The Buddha in the Forest (sutra)

Ven. Thanissaro (trans.) Katthaharaka Sutra: "Firewood Gathering" (SN 7.18) accesstoinsight.org; edited by Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly

The poetic exchange in this sutra emphasizes the difference between vision and appearance.

The Brahmin addressing the Buddha speaks in terms of conjecture and uses three compounds containing the Pali/Sanskrit word rupa ("appearance") — gambhira-rupa ("deep-looking"), sucaru-rupa ("very-lovely-looking"), and acchera-rupa ("amazing-looking").

However, the Buddha does not emphasize his appearance but his vision, what he actually sees. In other words, the important thing about the Awakened One is not how he looks to others, but how he looks at things.

His view (samma-ditthi) has been purified by enlightenment/awakening (bodhi).

Another contrast is that, whereas the Brahmin assumes he knows the goal the Buddha is striving for by meditating in the wilderness — attaining rebirth in the company of Brahma (as the Brahmins aspire to reach) — the Buddha points out that he has already arrived the ultimate goal, nirvana, unknown even to Great Brahma.

THE SUTRA

Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was staying among the Kosalans in a forest grove. Then a large number of firewood-gathering youths — students of a Brahmin of the Bharadvaja clan — went to the grove.

They saw the Blessed One sitting there — his legs folded crosswise, his body set straight, mindfulness established in front of him. Seeing him, they retreated to the Brahmin Bharadvaja, and said:

"Sir, you should know that the wandering ascetic Gautama is in the grove, sitting in meditation!" The Brahmin Bharadvaja, together with those youths, went into the forest. They saw the Blessed One, and he addressed him in verse:

In this deep-looking forest, teeming with terrors,

having plunged into a wilderness desolate and empty

unflinching, steadfast, compelling, you sit absorbed, monk:

How very lovely you appear!

Where no song is sung, where no music makes a sound,

alone in the wild: the forest-dwelling sage.

This looks amazing to me — you alone in the forest

with rapturous mind.

I suppose it's in longing for the three heavens unexcelled,

in the company of Brahma, the ruling lord of the worlds,

that, staying here in the wilderness, desolate, you practice

austerities for attaining rebirth with the lord supreme.

[The Buddha replied:]

Whatever the longings or delights attached

always to various levels of being,

or yearnings born from the root of unknowing:

all of that is destroyed down to the root.

Now without longing, without clinging, uninvolved,

with vision ripened, purified with regard to all things,

having reached self-awakening, sublime, unexcelled,

sit I, in the practice of absorption unknown even to Brahma.*

The Buddha visits Brahma's heaven with Sakka

*NOTE: In the Pali Text Society (PTS) translation of the Pali canon, this last line reads, jhaayaam'aham braahma.na raho vissaarado or "I practice absorption (jhana), Brahmin, in seclusion, matured." This, however, does not fit with the rhythm of the verse.

For that reason, I have followed the Thai edition here (jhaayaam'aham brahma-raho visaarado) the rhythm of which fits better. This reading also has the advantage of providing a clear contrast to the reference to Brahma in the Brahmin's last line.

The compound brahma-raho, "Brahma-private," can be read in either of two ways, private like a brahma or private to — that is, hidden from — Brahma. The first translation simply conveys the fact that the practice of absorption (jhana) puts one in a mental state equivalent to a brahma. But the second points to the fact that the Buddha, the Enlightened One, in having awakened, meditates in a way that even brahmas cannot perceive or understand. That latter reading has been chosen because it parallels the message in AN 11.10.