the implications of the above strong determination, it needs to be kept in mind that for the Buddha to sit for long stretches of time was not necessarily a challenge. This comes to the fore in a discussion between the Buddha and Jain ascetics, reported in the Cūḷadukkhakkhandha-sutta and its parallels and already mentioned in the previous chapter. In the course of this discussion, the Jains assert that happiness cannot be gained through happiness, but instead requires going through pain. This affirmation finds its illustration in the contrast provided by King Bimbisāra, presumably brought in by the Jains as an example of someone who has free access to sensual pleasure. In other words, if the true happiness of liberation did not depend on experiencing pain, then even someone who lives in luxury and surrounded by sensual pleasures like the king of the country would at the same time be making progress to liberation.
In reply to the Jains (referred to as Nigaṇṭhas), in the Cūḷadukkhakkhandha-sutta the Buddha conveys his shift of perspective by comparing the happiness of a king to the happiness of absorption. The relevant passage in the Madhyamaāgama parallel to the Cūḷadukkhakkhandha-sutta proceeds as follows:4
I asked them again: “Nigaṇṭhas, am I able, as I wish, to experience delightful joy and deep happiness for one day and one night by remaining in silence and without speaking?” The Nigaṇṭhas replied: “Indeed, Gotama.”
I asked them again: “Nigaṇṭhas, am I able, as I wish, to experience delightful joy and deep happiness for two, for three, for four, for five, for six, [even] for seven days and seven nights by remaining in silence without speaking?” The Nigaṇṭhas replied: “Indeed, Gotama.”
I asked them again: “Nigaṇṭhas, what do you think, whose happiness is superior, that of King Bimbisāra or mine?” The Nigaṇṭhas replied: “Gotama, as we came to understand what the recluse Gotama has said, the happiness of Gotama is superior, that of King Bimbisāra does not match it.”
The Cūḷadukkhakkhandha-sutta differs in so far as here the Buddha just affirms that he is able to experience happiness for up to seven days and nights, rather than asking the Jains for confirmation. Another difference is that in the Cūḷadukkhakkhandha-sutta the Buddha specifies that such experience of continuous happiness takes place “without moving the body”, a specification also found in a parallel in the Ekottarika-āgama. The same would be implicit in the other versions, whose description must be referring to the same type of deep happiness experienced during absorption attainment.
The ability to sit for up to seven days and nights experiencing the bliss of deep concentration provides a helpful background to the passage from the Mahāgosiṅga-sutta and its parallels regarding the strong determination not to break posture until awakening is reached. Although this indubitably depicts an unswerving determination, it does not imply that the future Buddha was sitting through excruciating pain or with a forceful mental attitude. In fact the pointlessness of trying to force the mind to do what one wants, just as the futility of suffering through self-inflicted pain, had become patently clear to the bodhisattva well before the present juncture of events, leading to his abandoning of asceticism.
In this way the passage translated at the outset of this chapter is probably best understood as conveying the building up of the basic motivation discussed in the first chapter of this book, namely the bodhisattva’s quest to find the supreme peace of Nirvāṇa which is free from old age, disease, and death. This motivation forms a continuous theme throughout the whole trajectory of his experiences from going forth up to the present moment. It is this unswerving motivation that made him give up the sublime meditative experiences reached under the tuition of Āḷāra Kālāma and Uddaka Rāmaputta and also made him let go of the pursuit of asceticism. Throughout apparent failures his determination seems to have become stronger rather than lessened, until it reaches the present final peak.
This provides a powerful example of the potential and importance of keeping one’s own motivation clearly in mind as a guiding force for meditation practice. Repeated recollection of one’s aim to progress towards liberation will form an inclination of the mind, as is the case with any thought one recurrently engages in (according to the Dvedhāvitakka-sutta and its parallels, which I took up in Chapter 3). Such an inclination of the mind can become a major force for sustaining progress until one indeed has realized the goal of one’s aspiration.
In a way this mirrors the role of right view in relation to the remainder of the noble eightfold path. According to the Mahācattārīsaka-sutta and its parallels, the eight factors build on each other with right view as their foundation.5 The Mahācattārīsaka-sutta and its parallels agree that the task of right view is to recognize whether other path factors like intention, speech, action, and livelihood are leading in the right direction. In the case of intentions, this requires implementing the basic distinction of thoughts into wholesome and unwholesome types that according to the Dvedhāvitakka-sutta and its Madhyamaāgama parallel formed a central dimension of the bodhisattva’s own practice. Unwholesome thoughts and intention are harmful for oneself and others, they do not lead to Nirvāṇa. Wholesome thoughts and intentions are not harmful and do form part of the conduct that leads to Nirvāṇa. The same holds for unwholesome versus wholesome speech, action, and livelihood. In this way the Mahācattārīsaka-sutta and its parallels can be taken as fleshing out the repercussions of the attitude enshrined in right view, which in turn mirrors the basic motivation of the future Buddha to set out in quest of Nirvāṇa.
The Mahāsaccaka-sutta and its Sanskrit parallel offer further details on the sitting with determination that was to lead the bodhisattva to the breakthrough to Nirvāṇa. They report that, after having nourished his body to regain his strength, he next cultivated the four absorptions. The relevant part in the Sanskrit fragment version proceeds like this:6
Secluded from sensuality and secluded from evil and unwholesome states, with application and its sustaining, with joy and happiness born of seclusion, I dwelled having attained the first absorption.
The Sanskrit fragment continues by reporting that his experience of this attainment took place in the presence of the same qualities that he had relied on earlier during his ascetic practices:
Tireless energy was produced in me, the body was calm and not agitated, mindfulness was established without confusion, the mind was concentrated and unified.
Another continuity with the earlier asceticism is the bodhisattva’s report that the feelings arisen did not overwhelm his mind. This forms a continuous theme for the painful feelings of his various ascetic practices, but with the present experience of the pleasure of absorption it takes a different form, as follows:
Feeling such wholly peaceful and sublime feelings did not remain obsessing the mind, as I had thus developed the body and developed the mind.
The Mahāsaccaka-sutta differs in so far as it states that the feelings that did not remain overwhelming his mind were of the pleasant type, in contrast to the qualification of these feelings as peaceful and sublime in the Sanskrit fragment version. Both versions continue with the same presentation for the other three absorptions. In the case of the fourth absorption, the Mahāsaccakasutta still specifies that such pleasant feelings did not remain overwhelming the mind of the bodhisattva. This shows that in this respect the Sanskrit fragment version has a preferable formulation, since to speak of peaceful and sublime feelings works for all four absorptions, whereas to refer to pleasant feelings, sukhā vedanā, does not suit the fourth absorption too well,7 because it is a precondition for its attainment that pleasant feelings have been left behind.
Alongside this minor variation in formulation, however, the two versions agree that monitoring the impact of feelings on the mind forms a basic continuity from the onset of the bodhisattva’s ascetic practices to his gaining of the fourth absorption on the eve of his awakening. They also agree that neither intensely painful nor intensely pleasant feelings had been able to overwhelm the mind of the bodhisattva. Needless to say, at the time of going through these experiences he was not yet awakened, making it clear that to cultivate the ability to keep the mind from being overwhelmed by feeling is not the sole domain of awakened ones.
According to a discourse in the Saṃyutta-nikāya and its Saṃyukta-āgama parallel, insight into feeling became a dimension of the Buddha’s awakening.8 This confirms the importance of insightful contemplation of feeling for the Buddha’s progress to, and eventual attainment of, the goal of his aspiration.
The importance given to the experience of feeling in this way could explain why the scheme of satipaṭṭhāna meditation has allotted a distinct place to its contemplation. To direct mindfulness to body and mind, as is the case with the first and the third satipaṭṭhāna, is in a way natural, but to carve out an additional place for feeling by way of the second satipaṭṭhāna seems less obvious at first sight. Perhaps it is precisely the bodhisattva’s own experience during his quest for awakening that made plain to him the need to give special importance to feeling, together with the importance of mindfully monitoring what one is doing and in what way this affects the condition of one’s mind.9
It is such mindful monitoring that led him to the realization that the two paths he had tried were not capable of leading him to his goal. The same mindful monitoring during his actual striving enabled him to experience pain and pleasure without being overwhelmed by them. This is precisely the task that underlies contemplation of feeling. As mentioned briefly in Chapter 8, contemplation of feeling requires being aware of feeling as pleasant, painful, or neutral. The chief challenge here is neither to ignore the feeling tone of present experience nor to react to it immediately. Instead, one just remains aware and thereby learns to experience fully the affective push that comes usually so closely intertwined with the experience of feeling as to lead to instant reactions by way of desire and aversion. Here the bodhisattva’s own practice furnishes an inspiring example. Even with the excruciating pain of asceticism carried to the extreme of bringing him to the brink of death, just as with the sublime pleasures of deep absorption, he was able to maintain the mindful vantage point of being aware without reacting, thereby preventing his mind from being overwhelmed by the experience of any of these feelings.
EXERCISE
By way of following the example set by the Buddha’s preawakening ability to remain unaffected by painful and pleasant feelings, discussed in the present chapter, contemplation of feeling seems an obvious choice. In addition to the basic task of just being aware of feeling and recognizing its affective tone, an additional dimension could be developed based on the idea of sitting with determination. This should certainly not be taken to the extreme point of suffering through agonizing pain – in fact to do so can have consequences on our health that will be detrimental to progress on the path. However, it is possible to employ the situation of being seated in meditation as a way of exploring with mindful investigation how painful feelings affect the mind. Such can be done by simply remaining aware for a moment of any itch or discomfort, rather than immediately relieving it. Only after having clearly noticed the painful sensation, and the push in the mind to take action, do we indeed change posture or scratch ourselves.
Training in this way can in the course of time make us become more aware of the pervasiveness of subtle painful feelings throughout a range of physical activities. Putting on or taking off clothes to avoid the unpleasant feeling of being too cold or too hot, eating and drinking to avoid the pangs of hunger and thirst, defecating and urinating to avoid the affliction of congestion ... there is no end to the activities to be done continually in order to counter the body’s inherent tendency to give rise to painful feeling. Just directing awareness to this dimension of bodily experience can have a remarkable transformative potential on our attitudes and priorities.
Besides exploring painful feelings in the way described above, and as a way to balance out such practice, another usually unnoticed feeling could be made the object of our attention. This is the rather subtle pleasant feeling in the mind that results from just being in the present moment. Comparable to the case of the pain inherent in having a body, noticing the joy of being fully in the here and now takes time and effort. Its recognition also has considerable potential, in particular by way of helping the mind to remain anchored in the only period of time in which we can truly live, which is neither the past nor the future, but solely the present moment. Coming back to the joy of the present moment can also be of considerable assistance in emerging from mental negativity, be this caused by our own inner tendencies or by some external event. A moment of joyful respite from negativity, facilitated by just attending to the present moment as it is, can go a long way in preparing us to deal effectively with whatever problem has manifested and thereby ensuring that the mind stays on course in the realm of what is wholesome.
Another practice I would like to suggest is taking inspiration from the example of the Buddha’s unswerving motivation. We could make the motivation that informs our practice, in the form this has emerged from the reflections suggested in Chapter 1, a part of our formal meditation practice. This could be done by just briefly attending mentally to that motivation when starting a sitting, so as to give meaning and context to what we are about to do and thereby ensure that the natural unfolding of our meditative cultivation has an orientation point in what we have chosen as the main direction for our life and practice.
1 The translation is based on MĀ 184 at T I 729b16 to 729b23, parallel to MN 32 at MN I 219,28 (translated Ñāṇamoli 1995/2005: 312), EĀ 37.3 at T II 711c16, and T 154.16 at T III 82b8; see also Anālayo 2011: 215f.
2 MĀ 157 at T I 679c11 and MĀ 204 at T I 777a12; see also T 212 at T IV 644c14.
3 Lefmann 1902: 262,3, Gnoli 1977: 113,23, and Jā I 71,24.
4 The translated passage is taken from MĀ 100 at T I 587c15 to 587c22, parallel to MN 14 at MN I 94,29 (translated Ñāṇamoli 1995/2005: 189), T 54 at T I 849a28, T 55 at T I 851a3, and EĀ 41.1 at T II 744b14 (here the reference is to the king’s inability to do so, as the description of the Buddha’s ability appears to be abbreviated and no longer mentions the time span); for a comparative study see Anālayo 2011: 123.
5 MN 117 at MN III 76,1 (translated Ñāṇamoli 1995/2005: 938f) and its parallels MĀ 189 at T I 735c8 (translated Anālayo 2012b: 295) and D 4094 nyu 46b2 or Q 5595 thu 86a6. For a comparative study see Anālayo 2011: 658.
6 The translated passage is based on fragment 337r4 to 337r6, Liu 2010: 228, parallel to MN 36 at MN I 247,18 (translated Ñāṇamoli 1995/2005: 340f).
7 This has already been pointed out by Vetter 1996: 62.
8 SN 36.24 at SN IV 233,12 (translated Bodhi 2000: 1281f, who has divided the text into two separate discourses) and its parallel SĀ 475 at T II 121c12 (the exposition is abbreviated).
9 Carrithers 1983: 51 reasons that during his period of asceticism “the Buddha had repeatedly disciplined himself to ignore those sensations and impulses which ordinarily issue in action or reaction ... he had ignored the calls of hunger and thirst which accompanied his fast, as he ignored those pains of the body ... the effect of such long-standing discipline ... [is] to break long-standing, automatic and unconscious habits” of reacting to feeling.