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Utama The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha: A Complete Translation of the Anguttara Nikaya (complete page)
The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha: A Complete Translation of the Anguttara Nikaya (complete page)Bhikkhu Bodhi
This much-anticipated volume contains a full translation from the Pali of the Anguttara Nikaya, the fourth collection of the canonical discourses of the Buddha. The primary focus of the Anguttara Nikaya is practice, which it treats from a wide-angle perspective, advancing from basic ethical observances, through the pillars of mind training, to the highest meditative attainments. The Anguttara is also distinguished among the Nikayas by its interest in types of persons, which it describes in detail and with memorable similes. The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha continues Wisdom's Teachings of the Buddha series, which has been praised by scholars and practitioners alike for its beautifully presented, highest quality, annotated translations of the words of the Buddha.
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THE TEACHINGS OF THE BUDDHA The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha A Translation of the Ariguttara Nikaya by Bhikkhu Bodhi WISDOM PUBLICATIONS • BOSTON mm* m Ki '~A • iff) *\ k~. ,Vl A The Long Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Digha Nikaya The Middle-Length Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Majjhima Nikaya The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Samyutta Nikaya in the Buddha's VJords: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon Great Disciples of the Buddha: Their L ives, Their Works, Their Legacy ■ PUBLISHER'S ACKNOWLEDGMENT For their help in supporting the printing of this -book, the publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous help of the Hershey Family Foundation and the kind contribution made in loving memory of Gan Chin Hong and Young Cheng Chu by their family. Wisdom Publications 199 Elm Street Somerville MA 02144 USA wisdompubs.org © 2012 Bhikkhu Bodhi All rights reserved. No part of this book, may be reproduced in. any form or by any means, elec¬ tronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or by any informa¬ tion storage and retrieval system or technologies now known or later devel¬ oped, without permission in writing from the publisher. ' Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tipitaka. Suttapitaka. Ariguttaranikaya. English. The numei'ical discourses of the Buddha : a translation of the Anguttara Nikaya / translated from the Pali by Bhikkhu Bodhi. pages cm — (The teachings of the Buddha) . The present work offers a complete translation of the Anguttara Nikaya; the fourth major collection in the Sutta Pitaka, or Basket of Discourses, belonging to the Pali Canon. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 1-61429-040-7 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Bodhi, Bhikkhu, translator. II. Title. BQ1342.E5B63 2012 2.94.3'823—dc23 2012007302 ISBN 978-1-61429-040-7 eBook ISBN 978-1-61429-044-5 16 15 14 13 12 5 4 3 2 1 Cover and interior design by Gppa&-Ted2. Set in Palladio 10/12.4. Wisdom Publications' books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for pcrmanence and durability!of the Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. Printed in the United States of America. 0' Hus book was produced with environmental mindfulness. We have elected to print this title on 20% PCW recycled paper. As a result, we have saved the following resources: i?.2 trees, 55 million BTUs of energy, 12,479 lbs. of greenhouse gases, 56,274 gallons of water, and 3,564 lbs. of solid waste. Per more information, piease visit our website, www.wisdompubs.org. This pa¬ per is also FSC certified. For more information, please visit www.fscus.org. Contents Preface 7 Key to the Pronunciation of Pali 11 Abbreviations 13 Introduction 17 A Thematic Guide to the Anguttara Nikaya 75 1. The Book of the Ones 85 2. The Book of the Twos 135 3. The Book of the Threes 195 4. The Book of the Fours 379 5. The Book of the Fives 621 6. The Book of the Sixes 851 7. The Book of the Sevens 993 8. The Book of the Fights 1107 9. The Book of the Nines 1241 10. The Book of the Tens 1333 11. The Book of the Elevens 1549 Notes 1591 Appendixes 1. Expanded Parallels in the Anguttara Nikaya 2. Composite Numerical Suttas in the Anguttara Nikaya 1867 Pali-English Glossary 1869 Bibliography 1885 Indexes Of Subjects 1889 Of Proper Names 1907 Of Similes and Parables 1917 Of Pali Terms Discussed in the Notes 1921 Preface The present work offers a complete translation of the Anguttara Nikaya, the fourth major collection in the Sutta Pitaka, or "Bas¬ ket of Discourses/' belonging to the Pali Canon. An English translation of the Anguttara Nikaya published by the Pali Text Society has long been in print under the title The Book of the Gradual Sayings. It was issued in five-volumes,.I, II, and V trans¬ lated by F. L. Woodward, and III and IV by E, M. Hare! First published between 1932 and 1936, this translation is now dated both in style and technical terminology, and thus a fresh English rendering of the entire work has long been a pressing need. In the late 1990s I collected.Nyanaponika Thera's four-part series of Wheel booklets, An Anguttara Nikaya Anthology, into a single volume for the International Sacred Literature Trust. I added sixty suttas to the original anthology, and the resulting vol¬ ume was published as Numerical Discourses of the Buddha: An Anthology of Suttas from the Anguttara Nikaya (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press 1999). This compilation, with a total of 208 sut¬ tas, contained perhaps an eighth of the full Anguttara Nikaya. Translations of many individual Anguttara suttas have also been available over the internet, but a selection, however valu¬ able, cannot do. service for a translation of the complete work. This translation, like my previous renderings from the Pali Canon and commentaries, aims to fulfill two ideals that are to some degree in tension with one another: first, to be faithful to the meaning of the original; and second, to express this mean¬ ing in clear contemporary English. My translation is based on three different editions of the Pali text. I used the Sinlvala-script Buddha Jayanti edition as my root text, and I am grateful to Ven. Dhammajiva Thera of Mitmgala Nissarana Vanaya for presenting me with a full set of these volumes. I compared this 8 The Anguttara Nikaya edition with the Vipassana Research Institute's electronic ver¬ sion of the Burmese-script Chattha Sangayana (Sixth Council) edition and with the PTS's Roman-script edition. I also con¬ sulted the variants noted in the PTS edition, which occasion¬ ally, in my view, had a better reading than the printed editions. In defense of this "eclectic7' approach I appeal to Professor E. Hardy's words in his preface to part V of his PTS edition of the Anguttara Nikaya: "It may be open to dispute, whether our Sinhalese Mss. [manuscripts] of the Anguttara are the more reliable, or our Burmese. . . . As a rule, there is no Ms. nor any set of Mss. which can be relied on indiscriminately" (p. v). The contents of the Anguttara Nikaya (AN) prove especially challenging to modern readers because there is virtually no "rhyme or reason" to their order apart from their conformity to the numerical scheme that governs each book. To help the reader make sense of the work, I prepared a thematic study guide to AN, which follows the introduction (see pp. 75-84). The guide lays out the principal themes of this collection in a .meaningful sequence, which is similar to the one I used in my anthology In the Buddha's Words. On this basis I then classified the suttas (the great majority, though not all) according to the way they exemplify the scheme, I suggest that readers new to AN con¬ sider reading the work twice. First, read the suttas in the order in which they fit into the thematic guide; then read the entire Nikaya again in the original order, from the Ones through the Elevens. The first reading will enable readers to grasp the main contours of the Buddha's teachings as they are represented by AN; the second will enable them to follow the work in its origi¬ nal arrangement. M}' long introduction is primarily intended to explain AN using the thematic guide as a framework for mak¬ ing sense of the mountain of material found in this collection. In the course of preparing this translation, I have had the generous help of several people whose contributions have been invaluable. First and foremost is John Kelly, who offered his help even before I actually embarked on the project and unfail¬ ingly assisted me through the six years it has taken to bring the work to completion. A keen student of Pali since 2003, John read the translalion alongside the Pali text at several stages, offering useful comments and\suggestions and occasionally catching lines of text that I hacfoverlooked. He maintained the electronic Preface 9 files, entered the page numbers of the PTS edition into the files, compiled the two appendixes and index of proper names,, and checked page proofs. His article, ''The Buddha's Teachings to Lay People," which I cite several times in the introduction, is a bountiful source of information that helps us better understand the place of the Aiiguttara Nikaya in the corpus of Buddhist canonical literature. Occasionally John's wife Lynn also offered suggestions. Another major helper was Bhikkhu Brahmali of Bodhinyana Monastery in Serpentine, Australia. Ven. Brahmali read the translation alongside the Pali text in two stages, offering inci¬ sive comments. Often his comments necessitated revisions in the draft or required me to add explanatory note3 to clarify the reasons behind rrtv rendering. On a few occasions I have quoted. Ven. Brahmali's comments in my notes. Ven. Vanarata Anaiida Thera, a senior bhikkhu in Sri Lanka, checked my translations of the verse portions of AN. He wrote extremely helpful comments into a printout of the manuscript, which Bhikkhu Nyanatusita kindly photographed and sent to me by email. I have occasionally included Ven. Vanarata's remarks in the notes. Bhikkhu Pasadiko, William Pruitt, and Bhikkhu Khema- ratana read various versions of the translation and offered useful suggestions and comments. Pamela Kirby reviewed the proofs, with sharp eyes for minor typographical and stylistic flaws. My student Pohui Chang helped review the indexes and checked my Chinese renderings in the notes. I must also thank Tim McNeill and the team at Wisdom Pub¬ lications for such a fine job of production, consistent with their treatment of the earlier volumes in this series. I reserve a special word of thanks to David Kittelstrom, Megan Anderson, and Laura Cunningham for their work on the present volume. I am grateful to all these helpers for their selfless assistance, offered entirely from their love of theDhamma. May they share in any merits that might arise from the publication of this work. I myself, of course, take responsibility for any errors or faults that remain, Bhikkhu Bodhi Chuang Yen Monastery Carmel, New York Key to the Pronunciation of Pali The,Pali Alphabet Vowels: a, a, i, 1, u, u, e, o Consonants: Gutturals Palatals Retroflexes (or Cerebrals) Dentals Labials Semivowels Sibilant Aspirate Niggahlta Pronunciation a as in "cut" a as in "ah" i as in "king" l as in "keen" u as in "put" u as in "rule" e as in "way" o as in "home' k, kh, g, gh, n c, ch, j, jh, n t, th, d, dh, n t, th, d, dh, n p, ph, b, bh, m y, r, 1,1, v, s h m Of the vowels, e and o are long before a single consonant and short before a double consonant. Among the consonants, g 12 The Anguttara Nikaya is always pronounced as in "good," c as in "church," n as in "onion." The retroflexes (or cerebrals) are spoken with the tongue on the roof of the mouth; the dentals with the tongue behind the upper teeth. The aspirates—kh,gh, ch,jh, th, dh, th, dh, ph, bh—are single consonants pronounced with slightly more force than the non-aspirates, thus th as in "Thomas" (not as in "thin"); ph as in "puff" (not as in "phone"). Double consonants are always enunciated separately, thus dd as in "mad dog," gg as in "big gun." The niggahlta, the pure nasal m, is pronounced like the ng in "song." An o and an e always carry a stress; other¬ wise the stress falls on a long vowel—a, I, u, or on a double consonant, or on m. Abbreviations I. Primary Texts Anguttara Nikaya Burmese-script ed - of AN (Chattha Sangayana Tipltaka 4.0 electronic version) . Roman-script ed. of AN (Pali Text Society ed.) Sinhala-script ed. of AN (Buddha Jayanti Tripi- taka Series, printed, ed.) ManorathapuranI (Anguttara Nikaya-atthakatha) Manorathapuranl-tTka (Saratthamanjusa IV-tika) When Be and Ce are used to designate versions of Mp, they refer respectively to the Chattha Sangayana Tipitaka 4.0 electronic version (based on the Burmese-script edition and issued by the Vipassana Research Institute of Igatpuri, India) and the Sinhala- script Simon Hewavitarne Bequest edition (1923-31). If neither abbreviation is used relative to Mp, I am relying on the Chattha Sangayana electronic version. II. Other Pali Texts Ap JL Apadana As Ai thasalim (Dhammasahganl-atthakatha) Dhp Dhammapada Dhs Dhammas ahganl DM Dlgha Nikaya It Itivuttaka It-a liivuttaka-a tthakatha Mil Milmdapafiha MN Majjhima Nikaya AN Be Ee Ce Mp Mp-i 13 14 The Anguttara Nikaya Nett Nettippakarana Nidd 1 Mahaniddesa Nidd II Culaniddesa Patis , Patisambhidamagga Patis-a PatisambhidSmagga-atthakatha Pp' Puggalapannatti Pp-a Puggalapanhatti-atthakatha Ps Papancasudani (Majjhima Nikaya-atthakatha) SN Samyutta Nikaya Sn Suttanipata Sp Samantapasadika (Vinaya-atthakatha) Spk SaratthappakasinI (Samyutta Nikaya-atthakatha) Spk-pt Saratthappakasiru-purana-tika (Samyutta Nikaya- purana-tlka) Sv SumangalavilasinI (Dlgha Nikaya-atthaikatha) Th Theragatha Th-a Theragatha-at jhakat] 1a Thl Therigatha Ud Udana ' Ud~a Udana-atihakatha Vibh Vibhanga Vibh-a Vibhanga-atthakatha (Sammohavinodam) Vin Vinaya Vism Vis uddhima gga Vism-mht Visuddhimagga-mahatika (Paramatthamanjusa) References to Pali texts, unless specified otherwise, are to vol¬ ume and page number of the PTS edition, with relevant line numbers in reduced type. References to DN and MN usually give first the sutta and section number in LDB and MLDB, respectively, followed by the source from the PTS edition. Ref¬ erences to individual words or phrases, however, usually give only the source from the PTS edition. References to SN give first the sutta number in CDB followed by the volume and page number of the PTS edition; those to Udana and Itivuttaka give the. sutta number followed by the page number of the PTS edi¬ tion. Page references to Vism are to the PTS edition, followed by the chapter and paragraph number in Ppri (see below). Abbreviations 15 III. Works in Chinese DA Dirghagama (^H'a'll) EA Ekottarikagama (^iSH^IM) MA Madhyamagama (^MllflS) SA Samyuktagama (£|[^Illr&£) SA2 Samyuktagama (another translation; incomplete) T Taisho edition All references are to the Taishb edition transcribed in the CBETA Chinese Electronic Tripitaka Collection. IV. Abbreviations of Other Works CDB The Connected Discourses of the Buddha (translation of SN; see Bodhi 2000) A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma (see Bodhi 1993) The Long Discourses of the Buddha (translation of DN; see Walshe 1995) The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha (transla¬ tion of MN; see Nanamoli 1995) The Path of Purification (translation of Vism; see Nanamoli 1956) V. Reference Works (see under editor's name in bibliography) BHSD Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Dictionary (see Edgerton 1953) ~ DOP A Dictionary of Pali, Part I (see Cone 2001) DPPN Dictionary of Pali Proper Names (see Malalasekera 1937-38) SED Sanskrit-English Dictionary (see Monier-Williams 1899) PED Pali-Engiish Dictionary (see Rhys Davids and Stede 1921-25) CM A LDB MLDB Ppn 16 The Anguttara Nikaya VI. Other Abbreviations BHS Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit PTS Pali Text Society Skt Sanskrit VRI Vipassana Research Institute (Igatpuri, India) n., rm. note, notes p., pp. page, pages * ' before title: title is hypothetical reconstruction; before word: Word not listed in dictionary In the introduction and notes, textual references in bold are to suttas within this translation (e.g., 6:10). Introduction The Anguttara Nikaya as a Collection The Anguttara Nikaya is the fourth of the four major Nikayas making up the Sutta Pitaka of the Pali Canqn, the collection of texts that Theravada Buddhists regard as buddhavacana or "word of the Buddha." The work is arranged according to a pedagogical technique often employed by the. Buddha, namely, the use of a numerical scheme as the underpinning of a dis¬ course. In a period in Indian history when writing might not have been known/ or in any case was not used to record spiri¬ tual teachings, memorization and preservation of the teachings required that they could be easily retained in mind. The use of numbers served this purpose well. Anyone who has regularly given lectures knows how helpful it is to draw up an outline that organizes the theme of the lecture into a numerical list. Precisely this is the principle that lies behind the suttas, or dis¬ co urses, of the Anguttara Nikaya. The word anguttara is a compound that might be rendered "increasing-by-a-faqtor." The compilation is occasionally referred to in the commentairies as the Ekuttaranikaya, "the col¬ lection increasing by one," and also as the Anguttar agama. This suggests that in the age of the commentators, several ways of designating the work were still in circulation. The correspond¬ ing work in the Northern Buddhist tradition is known as the Ekottaragama or Ekottarikagama, agama ("heritage") being the word used in the Northern tradition in place of nikaya to des¬ ignate the compilations of discourses. One full version of the Ekottaragama in Chinese translation is included in the Chinese Tripitaka. The occasional use of the word agama in the Pali com¬ mentaries to designate the discourse collections indicates that the Northern Buddhists had no monopoly on this word. 17 18 The Anguttara Nikaya The name Anguttara is given to this collection because it is arranged according to a scheme in which the number of items in the suttas of each successive part increases incrementally over those of the preceding part. The collection contains eleven nipatas or "books" named simply after their numerical basis: the Ekakanipata, the Book of the Ones; the Dukanipata, the Book of the Twos; and so forth up to the Ekfidasakanipata, the Book of the Elevens. From the Book of the Sixes upward we occasionally find that the number of items needed for a sutta to fit into the scheme is obtained by combining smaller sets. The summary verse (uddana) at the end of the last volume states that the Anguttara Nikaya contains 9,557 suttas. An exact figure is hard to arrive at because it is uncertain whether particular suttas are to be counted separately or as composite wholes. The large figure probably results from counting sepa¬ rately all the suttas generated by the "Lust and So Forth Repeti¬ tion Series" found at the end of each nipata after the first (see below, pp. 62—63). According to my numbering scheme, AN contains a total of 8,122 suttas, of which 4,250 belong to the "Lust and So Forth Repetition Series." This means that there are only 3,872 suttas independent of that series. Many of these, however, occur in repetition sequences of their own, so even this figure is misleading if it is taken to imply that the contents of the suttas are autonomous. For example, the total number of suttas in the Fives, the Sevens, and the Elevens is greatly inflated by the inclusion in each of entire series of suttas derived from permutations. If these are bracketed, the number of inde¬ pendent suttas would be much reduced. The following table shows the total number of suttas in each nipata and in the "Lust and So Forth Repetition Series." In each nipata, the suttas are gathered into vaggas, which may be called "chapters." The vaggas are constructed according to an ideal plan according to which they would each contain ten suttas, but—given that ideals are seldom realized in our world, even in Buddhist scriptures—in individual cases the actual number may vary from as many as 262 down to a minimum of seven. On occasion all, or most, of the suttas in a single vagga may relate to a single topic, indicated by the vagga's title, but this is rare. It is much more common for merely two or three suttas—and often only one—to bear a clear relation to the title. Introduction 19 Nipata Total Number of Suttas Lust etc. Repetition Suttas Independent Suttas Ones 62 7 ' 627. Twos 479 170 309 Threes 352 170 182 Fours 783 510 273 Fives 1152 850 302 Sixes 649 510 139. Sevens 1124 510 614 Eights 627 510 117 Nines 432 340 92 Tens 746 510 236 Elevens 1,151 170 981 Total 8,122 4,250 3,872 Table 1. Total Number of Suttas There is no apparent significance in the sequence of vaggas, though we might suppose that the redactors included in the first few vaggas of any book suttas they considered especially weighty. Although on a first reading the apparently haphaz¬ ard organization of AN may be disconcerting, over time this becomes one of the most enjoyable features of the collection, exposing the knowledgeable reader to a constantly shifting suc¬ cession of topics and ideas without allowing preconceptions to determine what will come next. All the reader can know for certain is that the successive suttas will conform to the numeri¬ cal plan that governs the individual book (but sometimes even this is hard to detect). The suttas of the Anguttara Nikaya, it seems, were not origi¬ nally given titles as we understand the word. Modem editions, such as the Sri Lankan Buddha Jay anti and Burmese Chattha Sarigayana versions, do title them, but these titles are the work of recent editors. The typical procedure was to include, at the 20 The Anguttara Nikaya end of each vagga, an uddana or summary verse, which labels each sutta by a key word related to its subject matter. I have drawn my sutta titles from the uddanas, and they are therefore very short. Some vaggas do not have summary verses, and thus their suttas are untitled. This is especially the case with those that are extremely short, such as the suttas of the Ones and the Twos. While the four main Nikayas of the Sutta Pitaka are each highly variegated, close examination of their contents suggests that each has a dominant purpose m conveying a particular aspect of the Buddha's message. This concern, I should stress, is by no means evident in every sutta in the respective collec¬ tion but only pertains to the collection when viewed as a whole. The Dlgha Nikaya is largely governed by the aim of propagat¬ ing Buddhism within its cultural milieu. Its suttas attempt to establish the supremacy of the Buddha and his Dhamma over their competitors on the Indian religious and social scene. Thus the first sutta of DN surveys the philosophical views that the Buddha flatly rejected, the second repudiates the teachings of six contemporary teachers, while many of the following texts pit the Buddha in debate against brahmins and members of other sects; other suttas serve the purpose of glorifying the Bud-, dha and demonstrating his superiority to the gods, the nature spirits, and the ascetics and contemplatives who traveled over the Ganges plain. The Majjhima Nikaya, on the other hand, turns its spotlight inward on the Buddhist community. Many of the suttas deal with the fundamentals of the doctrine and with meditation and other aspects of Buddhist practice. This makes it particularly well suited for the instruction of monks who need to be integrated into the community. The Samyutta Nikaya and Anguttara Nikaya consist mostly, of short suttas and thus lack the scenarios and dramatic con¬ frontations that make the two longer collections so fascinating. The Samyutta is gov erned by a thematic principle and contains many short suttas disclosing the Buddha's radical insights and the topography of the path. This collection would have served the needs of two types of specialists in the monastic order. One were those monks snd=;nuns who were capable of grasping the deeper ramifications of Buddhist wisdom and were therefore charged with clarifying these for others. The other were those Introduction 21 who had already fulfilled the preliminary stages of meditative training and were intent on developing insight and realizing the goal. With the move from the Samyutta to the Anguttara Nikaya, a shift in emphasis takes place from comprehension to personal edification. Because the short suttas that explain the philosophi¬ cal "theory" and the main methods of training found their way into the Majjhima and the Samyutta, what remained to be incorporated into the Anguttara were short suttas whose primary concern is practical. To some extent, in its practical orientation, the Anguttara partly overlaps the last book of the Samyutta, which contains chapters devoted to the seven groups that make up the thirty-seven "aids to enlightenment" (bodhipakkhiya dhamma). To avoid unnecessary duplication, the redactors of the canon did not include these suttas again in the Anguttara under their numerical headings. The topics do appear in the repetition series at the end of each nipata, but here their role is stereotyped and secondary. The Anguttara focuses instead on aspects of practical training that are not comprised in the standard sets, thereby helping us understand the Buddhist training from new angles. Perhaps we might say that if the last part of the Samyutta gives us an anatomy of the Buddhist path, the Anguttara takes a physiological slant on the path, viewing it by way of its dynamic unfolding rather than by way of its constituents. It would be unrealistic, however, to insist that a single cri¬ terion has governed the compilation of the Anguttara Nikaya, which includes material from the Vinaya, lists of eminent dis¬ ciples, cosmological ideas, and odd registers of terms that defy easy categorization. What can be said with confidence is that a broad survey of its contents would chow a preponderance of texts dealing with Buddhist practice. Their subjects range from the basic ethical observances recommended to the busy layperson, through the pillars of mind training, to the highest meditative state, the samadhi or concentration of the arahant. Approaching the Anguttara Because the suttas of AN constantly shift from one topic to another with little to connect them apart from the exemplification 22 The Anguttara Nikaya of a particular numerical scheme, readers of this Nikaya often come away bewildered. While they may profit from individual suttas, they can discern no way to fit them together into an intel¬ ligible whole. The text itself is not particularly helpful in this respect, for it does not articulate a comprehensive framework that reveals the contours of its teachings. The Dlgha Nikaya and the Majjhima Nikaya, of course, are also arranged in an apparently haphazard manner, with little more than a simple theme governing each vagga or chapter. But because these collections are composed of suttas that are either long or of middle length—as their respective titles indicate— their contents are substantial enough to engage the reader with material for reflection and contemplation. The major discourses in these Nikayas also show a sufficient degree of internal orga¬ nization to reveal the chief categories into which the Buddha's discourses are cast: the courses of wholesome and unwhole¬ some kamma, the graduated training, dependent origination, the four establishments of mindfulness, the four noble truths, and so forth. Though the Samyutta Nikaya contains mostly short suttas, the method of grouping connected texts dealing with a single theme makes fewer demands on the reader's patience than a collection with no intelligible organizational principle. When it comes to AN, however, a neophyte reader may feel as if he or she has been dropped off in a boat far out at sea, with no land in sight and without a compass or map. I pick a chapter at random—the sixth vagga of the Book of the Fives—and I find the following: two suttas on the five hindrances (one embel¬ lished with a simile, the other little more than an enumeration); a sutta on the five factors of striving, followed by another on the five wrong and right occasions for striving; a sutta about the perils that separate mother and son; next/one on the training of a monk; a discourse on five themes for reflection; next, one on the proper uses of wealth; and finally two brief suttas on th3 hardships of those who enter monastic life in old age. With such apparently arbitrary organization, one cannot but wonder what the compilers had in mind when they assembled the chapter. To assist the reader, I have developed a thematic guide to the Anguttara Nikaya that organizes the contents of the col¬ lection in accordance with a sy stematic pattern. The scheme, which foilovvs the introduction on pages 7S--84, is similar to the Introduction 23 one I used as the scaffolding for my anthology In the Buddha's V/ords. I do not assign every sutta in AN to a niche in this guide. Some suttas resist classification, while others are too short or insubstantial for inclusion. Rather than try to be all-inclusive, I have proposed a framework, with divisions and subdivisions, and included enough discourses under each heading to enable the reader to see how the texts of AN can be fit together into a meaningful pattern. Inevitably, the attempt to assign particular suttas to specific categories involved abstraction and painful decision-making. Many suttas in AN can be viewed from different points of view, any of which could have resulted in a sutta being placed in different categories. For instance, the suttas often explain prac¬ tices or qualities by way of the persons who exemplify them, or alternatively, they explain persons by way of their practices and qualities, Thus I had to decide whether the sutta should be clas¬ sified in terms of. practices and qualities or iri terms of persons. In some cases a given sutta covers a range of topics and thus fits comfortably into several categories. I did not want my guide to turn into an index, which would lack the degree of specificity needed to heip the reader fit the sutta into the ground plan of the whole. Thus, while my ideal was "one sutta, one category," I often had to assign a single sutta to two categories and some¬ times to three. However, I do not think I have exceeded three places for a single sutta. The broadest categories that I used for the scheme are the "Three Jewels": the Buddha-, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. I begin with the section on the Buddha, honoring him as the founder of the Buddhist heritage and the ultimate source of all the teachings comprised in the Anguttara Nikaya. Section'll, titled "The Dhamma and Discipline," deals with the Buddha's teaching as a body of instructions that can be summarized, applied, and realized, and also as a corpus of texts that need to be preserved and transmitted to posterity. Following this sec¬ tion come eight sections devoted to the teachings themselves. This portion of the outline is intended to cover the Dhamma in its full range as we find it in AN. It begins with a survey of the Buddha's worldview (section III), covering the cosmological background to the Buddhist liberation project, the pioMematic nature of human experience, and the determinants of human 24 The Anguttara Nikaya destiny. I then proceed in stages through the different forms of Buddhist practice, beginning with life in the world: fam¬ ily relations, livelihood, wealth, community, and state (section IV). These spheres of human activity are often neglected by writers on Buddhism, who succumb to the error of assuming that monastic practice represents the Dhamma in its entirety. The Anguttara is a treasury of inspiring and informative dis¬ courses on righteous living in the confines of the world, and these texts are essential to arriving at an adequate picture of early Buddhism. • While the Buddha stressed the virtues conducive to domestic harmony, his teaching does not stop there but leads on to the . training for a higher rebirth and ultimate liberation. Though the former of these two trainings was directed toward lay disciples and the latter toward the bhikkhus and bhikkhunis, the two . share many values. These Values constitute a common platform .. of spiritual cultivation for both lay disciples and monastics. Under this theme, I have gathered into section V a variety of texts that concentrate on the practices of the devoted lay dis¬ ciple who is not content merely to observe an ethical life but also seeks to advance along the path to liberation. The Anguttara Nikaya is a rich source of guidance for earnest lay followers, and this section attempts to do justice to such texts... ■ To inspire in his followers an aspiration for the firial goal, the Buddha highlights the defects and dangers of mundane exis¬ tence, which illustrate the noble truth of suffering. Section VI therefore groups together a number of topics and texts devpted to the task of "dispelling the world's enchantment/' What binds us to conditioned existence, with its round of repeated birth and death and the danger of descent to lower realms of rebirth, are the defilements of the mind. Suttas dealing with this topic play a very prominent role in AN, and tljiese have been gathered into section VTI. The next division, section VIII, groups together sut¬ tas on the monastic training, which flows out from the spirit of renunciation and aims at the attainment of nibbaria. The heart of the monastic training is the practice of meditation, which is given a section of its own,.section IX. Here I have allocated sut¬ tas that emphasize the practices that lead to the higher states of concentration (samadhi). Section X takes us into the nextphase of the higher training, thgjde velopment of wisdom (panm),cul- Introduction 25 minating in liberation and the realization of nibbana, the final goal of the teaching. The next portion of the outline represents the third Jewel of Buddhism, the Sangha. It deals with both the institutional Sangha, the order of ordained monks and nuns (bhikkhus and bhikkhunls), and the ariyasahgha, the community of noble ones, those who have attained the paths and fruits of enlightenment. The last major section of the ground plan deals with types of persons. This is an area where the Anguttara differs significantly from the Samyutta. The major chapters of the Samyutta focus on the main philosophical themes of the teaching, the principles and categories that the Buddha proposed as templates for con¬ templation and insight. Thus we find in the Samyutta huge chapters on dependent origination, the elements, the five aggre¬ gates, the six sense bases, and the path factors, often explained in bare phenomenological terms with only minimal references to actual persons. The Anguttara, in contrast, abounds in dif¬ ferent ways of classifying people—both monastics and lay- people, noble ones and ordinary people—and it gives primacy to their qualities, their struggles for happiness and meaning, their aspirations and attainments. The Anguttara thus became the inspiration and a major source for one of the books of the Abhidhamma Pitaka, the Puggalapannatti or "Descriptions of Persons," the one treatise in the collection that departs from the strict Abhidhamma method of phenomenological reduction in order to survey types of persons as they, relate to the values and goals of the Dhamma. The Buddha in the Anguttara NikAya In what follows I will explore the contents of AN through the major categories of the Thematic Guide, highlighting promi¬ nent themes that emerge in this Nikaya and citing suttas that exemplify them. At the risk of-being repetitive, I have to assert once again that the assignment of individual suttas to particu¬ lar categories is largely done for the sake of expediency and risks nullifying the complexity in the contents of particular texts. In a work that focuses largely on persons, it is fitting that we 26 The Anguttara Nikaya find a substantial number of suttas devoted to the Buddha him¬ self, not merely as the teacher and expounder of the Dhamma, but as a person with his own life story and achievements. I have distinguished the suttas that deal with the Buddha into three classes: those that refer to his life and thus constitute the building blocks of a biography; those that extol his spiritual qualities and attainments; and, as a distinct category, those that speak of the Buddha not so much as a unique individual but as an archetype, the exemplar of the fully enlightened teacher who embodies his message in his person. This last heading com¬ prises those suttas in which the Buddha speaks of himself as "the Tathagata." The Nikayas never sought to construct a continuous bio¬ graphy of the Buddha. The suttas that refer to events in his life are widely spread out in the different collections and seldom provide the clues that would be needed to connect these into a single coherent sequence. The Mahaparinibbana Sutta (DN 16) gives us a connected account of the Buddha's last days, culminating in his death and cremation. But beyond this, the biographical material has to be ferreted out from widely scat¬ tered texts, and we must rely on speculation, imagination^ and hints in the texts themselves (such as settings and occasional references to related incidents) to assign these to specific phases of the Buddha's life. Nevertheless, AN does allude to the incidents familiar to us from the connected accounts of his life that were composed later. We can see these perhaps as the raw material that the poets and haigiographers would draw upon to construct the glorious Buddha biography. Thus 4:127 speaks about the won¬ ders that accompanied his conception in the womb, his physical birth, his enlightenment, and his setting in motion the wheel of the Dhamma. In 3:39 he speaks about his delicate and luxurious upbringing, and he recounts the reflections on old age, illness, and death that roused him from his intoxication with youth, health, and life. He discusses his efforts to master the various stages of meditation during his struggle for enlightenment in 8:64 and 9:40, two accounts that are not included in the famil¬ iar Buddha biography. Sutta 5:196 tells of the five dreams that he had while still a bodhisatta, foretokens of his awakening, and 8:11 relates the traditional account of the enlightenment as Introduction 27 proceeding through the four jhanas and the three higher knowl¬ edges to the destruction of the taints. In 4:21 he tells of his reflec¬ tions after his enlightenment and of his decision to honor only the Dhamma. In 8:70 he claims that if he so wished, he could live out the eon, and he decides to "relinquish his life force" because Ananda failed to request him to extend his life. This incident is familiar to us from the Mahaparinibbana Sutta. While texts offering biographical information on the Bud¬ dha are relatively sparse, those that extol his virtues and attain¬ ments are plentiful. He is praised as the "one person who arises in.the World.. .out of compassion for the world, for the good, welfare, and happiness of devas and human beings" (1:170). His bodily form is endowed with such extraordinary marks that an inquisitive brahmin cannot believe he is a mere human being (4:36). He has perfected noble virtue, concentration, wisdom, and. liberation (4:1). He possesses the qualities expected of a fully accomplished spiritual teacher (5:100). He is praised by the monk Udayl in verses of great beauty (6:43) and extolled by his lay disciple King Pasenadi (10:30). He dwells in the world detached from the world, with all defilements gone, free from birth, old age, and death, like a lotus flower that is "born in the water and grown up in the water, but rises up above the water and stands unsoiled by the water" (4:36,10:81). The suttas in which the Buddha speaks of himself as the "Tathagata" are sufficiently impressive to warrant being assigned to a class of their own. In these suttas I see the Bud¬ dha referring to himself not simply as a unique individual but as the latest representative of the "dynasty" of Buddhas, those extraordinary beings who appear at rare intervals in the cosmic process to rediscover the lost path to nibbana and teach it to the world. In AN, we find explicit references to only two of the six Buddhas of the past that we know from other Nikayas. Sikhi, the fifth back, is referred to at 3:80, and Kassapa, Gotama's pre¬ decessor, at 5:180. But there are a fair number of references to Tathagatas in the plural, which indicates that the idea of a suc¬ cession of Buddhas was already known to the compilers. From the perspective of the Nikayas, all the Tathagatas par¬ take of the same essential attributes that qualify them to serve as world teachers. The Tathagata is declared to be "without a peer, without counterpart, incomparable, matchless, unrivaled. 28 The Anguttara Nikaya unequaled, without equal, the foremost of bipeds" (1:174). He. is the foremost of beings, and those who have confidence in him have confidence in the best (4:34). His arising is "the manifestation of great vision, light, and radiance" (1:175-77). He has fully awakened to "whatever is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, reached, sought after, and examined by the mind," and therefore whatever he teaches "is just so and not other¬ wise" (4:23). He is endowed with the "ten Tathagata powers" and the "four.kinds of self-confidence" on the basis of which "he claims the place of the chief bull, roars his lion's roar in the assemblies, and sets in motion the brahma wheel" (4:8,10:22; see too 6:64). His "lion's roar" on impermanence is so pow¬ erful that it even causes the long-lived deities to quake and Irernble (4:33). The-Dhamma and the Discipline Although the Buddha is the supreme person in the spiritual realm, he still revered something superior to himself: the Dhamma. After his enlightenment, seeking in vain for some¬ one to honor, he decided: "Let me honor, respect, and dwell in dependence only on this Dhamma to which I have become fully enlightened" (4:22). When he teaches others, he does so "relying just on the Dhamma, honoring, respecting, and ven¬ erating the Dhamma, taking the Dhamma as his standard, banner, and authority" (3:14, 5:133). Whomever he teaches, he teaches respectfully, "because the Tathagata has respect for the Dhamma, reverence for the Dhamma" (5:99). The Dhamma in this sense is not so much the verbally expressed doctrine as the corpus of spiritual principles that makes possible spiritual growth and liberation. Its ultimate referents are the noble eightfold path, the foremost of all con¬ ditioned phenomena, and nibbana, the foremost of all things conditioned and unconditioned (4:34). The Buddha summed up the essence of the Dhamma in various ways that all flow out of the same body of principles. In one place, he says that the unlimited expressions of the Dhamma converge on four things: understanding what is unwholesome and abandoning it, and understanding what is wholesome and developing it (4:188). He taught Mahapajapati, his foster mother, eight cri- Introduction 29 teria of the true Dhamma (8:53), and more concisely he told the bhikkhu Upali that the teaching could be found in "those things that lead exclusively to disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to nibbana" (7:83). Contrary to many of his contemporaries, the Buddha refused to indulge in speculative views about matters irrelevant to the quest for release from suffering. He particularly refused to make pronouncements about the fate of the liberated one after death or to answer the ten idle speculative questions (see 7:54). Instead, he stressed that he taught the Dhamma "for the purifi¬ cation of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, for the passing away of pain and dejection, for the achievement of the method, for the realization of nibbana" (9:20). Yet, though he maintained a kind of "metaphysical reticence," hie did not hesitate to criticize those views he considered detrimental to the spiritual life. The texts sometimes mention three that he expressly repudiated: past-action determinism, deterministic theism, and denial of causality (3:61). He decidedly rejects as a wrong view the thesis that "there is no fruit or result of good and bad actions," which disavows the principle of kamma (10:176, 10:211, etc.). He also strongly criticized the "hard determinist" view that our decisions are irrevocably caused by factors and forces outside ourselves. Against the determinist position that "there is no kamma, no deed, no energy," he says that all the perfectly enlightened Buddhas teach "a doctrine of kamma, a doctrine of deeds, a doctrine of energy" (3:137). He insisted that there are such things as instigation, initiative, choice, and. exertion, by reason of which people are responsible for their own destiny (6:38). The Buddha claimed that his Dhamma was "directly visible" (sanditthika), a word that became one of its epithets. When ques¬ tioned how this was to be confirmed, he explained in ways that directed the inquirers back to their own immediate experience. When a person is overwhelmed by lust, hatred, and delusion, he said, he acts for his own harm, the harm of others, and the harm of both, and he experiences suffering and dejection; but when lust, hatred, and delusion are abandoned, he is free to act for the well-being of all and no longer experiences suffer¬ ing and grief (see 3:53-54). The destruction of lust, hatred, and 30 The Anguttara Nikaya delusion is nibbana, and in this respect nibbana too is directly visible (3:55). In AN, the Dhamma is viewed not merely as the path of practice and the goal of realization but also as the collection of verbal discourses that the Buddha gave during his teaching career. Thus the suttas occasionally refer to the nine types of teaching into which the discourses were classified in the earliest period, before they were compiled into Nikayas (4:102, 4:107, 5:73—74, etc.). Because the Buddha's teachings, which disclose the path to enlightenment and liberation, were collected into a body of scriptures, the vigor, purity, and longevity of the Dhamma depend on the proper preservation and transmission of the texts. Among the four Nikayas, AN is the one that insiists most often on the need to properly preserve the Dhamma and thereby protect it from decay and disappearance. Suttas that dwell on this theme are found throughout the work. A series of short texts in the Ones delineates the factors that cause the good Dhamma to vanish and, conversely, the fac¬ tors that sustain its vitality (1:30-69). The latter can be summed up as not confusing what is the Dhamma with what is not the Dhamma; not confusing the discipline with what is contrary to the discipline; quoting the Buddha accurately, describing his conduct correctly, and not confounding different categories of disciplinary rules. In one sutta, the Buddha gives instructions to. the monks on the criteria for determining whether teach¬ ings reported after his passing are authentic or spurious (4:180). Another sutta says that the good Dhamma degenerates when the monks do not preserve the teachings properly, misinterpret their meaning, fail to teach others, and backslide in the practice. But when, to the contrary, they preserve the teachings properly, interpret them correctly, teach others, and strive in the practice, the teaching lasts long (4:160). I The Shifting Kaleidoscope of Experience Given the importance of preserving the teaching and ensur¬ ing its longevity, what exactly is the content of the Dhamma that the Buddha discovered, and why is it so special? Before answering this question, it is.useful to briefly review the Bud¬ dha's picture of the universe in order to see the background Introduction 31 setting for the quest for liberation. The Nikayas envision a uni¬ verse of inconceivably vast dimensions undergoing alternating phases of development and decline. The basic unit of cosmic time is the eon (kappa). Those who acquire the power of recall¬ ing their past lives, the texts say, can recollect "many eons of world-dissolution, many eons of world-evolution, many eons of world-dissolution and world-evolution" (3:58, 3:101, etc.). The eon is divided into four phases: dissolving, prolonged dis¬ solution, evolving, and completed evolution. Each of these is beyond calculation in hundreds of thousands of years (4:156). A world system has not only vast temporal duration but is also stratified by way of various realms of existence, ranging from the dismal hell realms, worlds of intense suffering, through the animal realm, to the sphere of afflicted spirits (sometimes called "hungry ghosts"); then on to the human realm, and upward through ah ascending series of celestial realms inhabited by the devas and brahmas, the deities and divine beings. There are'six sensual heavenly realms: the heaven of the four divine kings, the Tavatimsa devas, the Yama devas, the Tusita devas, the devas who delight in creation, and the devas who control what is created by others (3:70, 6:10, 8:36, etc.). Above these are the brahma world and still higher realms, spheres of rebirth for those who have mastered the meditative attainments. Despite their many differences, there is one thing that unites all sentient beings from the lowest to the highest: they all seek freedom from suffering and the achievement of true happiness. This inherent urge of a sentient being is precisely what the Bud¬ dha makes the commanding theme of his teaching, the linch¬ pin holding all the doctrines and practices together. But rather than take our common assumptions for granted, the Buddha embarks on a critical inquiry into the question of what consti¬ tutes suffering and what offers the prospect for indissoluble happiness. Our preconceptions about what will make us happy are often deceptive, stemming from a fixation on immediate sensation that excludes recognition of the deeper repercussions and long-term consequences of our behavior. Experience is ever changing,, always shifting its shape without regard for our wishes and expectations. Despite our hopes, we cannot avoid old age, illness, and death, the decay of our pos¬ sessions, the loss of those who are dear. The foolish worldling 32 The Anguttara Nikaya and the wise disciple both share this fate. They differ in that the worldling does not reflect on the universality of this law, and therefore, when his fate catches up with him, "he sorrows, languishes, laments, weeps beating his breast, and becomes confused." The wise disciple, in contrast, realizes that old age, illness, and death, destruction and loss, are our universal des¬ tiny; he thus draws out "the poisonous dart of sorrow" and dwells happily, free of darts (5:48). Again, both worldling and disciple are subject to the "eight worldly conditions": gain and loss, disrepute and fame, blame and praise, and pleasure and pain. The worldling, attracted to one and repelled by the other, "is not freed from birth, from old age and death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, dejection, and anguish." But the noble dis¬ ciple, recognizing that all these unstable conditions are imper¬ manent and subject to change, discards attraction and repulsion and achieves inner freedom (8:6). What the Buddha emphasizes as a starting point in the quest for true happiness is the close correlation between the ethical quality of our conduct and the felt tone of our experi¬ ence. Bodily deeds, speech, and thoughts can be distinguished ethically into two broad classes, the unwholesome {akusala) and the wholesome {kusala). The Buddha noted that the unwhole¬ some is a source of misery, the wholesome a source of blessed¬ ness. Greed, hatred, and delusion lead to harm and suffering, while their removal brings well-being and happiness (3:65— 66). His constant injunction to his disciples, therefore, was to make a determined effort to abandon the unwholesome and to develop* the wholesome (2:19). Wholesome endeavor brings a far greater, richer, and more enduring happiness than the indulgence of craving. A series of very short suttas contrasts different kinds of happiness and assesses their relative worth: the happiness of monastic life is superior to that of lay life; the happiness of renunciation Superior to sensual happiness; the happiness without acquisitions superior to the happiness arisen from acquisitions; the happiness without taints superior to that with taints; and spiritual happiness superior to worldly happiness (2:64—68). According to the Buddha, the "ever-shifting kaleidoscope" of suffering and happiness does not change its configurations only in a single life on earth; it changes even more radically as we Introduction 33 travel onward in the round of rebirths known as samsara, "the wandering." The governing factor in this process, which makes the entire course of rebirth a lawful one, is a force called kamma (Skt: karma). The word kamma literally means "action/' but the Buddha uses it to refer specifically to volitional or intentional action: "It is volition, bhikkhus, that I call kamma; for having willed, one acts by body, speech, or mind" (6:63 §5). Kamma thus denotes deeds that originate from volition, which may remain purely mental, creating kamma through our thoughts, plans, and desires; or it may come to expression in bodily and verbal deeds. Kamma also denotes the moral force created by our deeds. All our morally determinate deeds create a potential to bring forth results (vipaka) that correspond to their ethical quality. Our deeds generate kamma, and when suitable condi¬ tions come together, the kamma ripens and produces the appro¬ priate fruits, bringing misery or happiness in dependence on the moral quality of the Original action. The kamma we create may ripen in this very life, in the next rebirth, or on some sub¬ sequent occasion (3:34,10:217). The one thing that is certain is that as long as we travel on in the cycle of rebirths, our stockpile of kamma is capable of ripening and yielding its due results. Thus the Buddha teaches, again and again, that "beings are the owners of their kamma, the heirs of their kamma; they have kamma as their origin, kamma as their relative, kamma as their resort; whatever kamma they do, good or bad, they are its heirs" (10:216; see too 5:57,10:48). The differences in kamma account for the wide diversity in the fortunes of people, who are constantly revolving in the cycle of existence, rising and falling, sometimes heading from dark¬ ness to light, sometimes from light to darkness (4:85). Kamma is the principal determinant of rebirth. Unwholesome kamma conduces to an unfortunate rebirth and painful results, whole¬ some kamma to a fortunate rebirth and pleasant results (2:16-17, 3:111,10:217-18). Rebirth is not confined to the human realm, for kamma varies in its quality and potency and thus may pro¬ duce rebirth in any of the five gatis or destinations: hell, the animal realm, the realm of afflicted spirits, the human world, or the deva worJd (6:63 §5). Beings are constantly migrating from realm to realm, but relativelv few are reborn in the human or deva worlds compared to the much greater number who are 34 The Anguttara Nikaya reborn in the hells, the animal realm, and the spirit realms, col¬ lectively called the plane of misery, the bad destinations, or the lower world (1:348—77). Modernists who propose interpreting these realms as psychological states that we experience in our human existence would have a hard time finding support for their position in the Nikayas. In AN we read again and again, in almost every nipata, of how beings are reborn in hell or in heaven "with the breakup of. the body, after death" (kayassa bheda parammarana). The expression is one of the main leitmotifs of the Nikayas, and there are no indications that it is intended metaphorically. The criterion for judging the volition responsible for an action to be unwholesome or wholesome is its accompanying motives or "roots." Three roots are unwholesome: greed, hatred, and delusion. From these such secondary defilements as anger, hos¬ tility, envy, miserliness, conceit, and arrogance arise, and from the roots and secondary defilements arise defiled actions with their potential to jproduce rebirth in the plane of misery (6:39). Wholesome.kamma, on the other hand, is action that originates from the three wholesome roots: non-greed, non-hatred, and non-delusion, which may be expressed more positively as gener¬ osity, loving-kindness, and wisdom. Whereas actions springing from the unwholesome roots are necessarily tied to the round of repeated birth and death, actions born from the wholesome roots are of two kinds, mundane and world-transcending. Mun¬ dane wholesome actions have the potential to produce a fortu¬ nate rebirth in the higher realms (6:39). The world-transcending or supramundane (lokuttara) wholesome actions—namely, the kamma generated by practicing the noble eightfold path and the seven factors of enlightenment—dismantles the entire pro¬ cess of karmic causation and thereby leads to liberation from the round of rebirths (3:34^4:233, 4:237-38). The texts Ho not leave us guessing what kinds of deeds cre¬ ate wholesome and unwholesome kamma but provide precise maps over the terrain of right and wrong conduct. The stan¬ dard list contains ten kinds of unwholesome action—three of body, four orspeech, and three of mind—and ten correspond^ ing types of wholesome kamma (10:167-233; see 10:176 for a detailed analysis). All these actions, however, ultimately spring from the miiTeh Thus mind is revealed as the underlying source Introduction 35 of good and evil and, through the actions that flow from it, the fundamental cause of suffering and happiness. By tracing the roots of suffering and happiness back to our intentions, the Buddha demonstrates that the key to happiness is the training and mastery of the mind. In a series of paired suttas, he says that he sees nothing that leads to such harm and suffering as the mind that is undeveloped, uncultivated, untamed, unguarded, unprotected, and unrestrained; while nothing leads to such great good and happiness as the mind that is developed, cultivated, tamed, guarded, protected, and restrained (1:23-40). Thus the core of the Buddha's, teaching is the development and cultivation of the mind, which, as a result of such cultivation, will unfold its intrinsic luminosity andultimately arrive at the bliss of liberation. Maintaining a Harmonious Household Although early Buddhism prescribes a path of self-cultivation leading to the extinction of suffering, the Buddha-realized that spiritual development does not occur in a social vacuum but rests up on. a healthy and harmonious social order that exempli¬ fies the kinds of virtues that nurture the spiritual life. Spiritual influences begin at the top of the social hierarchy and gradu¬ ally spread downward, affecting the whole society and even the biological and physical domains (4:70). Thus the Buddha devotes considerable effort to instilling in his followers the lifestyle and sense of social responsibility that conduces to a harmonious society in which people act in accordance with the civic virtues. Among the four Nikayas, the Anguttara—-along with the Slgalaka Sutta (DN 31)—-is probably the richest source of such teachings. John Kelly notes that this Nikaya has the larg¬ est number of suttas concerned with laypeople, either directly, by being addressed to them, or indirectly, by being spoken to the monks about the practices proper for a lay disciple. (See table 2.) From the number of discourses on family relationships, it is evident that the Buddha regarded the family as the primary agent of acculturation. Since the head of the family has a par¬ ticularly powerful impact on his household, the Buddha tried to promote the positive transformation of society by offering 36 The Anguttara Nikaya Digha Majjhima Samxjutta Anguttara Kh.udd.aka Total Suttas in the Nikaya2 34 152 2,904 8,122 6013 Directly to Laypeople 14 47 . 121 125 30 Indirectly to Laypeople 1 3 .7 36 6 Total 15 50 128' 161 .36 Table 2. Suttas to Laypeople by NikAya (Source: Kelly 2011: 8) householders guidelines to righteous living. He set up a prag¬ matic, but inspiring ideal for the laity, that of the sappurisa or "good person," who lives "for the good, welfare, and happiness of many people," his parents, his wife and children, the domes¬ tic help, his friends, and contemplative renouncers (5:42). When the head of the family sets a good example, those who depend on him grow in all that is worthy: in faith, virtue, learning, generosity, and wisdom (3:48, 5:40). In offering guidance to the family, the Buddha lays down the duties of children toward their parents (2:33,3:31), advises hus- bajids and wives how to live together (4:53), and even instructs a loving couple how they can be assured of reuniting in future lives (4:55). He distinguishes between, wrong livelihood and right livelihood, defines the proper ways of acquiring and uti¬ lizing wealth, and prescribes the appropriate means for sustain¬ ing cordial relationships: giving, endearing speech, beneficent conduct, and impartiality (4:32). He not only instructed indi¬ viduals and families, but he als6 advised states and rulers. He taught the people of the Vajji confederacy, who maintained a republican form of government, "seven principles of non¬ decline" (7:21). For kings he set up the ideal of the "wheel- turning monarch" {raja cakkavati), the righteous king who rules by the Dhamma and provides righteous protection for all in his realm, including the animals and the birds (3:14, 5:133). Introduction 37 The Way Leading Upward While early Buddhism sees a righteous society as providing the optimal conditions for collective well-being and happiness, its focus is not on social stability as such but on the spiritual devel¬ opment and liberation of the individual. The most congenial conditions for the unhindered pursuit of the final goal, are pro¬ vided by the lifestyle of a renunciant monk or nun, who is free from the constraints and liabilities of household life.. But,.almost unprecedented for his time, the Buddha also held that house¬ holders earning their living by. "the sweat of their arms" and supporting a family could also advance spiritually and reach three of the four stages of awakening (see pp. 55-56 below). He thus laid down guideposts to spiritual cultivation for his lay followers that would be compatible with their time-consuming schedules of work and family responsibilities. These would enable the lay disciple to win a higher rebirth and even reach the plane of the noble ones, where final liberation is assured. Many of the factors that enter into the foundational stage of spiritual development are common to the renunciant and the householder. Thus, though the suttas often describe these quali¬ ties in terms of a bhikkhu, they can be understood to pertain to lay disciples as well. The seed of spiritual development is a triad of qualities consisting of faith (saddha), confidence (pasada), and reverence (garava). Faith is a faculty and a power, and as such is defined as belief in the enlightenment of the Buddha (5:2,5:14). It is a deep trust in his wisdom and a readiness to comply with his advice. From faith arise the other four powers that inspire and.direct the training: moral shame, moral dread, energy, and wisdom. Closely connected with faith is confidence, a feeling of serenity and mental clarity that arises from faith. The dis¬ ciple has confidence that the Buddha is the best of beings, the Dhamma the best of teachings, and the Sangha of noble ones the best of spiritual communities (4:34). Along with faith and confi¬ dence comes reverence, a sense of respect and esteem directed toward the Three Jewels and the training (6:32—33). For a disciple endowed with faith, spiritual growth is fur¬ thered by associating with good friends, people who can give guidance and serve as inspiring models. The Buddha's 38 The Anguttara Nikaya statement to Ananda (SN 45:2) that good friendship is the whole of the spiritual life finds powerful analogues in AN. We read that there is "no single thing that so causes unarisen whole¬ some qualities to arise and arisen unwholesome qualities to decline as good friendship" (1:71). A pair of suttas beautifully enumerates the traits to be sought for in a good friend (7:36-37), and a discourse to a householder advises him to befriend other householders accomplished in faith, virtuous behavior, gener¬ osity, and wisdom (8:54 §3). A large part of the practice for a householder involves engag¬ ing in meritorious deeds, activities that generate wholesome kamma conducive to a happy rebirth, good fortune, and spiri¬ tual progress. The Buddha even urges the bhikkhus, "Do not be afraid of merit," and he details the benefits he reaped in a previous life by cultivating a mind of loving-kindness (7:62). The-texts enumerate three "bases of meritorious activity": giv¬ ing, virtuous behavior, and meditative development (8:36). They also mention four "streams of merit" for a noble disciple: unwavering confidence in the Three Jewels together with vir¬ tuous behavior (4:52). The list is expanded to eight streams of merit by combining the Three Refuges with the five precepts (8:39). Many short texts in AN are concerned with the etiquette of giving and generosity, with the emphasis on providing mate¬ rial support to monks and nuns as well as other ascetics who liye in dependence on the lay community. Though the Bud¬ dha encouraged his disciples to support renunciants of all con¬ victions, even his rivals (8:12), he also taught that the merit gained by giving is proportional to the spiritual qualities of the recipients, and thus the noble persons, especially arahants, serve as the most fertile field of merit (3:57). Virtuous behavior begins by observing the five graining rules: abstinence from taking life, stealing, sexual misconduct, false speech, and use of intoxicants. The code of good conduct can be expanded into the ten courses, of wholesome action, which cover not only bodily and verbal behavior but wholesome dispositions and correct views (10:176). A number of texts give specific directives on right speech. I already referred to right livelihood in the previ¬ ous section. Of particular value for the earnest lay devotee intent on merit Introduction 39 is the uposatha observance adopted on new-moon and full-moon days. On these occasions devout lay followers undertake eight precepts that emulate the precepts of a novice monk (3:70,8:41— 45). They may spend the day practicing meditation, and one text recommends loving-kindness as especially suitable for the uposatha (9:18). Another text recommends five recollections, called means of cleansing the defiled mind (3:70).4 The Buddha explains that observing the uposatha complete in its eight fac¬ tors is more beneficial than sovereignty over the continent, for the merit acquired can lead to rebirth in the heavenly worlds. . In an interesting table reproduced here, Kelly has calculated the prevailing aims across Nikayas in the discourses addressed to laypeople. He distinguishes between aims concerned with mundane welfare—in this life and a heavenly rebirth—and those connected with the attainment of liberation:5. Goal Digha Majjhima Samyutta Anguttara Khuddaka This Life / Next Life 6 (33%) . 16 (32%) 44 (34%) 97 (60%) 21 (58%) 184 (47%) Liberation 9(50%) 24 (48%) 58 (45%) 34 (21%) . * 13 (36%) 138 (35%) Unspecified 3(17%) 10 (20%) 26 (20%) 30(19%) . 2 (6%) 71 (18%) Total 18 (100%) 50 (100%) 128 (100%) 161 (100%)' 36 (100%) 393 (100%) Table 3. Goals for Laypeople per Nikaya (Source: Kelly 2011:19) Kelly notes that AN has a much stronger emphasis than the other Nikayas on the two mundane goals as against the attain¬ ment of stream-entry or higher stages on the path. However, even in AN the practice for a lay follower is not exhausted by merit. In several suttas the Buddha mentions four qualities that lead to the superior welfare of a lay folio wer./The first three are faith, virtue, and generosity, the constituents of merit. But the fourth is wisdom, specifically "the wisdom that discerns arising and passing away, which is noble and penetrative and leads to the complete destruction of suffering" (8:54,' 8:76). This is the 40 The Anguttara Nikaya wisdom of insight into impermanence, which leads beyond all spheres of rebirth to the final goal of the Dhamma, the realiza¬ tion of nibbana and release from the round of rebirths. Dispelling the World's Enchantment To steer his disciples away from their attachment to transient objects of clinging, the Buddha employs an arsenal of tech¬ niques intended to uncover the abyss that lies just beneath the apparently innocent joys of a virtuous life. These techniques are intended to instill in the aspirant a quality called samvega, a word without a precise English equivalent. To convey the sense it is necessary to resort to a makeshift phrase like "a sense of urgency " Samvega might be described as the inner commotion or shock we experience when we.are jolted out of our usual complacency by a stark encounter with truths whose full grav¬ ity we normally refuse to face. Samvega arises from the recog¬ nition that our self-assumed security is illusory, that we are perpetually treading on thin ice, which at any moment may crack beneath our feet. . The chief catalyst in inducing this sense of urgency is our con¬ frontation with our inevitable mortality as revealed by old age, illness, and death. This encounter shakes us out of our habitu¬ ation to mundane comforts and sets us in quest of unshakable peace and freedom. The future Buddha himself had to undergo this "shock of recognition" before he could embark on his own quest for enlightenment. His deep reflections on old age, illness, and death shattered his infatuation with youth, health, and vitality and drove him from his palace out into the forest seek¬ ing the unaging, illness-free, and deathless nibbana (3:39). In many suttas, the Buddha employs a template involving three standpoints designed to induce the sense of urgency. These three standpoints are gratification {assada), danger (adinava), and escape (nissarana).6 We begin with what is immediately obvi¬ ous: that our experience in the world provides some degree of gratification or enjoyment, which consists in the pleasure and joy that arise with the fulfillment of our desires. It is because people experience gratification that they become attached to the things that give them pleasure. When, however, we look more deeply, we can see that just beneath the glittering surface of joy there is a Introduction 41 dark underbelly of pain and distress. This is their danger, stem¬ ming from their impermanence (anicca), liability to suffering (dukkha), and nature to change and decay (viparinamadhamma). The third step, escape, shows us the release from danger. When we see that our craving for pleasure binds us to what is inher¬ ently flawed, we can drop the craving. Thus the escape lies in "the removal and abandoning of desire and lust." It is for the purpose of provoking a sense of urgency that the Buddha stresses aspects pf experience that we typically try to conceal from ourselves. These points of emphasis give the teaching a "pessimistic" flavor, but it is a pessimism that does not lead to the blind alley of nihilism but to the open fields of liberation, the end of suffering. In accordance with this strat¬ egy/ the Buddha teaches his disciples, whether monastics or laypeople, to often reflect on the fact that they are subject to old age/ illness, and death; that they must be parted from every¬ one and everything they love; and that they are the heirs of their own kamma (5:57). He underscores the misery in sensual pleasures, calling them perilous, suffering, a disease; a boil, a tie, and a swamp (6:23; see too 8:56). He declares that even a trifling amount of conditioned existence, "even for a mere fin¬ ger snap," is like a lump of feces (1:328). He calls attention to the foulness of the body, which contains thirty-one unattractive constituents, is prey to a host of diseases, and resembles a boil with nine orifices (10:60 §§3-4; 9:15). He stresses the transience of human life, which is short, limited, and fleeting, beset by suffering and misery (7:74). He points out that at some point in the future even this great earth with its mighty mountains will burn up and vanish (7:66). Even more, he says, the entire world system will dissolve along with its powerful deities. Understanding this, the wise disciple "becomes disenchanted and dispassionate toward the foremost, not to speak of what is inferior" (10:29 §§2-3). The Defilements of the Mind Once we clearly recognize the defects in sensual pleasures and the futility of meandering from life to life in the realms of con¬ ditioned existence, the urge arises to break free from bondage and reach the end of repeated becoming, which is also the end 42 The Anguttara Nikaya of suffering. To fulfill this urge, we have to investigate the cause of our bondage, for it is only by removing the cause that we can eliminate the result. The Buddha locates the cause of suffering in the bonds of our own minds. Hence the stress in the teaching on honest self-assessment (10:51). As part of a diagnosis of the origin of suffering, the Nikayas are replete with catalogues of the various defilements to which the mind is prey. In AN we find many such groups, which are usually given metaphorical names to indicate how they affect us: taints, hindrances, floods, fetters, and so forth. When reading the Nikayas, we are likely to be awed by the wTide range of the defilements that are listed, and also to be confused about the distinctive roles played by the different groupings. To make sense of these lists, I have sorted them into three categories. The categories are of my own devising and are not mentioned as.such either in the canonical texts or the commentaries. However, though the groups should.not be thought of as rigidly exclusive, the classification seems to stand up to examination. (1) The first class are the defilements responsible for flawed behavior. These are the underlying motives of misconduct and unwholesome kamma. The most important of such groups are the three unwholesome roots: greed (or lust), hatred, and delu¬ sion, referred to above in the discussion of kamma. They are often mentioned as the causes of bodily, verbal, and mental misconduct, and they are also explicitly aligned with the ten courses of unwholesome action (10:174). The three roots are sometimes expanded to "four wrong courses7' (4:17—20)—desire, hatred, delusion, and fear—when motives for biased decisions are taken up for consideration. Sexual desire is a defilement of crucial concern to monas¬ tics, who are committed to>a life of celibacy and thus need to curb and master their sexual urges. The Buddha often speaks about the dangers in sensual pleasures and cautions the monks about forming close bonds with members of the opposite sex (5:225-26). In a monastic community that brings together peo¬ ple with sharply, differing personalities and strong opinions, anger and resentment can also have a corrosive effect on group dynamics, and thus the Buddha and his chief disciples prescribe methods to dispel these disruptive emotions (5:161—62; 9:29-30; Introduction 43 10:79-80). Anger and hostility jointly form the first of six "roots of dispute," which the Buddha saw as a danger to the harmony of the Sangha (6:36). Since monastics are in principle taught to share their gains—whether material things, lay supporters, or knowledge—the Buddha enumerated five kinds of miserliness that must be uprooted to ensure that everyone in the commu¬ nity gets to fulfill their potential (5:115, 5:224). Laypeople, too, are instructed to dwell at home "with a mind devoid of the stain of miserliness, freely generous, openhanded, delighting in relinquishment, devoted to charity, delighting in giving and sharing" (6:10). (2) The second class of defilements in this threefold scheme are those that impede the success of meditation. The most elemen¬ tary in -this group is the simplest: sheer laziness, resistance to the work of "arousing energy for the attainment of the as-yet- unattained, for the achievement of the as-yet-unachieved, for the realization of the as-yet-unrealized" (8:80). Once a medita¬ tor overcomes laziness and makes the endeavor to meditate, the defilements he or she is likely to encounter fall into a set known as the1 five hindrances, so called because they are "obstructions, hindrances, encumbrances of the mind, states that weaken wis¬ dom." They even prevent one from knowing one's own good and the good of others (5:51). The Buddha condemns them as "a complete heap of the unwholesome" (5:52) and compares them to corruptions of gold (5:23) and impurities in a bowl of water (5:193). A series of suttas at the beginning of AN explains the principal triggers for each of the five hindrances and the most effective contemplative techniques for subduing them (1:11-20). The Anguttara mentions other sets of defilements that obstruct meditation practice. These include the three kinds of unwholesome thoughts (4:11), the five kinds of mental barren¬ ness (5:205),. and the five mental bondages (5:206). These can more or less be correlated with the five hindrances. All these defilements are overcome, tentatively, through the successful practice of serenity meditation, which reaches fulfillment in samadhi, mental collectedness or concentration. (3) The defilements of the third type are the deepest and the most obstinate. These arc the defilements lodged at the base of the stream of consciousness that maintain bondage to the cycle of 44 The Anguttara Nikaya rebirths. Such defilements lie dormant in the mind even when the meditator achieves exalted states of concentration. They cav\ be removed only by the development of wisdom, by insight that penetrates deep into the truth of the Dhamma. In the language of the Pali commentaries, they are totally eradicated only by the "supramundane" or world-transcending paths (lokuttaramagga), states of consciousness that break through the barriers of condi¬ tioned reality and penetrate the unconditioned nibbana. The most primordial of these fundamental defilements are called the asavas, inadequately translated as "taints." These consist of craving for sensual pleasures, craving for continued, existence, and ignorance (6;63 §4). They are fully eradicated only with the attainment of arahantship, and thus the fruit of arahantship is described as "the taintless liberation of mind, lib¬ eration by wisdom achieved with the destruction of the taints." Other groups of fundamental defilements include the four bonds (4:10)/ identical in content with the three asavas but augmented by the bond of views;7 the seven underlying tendencies (7:li— 12); and the ten fetters, whose eradication in clusters marks the attainment of the successive stages of awakening (10:13). The three unwholesome roots—lust, hatred, and delusion—also operate at this level and thus must be uprooted to gain libera¬ tion* All these defilements fall under the dominion of ignorance and craving for existence, which drive the process of samsara . .forward, from one existence to the next (3:76-77). Final libera¬ tion therefore ultimately depends on eliminating ignorance and craving, which occurs through the world-transcendent wisdom th(at deeply discerns the four noble truths. The Path of Renunciation Although the Buddha taught the Dhamma openly and broadly to both renunciants and laypeople, he gave special attention to those who followed him from the household life into homeless- ness to pursue the goal that he himself had realized. Thus the full range of Dhamma practice is incorporated into the system¬ atic training of the bhikkhu or bhikkhunl. The graduated course of monastic training is treated in greatest detail in the Dlgha and Majjhima Nikayas, but the same sequence also appears once in AN (4:198). Introduction 45 The precondition for the training is the arising of the Tathagata and his proclamation of the Dhamma. Having heard the teach¬ ing, the student acquires faith and goes forth into the homeless life. Now a bhikkhu, he undertakes the ethical discipline of a renunciant, which requires a life of harmlessness and purity in bodily and verbal action. He should be content with the sim¬ plest requisites, yet without priding himself on his austerity (4:28). To facilitate the passage to concentration, he practices restraint of the sense faculties and exercises mindfulness and clear comprehension in all activities. Other texts on the monas¬ tic training mention two other measures that fit into this phase: moderation in eating and wakefulness (3:16,4:37). The bhikkhu resorts to a secluded dwelling place, cleanses his mind of the five hindrances, and masters the four jhanas, the stages of deep concentration. He then directs the concentrated mind toward the three kinds of higher knowledge: the recollection of past lives, perception of the passing away and rebirth of beings, and the penetration of the four noble truths. This process reaches consummatibn in the liberation of the mind from the asavas. Another sutta, 10:99, begins with the same series of prepara¬ tory steps, but from the attainment of the four jhanas it pro¬ ceeds to the four formless meditative attainments: the base of the infinity of space, the base of the infinity of consciousness, the base of nothingness, and the base of neither-perception-nor- non- perception. From there the meditator continues to the "ces¬ sation of perception and feeling"—also known as the attainment of cessation—on emerging from which he "sees with wisdom" and attains the (destruction of the asavas. In this version of the training, the first two higher knowledges are hot mentioned, and the process of mental development is continued through all nine meditative attainments. Yet, despite this difference, both conclude with the destruction of the asavas. Though AN shares this comprehensive description of the monastic training with other Nikayas, it includes formulations that seem to be specific, if not entirely unique, to itself. One such is the threefold training: the higher virtuous behavior, the higher mind (of concentration), and the higher wisdom (3:81- 90). Of particular interest in this series of texts is a pair of suttas stating that a monk can fall into offenses regarding the lesser and minor training rules, undergo rehabilitation, and attain the 46 The Anguttara Nikaya four stages of awakening (3:86-87). What he upholds firmly are ''those training rules that are fundamental to the spiritual life, in conformity with the spiritual life." These two suttas also cor¬ relate the threefold training with the four stages of awakening: the stream-enterer and once-returner fulfill virtuous behavior but not the other two trainings, the non-returner fulfills virtue and concentration but not wisdom, and the arahant fulfills all three trainings. Another perspective on the sequential course of practice is .offered by a series, of "expanded parallels" that begins in the Fives (with 5:24) and continues with augmentation into later nipdtas as far as the Elevens. This series can be stratified in terms of the threefold training and its culmination in liberation, but it exhibits the finer transitional stages that lie between the main stages. Thus in the most complete version (11:3), it proceeds from virtuous behavior to non-regret, thence in steps to joy, rapture, tranquility, pleasure, concentration, knowledge and vision of things as they really are, disenchantment, dispassion, and the knowledge and vision of liberation. Presumably, libera¬ tion itself should be wedged in after dispassion, but this would require a Book of Twelves. The monastic quest does not always culminate in the nir- vanic realization that inspired the monk to embark on the life of'renunciation. The Nikayas show a keen awareness of human weakness and thus ring precautionary alarms. One sutta.men¬ tions four "perils" that face a. clansman who has "gone forth out of faith from the household, life into homelessness": anger at being instructed by younger monks, craving for food that is frustrated by the regulations governing meals, attraction to the five kinds of sensual pleasure, ancfthe encounter with seduc¬ tive women (4:122). Another discourse says that any bhikkhu or bhikkhunl who gives up th£ training and reverts to lay life does so because of insufficient faith, moral shame, moral dread, energy, and wisdom (5:5). And two long discourses compare the bhikkhu who is deflected from the training to a warrior defeated in battle. In one case the cause is "a woman or a girl who is beautiful, attractive, graceful/possessing supremebeauty of complexion" (5:75). In the otherit is the passion that arises from seeing wom^n on alms round "with their dress in disar¬ ray and loosely attired" (5:76). The Anguttara shows that while Introduction 47 the Buddha had deep trust in the capacity of human beings to triumph over all bonds and fetters, he was not oblivious to the difficulty of the endeavor or to the strength and cunning of the defilements that have to be confronted and vanquished. Meditation The heart of the monastic, life is the practice of what we call meditation, the methodical effort to tame and master the mind and to develop its capacity for calm and insight. The. training begins with the undeveloped mind, clouded and unruly, beset by passions and defilements. It ends in the liberated mind, tran¬ quil, tamed, bright and luminous, freed from defilements and bondage to repeated existence. Methods of mental cultivation fall into two categories, seren¬ ity (samatha) and insight (vipassana); the former is considered the means to develop concentration, the latter the means to develop wisdom. Serenity brings the tentative abandoning of lust and results in liberation of mind. Insight brings the abandoning of ignorance and results in liberation by wisdom (2:31). Jointly, "liberation of mind" and "liberation by wisdom" constitute arahantship, the final goal. Although the usual sequence of meditative training proceeds from concentration to wisdom, several suttas in AN show that meditators can choose various routes to reach the world- transcending path. The disciple Ananda states that all those who attain arahantship do so in one of four ways: either by develop¬ ing serenity first and then insight (the.standard sequence), by developing insight first and then serenity, by developing the two in conjunction, and by emerging from "restlessness about the Dhamma" and achieving a unified mind (4:170). Another sutta advises one who gains either serenity or insight (but not the other) to seek out a teacher who can give instructions on obtaining the missing factor; one who gains neither should seek instructions on gaining both; while one who gains both should develop them to capacity to reach the destruction of the asavas (4:94). The subjects of meditation mentioned in AN are many and diverse. Like the other Nikayas, AN does not give detailed instructions on the technology of meditation, but it introduces 48 : .The Anguttara Nikaya a wide variety of meditation subjects. Apparently these had to be diverse to accommodate the different dispositions of the people who came to the Buddha for instruction. The Book of the Ones includes a virtual "catalogue" of themes and attain- - ments pertaining to meditation practice, all set forth in connec¬ tion with what makes a bhikkhu worthy to receive almsfood (1:394-575). The same nipata concludes with an extended paean to mindfulness of the body {1:575—627), declared to be the key to realizing the deathless. Suttas in AN describe many of the familiar meditation sub¬ jects that receive more detailed treatment in such works as the Visuddhimagg.a. We find here mindfulness of breathing (10:60 §10), the six devotional recollections (6:10,6:25), loving-kindness (8:1,11:15) along with all four immeasurables or "divine abodes" (3:65, 8:63), and mindfulness of death (6:19-20, 8:73-74). Walk¬ ing meditation is praised for bringing five benefits (5:29). Of particular interest is the emphasis AN places on the "percep¬ tions" {safina), meditation subjects that initially involve a fair amount of reflection rather than bare mindful observation. AN 7:49, for instance, mentions seven perceptions, which are said to "culminate in the deathless, to have the deathless as their consummation." The seven are the perception of unattractive- ' ness, the perception of death, the perception of the repulsive¬ ness of food, the perception of non-delight in the entire world, the perception of.impermanenee, the perception of suffering in the impermanent, and the perception of non-self in what is suffering. Each of these perceptions is then connected to a spe¬ cific distorted perception or inclination that it counteracts. Thus the perception of unattractiveness eliminates desire for sexual intercourse, the perception of death counters attachment to life, the perception of the repulsiveness of food causes the mind to shrink away from craving for tastes. The popular Girimananda Sutta describes ten perceptions, which the Buddha instructs Ananda to recite in order to restore the health of the bhikkhu Girimananda, who was afflicted with a grave illness (10:60). Some of the meditation subjects mentioned in AN pertain, in traditional Theravada exegesis, to the development of seren¬ ity, others to the development of insight. What is interesting in AN, however, is that while serenity and insight are treated as distinct domains of meditation with their own points of Introduction 49 emphasis and fruits, a hard and fast line is not drawn between meditation subjects as pertaining to the one or the other. It is quite conceivable that in the Buddha's own view of meditation, serenity and insight represent not two separate categories of meditation objects but two complementary subjective orien¬ tations that can be developed on the basis of the same set of meditation objects. In AN the higher states of consciousness achieved through meditation are often mentioned. The most frequent, of course, are the four jhanas. In addition we also come across such sets as the eight bases of overcoming (8:65), the eight emancipa¬ tions (8:66), and the nine progressive abidings (9:31-61). Suc¬ cess in meditation is sometimes shown to culminate in the three true knowledges, the tevijja (3:58-59), which the Buddha himself attained on the night of his enlightenment (8:11). Else¬ where meditation brings attainment of the six kinds of superior knowledge later known as the abhinnas (3:101-2, 5:23,6:2). Five of these involve psychic powers, while the sixth is the world- transcending knowledge of the destruction of the asavas. Wisdom When pursued as an end in itself, deep concentration is accom¬ panied by exalted joy, bliss, calm, and equanimity. These expe¬ riences can convince the unwary meditator that he has reached the final goal and discovered "the nirvanic peace within." Such lofty states, however, are achieved simply through the inten¬ sification of consciousness, not through the deep insight that cuts off the bonds of repeated existence. The superior states of concentration generate powerful wholesome kamma, which can lead to rebirth in the form or formless realm—the realms of super-divine stature—depending on the attainments reached during the meditator's human existence. Without the deep dis¬ cernment of wisdom, this kamma will eventually be exhausted, and the divine being will pass away and take rebirth elsewhere, perhaps even in the bad destinations (3:116, 4:123—26). For the path to reach completion and culminate in the deathless, it must eventually bring forth wisdom. Thus the Buddha praises wisdom as the foremost splendor, radiance, light, luster, and luminary (4:141-45). 50 The Anguttara Nikaya Despite the analogy with light, however, wisdom does not flare up suddenly and spontaneously through pious good wishes; rather, it is gradually begotten by following a pre¬ scribed course of training. One sutta enumerates eight condi¬ tions for acquiring and maturing the wisdom that pertains to the spiritual life (8:2). These include relying on a teacher, ask¬ ing questions to clear away one's doubts, observing the rules of discipline, learning and reflection, and contemplating the arising and vanishing of the five aggregates. Another support¬ ing factor for the growth of wisdom is right view. The Buddha assigned right view to the first place among the factors of the noble eightfold path and the ten kinds of rightness (10:103). From right view originate the other nine factors, ending in right knowledge and right liberation (10:105). Learning and investigating the Dhamma also contribute to the growth of wisdom. Among the four Nikayas, it is perhaps AN that places the greatest emphasis on learning. Learning is described as one of the five kinds of wealth (5:47) and as a qual¬ ity that makes a bhikkhu respected and esteemed by his fellow monks (5:87). Of course, a disciple who has learned just a little but puts what he or she has learned into practice is superior to one who learns much without applying it (4:6). But learning does possess intrinsic value, and those who excel in learning and also obtain the four jhanas and the three true knowledges are regarded as especially worthy of respect (10:97). Mastery over the Dhamma qualifies one to teach, so that one can not only expedite one's own progress but also promote the good of others (8:62). The suttas of AN do not merely praise learning but provide concrete instructions on how to learn and teach the Dhamma. Since the Dhamma was always conveyed orally, not in writ¬ ten documents, the texts emphasize the need for both attentive listening and retention. One who does not attend closely is like an inverted bowl, which cannot hold water; one who attends but does not retain what has been learned is like a man who upsets the contents of his lap; while the one who both attends to discourses and retains what has been learned preserves it for a long time, just as an upright bowl long retains water (3:30). Ananda, the most learned of the bhikkhus, mentions six factors conducive to mastery of the Dhamma, among them learning Introduction 51 many discourses, teaching others, and visiting elders to clear up points one does not fully understand (6:51). Listening to the Dhamma can serve as an occasion for entering the irreversible path to final liberation, but to gain this benefit one has to listen properly. This means that one has to listen with a respectful and open mind, not with a mind intent on finding faults and disparaging the discourse and the speaker (5:151-53). Listening and teaching can even precipitate the attainment of liberation. While listening to the Dhamma, teaching it, reciting it, or examining its meaning, one may gain, inspiration, experi¬ ence joy, and set in motion a process that ends in full liberation from the asavas (5:28). Learning, however, should be accompa¬ nied by practice. Thus the Buddha urges the monks not to spend all their time on study, teaching, recitation, and reflection but to go apart and devote themselves to the development of internal serenity and experiential wisdom (5:73-74). Learning and teaching play a vital role in ensuring the longevity of the Dhamma. The Dhamma declines and disap¬ pears, says one sutta, when the bhikkhus do not respectfully listen to it, learn it, retain it in mind, examine the meaning,, and put it into practice; it continues without degeneration when the bhikkhus are devoted to learning, reflection, and practice (5:154). Other suttas stress the importance of teaching and making others recite the texts (5:155). When teaching, one has to select the appropriate topic,'assessing the interests and expectations of the audience, and then give a talk that matches their inclinations (5:157). The Buddha p-rescribes five guidelines for a teacher of the Dhamma: he should give a .talk that follows a progressive sequence; he should provide reasons to support his assertions; he should have empathy with his audience; he should not be intent on material gain; and he should hot say anything harmful to himself or others (5:159). Penetrative wisdom is not a matter of merely mastering a body of texts or a system of ideas but of seeing into the true nature of phenomena. The principles to be seen with wisdom are the "three characteristics" of impermanence, suffering, and non-self. We are told that whether Tathagatas arise in the world or not, this fixed law remains: that all conditioned phenomena are impermanent; that all conditioned phenomena are suffer¬ ing; and that all phenomena whatsoever are non-self (3:136). 52 The Anguttara Nilcayn To see the true nature of phenomena thus means to see them as impermanent, suffering, and non-self. Normally, our minds are subject to perceptual and conceptual distortion, so that we construe things as being permanent, pleasurable, and self. However obvious these notions seem to us, the texts describe them as an inversion of perception and as forms of cognitive derangement (4:49). The task of insight is to correct this distor¬ tion by contemplating things "as they really are," that is, as impermanent, suffering, and non-self (7:16-18). Interestingly, several suttas in AN add a fourth theme of contemplation: con¬ templating nibbana as happiness (6:101, 7:19). Contemplation of conditioned phenomena as imperma¬ nent and suffering, contemplation of all phenomena as non¬ self, and contemplation of nibbana as happiness enable the disciple to acquire "a conviction in conformity" with the Dhamma (anulomika khanti): This prepares the mind for still deeper insight, and when that insight becomes aligned with the Dhamma itself, it induces entry upon "the fixed course of rightness" (sammattanii/ama), the world-transcending path that leads unfailingly to the four stages of awakening (6:98-101). The Buddha insisted that the ultimate goal of his teaching was the extinction of suffering in this very life, and for this reason he constantly urged thebhikkhus not to remain satisfied with any partial achievement but to press on toward the final goal. He enjoined them to resolve: "I will not relax my energy so long as I have not attained what can be attained by manly strength, energy, and exertion" (2:5). Two suttas in AN give us an inside glimpse of the contemplative process by which the disciple realizes the final goal. One discourse explains that a bhikkhu enters any of the four jhanas or lower three form¬ less attainments and contemplates its constituents—the five aggregates comprised in the attainment (four aggregates in the formless attainments)—as impermanent, suffering, an illness, a boil, a dart, misery, affliction, alien, disintegrating, empty, and non-self. At a certain point he turns his mind away from those phenomena and directs it to the deathless element,, nibbana - On this basis he attains either the destruction of the asavas, that is, arahantship, or if he cannot complete the work, the stage of non-returner (9:36). The other sutta is spoken by Ananda to a lay devotee who has asked how a bhikkhu reaches the destruc¬ Introduction 53 tion of the taints. Ananda explains that the bhikkhu enters any of the four jhanas, the four immeasurables (loving-kindness, compassion, altruistic joy, and equanimity), or the three lower formless attainments. He then reviews the attainment as "con¬ structed and produced by volition/' and observes: "Whatever is constructed and produced by volition is impermanent, subject to cessation." In this case, too, he attains either arahantship or non-returning (11:16). The Sangha According to traditional exegesis, the word sangha is used in two senses: as a designation for the monastic order consisting of bhikkhus and bhikkhunis, sometimes called the "institutional Sangha" or "conventional Sangha" (sammutisangha), and as a designation for the "community of noble.ones" (ariyasangha), which consists of the eight types of noble persons, the four pairs of those who have attained the world-transcending paths and fruits. On the basis of this distinction it is then said that the conventional Sangha consists only of monastics, whether noble ones or ordinary people, while the noble Sangha is said to include laypeople who have attained the paths and fruits as well as monastics. In AN a distinction between these two kinds of Sangha is discernible, but the boundaries between them are not as clear-cut as tradition makes them out to be. First, whenever new converts to the Dhamma declare that they go for refuge, they state the third object of refuge to be the "Sangha of bhikkhus" (presumably also including bhikkhunis). This shows that they (or, more likely, the compilers of the texts) understood the monastic community to be the third refuge. Second, the formula for the noble Sangha describes it in terms that apply more readily to renunciants than to householders: it is "worthy of gifts, worthy of hospitality, worthy of offerings, worthy of reverential salutation." Such an encomium again establishes a connection between the monastic Sangha and the noble Sangha. However, one sutta speaks of "four kinds of persons who adorn the Sangha." These are well-disciplined and learned bhikkhus, bhikkhunis, male lay followers, and female lay fol¬ lowers (4:7; see too. 4:211). This suggests that the word sangha 54 The Anguttara Nikaya even in the conventional sense can include laypeople, unless one understands the statement to mean that bhikkhus and bhikkhurus adorn the Sarigha as its members while laypeople adorn it as its supporters. In any case, almost everywhere else when the texts speak about the Sangha without specific refer¬ ence to the noble ones, the monastic order (or subgroups within it) is intended. Several AN suttas show that the monastic Sangha did not always measure up to the criteria the Buddha had set for it. In 2:42-51 a series of contrasts is drawn between pairs of assem¬ blies, one censurable, the other laudable. The two assemblies are specifically described in terms of bhikkhus. The censur¬ able arm of each pair includes the shallow assembly, in which the bhikkhus are "restless, puffed up, and vain"; the inferior assembly, in