Translation of SN22.100 Gaddula Sutta The Leash

Bhante @sujato

SN22.100 Gaddula Sutta The Leash (2)

Your translation:
Mendicants, have you seen the picture called ‘Conduct’?”
Diṭṭhaṃ vo, bhikkhave, caraṇaṃ nāma cittan”ti?

“Yes, sir.”
“Evaṃ, bhante”.

“That picture was elaborated by the mind, but the mind is even more elaborate than that.
“Tampi kho, bhikkhave, caraṇaṃ nāma cittaṃ citteneva cittitaṃ. Tenapi kho, bhikkhave, caraṇena cittena cittaññeva cittataraṃ.

Ven. Thannisaro Translation:

“Monks, have you ever seen a moving contraption?”

“Yes, lord.”

"That moving contraption was created by the mind. And this mind is even more variegated than a moving contraption.

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I don’t think this is a “typo”, it is a disagreement on how to translate caraṇaṃ:
Dictionaries: SuttaCentral

Diṭṭhaṃ vo, bhikkhave, caraṇaṃ nāma cittan”ti?
Mendicants, have you seen the picture called ‘Conduct’?”
SuttaCentral

Bhikku Nananda, Nibbana, the Mind Stilled, Sermon 24: Books Archive - seeing through the net

Diṭṭhaṃ vo, bhikkhave, caraṇaṃ nāma cittaṃ? “Monks, have you seen a
picture called a movie?” The monks answer in the affirmative, and so the
Buddha proceeds:
Tampi kho, bhikkhave, caraṇaṃ nāma cittaṃ citteneva cintitaṃ. Tena pi kho,
bhikkhave, caraṇena cittena cittaññeva cittataraṃ. “Monks, that picture called a
movie is something thought out by the mind. But the thought itself, monks, is
even more picturesque than that picture.”

Bhikkhu Bodhi:

“Bhikkhus, have you seen the picture called ‘Faring On’?”“Yes, venerable sir.”
“Even that picture called ‘Faring On’ has been designed in its diversity by the
mind, yet the mind is even more diverse than that picture called ‘Faring On’.

Ven Analayo, in his lecture on Ven Nananada’s sermon, points out that the Samyutta Agama parallel goes off on a tangent:

SĀ 267
“Have you seen the variegated and different colours of a caraṇa bird?”
[The monks] replied: “We have seen it before, Blessed One.”
The Buddha said to the monks: “Like the variegated and different colours of a
caraṇa bird, I say the mind is also variegated and different just like that. Why
is that? Because of the variegation of its mind, that caraṇa bird is of variegated
colours.”
(Analayo: The original would presumably have had a reference to caraṇa , which was
then in some way misunderstood to refer to a bird)
Full translation: SuttaCentral

In fact, Ven Thanissaro’s latest translation agrees with the Nanananda translation:

“Monks, have you ever seen a moving-picture show?”
Note: A moving-picture show was an ancient form of entertainment in Asia, in which semi-transparent pictures were placed in front of a lantern to cast images on walls or cloth screens in order to illustrate a tale told by a professional story-teller. Descendants of this form of entertainment include the shadow-puppet theater of East and Southeast Asia.
SN 22:100  Gaddūla Sutta | The Leash (2)

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It would be helpful if you pointed out what your issue is, rather than just quoting text, please

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Thanks Viveka.
Just I could not understand Bhante Sujato’s translation and then look at Ven. Thaniisaro’s translation and found thery are diffrent. But Mike gave a good answer. However it is worthwhile discussinng this topic.

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This sonds like the hand pupets we used to play when we were young.

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Fascinating. I was initially inclined to search Google for an ancient picture called “Conduct”, i.e., a specific historical artifact. Yet the focus in the sutta is actually on the picture rather than the conduct. In other words, it is perhaps more along the lines of:

“Mendicants, have you a view about conduct?”
“That view of conduct…”

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Could you explain what you mean in details?

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A picture is a view. So a picture of “Conduct” is a view of conduct. When we have a view of “this is good/bad conduct” it is still a view of conduct. And when we have a view of conduct, we are busy checking our conduct against the view thinking “this conduct I see is like the picture of Conduct” or “this conduct I see is not like the picture of Conduct”. We start thinking of the picture of Conduct as “this is my conduct or this is not my conduct”. And then we proliferate our views finding loopholes in conduct rules.

The Vinaya is a picture of Conduct. And it has changed and grown with the proliferation of ways to break previous versions of the Vinaya. The point of the sutta is that the mind’s ability to proliferate views is quite elaborate and that pictures of Conduct such as the Vinaya are simply there as a double-check. The actual practice is to purify the mind by letting go of greed, hate, and delusion. The Vinaya is there to gauge our success at letting go of dukkha. If we don’t have to worry about the Vinaya and still manage to adhere to it, our mind is purified. If we struggle with the Vinaya, our mind is not purified and we are still mired in greed, hate and delusion. This means that paying attention to the picture of Conduct every single breathing moment is a bit counter-productive and misses the point. Conduct reveals our state of mind and is, like all other forms, empty and meaningless.

To summarize, directly know and relinquish our own greed, hate and delusion. If we have done so successfully, then wisdom will reveal that our conduct matches a picture of Conduct such as the Vinaya. The picture of Conduct is not as important as how we conduct ourselves moment by moment. Do we conduct ourselves with or without greed, hate and delusion?

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That’s a really interesting observation, Karl, which shows how a variety of translations and interpretations can be really helpful.

Here’s Bhikkhu Nananada’s interpretation, which I gave the reference to above:

In a number of sermons we had to bring up the simile of the motion picture.
The simile is not our own, but only a modernization of a canonical simile used
by the Buddha himself. The point of divergence was the question the Buddha
had addressed to the monks in the Gaddulasutta.

Diṭṭhaṃ vo, bhikkhave, caraṇaṃ nāma cittaṃ? “Monks, have you seen a
picture called a movie?” The monks answer in the affirmative, and so the
Buddha proceeds:

Tampi kho, bhikkhave, caraṇaṃ nāma cittaṃ citteneva cintitaṃ. Tena pi kho,
bhikkhave, caraṇena cittena cittaññeva cittataraṃ. “Monks, that picture called a
movie is something thought out by the mind. But the thought itself, monks, is
even more picturesque than that picture.”

To say that it is more picturesque is to suggest its variegated character.
Thought is intrinsically variegated. We have no idea what sort of a motion
picture was there at that time, but the modern day movie has a way of
concealing impermanence by the rapidity of projections of the series of pictures
on the screen. The rapidity itself gives an impression of permanence, which is a
perversion, vipallāsa.

The movie is enjoyable because of this perversion. Due to the perception of
permanence, there is a grasping of signs, and in the wake of it influxes flow in,
giving rise to proliferation, due to which one is overwhelmed by reckonings
born of prolific conceptualization, papañcasaññāsaṅkhā. That is how one enjoys
a film show. All this comes about as a result of ignorance, or lack of awareness
of the cinematographic tricks concealing the fleeting, vibrating and evanescent
nature of the scenes on the screen.

Though we resort to such artificial illustrations, by way of a simile, the
Buddha declares that actually it is impossible to give a fitting simile to illustrate
the rapidity of a thought process. Once he proclaimed: Upamā pi na sukarā yāva
lahuparivattaṃ cittaṃ, “it is not easy even to give a simile to show how rapidly
thought changes”.

Sometimes the Buddha resorts to double entendre to bring out piquantly some
deep idea. He puns on the word citta, “thought” or “picture”, in order to suggest
the ‘picturesque’ or variegated nature of thought, when he asserts that thought is
more picturesque, cittatara, than the picture. We can see that it is quite
reasonable in the light of the Dvayamsutta. It is this series of picturesque
formations that gives us a perception of permanence, which in turn is
instrumental in creating a world before our eyes.

Our eye changes every split second. It is quivering, vibrating and transient. So
also are the forms. But there is a malignantly pervert idea, ingrained in saṃsāric
beings, known as the perception of permanence in the impermanent, anicce
niccasaññā, which prevents them from seeing the inherent transience of eye and
forms. That is how the six spheres of sense create a world before us.

This is a followup to earlier discussions (Sermon 5) where he discusses how the audience creates the picture, not just the artist:

At first sight the sutta, when it refers to a picture, seems to be speaking about
the man who drew it. But there is something deeper than that. When the Buddha
says that the picture called caraṇa is also something thought out by the mind, he
is not simply stating the fact that the artist drew it after thinking it out with his
mind. The reference is rather to the mind of the one who sees it. He, who sees it,
regards it as something marvellous. He creates a picture out of it. He imagines
something picturesque in it.

In fact, the allusion is not to the artist’s mind, but to the spectator’s mind. It is
on account of the three defilements lust, hate, and delusion, nurtured in his mind
for a long time, that he is able to appreciate and enjoy that picture. Such is the
nature of those influxes.

That is why the Buddha declared that this mind is far more picturesque than
the picture in question. So if one turns back to look at one’s own mind, in
accordance with the Buddha’s advice, it will be a wonderful experience, like
watching a movie. Why? Because reflection reveals the most marvellous sight in
the world.

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Ok time to test ourselves.
What do you see in this picture?
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&id=A4E17BA93D60775FECB6DCAED817C3C354545767&thid=OIP.98Nfp_yx9d6SO7Dvz-XLdAHaKO&mediaurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2Ff1%2Fc5%2Fb0%2Ff1c5b05750bb268f099363284743283d.png&exph=1522&expw=1102&q=Young+woman+old+woman+picture&selectedindex=3&ajaxhist=0&vt=0

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The skin of a dead animal killed for clothing?

:rofl:
Are you kidding? Please PM me.
I don’t want to spoil the fun.

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People can see various images in this picture.
How would you think Arahant see it?

And so they regard it as empty of what is not there, but as to what remains they understand that it is present. That’s how emptiness is born in them—genuine, undistorted, and pure.–MN121

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Yes contemplation on emptiness is so powerful. I contemplate emptiness sometimes.
So in your opinion what is remaining in this picture?

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Isn’t this an another picture?

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@karl_lew wrote [quote=“karl_lew, post:9, topic:13127”]
A picture is a view. So a picture of “Conduct” is a view of conduct. When we have a view of “this is good/bad conduct” it is still a view of conduct. And when we have a view of conduct, we are busy checking our conduct against the view thinking “this conduct I see is like the picture of Conduct” or “this conduct I see is not like the picture of Conduct”. We start thinking of the picture of Conduct as “this is my conduct or this is not my conduct”. And then we proliferate our views finding loopholes in conduct rules.
This is so true, as long as we are trapped within the view, we are trapped within the notion of “My view” the concept of “I” tragically, the prison of Papanca
Karl continues …
The Vinaya is a picture of Conduct. And it has changed and grown with the proliferation of ways to break previous versions of the Vinaya. The point of the sutta is that the mind’s ability to proliferate views is quite elaborate and that pictures of Conduct such as the Vinaya are simply there as a double-check. The actual practice is to purify the mind by letting go of greed, hate, and delusion. The Vinaya is there to gauge our success at letting go of dukkha. If we don’t have to worry about the Vinaya and still manage to adhere to it, our mind is purified. If we struggle with the Vinaya, our mind is not purified and we are still mired in greed, hate and delusion. This means that paying attention to the picture of Conduct every single breathing moment is a bit counter-productive and misses the point. Conduct reveals our state of mind and is, like all other forms, empty and meaningless.

To summarize, directly know and relinquish our own greed, hate and delusion. If we have done so successfully, then wisdom will reveal that our conduct matches a picture of Conduct such as the Vinaya. The picture of Conduct is not as important as how we conduct ourselves moment by moment. Do we conduct ourselves with or without greed, hate and delusion?
[/quote]
This is brilliant, your explanation is far better than any of the commentaries I have read, it touched my heart, it is not the first time however. It explains “Why Vinaya” for the monks, or discipline for the laymen? It is just to guard the sense bases from assault of the senses, called “Mara” in the suttas. The first foundation of Mindfulness in a soteriological sense is all about that, guarding the senses. How dukkha originates upon contact with the sensory world, under the influence of underlaying tendencies. The second foundation is about dismantling feeling thus arisen. The third is about dismantling Sanna thus arisen. The Forth foundation is a mode where underlying tendencies are not in play, due to the success of 2nd and 3rd.
I think the magic is in the difference of translation of one word Conduct by Ven. Sujato.
Dhamma becomes magical when rightly translated.
With love

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