T H E I S L A N D AN ANTHOLOGY OF THE BUDDHA’S TEACHINGS ON NIBBANA Ajahn Pasanno & Ajahn Amaro T H E I S L A N D An Anthology of the Buddha’s Teachings on Nibbæna Edited and with Commentary by Ajahn Pasanno & Ajahn Amaro Abhayagiri Monastic Foundation It is the Unformed, the Unconditioned, the End, the Truth, the Other Shore, the Subtle, the Everlasting, the Invisible, the Undiversified, Peace, the Deathless, the Blest, Safety, the Wonderful, the Marvellous, Nibbæna, Purity, Freedom, the Island, the Refuge, the Beyond. ~ S 43.1-44 Having nothing, clinging to nothing: that is the Island, there is no other; that is Nibbæna, I tell you, the total ending of ageing and death. ~ SN 1094 This book has been sponsored for free distribution SABBADÆNAM DHAMMADÆNAM JINÆTI The Gift of Dhamma Excels All Other Gifts © 2009 Abhayagiri Monastic Foundation 16201 Tomki Road Redwood Valley, CA 95470 USA www.abhayagiri.org Web edition, released June 13, 2009 VI CONTENTS Prefaces / VIII Introduction by Ajahn Sumedho / XIII Acknowledgements / XVII Dedication /XXII SEEDS: NAMES AND SYMBOLS 1 What is it? / 25 2 Fire, Heat and Coolness / 39 THE TERRAIN 3 This and That, and Other Things / 55 4 “All That is Conditioned…” / 66 5 “To Be, or Not to Be” – Is That the Question? / 85 6 Atammayatæ: “Not Made of That” / 110 7 Attending to the Deathless / 123 8 Unsupported and Unsupportive Consciousness / 131 9 The Unconditioned and Non-locality / 155 10 The Unapprehendability of the Enlightened / 164 11 “‘Reappears’ Does Not Apply…” / 180 12 Knowing, Emptiness and the Radiant Mind / 190 CULTIVATION AND FRUITION PRACTICES AND PERSPECTIVES 13 I – The Gradual Path / 222 14 II – Sudden Penetration / 245 15 III – Path and Goal / 265 SOTÆPANNA: THE SPIRITUAL TURNING POINT 16 I – Entering the Stream / 278 17 II – What is Seen / 293 18 III – What are the Results? / 301 19 IV – What is Reaped / 321 20 “Ah, What Bliss!” – The Blessings of Nibbæna / 337 Bibliography / 353 Concordance by Chapter / 356 Concordance by Sutta / 366 Index / 373 VII PREFACES ~ AJAHN PASANNO ~ HAVING BEEN A PERSON who has enjoyed reading books, my involvement in the production of this volume has instilled in me a much greater appreciation for those who do write books. When the end of suffering (Nibbæna) is the topic, one would think the writing about it would be less suffering. Curious how some things are not as they appear. My involvement with this began with my jotting down a variety of sutta quotes which I had come across in my readings which I found inspiring and which also, for me, helped to clarify the direct and immediate path of the Buddha. Mostly they were things that I found helpful in my own practice and it was good to have them in one place for me to read from time to time. There was also a question in my own mind about the interest in the West concerning non-dual teachings, both within the Buddhist fold and outside it. When coming across passages that people were quoting, I found it striking how seldom that the words of the Buddha were being used to illustrate this. By slowly reflecting on various suttas which cropped up as interesting or striking, the nature of what is considered non-dual for me started to change. Basic teachings started to take on new meaning. The teaching on non-self, which is totally fundamental, is an example. This is not an obscure teaching in the suttas: If there is any hint of self, a position is then taken and the whole realm of saµsæra unfolds. The Buddha points this out in many ways, both in detail and in quite pithy discourses. The teaching on dependent origination is another example. It can get very complex and heady, but in essence, this is a description of the Buddha’s enlightenment and a way of viewing phenomena which takes us away from the narrative that we easily create, showing that experience is just these mental and physical conditions functioning together in a certain pattern – either for freedom VIII PREFACES or for entanglement. Generally, it is stated that the Buddha did not teach much about Nibbæna, that he focused more on the path of practice and left it to us to figure it out for ourselves – if we followed the path correctly. On a certain level this may be true, but as this compilation shows, the Buddha did say a great deal about Nibbæna. A large part of the motivation to help bring this book into being was to gather together quotes of the Buddha’s own words from the discourses which help to illustrate and (hopefully) clarify the Buddha’s teachings, in particular those about the goal, Nibbæna. We are, in a way, taking the opportunity to bring out jewels and treasures from a cave or a hidden place and allowing them to shine forth. Ideally, this is an opportunity to gather the words of the Buddha on a particular theme together into one place for people to delight in. Hopefully the editors have not got in the way too much and the Buddha’s words and path are left clear. I do want to express my appreciation for all the many people who have helped to make this book become a reality, particularly Ajahn Amaro who gently kept prodding me and was patient with my pace (or lack of it). ~ AJAHN AMARO ~ FOR MYSELF, THE VERY FIRST SEED for the idea of this compilation of the Buddha’s Teachings was sown sometime in 1980. I had been living for a few months at the newly opened monastery at Chithurst, in West Sussex, England. I had only arrived there the previous autumn from Thailand; I had been ordained as a monk for scarcely a year and I was still very new to the whole thing. As I listened to the daily Dhamma talks of Ajahn Sumedho, the abbot and founder of the monastery, I noticed that over and over again he made mention of Ultimate Reality, the Unconditioned, the Unborn and Nibbæna. This was very striking since, during my couple of years in monasteries in Thailand, I had hardly heard a word spoken about this, even though it was the goal of the spiritual life. Certainly that goal, of the realization of Nibbæna, was acknowledged as the overriding aim of the practice. However, it was stressed repeatedly that the Buddha’s emphasis was on the path, the means whereby that goal could genuinely be reached, rather than on rendering inspiring descriptions of the end to which the path led. “Make the journey!” it was said, “the nature of the destination takes care of itself and will be vividly apparent on arrival. Besides, the true nature of Ultimate Reality is necessarily inexpressible by language or concept. So just make the journey and be content.” This had made sense to me, so I now wondered why it was that Ajahn Sumedho made such an emphasis on it. IX THE ISLAND Being an inquisitive sort, and not very good at holding back, one day I asked him the question straight out. His reply struck me very deeply and affected the way in which I have thought and spoken ever since. He said: “After teaching in the West for a very short period of time, I began to see that many people were disappointed both in materialism and theistic religions. To them Buddhism had great appeal but, lacking any fundamental sense of, or faith in the transcendent, the practice of Buddhism became almost a dry, technical procedure – intellectually satisfying but strangely sterile as well. “They had largely rejected the idea of an Ultimate Reality from their thoughts as being intrinsically theistic nonsense so I realized that people needed to be aware that there was also such a principle in the Buddha’s teachings, without there being any hint of a creator God in the picture. In Thailand, because there is already such a broad and strong basis of faith in these transcendent qualities, there is no need to talk about Ultimate Reality, the Unconditioned and so forth – for them it can be a distraction. Here, I saw that people needed something to look up to – that’s why I talk about it all the time. It goes a long way to cultivating faith and it gives a much more living and expansive quality to their spiritual life; there is a natural joy when the heart opens to its true nature.” Fast forward now to late 1997: Other seeds for this anthology began to come from several different directions. One of these was a conversation with Nancy van House in the parking lot of an Episcopalian church in Palo Alto, at the end of a weekend session on the subject of ‘The Graduated Teachings – Anupubbøkathæ.’ The weekend had been organized by the Sati Center, a Buddhist studies group based in the San Francisco Bay Area, and people were keen for more such sessions in the future. “Do you have any suggestions for topics?” I asked, as we walked towards our vehicles, arms laden with sundry mats, folders and shrine gear. “How about Nibbæna?” replied Nancy, smiling gleefully. “Now that should be interesting...” thought I. The subject had (predictably) come up a few times during the weekend, and it was clear that people had all sorts of conflicting or unformed feelings and impressions about what the word meant, how important it was or wasn’t, and how attainable or unattainable it might be. In people’s minds it seemed to be like some ancient or mythical country – like Wallachia or Avalon, Bactria or Uddiyana – written and spoken of by some as if familiar and commonplace, yet mysterious and distant, full of complexities to the neophyte.