Acknowledgments
This book has been several years in the making. In the course of assembling it I have used some of the material it contains to lead study courses at the Barre Center of Buddhist Studies, Barre, Massachusetts; at Awareness Grove, Laguna Beach, California; with the Insight Meditation Society of Orange County, the San Diego
Vipassana Community, and the Open Door Sangha of Santa Barbara.
The feedback coming from the participants in these courses has helped force me to clarify the presentation and to make explicit the connections between the words of the teachings and their application in practice. It has been encouraging to see that
people in America -- contrary to their reputation in other parts of the world -- are interested in learning
authentic Buddhist teachings and integrating them into their lives. This encouragement is what has given me the impetus to turn this material into a book.
In addition to the participants at the above courses, Dorothea Bowen, John Bullitt, Jim Colfax, Charles Hallisey, Karen King, Mu Soeng, Andrew Olendzki, Gregory M. Smith, and Jane Yudelman have read and offered valuable comments on earlier incarnations of the manuscript. John Bullitt also helped with the Index. The finished book owes a great deal to all of these people. Any mistakes that remain, of course, are my own responsibility....
- Ven. Thanissaro
Preface
HOW TO READ THIS BOOK
Many anthologies of the Buddha’s teachings have appeared in English, but this is the first to be organized around the set of teachings that the Buddha himself said formed the heart of his message: the [37 Requisites of Enlightenment or] Wings to Awakening (
bodhi-pakkhiya-dhamma).
The material is arranged in three parts, preceded by a long introduction. The introduction tries to define the concept of [enlightenment or] awakening so as to give a clear sense of where the Wings to Awakening are headed. It does this by discussing the Buddha’s accounts of his own [enlightenment] awakening, with special focus on the way in which the principle of skillful
kamma (in Sanskrit,
karma) formed both the “how” and the “what” of that Awakening.
The Buddha was able to reach Awakening only by developing skillful
kamma; this is the “how.” His understanding of the process of developing skillful
kamma is what sparked the insights that constituted Awakening; this is the “what.”
With this background established, the remainder of the book focuses in detail on the Wings to Awakening as an expanded analysis of the “how.” Part One focuses on aspects of the principle of skillful
kamma that shaped the way the Wings to Awakening are formulated. Part Two goes through the seven sets that make up the Wings to Awakening themselves:
- the Four Foundations of Mindfulness (here called the four frames of reference),
- the Four Right Efforts,
- the Four Bases of Power,
- the Five Faculties,
- the Five Strengths,
- the Seven Factors of Enlightenment, and
- the Noble Eightfold Path.
Part Three reduces all the terms in the seven sets to the five faculties and then deals with those faculties in detail.
With the fifth and final faculty, [wisdom or liberating insight or] discernment, the book concludes by returning to the “what” of Awakening, showing how discernment focuses on the Wings themselves as topics to be observed in such a way that they will spark the insights leading to total release [liberation or
nirvana]. ...
Table of 37 Requisites
- Remaining focused on the body in and of itself -- ardent, alert, and mindful [not evaluating or thinking but simply remaining aware at every moment in the here and now] -- putting aside greed and distress with regard to the world.
- Remaining focused on feelings (sensations)...
- Remaining focused on the mind...
- Remaining focused on mental formations...
- Generating desire [motivation, keen interest, enthusiasm], endeavoring, arousing persistence, upholding and exerting one’s intent for the sake of the non-arising of unwholesome, unskillful qualities that have not yet arisen.
- ...abandoning unwholesome, unskillful qualities that have arisen.
- ...exerting one’s intent for the sake of the arising of skillful qualities that have not yet arisen.
- ...exerting one’s intent for the maintenance, non-confusion, increase, plenitude, development, and culmination of skillful qualities that have arisen.
- Developing the base of power endowed with concentration founded on desire and the formations of exertion.
- ...persistence (energy)...
- ...concentration (collectedness)...
- ...discrimination (wisdom)...
The Five Faculties (
indrıya)
- the faculty of confidence (saddha-indrıya)
- ...persistence (energy, effort, exertion) (viriya-indrıya)
- ...mindfulness (sati-indrıya)
- ...concentration (samadhi-indrıya)
- ...discernment (wisdom, insight, understanding) (pañña-indrıya)
The Five Strengths (
bala)
- the strength of confidence (saddha-bala)
- ...persistence (energy) (viriya-bala)
- ...mindfulness (sati-bala)
- ...concentration (samadhi-bala)
- ...discernment (wisdom) (pañña-bala)
The Seven Factors of Enlightenment (
bojjhanga)
- mindfulness as a factor of enlightenment (sati-sambojjhanga)
- analysis of qualities [keen investigation of phenomena]... (dhamma-vicayasambojjhanga)
- persistence (energy)... (viriya-sambojjhanga)
- rapture... (pıti-sambojjhanga)
- calm... (passaddhi-sambojjhanga)
- concentration... (samadhi-sambojjhanga)
- equanimity... (upekkha-sambojjhanga)
The Noble Eightfold Path (
ariya-magga)
- right view (samma-ditthi)
- right resolve (intention, thought) (samma-sankappa)
- right speech (samma-vaca)
- right action (samma-kammanta)
- right livelihood (samma-ajıva)
- right effort (samma-vayama)
- right mindfulness (samma-sati)
- right concentration (mental collectedness) (samma-samadhi)
...
The Buddha’s Enlightenment/Awakening
.
When discussing the Buddha’s teachings, the best place to start is with his
enlightenment/awakening. That way, one will know where the teachings are coming from and where they are aimed. To appreciate the Awakening, we have to know what led Prince Siddhartha Gautama -- the Buddha before enlightenment -- to seek it in the first place.
According to his own account, the search began many lifetimes ago, but in this lifetime it was sparked by the realization of the inevitability of aging, illness, and death. In his words:
"I lived in refinement, utmost refinement, total refinement. My father even had lotus ponds made in our palace: one where red lotuses bloomed, one where white lotuses bloomed, one where blue lotuses bloomed, all for my sake. I used no sandalwood that was not from Varanasi (Kasi). My turban was from Varanasi, as were my tunic, my lower garments, and my outer cloak. A white sunshade was held over me day and night to protect me from cold, heat, dust, dirt, and dew.
"I had three palaces: one for the cold season, hot season, and rainy season. During the four months of the rainy season I was entertained in the rainy-season palace by [female] minstrels without a single man among them, and I did not once come down from the palace. Whereas the servants, workers, and retainers [slaves?] in other people’s homes are fed meals of lentil soup and broken rice, in my father’s home the servants, workers, and retainers were fed wheat, rice, and meat.
"Even though I was endowed with such fortune, such total refinement, the thought occurred to me: ‘When an untaught, run-of-the-mill person [uninstructed, ignorant worldling], subject to aging, not beyond aging, sees another who is aged, one is horrified, humiliated, and disgusted, oblivious to the fact that one is also subject to aging, not beyond aging. If I -- who am subject to aging, not beyond aging -- were to be horrified, humiliated, and disgusted on seeing another person who is aged, that would not be fitting for me.’ As I noticed this, the (typical) young person’s intoxication with youth entirely fell away.
"Even though I was endowed with such fortune, such total refinement, the thought occurred to me: ‘When an untaught, run-of-the-mill person, oneself subject to illness, not beyond illness, sees another who is ill, one is horrified, humiliated, and disgusted, oblivious to the fact that one is also subject to illness, not beyond illness.
"And if I -- who am subject to illness, not beyond illness -- were to be horrified, humiliated, and disgusted on
seeing another person who is ill, that would not be fitting for me.’ As I noticed this, the (typical) healthy person’s intoxication with health entirely fell away.
"Even though I was endowed with such fortune, such total refinement, the thought occurred to me: ‘When an untaught, run-of-the-mill person, oneself subject to death, not beyond death, sees another who is dead, one is horrified, humiliated, and disgusted, oblivious to the fact that one is also subject to death, not beyond death.
"And if I -- who am subject to death, not beyond death -- were to be horrified, humiliated, and disgusted on seeing another person who is dead, that would not be fitting for me.’ As I noticed this, the living person’s (typical) intoxication with life entirely fell away" (AN 3:38).
Prince Siddhartha once thought...
"Before my enlightenment, when I was still just an unawakened Bodhisattva (Buddha-to-be), being subject myself to birth, aging, illness, death, sorrow, and defilement, I sought (happiness in) what was subject to birth, aging, illness, death, sorrow, and defilement.
"The thought occurred to me: ‘Why am I, being subject myself to birth…defilement, seeking what is subject to birth…defilement? What if I…were to seek the unborn, unaging, unailing, undying, sorrowless, undefiled, unexcelled security from bondage -- nirvana?’
"So at a later time, when I was still young, black-haired, endowed with the blessings of youth in the first stage of life, I shaved off my hair and beard -- though my parents wished otherwise and were grieving with tears on their faces -- and I put on the saffron robe and went forth from the home-life into the left-home-life (MN 26).
These passages are universal in their import, but a fuller appreciation of why the young, rich, handsome prince left home for the life of a wandering ascetic requires some understanding of the beliefs and social developments of the time.
...
Prince Siddhattha [Sanskrit,
Prince Siddhartha Gautama] lived in an aristocratic republic in northern India during the sixth century B.C.E., a time of great social upheaval. A new monetary economy was replacing the older agrarian economy. Absolute monarchies, in alliance with the newly forming merchant class, were swallowing up the older aristocracies.
As often happens when an aristocratic elite is being disenfranchised, people on all levels of society were beginning to call into question the beliefs that had supported the older order, and were looking to science and other alternative modes of knowledge to provide them with a new view of life.
The foremost science in North India at that time was astronomy. New, precise observations of planetary movements, combined with newly developed means of calculation, had led astronomers to conclude that time was measured in aeons, incomprehensibly long cycles that repeat themselves endlessly.
Taking up these conclusions, philosophers of the time tried to work out the implications of this vast temporal frame for the drama of human life and the quest for
ultimate happiness.
These philosophers fell into two broad camps, some who conducted their speculations within the traditions of the Vedas [ancient Indus Valley Civilization sacred texts that became] early Indian religious and ritual texts that provided the orthodox beliefs of the old order, and others (independent, unorthodox groups) called the
Samanas (
shramans,
wandering ascetics, contemplatives), who questioned the authority of the
Vedas.
Wandering asceticism
 |
| Prince Siddhartha sees a wandering ascetic (samana) and decides to follow the ascetic path. |
.
Modern etymology derives the word Samana from “striver,” but the etymology of the time derived it from
sama, which means to be “on pitch” or “in tune.” The Samama philosophers were trying to find a way of life and thought that was in tune, not with social conventions, but with the laws of nature as these could be directly [realized and] contemplated through scientific observation, personal experience, reason, meditation, or shamanic practices, such as the pursuit of
altered states of consciousness through fasting or other austerities.
Many of these forms of contemplation required that one abandon the constraints and responsibilities of the home life and take up the life of a homeless wanderer. This was the rationale behind Prince Siddhattha’s decision to leave the home life in order to see if there might be a true happiness beyond the sway of aging, illness, and death.
Already by his time, philosophers of the Vedic and Samana schools had developed widely differing interpretations of what the laws of nature were and how they affected the pursuit of true happiness. Their main points of disagreement were two.
1)
Survival beyond death. Most Vedic and Samana philosophers realized that a person’s identity extended beyond this lifetime, aeons before birth back into the past and after death on into the future, although there was some disagreement as to whether one’s identity from life to life would change or remain the same.
The Vedas had viewed rebirth in a positive light, but by the time of Prince Siddhattha the influence of the newly discovered astronomical cycles had led those who believed in rebirth to regard the cycles as pointless and restrictive, and release as the only possibility for
true happiness.
There was, however, a Samana school of
hedonist materialists, called Lokayatans, who denied the existence of any identity beyond death and insisted that happiness could be found only by indulging in sensual pleasures here and now.
2)
Causality. Most philosophers accepted the idea that human action [karma] played a causative role in providing for one’s future happiness both in this life and beyond. Views about how this causal principle worked, though, differed from school to school. For some Vedists, the only effective action was ritual. The Jains, a Samana school, taught that all action fell under linear, deterministic causal laws and formed a bond to the recurring cycle.
Present experience, they said, came from past actions; present actions would shape future experience. This linear causality was also materialistic: physical action created
asavas (defilements)...
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