As Javier says, it is a phrase of encouragement, it means to “become the best that you can be” or something like that. Translating the verse:
Therefore one who cares for their own welfare
and wants to become the very best they can be,
should honor the true teaching,
remembering the instructions of the Buddhas.
This verse deliberately plays with Upanishadic-sounding ideas, as it appears in the context of addressing Brahma (SN 6.2). When reading these texts, it is crucial to not take them out of context, but to see their meaning as part of a dialectic.
The early Buddhists lived in a context where many people took the Brahmanical texts as the highest spiritual guide. The Buddhists wanted to challenge that. One of their narrative devices was to put praise of the Buddha and his teaching in the mouth of Brahma. Whether this really happened, and whether it is really the Buddha who do it, are beside the point. It is what we find in the texts, and it clearly represents a not-insignificant aspect of early Buddhism.
The Brahmins insisted that their texts were the very words of God, and should be treated as the most sacred objects in the world. But here, Brahma himself comes along and says, “No! Listen to what the Buddha says instead! If you are really interested in the (brahmanical) idea of the “great self” (mahatma), the way to achieve true greatness and transcendence is through the Buddha’s teachings (not the Vedas). You may worship me, but I worship the Buddha!”
There is a simple way to understand all this. In Ratana Sutta (The Jewel), regarding those who attain nirvana it is stated in the stanza 14, “They the wise fade out just as the flame of the lamp” Can anyone say the flame went here or there or up or down? No. All these false interpretations about Nirvana is due to lack of wisdom.
I’ve heard the story told slightly differently, but please no one take this as me correcting Ven Sujato with a “proper” retelling.
Ven Samghabhadra was allegedly so outraged by Abhidharmakośa (or its commentary) that he wrote an entire refutation treatise, the Abhidharmadīpa, which is still fragmentarily extant in Tibetan translation and is a corroborating factor establishing Ven Vasubandhu as definitive author of the Abhidharmakośa.
Afterwards, Ven Vasubandhu supposedly spent the rest of his life avoiding a public debate with Ven Samghabhadra until Ven Samghabadra’s death. His supporters alleged that this was out of respect for the latter’s age and declining health, but others say it was because he feared the public embarrasment of defeat in a formal debate with Ven Samghabhadra.
There might be another layer actually, namely the literal meaning of ‘Brahman’ and brh, which has to do with ‘expansion’, ‘power’, ‘transformative speech’ - concepts that the priests themselves used in order to identify themselves with these qualities. After all. ‘brahmin’ is not onomatopoeic, it stood for something. So when the Buddha, who had with the dhamma a ‘transformative speech’ of his own, appropriates the term ‘brahmin’ this could be not only a reference to class and status but also to the original meaning of the term and a claim that arahants represent this ideal more worthily than the Vedic priests.
Oh indeed, I think he’s drawing on earlier meanings, too. For the brahmin, it’s also not a neutral label, it’s a word that has meaning, however vaguely that may be conceived.
@Sujato I meant ‘both started out as seeker of Dhamma’ before being fully realized. To clarify my perspective in this thread, I am not saying in any way Buddha affirms the Upanishadic atman. Self is definitely a mental fabrication around nama-rupa. Without studying Upanishad, it seems to me from other similar youtube discussions, that the attainments of formless samadhi stages of ‘infinite consciousness’ and ‘infinite nothingness’ is where the idea of ‘atman’ is ‘brahman’ arose. There is more to go. The fetter of ‘I am’ conceit is one of the last one to go before one attains nibbana.
I agree, in terms of the refined Upanishadic notion of atman. The concept itself, though, is older and more primitive. The Upnishads didn’t invent the notion of the atman, they elevated it.
Do you have a reference for this? This is amazing and I want to read more. Highly enjoyed your description and analysis of the Mahayana and encounters between those of a literal mindset meeting with those of a figurative mindset. It reminded me of the famous modern tale of the Tibetan Buddhist monastic and the Japanese master meeting to debate an orange
It seems to me that “giving up” consciousness can either mean
a) getting indifferent to it while it still lasts or
b) cessation of consciousness
a) If we say that lasting welfare and happiness are conscious emotions, then the instruction makes no sense; the profit I am to derive is in what I am instructed to be indifferent to.
b) If there is to be welfare and happiness without consciousness, something more than consciousness must exist to be able to experience these mental states. A soul or spiritual entity would indeed be implied.
This is pointing to non-identification with consciousness and the other aggregates, not to their permanent cessation while alive. As in MN22:
“This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’ netaṁ mama, nesohamasmi, na meso attā’.”
Yet, the aggregates were still present and active for the Buddha.
And in MN148:
"This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’
Rather, there is the experience of peace and ease with the ending of greed, anger, and ignorance (and the cessation of self-view, identification with anything), via the consciousness aggregate while an arahant is alive.
But there’s no self-identification with consciousness or with anything else (including peacefulness), as “I”, “me”, “mine.”
They understand: ‘Rebirth is ended, the spiritual journey has been completed, what had to be done has been done, there is no return to any state of existence.’” (MN148 and many other suttas).
One way or another it seems to have been used as reference to the sacrificer, so as to place him at the source of the cosmos while carrying out ritual work. Once that ritual system of maintaining the cosmos fell away, atman eventually became One with the absolute, at least in some metaphysical systems.
I would have to argue that there is a contradiction in your statement. Experiencing peacefulness seems to me to constitute self-identification with consciousness or an “I”.
Why?
There can just be the experience of peace – without an “I” attached.
The “I” is extra, based on avijja and taṇhā. I think we’ll agree that the Buddha taught about letting go of sakkāyaditthi, the I/self sense.
This is an assumption and the word “subject” is an abstract noun with many potential meanings.
For the arahants there is no identification with anything, as in MN22 and SN35.74.
If we say the “subject” is a particular combination of selfless processes (senses/aggregates) we call Saripuatta, then we can conventionally say there is a “being” or subject who experiences peace.
But that’s different than adding an I-sense to experience.
