AN7.71 I notice the similes given all take the same amount of time. Ex eggs hatch the same and just depend on the warmth. The rope and ax similarly. However people vary in the speed at which they awaken. Ananda was still a stream enterer at the time of death and some suddenly get arahantship quickly. I wonder how the Buddha would explain the variability in time between different people who undergo the same practice yet get different results.
The fruit falls suddenly, but the ripening takes time.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
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On the first place there is no such thing as gradual realisation. Just one second ago one was puthujjana and then suddenly one understands the Four Noble Truths and this applies to any higher stage of ariyahood.
But regarding mentioned by you simil, no need to extrapolate its meaning to such thing as time of ripening, which obviously depends on many factors, inborn personal predispositions, time spent on practice and so on.
Yes I know that the fruit falls suddenly. It’s the ripening and the wearing out of the ax handle which is another simile of the Buddha. That seems to vary at different speeds despite the same use of the ax.
…I have seen that the ceasing of the activities is gradual. When one has attained the first trance, speech has ceased. When one has attained the second trance, thought initial and sustained has ceased. When one has attained the third trance, zest has ceased. When one has attained the fourth trance, inbreathing and outbreathing have ceased… Both perception and feeling have ceased when one has attained the cessation of perception and feeling.
(SN 36.11, tr. Pali Text Society vol IV p 146)
The ceasing of the activities of speech, deed, and thought is gradual, but the attainment of “profound knowledge” (as at the close of SN 10, Pali Text Society translation) or “intuitive wisdom” (MN 70, PTS translation) is apparently sudden.
The attainment of that “intuitive wisdom” is synonymous with the complete destruction of the cankers (MN 70), but the gradual attainment of the concentrations, even of the final signless state, does not guarantee the complete destruction of the cankers (MN 70).
In many sermons, Gautama achieved “intuitive wisdom” while in the fourth concentration. Gautama turned his mind to various psychic phenomena to attain “intuitive wisdom”, while in the fourth concentration.
In MN 121, the “intuitive wisdom” appears to arrive automatically with the attainment of the signless concentration (the cessation of perception and feeling), though MN 70 would say that’s not always the case.
The Zen tradition especially emphasizes sudden awakening, yet I think that awakening is generally not the complete destruction of the cankers–from a post on my own site:
… activity (of the body) solely by virtue of the free location of consciousness, the hallmark of the fourth concentration, has been conveyed by demonstration in some branches of Buddhism for millennia. The transmission of a central part of the teaching through such conveyance, and the certification of that transmission by the presiding teacher, is regarded by some schools as the only guarantee of the authenticity of a teacher.
The teachers so authenticated have in many cases disappointed their students, when circumstances revealed that the teacher’s cankers had not been completely destroyed. Furthermore, some schools appear to have certified transmission without the conveyance that has kept the tradition alive, perhaps for the sake of the continuation of the school.
Hello!
In your comment that
the hallmark of the fourth concentration, has been conveyed by demonstration in some branches of Buddhism for millennia. The transmission of a central part of the teaching through such conveyance, and the certification of that transmission by the presiding teacher, is regarded by some schools as the only guarantee of the authenticity of a teacher.
I think the word “part” (my emphasis above) carries the most significance in this passage, but gets overlooked in the subsequent use of the word transmission. In Zen transmission, personal, confirmed direct experience is necessary but not sufficient. Your post seems to imply that such confirmed experience is the only central requirement for transmission— “the only guarantee of the authenticity of a teacher” in “some schools,” which, in your post, appears to mean Zen. This neglects, first, that awakening experiences, say, through koan practice, are followed by refinement with work on several hundred more koans usually over many many years. Second, it neglects the strong attention to precept work. Third, it neglects the usually very long time involved in deep Zen training, over which we get to know people very well— and can see how they actually manifest their understanding. Now -as in all traditions- we sometimes get authorization to teach wrong. But getting it wrong on occasion does not invalidate a tradition, even when the consequences and any resulting harms are terrible. For me, this pushes me to redouble my efforts at finding out for myself what the truth of the Dharma is, seeing teachers as very experienced, but fallible, guides rather than allowing myself to idealize anything or anyone.
Further, in response to “The Zen tradition especially emphasizes sudden awakening”— not all Zen traditions emphasize sudden awakening. Rinzai does, characteristically, and Soto tends to consider itself more aligned with gradual awakening— the getting drenched from having a bucket of water poured on you vs walking through a fine mist metaphors. There are lineages that mix approaches. Whereas students may care about whether or not they can awaken quickly in Zen, modern Zen approaches don’t really care about speed of awakening— seeing such concern as just another fetter to let go of.
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That’s well-said, in my opinion.
I thought the point I was making was that enlightenment in Gautama’s teaching is something other than what most people conceive of it as being. In MN 70, Gautama makes clear that in his teaching, enlightenment entails the complete destruction of the three cankers (asavas). As I wrote in the post I linked above:
The three “cankers” were said to be three cravings: “craving for the life of sense”, “craving for becoming”, and “craving for not-becoming” (DN 22; PTS vol. ii p 340). When the cankers are “destroyed”, the roots of the craving for sense-pleasures, the roots of the craving “to continue, to survive, to be” (tr. “bhava”, Bhikkyu Sujato), and the roots of the craving not “to be” (the craving for the ignorance of being) are destroyed.
MN 70 also makes clear that no amount of attainment in the concentrations Gautama taught can substitute for what he termed “intuitive wisdom”, and that in fact an individual may have “intuitive wisdom” without any attainment in the concentrations. It’s “intuitive wisdom” that is synonymous with the destruction of the cankers.
In many lectures Gautama described applying his mind toward psychic phenomena in the fourth concentration, beginning with the apprehension of the dependence of consciousness on the body (consciousness tethered to the body like a jewel on a thread), continuing with the mind-made body and the apprehension of past abodes and future arisings (past and future lives), and concluding with comprehension of the four truths. He then understood that the three cankers had been completely destroyed in him, uprooted like palm trees never to arise again.
As I said, the hallmark of the fourth concentration is “the cessation of inhalation and exhalation”, by which is meant the cessation of “determinate thought” (AN 6.63, tr. Pali Text Society vol III p 294) in inhalation and exhalation. Some have speculated that breathing actually stops, but Gautama tried holding his breath in his ascetic years (MN 36, tr. Pali Text Society vol I pp 298-299), and his descriptions of the cessation of the fourth concentration came after he abandoned those practices.
The cessation of the fourth concentration is the cessation of volition and habit in the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation. As I wrote in my last post:
I would say the activity of the body in the fourth concentration is entirely “reflex movement” occasioned by the (involuntary) placement of attention. To remain awake as the location of attention shifts and activity of the body takes place is “just to sit”.
Mastery of the attainment of the cessation of inhalation and exhalation is what has been certified in transmission in the Zen tradition, IMHO. The transition to the cessation of inhalation and exhalation is the transition to the fourth concentration, there’s no gradual about that–it’s the cessation of volition in body, but not the cessation of volition in mind, in feeling and perceiving. The ceasing of volition in speech, body, and mind is gradual, according to Gautama, depending as it does in seated practice on the transition through states of concentration (for the most part!).
So yes, you can call the cessation of inhalation and exhalation sudden or gradual, but it’s not Gautama’s enlightenment. MN 70 makes clear that even the cessation of feeling and perceiving does not constitute enlightenment. As I read the mindfulness that Gautama called his own, his way of living, the best of ways (SN 54.9, I believe), the ability to experience cessation in the activity of inhalation and exhalation was a crucial element of his way of living, but “intuitive wisdom”, enlightenment, was not. Indeed, Gautama said that the mindfulness he described as his own was his way of living before enlightenment as well as after (SN 54.8, SN 54.11).
Gautama recommended his way of living (Pali Text Society translation), as a thing perfect in itself. It didn’t require the attainment of “intuitive wisdom”, the complete destruction of the cankers, enlightenment. As I wrote in the post I linked above:
There are many different schools of Buddhism. Nevertheless, I would guess that most respected Buddhist teachers experience “the five limbs” of concentration regularly (even though they may not describe their experience as such), and most practice a mindfulness very much like the mindfulness that made up Gautama’s way of living.
The “five limbs” are the four concentrations, plus the “survey-sign”, on overview of the body taken after the fourth concentration.
My perspective:
Many people in the Buddhist community take enlightenment to be the goal of Buddhist practice. I would say that when a person consciously experiences automatic movement in the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation, finding a way of life that allows for such experience in the natural course of things becomes the more pressing concern. Gautama taught such a way of living, although I don’t believe that such a way of living is unique to Buddhism.
Maybe it would be better if Zen teachers acknowledged that their record of transmissions (a complete wall at S. F. Zen Center’s Green Gulch, the last time I was there) is a record of individuals who attained the necessary prerequisite of Gautama’s way of living, rather than implying that the chart is a record of individuals who succeeded in destroying the three cankers, in becoming enlightened in the sense that Gautama used the word?
I’m thinking that might have saved a lot of Zen students in the West from disappointment, with their teachers. And it would give Western students a better appreciation for the uniqueness of the teachings recorded as Gautama’s in the first four Nikayas, in all their peculiarities.
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