Why Life Has No Meaning Without This Ancient Buddhism Insight

Why Life Has No Meaning Without This Ancient Buddhism Insight The ten perfections are a list of teachings that provide focus for living everyday life in a way that has meaning and purpose, at the same time developing the path to awakening. This emphasis on purpose is in line with the nature of the mind itself, which is purposeful. To be happy, the mind requires a good purpose. The perfections pose questions that force you to reflect on what kind of purpose you already live for, and whether you might do better to aim at something higher. The questions they ask are, what kind of happiness do you want to set as a goal in your life? Is your current behavior actually taking you there, or somewhere else? If it's taking you somewhere else, what do you need to change? The answer given by the ten perfections to these questions is that true happiness can be gained through human action, but it lies in a dimension beyond the confines of space, time, and change. It's the best possible goal. In some cases, it can be attained in this life, but in others, it may take two lifetimes, or many more. So, the perfections ask you to take the attitude of a marathon runner. Pace yourself and be ready for the long term so that you don't give up before you've arrived at the goal. All of the Buddha's teachings, his Dhamma, are goal-oriented. This is reflected in the fact that the word Dhamma is often paired with the word Atta, which means meaning, purpose, benefit, or goal. All of these meanings of Atta are connected. To know the meaning of the Dhamma is not just a matter of interpreting its words in terms of other words. You also have to know its purpose, how the teaching is supposed to be acted on, and where it's supposed to lead you when you act on it correctly. In fact, you won't really know the fullness of the meaning of the Dhamma until you've had a direct experience of the goal. To reach that experience, you have to ask with regard to every teaching, what is this teaching for, how do I act on it correctly, and when I do, where will it take me? Then act accordingly. To understand the goal of the ten perfections, we should first look at two approaches to life that the Buddha did not take, because sometimes they are falsely attributed to him. The first is that there is nothing to attain, that we should reject the desire for something better than what we presently experience as unrealistic, and instead find contentment in accepting things as they already are. A while back, I was watching an interview in which a Dhamma teacher was saying just that, that happiness lies in simply relaxing and accepting things as they are, with the realization that they cannot be changed. The woman who was interviewing the teacher said, but isn't this defeatist and pessimistic? And the teacher said, only if you think about it. Now, the Buddha was not defeatist, and there are no images in the canon of relaxing your way to awakening. All of its images are of search, struggle, and mastering skills. As the Buddha said, the path is a path of victory, unexcelled victory in battle, he called it. And he certainly didn't say not to think. We end desire not through resignation, but by using our discernment to strategize, to find a path to a happiness so complete that there's no more need for desire. It's found, not by lowering your standards, but by finding good standards and then raising them. To do that, you have to expand your imagination as to what you are able to do. The second approach that the Buddha didn't take was the materialist approach, claiming that the death of the body is the end of consciousness, so that we have to find our goal solely in this life. This perspective might lead us to find meaning in creating a better society where people can live a moral life with all its anxieties and vulnerabilities. This, however, does not solve the major problem in life, which is that we're driven first by our hungers. We live by feeding on one another. One of the images that occurred to the Buddha before he began his quest for awakening was of many fish in a stream. The stream is drying up, and the fish are fighting one another over that last little bit of water. Yet even the fish who succeed in pushing the others out of the way are going to end up dying anyhow. If this were all there was to life, it would be pretty depressing. The problem with the relaxed accepting approach and the materialist approach is that both see suffering as a necessary part of life that simply has to be accepted. This is precisely what the Buddha did not accept. He aspired to freedom from suffering and from the need to feed. The materialist view also differs from the Buddha's approach in that it starts with an assumption about the relationship between body and mind, that the body comes prior to the mind, and from there draws some conclusions about what we can do and know. The Buddha's approach was the other way around. He started by mastering skills that allowed him to do and know more than he had ever done and known before, putting an end to suffering and realizing a timeless happiness. Then, in the course of mastering those skills, he made some radical discoveries about how the body and mind are related. One of his discoveries was that consciousness does not need a body to survive. Consciousness and craving feed on one another in such a way that they can keep each other going beyond the death of the body, from lifetime to lifetime, indefinitely. This was not an idea that the Buddha had simply picked up from Indian culture. There were many materialists in ancient India. So, in teaching rebirth, he was not adopting, without thinking, an idea universally accepted in his culture. It was a hotly debated issue in his time. He also discovered that actions have results that lead beyond this life, and the results follow the pattern of cause and effect based on the quality of the intention behind the act. Because intentions come from the mind, this puts the mind first. Here it's important to note that the word for mind in Pali, Sita, can also mean heart. In other words, we're looking at the mind-slash-heart, both as something that thinks and understands, and as something that desires. From the Buddha's perspective, these two functions are not totally separate. Our thoughts are shaped by our desires, and our desires by our thoughts. In particular, the act of forming an intention uses both sides of the mind-slash-heart. Each intention is based on a desire to attain a goal, informed by our understanding of what is possible and how, given what's possible, it can best be attained. The practice of developing the perfections is one where we train our mind to be good, so that it has a correct understanding of cause and effect, and of how to use cause and effect to attain a wise goal. We also train our heart to be good, both in the sense of desiring a well-being that causes no harm, and in the sense of having the strength to carry through with that desire. Then we combine that good mind and good heart to produce intentional actions that are skillful and coherent, leading to the best possible goal, a happiness that has no need to feed. Only then can we be truly harmless and safe. The Buddha discovered that this goal is possible, and he presented it as a challenge. Do you want to live life without trying to see whether it's true? He says that we have a potential power in our hands. Don't you want to see how far it can take you toward awakening to the end of suffering? The perfections we'll be discussing in the course of this retreat are qualities of heart and mind needed to arrive at that awakening. If we desire true happiness, their development should take priority in our lives, requiring that we trade short-term comfort for long-term happiness. The ten perfections are these, giving, virtue, renunciation, discernment, persistence, endurance or patience, truth, determination, goodwill, and equanimity. You'll notice that these are qualities both of a good mind and of a good heart. We try to bring wise understanding to the desires of the heart so that, as they work together, they can shape intentions that are noble and good. These qualities are also strengths, and many of them are listed in the suttas as treasures. They teach us to regard the challenges of life not as obstacles, but as opportunities to make our hearts and minds wealthy and strong. The role and importance of the perfections is reflected in the Pali word for perfection, param-maik. It can either mean foremost, para, or it can be related to, to the other side, param. In other words, the ten perfections take priority for anyone who is aiming to go beyond suffering, to find unbinding or true freedom on the other side of the flood of birth and death. The Meaning of Insight As you sit here, you'll be making choices for the entire hour. The primary choice will be whether to stay with the breath. You made up your mind at the beginning of the session that that's what you're going to do. See what happens when you stick with that decision. Each time the question comes up, and there's a little stirring of a thought in the mind, choose to come back to the breath. Let the thought go, unless it's a thought related to the breath and helpful for getting the mind to settle down. The mind is always making choices, both when you're meditating and when you're not. In fact, that's its primary activity, choosing what to do. As the Buddha says, we fabricate the aggregates for the sake of using them. So that gives us two things right there, goals, what the Buddha calls ata, and means toward the goals. This is the way the mind functions. This is the way it gropes through the world, learning about things, learning what works, what doesn't work, which kinds of goals are possible, which ones are not. It's because of this activity that life has meaning. If we weren't making any choices, if we were machines, spinning wheels with no alternative but to keep on spinning, there'd be no meaning to it at all. This is one of the reasons why the word for goal in Pali is also the word for meaning, ata. We look for meanings, instructions, or advice on what are good goals and on what's worth doing, what's not worth doing, for the sake of those goals. Think of the meaning of words. There are some cases where the meanings get translated into other words, and that satisfies you. But in other cases, you start thinking. What is the meaning of the fact that we have language? It's one of our tools for finding what we want beyond the words. If something gets us to what we want, then it has meaning. That's where the meaning of words goes beyond other words. Life itself, in that case, has meaning. You could say that we live by meanings. I've been reading an account of Knud Rasmussen going by dog sled across northern North America. He was interviewing shamans, storytellers, and poets among the Inuit, and he was always interested in how they interpreted the meanings of their stories. There was one storyteller who told him a story about a fox and a wolf. The fox tells the wolf that he's learned how to use his tail to catch fish. The wolf wants to know how to do that. He'd like to have some extra fish in his diet. So the fox says, well, you dig a hole in the ice, then you stick your tail down into the hole, and if you feel anything nibbling at the end of the tail, you pull it out. And there, you've got your fish. So, the wolf does as he's told. And the fox gets out of there as fast as he can, because he knows what's going to happen. The wolf's tail gets frozen into the ice. So what does he do? He has to bite off his tail. Of course, he's furious at the fox, and he goes looking for him. The fox sees him coming, so he takes some leaves, and he holds them in front of his eyes so that the wolf can't recognize him. The wolf comes up to him and says, have you seen that other fox? And the fox says, I'm sorry, I haven't seen anything. I'm snow blind right now, which is why I have to hold these leaves in front of my eyes. The wolf believes him and goes away. End of story. Rasmussen asked the storyteller, what is the meaning of that story? And the storyteller said, why do you have to have a meaning? This is the problem with you white people, you have to have meanings for things. Well, in one way, the storyteller was right, and in another way, he was wrong. If the story were totally meaningless, if it weren't amusing, if it weren't entertaining, there would be no purpose in telling it. It does have a purpose, which is entertainment, but it doesn't have a moral, aside from teaching you to be really careful around foxes. For the most part though, our best stories do have meanings in the sense of telling us about how to conduct our lives. Those are the satisfying stories, the stories that give us some sense of direction, some advice on what's a good attitude to take toward life. So it's only natural that we look for the meanings of things, which we can then translate into how we make choices in our lives. This is why the Dhamma has an Atha, a meaning, a purpose. It's designed to satisfy that desire. It gives us a worthwhile goal, and it teaches us the means to the goal, what's worth doing that will take us to the goal. That's what insight is all about, teaching us what's worth doing for the sake of a really high-level goal, putting an end to suffering. Sometimes you hear insight defined as just seeing the nature of things. Well, what good is that? Unless there's something about the nature of things that you can put into action to serve your purposes. That's why the Buddha's basic teachings for insight are the four noble truths. First, he teaches the problem, suffering. Then he teaches the cause of the problem, and then the means for solving the problem. In other words, the noble eightfold path. The result is that you arrive at the cessation of the problem, the cessation of suffering, the third noble truth. That's the goal. When you see the goal, then you know that you really have gained insight, and you've used your insight properly. This is why stream entry is defined as attaining the noble eightfold path, and why the crucial factor of the noble eightfold path is right view, the four noble truths. A person who's attained the stream is said to be consummate in view. In other words, you've really seen all four truths. There's another description of stream entry as seeing that whatever is subject to origination is all subject to passing away. It sounds like you're simply seeing the nature of things to come and go. But you have to stop and think, what is the state of mind to which that insight would naturally occur? If it's just a generalization about how life has been so far, everything you've seen so far seems to come and go, it's a pretty sloppy observation. You can't prove that it applies to everything. The only time you can prove it is if you see something that's not subject to origination, and you see that that doesn't pass away. When Sariputta attained his first experience of the Dhamma-I, he then went to tell Moggallana. This was before they had met the Buddha. Moggallana sees him coming from afar and says, your complexion is clear, your faculties are bright. Have you seen the deathless? And Sariputta says, yes. It's from seeing the deathless that you can look back on things that are not deathless, and you realize that the difference is that they are subject to origination and passing away, whereas the deathless is not. It's in seeing this that insight becomes complete, and this is what insight is good for. This is what it means. Sometimes you hear that insight is seeing things in terms of the three characteristics, but then the three characteristics, or more properly, the three perceptions, what are they good for? If you simply say, well, everything is impermanent, what does that tell you about what to do? You could take that observation and do all kinds of things with it. You could decide that nothing is worth striving for at all, so you might as well give up. In other words, that insight on its own can be used for very defeatist purposes, or you could use it for hedonistic purposes, to justify going for whatever pleasure is within your reach while it lasts. Actually, you use these perceptions properly when you put them in the context of the four noble truths, or more specifically, in the context of the analysis the Buddha recommends for gaining escape from the forms of suffering included in the first noble truth. You see their origination, you see their passing away, you see their allure, and then you see their drawbacks. It's in the context of trying to see their drawbacks that you apply those three perceptions. You look to see the extent to which the things you cling to are inconstant, stressful, and not self, so that you can develop dispassion for them. That dispassion is going to be your escape to the deathless. Those observations have meaning only in the larger context of the meaning of the Dhamma, the goal of the Dhamma, it's Atha. This is why, when the Buddha described his awakening, he never mentioned the three characteristics, or even the three perceptions. They're there implicitly in terms of the duties of the four noble truths, under the insight into the drawbacks of the things to which you cling, the insight that's for the sake of developing dispassion. But the Buddha never explicitly mentions them. He's explicit about the four noble truths though. He says that when you see those truths and see them clearly, in the same way that a person standing on the bank of a pool of limpid water would look into the pool and see the fish moving around and resting in the water. When you see all four noble truths clearly in that way, that's when insight has shown what it's good for. That's what it's Atha is, it's purpose is. So, we're here not to learn so much about the nature of things outside. We're here more to learn about the actions of the mind as it's making choices, and which choices are worth making to get to a goal that doesn't serve as a means to anything else. That's when we find something that really satisfies the heart and mind, something with intrinsic meaning. This meaning doesn't point to something else or serve a purpose for the sake of something else. It's the one thing for whose sake we do everything else. We all want true happiness. That's what we're groping around in the world for as we make our choices and then learn from them, or sometimes don't learn from them. The Buddha simply gives instructions on how to go about learning in the most effective way. So, use appropriate attention, ask the right questions, look at your actions, train the mind so that it can see its actions and their results really clearly. That's why we're here right now. The breath is here to train the mind. We train the mind for the sake of true happiness. These are all means to a goal, although you don't get to the goal by focusing on the goal or trying to clone the goal. You get there by paying attention to the means and doing them really carefully. Still, it's good to have in the back of the mind the realization that the practice does serve a purpose and to have a general idea of what that purpose is, because that's what gives meaning to the practice and keeps us on course. The Dhamma-I. Maps of the path of Buddhist practice often highlight four major noble attainments that occur in stages. These attainments are called noble because they relate directly to the goal of the noble search, a happiness free from aging, illness, and death, from defilement, and from sorrow. The first of the noble attainments, portrayed metaphorically as stream entry in some contexts as the arising of the Dhamma-I and others, is a momentous event for anyone who experiences it. The Pali Canon describes it as immediately blissful, giving access to a personal experience of tranquility and unbinding, Nibbana, MN48, and as having a radical long-term impact in at least three ways. To begin with, it marks a new stage in your relationship to the Dhamma. In line with the image of the Dhamma-I, you have actually seen the Dhamma and are said to be consummate in view. One passage in the canon illustrates this point with the Standing at the edge of the well, you see for sure that there is water in the well, even though you don't yet touch the water with your body, SN1268, the implication being that touching it with your body would stand for full awakening. But even just seeing the Dhamma makes a strong impact. Your confidence in the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha has been confirmed. You have no more perplexity or doubts about the Dhamma, and are said to be independent of others with regard to the Buddha's message. In other words, you know for sure what the Buddha was talking about, that it was true, that those members of the Sangha, who have practiced rightly, have seen the same Dhamma, and you are mature enough to direct your own practice from that point on. Second, this attainment has an indelible impact on your behavior, in that you have completed your training in virtue, although you still have further work to do in developing concentration and discernment. In the words of the canon, your virtues are now pleasing to the noble ones, unbroken, untorn, and conducive to concentration. The noble ones are also pleased because your virtues are not grasped at, and you yourself are not made of virtue, meaning that you don't take hold of your virtues to create a sense of conceit or self around them. You embody the virtues of the five precepts not out of pride, but out of a natural reaction to what you have seen in seeing the Dhamma. If you are careless in your actions, you will cause harm for yourself and for others. So, out of a pure desire to be harmless, you're careful in all you do. Finally, the first noble attainment has a decisive impact on your future course through the cycles of death and rebirth. Prior to stream entry, you face the possibility of an unlimited number of rebirths, and you could be reborn in any of the levels of the cosmos, from the highest to the lowest. After stream entry though, you are freed from three of the ten fetters that bind you to those cycles, self-identification views, uncertainty, and grasping at habits and practices. As a result, you face a maximum of only seven more lifetimes, none of them below the human level. You are also now bound for awakening for sure, which appears to be the reason why the attainment is called stream entry. Just as a person who has entered the flow of a stream will inevitably reach the ocean, a person who has achieved stream entry will inevitably reach unbinding. Each of these last two points is illustrated with a simile. The first simile is a variant on the stream image. Instead of flowing along with a stream, you're trying to cross over a stream to the safety on the further shore. In this image, the first noble attainment is where you gain a footing, MN56. In other words, you haven't yet reached the further shore, but you have reached the point near that shore where the stream is so shallow that your feet can be firmly planted on the stream bed. From this point on, you won't be swept away by the current. The second simile highlights the fact that the amount of suffering you potentially face in the Prior to stream entry, that suffering can be compared to all the dirt in the world. After stream entry, it's like the dirt under a fingernail, SN13-1. For an experience to yield such radical results, it must be extraordinary. The canon gives some idea of what the stream entry experience involves in its explanations of what the stream is and what the Dhamma eye sees. The explanation of the stream is the shorter of the two. The stream is simply the noble eightfold path, SN55-5. Because the stream enterer still has further work to do in developing concentration and discernment, which are covered by five of the factors of the path, this equation of the path with the stream seems to mark the point where all eight factors of the path come together, even though not all of them are fully mastered. As for the Dhamma eye, every instance of its arising described in the canon is expressed in the same terms. Whatever is subject to origination is all subject to cessation. The fact that the experience is always expressed in the same terms is striking, because the canon tells of its happening to a wide variety of people listening to the Buddha's teachings. Everyone from the five brethren, long-term ascetics who had attended to the Buddha-to-be during his austerities, to the would-be assassin who, in the Buddha's later years, had been hired by Devadatta to kill the Buddha, along with the would-be assassins hired to then kill the first would-be assassin, and the would-be assassins hired to kill them. So obviously there's something universal about what this formula expresses. To understand what it means, it's good to look at the context, both the events that induce the Dhamma eye to arise, and the impact that the arising of the Dhamma eye has on the mind. It can arise in a variety of situations, such as when one is meditating on one's own, but the canon tends to focus on instances where a person gains the Dhamma eye while listening to a Dhamma talk. Usually, the topic of the talk is the four noble truths. The truths of stress, its origination, its cessation, and the path of practice leading to its cessation. In some cases, where the Buddha deems that the listener isn't immediately ready to hear and accept the four noble truths, he prefaces that teaching with what is termed a gradual or step-by-step talk, in which the Buddha describes generosity, virtue, and the rewards of generosity and virtue in heaven. Then he reverses course to describe the drawbacks of even heavenly sensuality. When the listener is ready to regard renunciation of sensuality positively as a state of rest, the Buddha finally presents the four truths. The two major exceptions to this pattern are contained in the famous story where Sariputta, who, at that point, is a wanderer in another sect, gains the Dhamma eye when hearing the following verse from Venerable Asaji, and then again, when Moggallana in turn gains the Dhamma eye after hearing the verse from Sariputta, whatever phenomena arise from cause, their cause, and their cessation, such is the teaching of the Tathagata, the great contemplative, MV 123.5. What this short teaching has in common with the four noble truths is the notion of causation, origination means cause, and its relationship to cessation. The formula for the In the case of Sariputta and Moggallana, this takes the form of a poem that the narrator of their story addresses rhetorically to them. Just this Dhamma, just this much, and you experienced the sorrowless state, unseen, neglected, for many ten thousands of eons, MV 123.5. In this case, the emphasis is on the attaining of a sorrowless state, one of the attributes of the goal of the noble search. In other cases, the impact of the arising of the Dhamma eye is described by a standard passage focusing on the overcoming of doubt, as in the case of Upali the householder. Then, having seen the Dhamma, having reached the Dhamma, known the Dhamma, gained a footing in the Dhamma, having crossed over and beyond doubt, having had no more questioning, Upali the householder gained fearlessness and was independent of others with regard to the teacher's message, MN 56. In short, these passages show that the Dhamma eye arises after learning about cause, effect, and cessation. It then leads to the overcoming of doubt and to a sorrowless state. When we understand the context of the Dhamma eyes arising in these terms, we can evaluate the different interpretations offered for what the Dhamma eye formula actually means. Arising Verses Origination, one interpretation that's currently widespread, states that the Dhamma eye is simply the acceptance of the principle of impermanence or inconstancy. All things that arise must pass away. But there are many reasons, both contextual and textual, for not accepting this interpretation. To begin with the contextual issues, what sort of experience would legitimately and naturally lead to that acceptance? You'd have to make a survey of all phenomena in the universe for the conclusion to legitimately apply to all phenomena. Anything short of that would simply be, in the words of MN 95, an agreement through pondering views, that is, a conclusion based on ideas and observations that fit in with one another but haven't been universally tested. As the Buddha repeatedly said, the fact that a theory is coherent and consistent with a few facts is no guarantee that it's true. So it's hard to see that such a conclusion would, for him, count as an overcoming of doubt. There's also the question of why agreeing to the principle that everything that arises passes away would invariably lead to a tranquil sorrowless state. I know of many people who, believing that meditation aims at a vision of the impermanence of all things, induce themselves to confirm that principle in their practice and then find the experience disturbing and disorienting. So, in light of these contextual issues, it's hard to accept that this is what the Dhamma-I sees. As for the textual issues, it's important to note that the formula for the Dhamma-I doesn't make reference to all that arises. Instead, it speaks of all that is subject to origination. The difference is crucial. Arising is simply an issue of appearing. Origination, however, is an issue of causality. The Dhamma-I speaks of all that arises because of a cause, but not just any cause. Origination is most often used throughout the Pali Canon to refer to processes where the cause is in one's own mind. Given that the Dhamma-I most frequently follows on hearing the four noble truths, and given that the word origination, in the context of those truths, refers to the causes of stress within the mind, three types of craving, it follows naturally that anyone listening to these truths would naturally look for the causes of stress in his or her own mind. So, the formula for the Dhamma-I refers to what is seen when a listener does just that. You look for the craving mentioned in the second noble truth, and in bringing right view, and all the other factors of the path, hence the stream, to bear on it, you can put an end to it. At the same time, MN9 and AN10, colon 92, indicate that in doing so, you not only see the end of stress, but you also see how all the factors of dependent co-arising prior to craving, through feeling, sensory contact, the six sense media, name and form, sensory consciousness, fabrication, all the way back to ignorance, unravel as well. Stress, you come to realize, is not the only thing internally originated. So is what the Buddha calls the All, the experience of the sense media, the five senses, plus the mind as the sixth. This is probably one of the radical aspects of gaining the Dhamma-I, seeing the extent to which sensory contact is dependent on events in the mind. This is the All that ceases when its internal causal conditions cease, and the cessation of this All is nothing other than an experience of the deathless. UD8-1, SN35-117. So in answering the textual questions around the Dhamma-I formula, we also answer the contextual questions raised earlier. The experience leading to the Dhamma-I is one in which you pursue within the mind the question of where stress originates, and in doing so, you unravel not only the immediate cause of stress, craving, but also the internal origination of your experience of the six sense media. In seeing the cessation that results, the cessation of the All, you naturally come to realize that whatever is subject to origination, is all subject to cessation. That's because you also see what lies outside the category of whatever is subject to origination. What is not subject to origination or cessation, the sorrowless state in which there is no arising or passing away, UD8-1. It's only in seeing what is not subject to origination, that the category All that is subject to origination, naturally and legitimately, occurs to the mind. This is why when Sariputta, after experiencing the Dhamma-I, was asked by Moggallana if he had attained the Deathless, he replied, Yes, I have. Now, this Deathless is not a blanking out. Instead, it is a type of consciousness that's not known through the All, MN49, and is not dependently co-arisen. The Buddha calls it consciousness without surface, and in SN1263, he gives an image that helps to explain this term. Ordinary consciousness, affected by clinging, is like a beam of sunlight that can be detected because it lands on a surface. This non-clinging consciousness is like a beam of sunlight that doesn't land on any surface at all. As we have already noted, all the factors of the Noble Eightfold Path are present in the steps leading up to the experience of this consciousness. But the concentration and discernment factors are not yet fully developed. For this reason, the stream-enterer simply sees the Dhamma of the Deathless, but without fully touching it. Still, seeing just this much is enough to cut through the first three fetters. This is a point that has to be emphasized. The fetters are not cut by a decision or an act of will, which could easily be reversed. They're cut once and for all by seeing the Deathless, and it's easy to understand why. To begin with, now that you've seen that the Deathless is a reality and that the path is what led you there, you have no more doubt or uncertainty about the truth of the Buddha's teaching. It really does lead to a soreless state totally free from stress. The experience of the Deathless thus cuts through the fetter of uncertainty. Second, you've seen that the experience came about through the skillfulness of your own actions, and that what had prevented you from seeing it earlier were your own unskillful actions. For this reason, you would never intentionally break the five precepts ever again. At the same time, though, you see that the experience of the Deathless required more than just following the rules of the precepts. It also entailed a radical act of internal discernment and of letting go that didn't follow any rules. These realizations, combined, cut through the fetter of grasping at habits and practices. From now on, you are virtuous, but not made of virtue. Third, when all that is subject to origination falls away, the five aggregates, the form of the body, along with the mental actions of feelings, perceptions, thought fabrications, and acts of sensory consciousness, fall away as well. And yet there is a consciousness of the Deathless that remains. It's for this reason that you would never again hold to a view in which you would This is what cuts through the fetter of self-identification. This last fetter relates to another common misinterpretation of the stream-entry experience. There are those who say that because stream-entry cuts through this fetter, stream-entry is the point in the practice where you realize that there is no self. But here again, there are textual and contextual reasons for calling this interpretation into question. To start with the contextual reasons, it's hard to see what kind of experience would legitimately lead to the conclusion that there is no self, just as it's hard to see what kind of experience would legitimately lead to the conclusion that there is a self. Now, it is possible, in the course of meditation, to experience a total blanking out, but the Buddha identified this as a state of non-perception, which, if you maintain it, leads to rebirth in the dimension of non-percipient beings who are not sensitive to anything at all. This dimension is not a noble attainment, and nothing is known or remembered while in it. So there's no legitimate reason to conclude from such an experience that there is no self. It's simply proof that it's possible to deliberately bring yourself to a state in which you don't perceive anything at all. As for the textual reasons, the first is that the Buddha consistently avoided giving an answer to the question of whether there is or isn't a self, saying that either answer would side with an extreme wrong view, He also stated that the questions of what you are, and whether you exist or not, are not worthy of attention, in that they pull you off the path into a jungle of views, including the views that I have a self, and I have no self, with all the entanglements that those views entail. Second, after the Buddha brought all five brethren to an experience of the Dhamma-I, he then gave them a Dhamma-talk, in which he taught that the five aggregates should be regarded as not-self. If, in experiencing the Dhamma-I, they had already come to the conclusion that there is no self, there would have been no reason for him to address this topic. They would have already seen it for themselves. The reason he did have to address the topic is because cutting the fetter of self-identification views does not entirely remove from the mind all traces of stress related to the act of clinging to a sense of self. The views covered by self-identification all come down to the sense that I am this, where this can be either an aggregate, the owner of an aggregate, something within an aggregate, or something containing an aggregate within it, such as a cosmic sense of self, SN22-2. However, even after abandoning the sense that I am this, you don't necessarily abandon the conceit I am, a fetter that is cut only with the fourth and final noble attainment. As SN22-89 explains, even after self-identification views are removed, there is still a lingering sense of I am, with regard to the aggregates, just as when a cloth has been thoroughly washed, there is still a lingering sense of the cleaning agent used in cleaning the cloth, so it was to get rid of the lingering sense of I am around the aggregates that the Buddha taught the five brethren that all five aggregates should be regarded as not-self. When they abandoned that last lingering clinging, they were able to gain the ultimate noble attainment, total release from clinging, fully touching, unbinding for themselves. Listening to the Dhamma When we understand that the arising of the Dhamma-I has to occur in conjunction with the first experience of the deathless, it helps us to answer many of the textual and contextual questions surrounding the descriptions of the Dhamma-I in the canon. It explains what the terms of the Dhamma-I actually mean, and also why the arising of the Dhamma-I has such a radical impact both on one's present state of mind and on one's future course, cutting through the three fetters and placing a limit on one's suffering in samsara. However, this way of understanding the Dhamma-I does raise an important contextual question of its own. How can just listening to a Dhamma talk give rise to such an experience, especially in cases like those of the would-be assassins, who had no background in Dhamma practice at all? The short answer to this question is that people who gain stream entry while listening to a Dhamma talk aren't just listening. They have to be more actively engaged in seeing how the talk applies to events in their own minds. This point is made, in general terms, in the list of four factors required for stream entry. Associating with people of integrity, listening to the true Dhamma, applying appropriate attention, and practicing the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma, S.N. 55,5. Appropriate attention here means seeing how the lessons of the talk apply to the four noble truths as they appear in your own mind. For example, seeing what the talk has to say about any stress you detect, about any factors that give rise to stress, or any factors that, if they're developed, could lead to its cessation. Practicing the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma means applying the duties of the four noble truths appropriately to such events as they appear in the mind, comprehending stress, abandoning its origination, realizing its cessation, and developing the path to its cessation, all for the sake of dispassion and release. This list of factors doesn't say that they all have to occur while listening to a talk. For example, you could apply the duties of the four noble truths while meditating on your own after listening to the talk. It also doesn't describe how the factors can come into play while listening to a talk. However, the canon does address this latter issue both in its descriptions of what ideally happens when you're fully engaged in listening to a Dhamma talk, and in its descriptions of the Buddha's special skills as a teacher. Two discourses in particular, A.N. 526 and A.N. 5151, give an idea of how you actively follow along when a talk is being given. A.N. 5151 discusses what you bring to the talk. You approach it with an attitude of respect, not despising the teacher, not despising the talk, and not despising your own ability to understand and follow it. You gather your mind into singleness, focused totally on listening to the talk, at the same time bringing appropriate attention to bear. Singleness, akaga, here, is the defining feature of concentration. Appropriate attention is related directly to right view. This means the two most difficult factors of the path, right view and right concentration, can be present while you're listening to the talk. By implication, all the other factors of the noble eightfold path can be present as well. It's sometimes thought that right concentration puts you into a state of one-pointedness, where you can't hear or think, but the fact that you can listen and apply appropriate attention when the mind is in a state of singleness shows that this is not the case. Both activities can occur in conjunction with a rightly concentrated mind, which is why it's possible, while listening to a Dhamma talk, for the path to come together in a way that allows the Dhamma-I to arise. AN 526 discusses how the preliminary singleness of mind that you bring to the talk actually develops into right concentration. As you gain a sense of the Dhamma and of what it's aiming at, you develop a feeling of joy. This feeling of joy leads successively to rapture, calm, pleasure, and then concentration. This state of concentration then provides an opening for total release to occur, meaning that at the very least, it provides a basis for the Dhamma-I to arise. As for the case of the would-be assassins, CV 73.6-8, this is where the Buddha's status as a person of integrity and his skills as a teacher come into play. In addressing each group of assassins, he started by extending goodwill to them all, which influenced them to abandon their plans. Then he gave them a step-by-step talk. This talk is described at many spots in the canon, but nowhere is there any record of exactly how the Buddha addressed each topic in any of the individual talks. This suggests that he tailored each talk to his listeners' needs. In the case of the assassins, it's easy to imagine that he would have used some strong imagery to emphasize the dangers that are avoided by following the precepts. This would have alerted the assassins to the huge mistake they had just been saved from committing. The Buddha could have also emphasized the drawbacks of even the most refined sensual pleasures in heaven in terms of the dangers of staying on in SN 1513 contains a striking instance where the Buddha informs a group of monks that the amount of blood they have shed from having their heads cut off as they have wandered through samsara is greater than the water of the oceans. It's easy to imagine that the Buddha would have used similar imagery to gain the would-be assassins undivided attention, so that they really would be ready not only to listen to the four noble truths, but also to look into their own minds while listening. This is where the Buddha would have exercised what he called the miracle of instruction, DN 11, where the speaker, reading the minds of his audience, tells them, as soon as a particular state arises in their minds, whether to abandon it or to develop it, this would have aroused the respect of the assassins, at the same time helping them to apply appropriate attention to the events actually happening in their minds. As he explained these events in language they could understand, this would have led to the joy that would form the basis for right concentration. In this way, all of the factors for stream entry would have been present within them, so it's not at all impossible that, even in their case, the Buddha was able to bring them to the realizations that allowed them to gain the Dhamma-I. Unfortunately, at present, there are very few people who can practice the miracle of instruction, so our opportunities for gaining the same sort of help that the Buddha gave to the would-be assassins are few and far between. Still, even though you may not encounter anyone who can read your mind, it's nevertheless still possible to learn how to read your own mind. And, in reading your mind, it's still possible to bring the mind to singleness, and to apply appropriate attention, and to practice the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma with regard to whatever originates within you. That way, you can put yourself in a position where joy leads to concentration, and where concentration can provide a context where the Dhamma-I can arise. Then you can know for yourself what the Dhamma-I sees, and the Dhamma-I formula actually means. So, the path is still wide open. The conditions for gaining the Dhamma-I are still at hand. It's simply a matter of making the most of them while you can.