Being Ready for Anything

Posted By Mahabodhi on Apr 3, 2024 | 0 comments

Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book…

© Mahabodhi Burton

6 minute read

This excerpt is taken from the chapter ‘Kindness front and centre‘ and follows on from The Five Paths as cumulative.

Being ‘ready for anything’

Once the five powers have been attained the monk’s ‘spiritual personality’ has been rounded off and made unshakeable; it Is completely oriented towards a dharmic perspective. Once his spiritual faculties are powers, he is ‘fully equipped’ in terms of personal qualities and skills to do whatever work is necessary to attain Nirvana, and thus traditionally is seen as guaranteed to attain Nirvana within seven lifetimes and is known as a Stream Entrant;[1] on the Spiral Path a stage known as ‘Knowledge and Vision of Things as They Really Are’ (yathabhuta-nanadassana).

On the Path of Accumulation, the monk accumulates ‘knowledge and merit’, making effort to understand how things are and to develop skill in practice.

On the Path of Preparation, he goes for refuge more deeply, turning the spotlight on himself, and preparing to face ‘Things as They Really Are’ through balancing and intensifying his practice.

By the time his mindfulness has become an unshakable power, he is able to turn it unblinkingly to anything and everything he chooses, and thus he commences the Path of Seeing. In physics, power is defined as ‘the ability to do work:’ the monk is now ready and able to do the spiritual spadework involved in seeing into the nature of reality; importantly taking on board and working creatively with his deep inner tendencies to Unawakening (anusaya).

He has no ‘spiritual weaknesses;’ therefore, Reality cannot shake his mindfulness, confidence, wisdom, meditative concentration and ethical robustness; and whereas before he could only maintain mindfulness under certain conducive conditions, now there are no conditions under which he cannot maintain it. The Path of Seeing, and the remaining two paths, develop this insight all the way to Nirvana.

Prior to stream entry, three ‘fetters’ held the monk back:

• The belief that there are elements within himself that are fixed and unchanging (Skt. satkayadrsti)
• The tendency to view practice as an end in itself (Skt. silavrata paramarsha) implying ‘going through the motions’ in his practice
• Vestiges of doubt that the Dharma is the way forward (Skt. vicikitsha)

Sangharakshita paraphrases these as superficiality, habit and vagueness.

At stream entry these fetters are gone; the monk is guaranteed to attain Awakening because he possesses 1) confidence in his ability to change, 2) wholehearted application to change, 3) clarity in the means to change.

Right View

Before stream entry the monk entertained one or more wrong views;^[2] such as believing he possesses a fixed self, or identifying a lesser state – such as the first dhyana – with Nirvana, but at stream entry all his wrong views have been overcome and he is said to possess Right View: he sees things as they really are, i.e., as conditioned.

However, he still possesses the three biases or taints (asravas)—the tendency to seek happiness in sensory experience (kamasrava,) the tendency to seek it in a particular state of existence (bhavasrava,) and the tendency towards ignorance (avidyasrsva.) At stream entry the monk is clear about the way things are and what he needs to do to overcome suffering, but his unconscious fears and desires, which exist at a deep unconscious level—known as ‘latent tendencies’ or anusaya—are pulling him in a different direction: on a deep level he no doubt still believes that happiness is to be found in the midst of sensory experience, or in attaining a particular state within Samsara, even though he knows that state is subject to decay.  It is only when these latent tendencies have been transformed that he attains Awakening: for this reason, stream entry is known as ‘Right View with Taints’ and Awakening as ‘Right View without Taints.’[3]

An explanation of how all ten fetters to attaining Awakening are overcome can be viewed in the following video:

VIDEO ARCHIVE: Soul and the Ten Fetters – Friday 26 March 2021 (From my teaching sessions on YouTube during the pandemic.)

Mindfulness as a factor of Awakening

The Path of Seeing corresponds to the cultivation of insight, which begins at stream entry.[4] It consists of building up seven spiritual qualities which provide a robust solid foundation for Awakening: this is why they are called seven factors of Awakening—and, like the Spiral Path, they follow an augmentative sequence:

Mindfulness

The Path of Seeing begins with cultivating mindfulness as a factor of Awakening (sati-sambojjhanga); the monk is completely mindful of everything that he encounters in his experience, even the most challenging things, in a way that facilitates Awakening. This means maintaining a steady focus (samadhi,) being steadfast in awareness (viriya,) emotionally engaged with the Goal (shraddha) and clearly comprehending each objects’ nature (prajna.)

 

Investigation of Phenomena

The monk then applies this robust mindfulness to investigate the phenomena within his experience, discriminating between what will facilitate Awakening, and what will hold him back from it. He sees clearly where a phenomenon is marked by the Three Marks of Conditioned Existence—and when it is not. The Theravadin commentator Buddhaghosa offers an analogy of a man fishing with a net: thinking that he has caught a fish he reaches into the water, but what he retrieves is not a fish, but a snake with three marks on its head (representing the Three Marks). Repulsed, the man uncoils the snake from his arm, twirls it several times around his head, and flings it back into the water.[5] Thus the monk investigates each object of his experience, asking himself if it is a potential source of happiness. To the extent that his investigation facilitates Awakening, he can be said to have cultivated the factor of Awakening ‘Investigation of Phenomena’ (dhamma-vicaya-sambojjhanga)

 

Ethical Robustness

Having identified and isolated those phenomena which are true sources of happiness, the monk uses that knowledge as a basis for cultivating the kind of ethical robustness that will facilitate Awakening, namely the robust cultivation of those phenomena.

 

As the monk roots out his unconscious tendencies to act upon wrong views, he first transforms his psyche on a superficial level, but then gradually he transforms his depths, so that eventually all of his urges become supportive to Awakening. This kind of transformation is what the Buddha meant when he talked about ‘realizing Nirvana with the body.’^[6] The monk may feel attraction for a deep habit that he seems to have possessed ‘forever’, but to the extent that he has developed ethical robustness as a factor of Awakening (viriya-sambojjhanga,) he won’t act on that attraction and it will eventually weaken.

 

Joy

To the extent that the monk lets go of deeply unconscious habits that cause suffering in the world he begins to feel good about himself, thus he experiences ‘Joy’ as a factor of Awakening (piti-sambojjhanga.) The following sequence is similar to that experienced in the dhyanas, although in this case the factors are transcendental.

 

Tranquillity

As the monk’s latent tendencies take less of a foothold, in its depths his psyche becomes buoyant, ethically upright, workable and proficient—and the factor of Awakening ‘Tranquillity (passadhi-sambojjhanga) arises within him.

 

Meditative Concentration

As his latent tendencies diminish even further, there is almost nothing within him to distract his mind from the Goal—and so ’Meditative Concentration’ as a factor of Awakening (samadhi-sambojjhanga) arises within him.

 

Equanimity

The final stage in the Path of Seeing is that not even the powerful and subtle pleasure that arises together with meditative concentration as a factor of Awakening is able to sway his equanimity: his insight is too strong for that. This stage is like the fourth dhyana, but on a higher level.

His mind is completely skilful, but as that skilfulness is now supported by transcendental insight, he is unable ever to fall back from it. He remains equanimous with regard to all phenomena, in fact when ‘Equanimity’ as a factor of Awakening (upekkha-sambojjhanga) is established in him there are no more unconscious latent tendencies or biases: he is Fully Awakened, experiencing ‘Right View without Taints.’

These then are the seven factors of Awakening, which mark the progression from stream entry (Right View with Taints) to Awakening (Right View without Taints.)

Perfect mindfulness

At the end of the Path of Seeing the monk is essentially Awakened (they possess all the necessary factors). They then live out this Awakening on the Path of Practice by practising the Noble Eightfold Path at the transcendental level.[7]

’Right View without Taints’ is the equivalent to Perfect Vision at the transcendental level. The transcendental Noble Eightfold Path, consisting of two parts:^[8] the Path of Vision, comprising:

Perfect Vision

And the Path of Transformation, comprising the remaining seven limbs of the Noble Eightfold Path:

Perfect Emotion

Perfect Ethics

Perfect Speech

Perfect Livelihood  

Perfect Effort

Perfect Mindfulness

Perfect Meditation    

The Path of Practice then consists in the monk applying Perfect Vision to all aspects of his life, through practising the Path of Transformation. He essentially applies the Path of Seeing across the remaining seven limbs of the Noble Eightfold Path: he doesn’t need to make any special effort to maintain them, but effortlessly demonstrates a perfected Noble Eightfold Path to the world.

Nirvana

The Path of Practice marks the fact that even at Awakening there is still a dynamic process going on between the limbs; however, the Path of No More Learning indicates that a particular state has been reached: there is nothing more to be learned, knowledge (jnana) has been attained. The final path, then, is not a path at all, but marks the state of ‘Knowledge of the Destruction of the Taints,’ Nirvana itself.

This is the end of the chapter.

[1] Having ‘entered the stream’ of wisdom the current eventually takes the practitioner to Nirvana.

^[2]  The Buddha outlines 62 wrong views in the Brahmajala Sutta, DN1.

[3] In the Mahacattarisaka Sutta (MN117) the Buddha talks about three kinds of view; a) Wrong View: the view a person possesses up to Stream Entry, b) Right View with Taints: the view they possess at Stream Entry, c) Right View without Taints: the view they possess at Awakening.

[4] The Path of Seeing corresponds to Sangharakshita’s stage of ‘Spiritual Death.’

[5] Uncoiling the snake and throwing it back represents the stage of ‘Disentanglement’ (nibbida), the stage following ‘Knowledge and Vision of Things As They Really Are’ on the Spiral Path.

^[6]  The body being a metaphor for a deeply ingrained unconscious attitude.

[7] The Path of Practice corresponds to Sangharakshita’s stage of ‘Spiritual Rebirth.’

^[8]  Theravada Buddhists do not make this distinction.