View Printer Friendly Format

An Auspicious Day for a Meeting

July’s Sanghapala First Tuesday Gathering in Berkeley on July 7 by chance not only took place on a lunar observance day (full moon) but coincided with a major festival in southern Buddhist countries: the Asalha Puja that is celebrated every year to commemorate the anniversary of the Buddha’s first sermon at the Deer Park near Varanasi (Benares), now some 2597 years ago. July 7 is also the anniversary of the founding of the Western Sangha of the Thai forest tradition in the UK, and the next day (Wednesday) was the beginning of the annual Vassa (Rains Retreat).

On this auspicious occasion, Ajahn Amaro built his Dhamma talk around Asalha Puja by reviewing the events leading up to the Buddha’s enlightenment, the period immediately afterward leading to his decision to go to Varanasi to teach the Dhamma to his five erstwhile ascetic companions, and the themes of his first discourse to them in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (Samyutta Nikāya 56.11: The Discourse on Setting in Motion the Wheel of Dhamma). By tradition, it is in this sutta that the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path are first revealed. Caganando Bhikkhu and Anagarika Carl accompanied Ajahn to the gathering.

[Most of the elements of the story following below can be found in the Majjhima Nikaya (The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha) in Suttas 26, the Ariyapariyesanā Sutta (The Noble Search), and 36, the Mahāsaccaka Sutta (The Greater Discourse to Saccaka). Sutta links and quotes are to translations available on Access to Insight.]

Ajahn Amaro began with the Buddha’s dilemma after his enlightenment under the Bodhi tree and subsequent period of refining his understanding. In short, the Buddha worried that the Dhamma he discovered was too subtle for a world so caught up in becoming, identifying habit with self, and grasping. Maybe it would be best to just live alone. In Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s translation:

Enough now with teaching
what
only with difficulty
I reached.
This Dhamma is not easily realized
by those overcome
with aversion and passion.

What is abstruse, subtle,
deep,
hard to see,
going against the flow —
those delighting in passion,
cloaked in the mass of darkness,
won't see. (MN 26)

So the Buddha concluded, “As I reflected thus, my mind inclined to dwelling at ease, not to teaching the Dhamma.”

At this point, realizing that the world would be lost without the Dhamma, the Brahma Sahampati intervened. We chant a condensed version of his words to the Buddha every time we request a Dhamma talk following the formula in the Abhayagiri Chanting Book:

Brahmā ca lokādhipatī sahampati
Katañjali anadhivaram ayācatha
Santīdha sattāpparajakkha-jātikā
Destu dhammam anukampimam pajam

The Brahma god Sahampati, Lord of the world,
With palms joined in reverence, requested a favor:
“Beings are here with but little dust in their eyes,
Pray, teach the Dhamma out of compassion for them.”

Surveying the world with his awakened eye, the Buddha confirmed Sahampati’s assertion and reversed his decision

The next question was who is ready to hear the teaching? After realizing that his former teachers were now dead, his thoughts turned to his five ascetic companions. With his divine eye he saw that they were residing at the Deer Park at Isipatana near Varanasi. He recalled his period of extreme ascetic practice before his Awakening that had included bouts of not breathing and not eating to the point where he could feel his backbone by touching his belly. During that time, he had concluded that enduring pain was not a path to liberation. Could there by another path to liberation, he asked himself?

He then recalled a childhood experience of the first jhana while seated under a rose apple tree in his father’s garden that gave him the insight that pleasure in and of itself was not the problem:

I thought: “I am no longer afraid of that pleasure that has nothing to do with sensuality, nothing to do with unskillful mental qualities, but that pleasure is not easy to achieve with a body so extremely emaciated. Suppose I were to take some solid food: some rice and porridge.” (MN 36) [This version does not mention the village women who offered him milk in other accounts.]

As the Buddha followed through and took some solid food, the five ascetics believed that their former friend has degenerated into a “spiritual wimp,” so the they left on their own, while the Buddha was left on his own to begin the practice that resulted in his Awakening.

Setting out to Varanasi, the Buddha had not yet perfected his approach to teaching the Dhamma, as Ajahn Amaro illustrated with the story of the Buddha’s encounter with the wanderer Upaka. On seeing the Buddha, Upaka immediately was captivated by his radiant countenance and inquired as to his family and teachers. By today’s standards, the Buddha’s reply show little trace of modesty:

I have no teacher,
and one like me can't be found.
In the world with its devas,
I have no counterpart.

For I am an arahant in the world;
I, the unexcelled teacher.
I, alone, am rightly self-awakened.
Cooled am I, unbound.

To set rolling the wheel of Dhamma
I go to the city of Kasi.
In a world become blind,
I beat the drum of the Deathless.

We can perhaps imagine Upaka’s restraint when he replied simply, “May it be so, my friend” and shaking his head left by different direction.

Arriving at Varanasi, the Buddha understood that another approach was needed. He devised a simple medical analogy: disease, cause, cure, and treatment. At the same time, the five, who had resolved to show the Buddha no respect after his disgraceful turn to a life of luxury, were soon overwhelmed by his appearance and spared no pain to make him welcome and comfortable. But when he claimed that the Deathless had been realized and that by paying attention to his words, the gate would open for them as well, they still needed some convincing that he had something to teach them. They asked three times how it was that he had attained such a superior state if he had not been able to do so by the practice of austerities.

The Buddha’s answer, is formalized in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, which can also be found in written form in the Abhayagiri Chanting Book and in audio form as chanted by the Abhayagiri monastics here. It begins with the explication of the Middle Way: the way is to give up attachment, which can be directed in either of two directions: pleasure and asceticism. Either of these two extremes results in suffering in the long run.

And what, bhikkhus, is that middle way awakened to by the One Attuned to Reality which gives rise to vision, which gives rise to knowledge, which leads to peace, to higher knowledge, to full awakening, to Nibbāna? It is just this Noble Eight-factored Path, that is to say, right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right mental unification. (SN 56.11)

In the question and answer period after the Dhamma talk, Ajahn Amaro clarified the Middle Way as knowing when to back off from hardships. Some degree of asceticism (reducing food, sleep, and comfort) is needed to teach how to be happy with only a little and with not being control. While the monastic life provides some structure in this regard, whether in monastic or lay life, there is no magic formula that defines where the balance lies; it is up to us to find that for ourselves.

Mapping the Four Noble Truths onto the medical analogy, the Buddha continued that the symptom is suffering (dukkha): we are not blissfully happy all the time and we need to apprehend this. The cause of suffering is craving (tanhā), of which there are three strands: sensual pleasure, becoming, and not becoming. The cure for suffering is to end craving. The treatment that results in the end of suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path.

With this sermon, the Buddha set in motion the Wheel of Dhamma, which, once started, cannot be stopped by any power or principality. It is fortunate for us that this is so because the same spiritual malaise that afflicted the Buddha’s countrymen 2500 years ago afflicts us still, but the same medicine is also available. Thus ended a most auspicious occasion, indeed worthy of our reflection and contemplation.

The next Sanghapala First Tuesday Gathering will be on August 4, 2009, at the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery (2304 McKinley Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94703).