How to read this book

This book is about ten good qualities that the Buddha built up over many, many lives before he became the Buddha. They are called the ten pāramī (perfections). Each chapter takes one of them, explains it in plain words, and tells a true story from the Buddha’s past lives to show it in action.

Pali words. The Buddha’s teaching was written down in a language called Pali. You will meet Pali words all through this book. Every time one appears, its English meaning sits right next to it in brackets, like this: dāna (giving), citta (mind). You never have to remember a Pali word to understand the page. But if you do remember a few, you will be able to read the ancient texts one day.

Saying the words. A line over a letter makes it long: ā sounds like the “a” in “father”, ī like the “ee” in “see”, ū like the “oo” in “moon”. A dot under a letter (ṭ, ḍ, ṇ) means you curl your tongue back a little. ñ sounds like the “ny” in “canyon”. ṃ sounds like “ng”. So paññā is said “pan-nyaa” and mettā is said “met-taa”.

Quizzes. After every two chapters there is a short quiz.

Where the stories come from. The stories are not made up. They come from the Jātaka (birth stories) and the Cariyāpiṭaka (Basket of Conduct), two books of the Tipiṭaka (the Three Baskets, the oldest collection of the Buddha’s teaching), and from the old commentaries that explain them. The Buddha told these stories himself. In each one he is the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be), the person who is working, life after life, to become a Buddha. The way they are told here follows the book The Perfections Leading to Enlightenment by Sujin Boriharnwanaket, translated by Nina van Gorkom, which you can read for free on abhidhamma.org when you are older.

Introduction: what is a perfection?

Imagine a wide, fast river. On this side live all the troubles of the mind: wanting, anger, ignorance, fear. On the far side there is peace, with none of those troubles at all. The ancient texts call the far side nibbāna (the end of all troubles). A pāramī (perfection) is a good quality that carries a person across. That is what the word means: something that goes across to the far shore.

Each stone is one pāramī (perfection). Together they lead from the kilesa (defilements) on this side to nibbāna (the end of all troubles) on the far side.

There are ten of them. Here they are, with their Pali names:

A few words from the Abhidhamma. The Abhidhamma (the higher teaching) is the part of the Tipiṭaka (the Three Baskets) that explains what the mind really is. It says that what people call a person is really a stream of moments. In each moment there is a citta (a moment of consciousness, a knowing) and, together with it, some cetasika (mental factors), the states that colour that moment: feeling, liking, disliking, kindness, laziness and so on. Each citta (consciousness) arises because of conditions, falls away at once, and another takes its place. There is no little person inside who owns them or runs them. The ancient texts call this anattā (non-self). So when this book says that someone gives, or someone is patient, that is only the ordinary way of talking. What is really there is a citta (consciousness) with good cetasika (mental factors), arising because the right conditions came together.

Good moments and bad moments. A citta (consciousness) can be kusala (wholesome, good) or akusala (unwholesome, bad). Every perfection is kusala (good). But not every kusala (good) deed is a perfection. What makes the difference is the aim behind it. If a gift is given in the hope of praise, or in the hope of being rich in the next life, the giving is still kusala (good). But it is not a perfection. It is a perfection when it is done because the danger of wanting, anger and ignorance has been seen, and the aim is to be free of them. The opposite of all ten perfections is lobha (attachment, wanting). A perfection is good done without wanting anything back.

Three roots of trouble. The ancient texts say that akusala (bad) states grow from three roots: lobha (attachment, wanting), dosa (anger, hate) and moha (ignorance, not knowing). These three, and the other bad cetasika (mental factors) that grow from them, are called kilesa (defilements, the things that dirty the mind). All ten perfections work against the kilesa (defilements). The whole aim of the perfections is to make them weaker and weaker until one day they are gone.

How each one begins. The ancient texts say that each perfection begins when the harm in its opposite is seen:

• When the harm of stinginess is seen, giving arises: dāna (giving).
• When the harm of hurting others by deed or word is seen, good conduct arises: sīla (good conduct).
• When the harm of always chasing pleasant things is seen, letting go arises: nekkhamma (letting go).
• When the harm of ignorance and doubt is seen, the wish to study and understand arises: paññā (wisdom).
• When the harm of laziness is seen, effort arises: viriya (energy).
• When the harm of impatience is seen, patience arises: khanti (patience).
• When the harm of insincerity is seen, truthfulness arises: sacca (truthfulness).
• When the harm of wavering is seen, firmness arises: adhiṭṭhāna (determination).
• When the harm of wanting revenge is seen, kindness arises: mettā (loving-kindness).
• When the harm of being tossed about by praise and blame is seen, an even mind arises: upekkhā (even-mindedness).

Medicine for the mind. The book gives a picture to show why the perfections matter. The road to the far shore is very long. The ancient texts call it the ariya aṭṭhaṅgika magga (the noble eightfold path), because it has eight parts. A sick and weak person cannot walk a long road, even if the way is known. The kilesa (defilements) are the sickness. The ten perfections are the medicine that makes the citta (consciousness) healthy and strong enough to walk the whole way.

Wishing is not deciding. Some people do a good deed and then pray for a reward. That is a wish, not adhiṭṭhāna (determination). Determination is the firm, unshakeable aim of reaching the far shore, the end of all akusala (bad states), and not letting that aim go. It can begin while a person reads or listens, as long as the reading is done in order to understand.

Chapter 1. Dāna (giving)

Dāna (giving) comes first in the list of ten, and there is a reason. If a person cannot let go of a small thing, a sweet or a pencil, it will be much harder to let go of the biggest thing of all: the clinging to nāma (mind) and rūpa (matter) as “me” and “mine”. Giving is practice in letting go.

Giving and understanding. Dāna (giving) is the giving away of things for the benefit and happiness of others. When things are given away, there is no selfishness at that moment. The kusala citta (good consciousness) that gives can be with paññā (wisdom) or without it. The Vibhaṅga (Book of Analysis, the second book of the Abhidhamma) speaks of dānamayā paññā (understanding by means of giving): understanding that arises together with the cetanā (intention) to give. It considers, at the moment of giving, that nothing lasts. The thing that is given is impermanent. The one who gives and the one who receives are impermanent too, and may die before there is another chance to give.

Three kinds of gift. The ancient texts say there are three kinds of dāna (giving).

1. Āmisa dāna (giving things): food, clothes, money, time, a seat on the bus.
2. Abhaya dāna (giving freedom from fear). This one is a surprise. When someone decides never to kill any living being, that person gives every creature in the world a gift: safety. The same is true of not stealing, not lying, not hurting. The Buddha said that a person who keeps these rules “gives to immeasurable beings freedom from fear”. Forgiving is also abhaya dāna (giving freedom from fear). When one person forgives another, the wish to get back at them stops, and the other person is safe from that anger.
3. Dhamma dāna (giving the teaching). This is the highest gift. A meal fills a hungry person for a day. Helping someone understand what is really good and really harmful helps them in this life and in the lives to come.

When is giving a perfection? Only when nothing is wanted back. Not praise. Not a present in return. Not even a happy rebirth in a deva (heavenly being) world. Giving done because the danger of greed has been seen, with the aim of being free of it, is a pāramī (perfection). Giving done in order to look good is still kusala (good), but it is not yet a perfection. Nobody else can tell which it is. It is known by looking at the citta (consciousness) at the moment of giving.

How the Bodhisatta gave. The commentary on the Cariyāpiṭaka (Basket of Conduct) describes the giving of the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) in his past lives. Here are some of the rules he kept:

• When he saw that someone needed something, he gave it before they asked.
• He gave what people actually wanted, not what they did not want.
• If there was not enough for everyone, he shared out evenly what there was.
• He never gave things that harm people: weapons, poison, strong drink. He did not give a sick person food that would make them worse, even if they begged for it.
• If he had promised a fine gift, he did not slip in a poor one instead.
• He did not give a thing he had thrown away, not even to a rude beggar who shouted at him.
• He gave with a smile and kind words, never with a frown.
• He gave with a bonus. If he gave food, he added clothes. If he gave clothes, he added food.
• If he noticed greed growing for some beautiful thing of his, he saw the greed, found someone to give the thing to, and gave it away.

The four knots. Sometimes there is something to give and someone who needs it, and yet the citta (consciousness) does not leap up to give. The commentary calls these the four shackles of giving, four knots that tie it up. The Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) had a thought ready for each one.

1. The knot of not feeling like it. He reminded himself that if giving did not come easily now, it was because giving had not been practised in the past. So he gave anyway, so that in the future the mind would delight in giving.
2. The knot of the poor gift. When the only thing he had was small or shabby, he reminded himself that his things were poor now because he had not given in the past. So he gave what he had, even if it was little.
3. The knot of the beautiful gift. When the thing was lovely and he wanted to keep it, he reminded himself that he had set his heart on the highest goal of all. For that goal it was right to give the loveliest things.
4. The knot of loss. When he saw that giving the thing meant not having it any more, he reminded himself that this is the nature of all things: they get lost and wear out whether they are given or not. So he gave.

That last thought is worth keeping. Fires, floods, thieves and kings take people’s things all the time. Whether a thing is kept or lost depends on kamma (deeds and their results), not on whether it was given. Possessions do not vanish because of giving.

Three moments. The ancient texts say that cetanā (intention) in giving has three moments: before, when the decision to give is made; during, when the gift is handed over; after, when the giving is remembered. The citta (consciousness) can be kusala (good) at all three moments, or it can slip. Someone gives gladly, and afterwards thinks with pride what a generous person they are. That afterthought is lobha (attachment), not giving. The difference between giving that is a perfection and giving that is not can be very small. That is why the mind has to be watched.

A gift that cannot be held. Can a sound be given? The commentary says it can. A sound cannot be picked up like a lotus and handed over. But a drum can be given to a temple so that the drum can be beaten, or the teaching can be chanted aloud, or gladness at someone else’s good deed can be said out loud. That last one has a name: anumodana (rejoicing in another’s good deed). It costs nothing, and it is a gift.

Chapter 2. Sīla (good conduct)

Sīla (good conduct) means not harming anyone by what is done or said. The ancient texts call it tapa (burning away), because good conduct burns away the dirt of akusala (bad states).

The five rules. The most basic sīla (good conduct) is the pañca sīla (five precepts, five rules of training):

1. not to kill any living being
2. not to take what is not given
3. not to do wrong in sexual matters
4. not to lie
5. not to drink or take anything that clouds the mind

When one of these rules is broken, the citta (consciousness) behind it is always akusala (bad). It is rooted in lobha (attachment), dosa (anger) or moha (ignorance), and at that moment there is no mettā (loving-kindness) for the one being harmed. The ancient texts say that a sotāpanna (stream-enterer, a person who has reached the first stage of enlightenment) keeps all five rules perfectly and can never break them again. Nobody else can promise that. But the rules can still be kept, moment by moment, long before that stage is reached.

Two kinds of shame. Two cetasika (mental factors) are the nearest cause of good conduct. Hiri (shame) comes from inside: its nearest cause is respect for oneself. Ottappa (fear of blame, moral dread) comes from outside, from the world: its nearest cause is respect for someone else. The two always arise together, but they are not the same. The commentary says that a person led by his own ideals is disgusted with evil through hiri (shame), and a person led by thought of the world is afraid of evil through ottappa (fear of blame). Both keep the rules. If one of them breaks a rule through forgetfulness, shame or fear of blame makes him quickly put it right.

The story of Akitti. Long ago the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) was an ascetic named Akitti, of the Kassapa clan. He lived alone in a forest beside a great Kāra tree. When the tree had fruit, he ate the fruit. When it had none, he ate its leaves, boiled in water. He gathered only enough leaves for one meal a day, because gathering for two meals would not help him get rid of the kilesa (defilements).

Up in his heaven, Sakka, the king of the devas (heavenly beings), noticed this pure and simple life and wondered what Akitti wanted. Perhaps he wanted to become Sakka himself? So Sakka came down disguised as a brahmin (a priest) and stood before the hut as if asking for food, thinking that if Akitti wanted to be Sakka, he would give away his leaves.

Akitti saw that the brahmin needed food. He gave him all the leaves. The next day the brahmin came again, and Akitti gave him all the leaves again. The third day, the same. Sakka saw that this was no bargain for heaven. It was dāna (giving) with sīla (good conduct), nekkhamma (letting go), khanti (patience), viriya (energy), adhiṭṭhāna (determination) and sacca (truthfulness) all at once, with no wish for anything back. The ancient texts say that in each of his lives the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) developed all ten perfections together, not one at a time.

Sakka showed himself and asked why Akitti lived there alone in the heat. Akitti answered: “Sakka, King of the devas, rebirth is dukkha, the breaking up of the body is dukkha, and dying with delusion is dukkha. Therefore I dwell here all alone.” Dukkha means suffering, the way everything that arises is never quite satisfying.

Sakka was pleased and offered him a boon: any wish he liked. Here is what Akitti asked for, one wish at a time, with Sakka asking after each one what else he wanted:

1. To be free from all attachment, even the harmless kind that people feel for their children and their things.
2. That there be no akusala kamma (bad deed) that could make him lose land, goods, cattle, horses, servants or relatives. Loss is vipāka (the result of kamma, deeds), and it comes from bad deeds done before.
3. Not to see, hear or sit with fools. Sakka asked why. Akitti said that fools advise what is wrong, are hard to advise, and answer good advice with anger.
4. That people see the wise, listen to them, seek their company and enjoy talking with them. The wise advise what is right, are easy to encourage, and do not answer good words with anger.
5. That at sunrise, holy beggars might come to his hut, that the food he offered them never run out, and that he never regret his giving but give with a pure mind.
6. That Sakka never visit him again.

That last wish surprised Sakka. Most people long to see a deva (heavenly being). Akitti explained that devas (heavenly beings) are glorious and delightful to look at, and seeing them might make him break his vow. Sakka agreed, and left. Akitti lived in that place all his life and was reborn in the brahma (highest heavenly) world. The Buddha said that Sakka in that story was Anuruddha, one of his great disciples, and the ascetic Akitti was himself.

Jotipāla and the bad friends. Akitti stayed away from fools, and the next story shows why. In another life the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) was a young brahmin (priest) called Jotipāla, born into a family who held wrong views and had no faith in the Buddha of that age, the Buddha Kassapa. Jotipāla copied his parents and looked down on the Buddha too. The commentary says that all the perfections Jotipāla had gathered over so many lives were like a bright blazing fire. In that life the fire met water: the fire went out, the light was gone, and only black charcoal was left. Bad company can do that even to a Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be). The commentary compares the company of fools to drinking bitter water, and the company of the wise to drinking sweet water.

Two sides of good conduct. Sīla (good conduct) has two sides. Vāritta sīla (conduct as avoiding) is not doing wrong: the five rules. Cāritta sīla (conduct as doing) is doing what is right. The commentary gives a long list of the Bodhisatta’s (the Buddha-to-be’s) cāritta sīla (conduct as doing). He greeted good people with respect and stood up for them. He looked after them when they were ill. He praised good people and put up with insults from unkind ones. He remembered every kindness done to him. When he did wrong, he admitted it. He guided the blind, made signs for the deaf, and found a chair or a cart for those who could not walk. He hid his own good qualities and admitted his faults. He saw danger in the smallest fault.

One more detail from that list. When he heard about the great deeds of Bodhisattas (Buddhas-to-be) of the past, he was not frightened off. He reflected that those Great Beings were only human beings, who trained step by step, and that the same training would bring him to the same goal.

Good conduct right now. Cāritta sīla (conduct as doing) is very fine work. Here is one example. A dear friend does something wrong, and without thinking a person scolds the friend in front of everyone. When sati (mindfulness, remembering what is good) arises instead, the scolding waits, and the friend is spoken to later, kindly and alone. The kilesa (defilements) have to be worn away like that, again and again, until one day they are gone.

Quiz 1 (chapters 1 and 2)

Click an answer. Each question tells you at once whether it is right. For the written ones, show the answer and mark yourself.

Chapter 3. Nekkhamma (letting go)

Nekkhamma (letting go, renunciation) is turning away from the chase after pleasant sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touches. Most people think it means becoming a monk. The ancient texts say it can begin at home, at the moment someone looks at what they have and finds it is enough.

Three kinds of thinking. The ancient texts name three wrong ways of thinking: kāma vitakka (thinking about sense pleasures), vyāpāda vitakka (thinking with hate) and vihiṃsā vitakka (thinking about hurting). The opposite of the first is nekkhamma vitakka (thinking of letting go). Here is the test. When the mind wants more pleasant things than it already has, that is kāma vitakka (thinking about sense pleasures). When the mind finds that what it has is quite enough, that is nekkhamma vitakka (thinking of letting go). A person who stops buying more clothes just to look nice, and gives away the spare ones to someone who can use them, has nekkhamma (letting go) in daily life.

Monk or not. A monk who still clings to pleasant things just as a layperson does is, in that respect, no different from a layperson. And a layperson who clings less is practising nekkhamma (letting go) without a robe. Clinging to the five sense objects is not fully gone until a person becomes an anāgāmī (non-returner, the third stage of enlightenment). Until then, the work is to make the clinging smaller, bit by bit.

The story of Sona and Nanda. The Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) was once born as Sona, the son of a very rich brahmin (priest) in the city of Brahmavaddhana. When Sona could walk, his little brother Nanda was born. Nanda in that life was the one who later became the Venerable Ānanda, the Buddha’s attendant.

The boys were handsome and clever, and their parents wanted them to marry. Sona would not. He wanted to look after his parents all their lives and then leave the world to become an ascetic (a person who gives up home and comfort to train the mind). The parents offered the whole fortune to Nanda instead. Nanda said that since his elder brother would not take it, neither would he, and he would become an ascetic too. The parents were astonished. Then they decided to go with them. All four left home, built a hut in the forest, and the two brothers cared for their parents.

Nanda had an idea. He would gather fruit the day before and serve it early in the morning. But fruit kept from yesterday was sometimes spoilt, and some of it was unripe. Sona went further into the forest for sweet ripe fruit, but by the time he came back the parents had eaten Nanda’s fruit, rinsed their mouths and begun their fast. Sona was worried. The parents were old and delicate, and bad fruit would shorten their lives. He told Nanda to wait each day until he came back, so that both could serve the parents together. Nanda did not listen. He wanted the merit of feeding the parents to be his own. So Sona sent him away and cared for the parents himself.

Nanda went off alone. He developed the eight samāpatti (attainments, deep states of calm) and the five abhiññā (higher powers). Then he wanted to ask his brother’s forgiveness, and he wanted to do it in the grandest way. He thought of bringing Sakka, the king of the devas (heavenly beings), to speak for him, but decided that was not fitting. Instead he went to the mightiest king on earth, King Manoja of Brahmavaddhana, and asked him to come. So the king came to the hut, and Nanda was forgiven. From then on Nanda looked after their mother and Sona looked after their father. Then Sona taught the king, with the calm of a Buddha, about caring for one’s parents. One of his verses reads:

Joy, careless ease, laughter and sport, are the sure heritage
Of him that studiously shall tend a mother in old age.

Where is the nekkhamma (letting go) in this story? Sona gave up a fortune and a wedding, paid no attention to sense pleasures, and used every spare moment to develop jhāna (deep calm of mind). Other perfections were there too: viriya (energy), when he walked far for good fruit; sīla (good conduct), in his respect for his parents.

Letting go in small things. Three everyday examples.

• Pictures. Something beautiful is seen and enjoyed. If sati (mindfulness) arises, it is known that this is only a dhamma (a reality) appearing. When the beautiful thing is not there, it is not searched for.
• Food. A person is full and knows that another mouthful will be uncomfortable, but the food is delicious, so one more mouthful goes in. That is the citta (consciousness) clinging to taste. Eating just enough to feed the body, and not making a fuss about the taste, is nekkhamma (letting go). It needs khanti (patience) too.
• Baths. Some people love a warm bath, or a cold one, even when the body does not need it. The bath is fine. The clinging to the temperature is the thing to notice.

Letting go is happiness. This is the surprising part. An ancient text, the Cūḷaniddesa (a book of the Tipiṭaka), says that nekkhamma (letting go) is a refuge, a protection and a place of no danger, and that it comes with happiness. It is not easy to see this. Only paññā (wisdom) sees it, by comparing the two ways of living and finding out which one is really better. The happiness of letting go has no self in it who is looking for a treat.

The story of Susīma. In another life the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) thought about how hard it is to give up clinging, and the commentary on the Susīma Jātaka (birth story number 411) keeps his thought. A sick man cannot turn over by himself. The nurse ties a string to the bed so he can pull himself round. Pulling the string brings the body a little comfort, but it brings the mind no ease at all. Beings burning with the kilesa (defilements) are like that. They cannot pull themselves out by the pleasant feeling of a quiet life alone. They need the perfections they have gathered over many lives.

This was the life in which it happened. King Brahmadatta reigned in Vārāṇasī (a city in India). The king’s priest had a son called Susīma, and the king had a son called Brahmadatta. The two boys grew up together and studied all the sciences at Takkasīla (a famous town of teachers). The prince became king and made Susīma his adviser and priest. One day the king rode through the city on an elephant, and Susīma rode behind him on the elephant’s back. The king’s mother looked down from a palace window, saw the priest, and fell in love with him. She was so unhappy that she stopped eating. The king found out, and he solved it by making Susīma the king, with his mother as chief queen, while he himself became the viceroy (the second in command).

Susīma was now king, with a queen, a palace and a whole kingdom. And from that day he was weary of it all. The queen tried every trick to make him enjoy his reign. Instead Susīma taught the Dhamma (the Buddha’s teaching) to the court, showing both the delight and the misery of sense pleasures, and then he handed the kingdom back to the viceroy. He went to the forest, became an ascetic, developed jhāna (deep calm of mind) and the higher powers, and was bound for the brahma (highest heavenly) world. The Buddha said that the queen was Rāhula’s mother, the king was Ānanda, and Susīma was himself.

Nobody can order it. Nobody can tell another person to stop clinging. Nobody can even order themselves to stop. The Buddha said that no one can know the force of lobha (attachment), or in what form it will arise in each life. What can happen is this: paññā (wisdom) comes to see that the clinging is not a person’s own and is not worth keeping. Then it begins, slowly, to let go.

Chapter 4. Paññā (wisdom)

Paññā (wisdom) is the cetasika (mental factor) that understands things as they really are. Without it, none of the other perfections can do their full work. A person may be generous, well behaved and patient, but the ancient texts say the kilesa (defilements) can never be removed unless paññā (wisdom) grows keen enough to see the truth. The commentary gives three pictures for it.

The lamp. The Mahāniddesa (an ancient commentary in the Tipiṭaka) says that the word paññā (wisdom) means “it penetrates”. What does it penetrate? The ariya sacca (noble truths), beginning with the truth that “this is dukkha” (suffering, unsatisfactoriness). It then gives the picture of a lamp. A man carries an oil lamp into a dark house. The darkness goes, and things can be seen. In the same way, when paññā (wisdom) arises, the darkness of avijjā (ignorance) goes and the four noble truths can be seen. And it adds that to the wise, sitting in one place, ten thousand world-systems appear as of one light. The reason: wherever nāma (mind) arises, in this world or any other, it has one and the same nature, the nature of experiencing. Paññā (wisdom) that understands that nature understands it everywhere.

Prince Yudañjaya and the dewdrops. The Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) was once Yudañjaya, the king’s eldest son and viceroy. Every day he gave mahā-dāna (a great offering of gifts). One morning, early, he went to the royal park. Dewdrops hung like strings of pearls on the tree tops, on the tips of the grass, on the ends of branches and on spiders’ webs. He watched them. Then the sun rose, and one by one the dewdrops vanished.

The prince thought: these dewdrops came and went. All things that arise because of conditions, including the lives of every living being, are like dewdrops hanging on the grass tips. A great sense of saṃvega (urgency) came over him. He went to his parents, asked their leave, and went out to the forest to live as an ascetic.

Many people see dewdrops. Very few are stirred by them to compare their own lives with a dewdrop. When that kind of understanding arises, together with urgency, it should not be let slip. It should be thought about, so that it arises again and again.

The commentary then shows that in this one life the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) fulfilled all ten perfections: dāna (giving) by his great offerings; sīla (good conduct) by restraint in deed and word; nekkhamma (letting go) by leaving home and reaching jhāna (deep calm of mind); paññā (wisdom) by his wise thought about impermanence; viriya (energy) by his effort in everything useful; khanti (patience) by patience joined to understanding and by endurance; sacca (truthfulness) by never speaking falsely or breaking a promise; adhiṭṭhāna (determination) by his unshakeable resolve; mettā (loving-kindness) by wishing only good to all beings; and upekkhā (even-mindedness) by his calm towards beings who behaved badly.

Old Piṅgiya. The brahmin (priest) Piṅgiya was a hundred and twenty years old. He was weak, his looks were gone, his eyes and ears were failing. He came to the Buddha and asked for only one thing: that the Buddha explain the teaching that makes an end of birth and old age. The Buddha told him that people are troubled and oppressed because of rūpa (matter, the body and the things sensed through it), and that clinging to rūpa (matter) should be given up. When the talk was over, Piṅgiya had reached enlightenment. A person who has paññā (wisdom) would not ask for anything else, however old and tired.

Life lasts one moment. The Buddha taught maraṇa sati (mindfulness of death), and the ancient texts say there are three kinds of death. Sammuti maraṇa (conventional death) is what everyone calls death, at the end of a life. Samuccheda maraṇa (final death) is the passing away of an arahant (a fully enlightened person), who is never born again. And khaṇika maraṇa (momentary death) is death at every moment. Here is what that means. Life is a series of citta (moments of consciousness), one after another. At this moment there is seeing. Seeing arises, sees, and dies, all in a flash. Then there is hearing, and it dies too. People say a life is long, but really life lasts for one moment of citta (consciousness) at a time. A person who understands momentary death sees how pointless it is to cling to things that are gone before they can be held.

What is harder than swallowing a sword? The Dasaṇṇaka Jātaka (birth story number 401) tells of a king in Magadha (a kingdom in India) who had three wise councillors: Senaka, Āyura and Pukkusa. Senaka was the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be). A young man of the court, the priest’s son, fell in love with the queen and lay down sick with longing. The king took pity on him and said that the queen might go to him for seven days and come back on the eighth. The queen went. But the two of them fell in love with each other and ran away to another country.

The king was so full of grief that he fell ill, and no doctor could cure him. Senaka knew that the sickness was in the king’s mind, not his body, and he thought of a cure. He arranged a show in which a man swallowed a sharp sword thirty-three inches long. The king watched, and asked the wise Āyura whether anything in the world was harder than that. Āyura answered that it is harder to say, “I will give this away.” The king thought: I said I would give the queen, so I have done a hard thing. His grief grew a little lighter.

Then he asked Pukkusa whether anything was harder than saying one will give. Pukkusa answered that words alone are cheap; to make a promise and really let go of the thing is harder than swallowing a sword or promising. The king thought: I promised, and I did give her. His grief grew lighter still.

Then he asked Senaka whether anything was harder than giving. Senaka answered in verse that the hardest thing of all is to give a gift, small or great, and never regret it afterwards. The king thought: I gave the queen, and then I was sorry about it, and that was not right. If she had loved me she would not have run away. What is the use of grieving over her? With that thought all his sorrow slid away like a drop of water off a lotus leaf, and he was well. The Buddha told this story to a monk who wanted to leave the Order because his former wife was tempting him. That monk had been the king, and at the end of the story he became a sotāpanna (stream-enterer). Āyura was Mahā-Moggallāna, Pukkusa was Sāriputta, and Senaka was the Buddha.

Regret. The lesson here is about giving and paññā (wisdom) together. Regret after giving shows that there is still clinging to the thing given. But the thing was only outside. In truth there is nobody who owns it, and nobody who can keep it, because every rūpa (matter) and every nāma (mind) falls away the moment it has arisen. Wisdom that sees this is wisdom that can give without being sorry.

The angry moment. The chapter ends with anger. When someone is angry with another person, paññā (wisdom) can remember that the other person, in truth, is not to be found: there are only citta (consciousness), cetasika (mental factors) and rūpa (matter), arising and falling away. That person will not be in this world for long. Nobody knows whether this meeting is the last one. A mind that remembers this becomes humble and gentle, and mettā (loving-kindness) and karuṇā (compassion) can arise in place of the anger.

Quiz 2 (chapters 3 and 4)

Click an answer. Each question tells you at once whether it is right. For the written ones, show the answer and mark yourself.

Chapter 5. Viriya (energy)

Viriya (energy) is effort. The ancient texts say it is the state of a courageous person, or the action of a courageous person. When viriya (energy) arises, a person is not inert or lax.

Energy for good and energy for bad. Here is something the Abhidhamma explains that most people never think about. The cetasika (mental factor) viriya (energy) arises with almost every citta (consciousness), good or bad. When there is attachment to something, energy is there, working for the attachment. The ancient texts say that even a coward has viriya (energy), energy for cowardice. Even a lazy person has viriya (energy), energy that applies itself to laziness again and again. So energy by itself is not a perfection. The perfection of energy is effort for kusala (good), and nothing else. A question to ask: the viriya (energy) that arises now, is it kusala (good) or akusala (bad)? Most of the time it is likely to be working for lobha (attachment).

Nobody makes the effort. When sati (mindfulness) arises and is aware of the realities that appear at this moment, there is not “me” or self who makes an effort to be aware. It is the function of sammā-vāyāma (right effort). Right effort is viriya (energy) that arises and studies the reality that appears: for instance, that what appears through the eyes is only a kind of rūpa (matter) which does not last. It does not matter whether this happens often or seldom. Viriya (energy) is not weary of the task, even when the development of understanding is extremely slow and difficult.

Even giving needs energy. People may have the kusala citta (good consciousness) with the intention to give things away, but it is difficult for them to act on their good intention because they are lazy. There is an object they could give, and they do not give it. They have confidence and they have the intention, but the viriya (energy) needed to carry out the giving is lacking. The same is true of sīla (good conduct) and all the other perfections. Sometimes a person thinks that doing good is troublesome, or that he is too tired, or that it takes too long. At such moments akusala (bad states) have won. Life is extremely short. It lasts for one moment of citta (consciousness), and that moment may be kusala (good) or akusala (bad). So kusala (good) should be done at once, not later.

Three pictures of energy. The Atthasālinī (The Expositor, the ancient commentary on the first book of the Abhidhamma) gives pictures of what viriya (energy) does.

• The old house. An old house that is falling down is strengthened by new pillars. When viriya (energy) supports a person, kusala (good) states do not decline in him. Someone who is bored, lazy, drowsy or disheartened is like a house that is falling down.
• The small army. A small army goes into battle and is pushed back. They tell the king, and the king sends strong reinforcements. With that support the king’s army wins. In the same way viriya (energy) does not let the states that arise with it retreat; it lifts them up and supports them.
• The ox in the marsh. A strong ox is set to pull a load out of a marshy place. It presses the ground with its knees and does not let the load drop. In the same way viriya (energy) takes up the burden of doing good and does not drop it.

The city of bandits and the city of peace. The Venerable Sāriputta gave this simile in the Mahāniddesa (an ancient commentary in the Tipiṭaka). There were two cities, a city of bandits and a city of peace. A general thought: so long as the city of bandits exists, the city of peace is not safe. So he put on his armour, took his sword, went into the city of bandits, broke down its gate, its walls and its flag, filled in its moat and set fire to it. Then he went into the city of peace, climbed up to the castle, and sat down to a fine meal with his family. The city of bandits is sakkāya-diṭṭhi (personality belief, the wrong view that there is a self). The city of peace is nibbāna (the end of all troubles). The general is the person who develops the mind. Wrong view has to be destroyed first, and that cannot be done without courage.

The hero. The Buddha was called vīra (a hero), and the ancient texts say why. “He had perseverance and was therefore called a hero. He was valiant and was therefore called a hero. He caused others to persevere and was therefore called a hero.” He was brave and always going forward; he was not a coward, not frightened, and he did not flee. Under the Bodhi tree, before he became the Buddha, he said that he would not move from his seat even if his skin, veins and bones dried up. That is viriya (energy) at its highest.

Four right efforts. When viriya (energy) has been developed it becomes an indriya (controlling faculty, a leader in its own field). The Buddha said this faculty should be seen in the four sammā-ppadhāna (right efforts):

1. the effort to avoid akusala (bad states) that have not yet arisen
2. the effort to overcome akusala (bad states) that have arisen
3. the effort to develop kusala (good states) that have not yet arisen
4. the effort to keep the kusala (good states) that have arisen, not to let them decline, and to bring them to completion

Looking at oneself. The teachers of old said that a monk should examine himself three times a day: in the morning, in the daytime and in the evening. If he cannot do it three times, then twice. If he cannot do it twice, then once. But not to examine oneself at all is improper. In the Anumāna Sutta (the Discourse on Measuring in Accordance With), Mahā-Moggallāna taught that a monk should ask himself whether he has evil desires. If he finds that he has, he should strive to get rid of them. If he finds that he has not, he should train himself gladly, day and night, in good states. Nobody else can examine a person’s akusala (bad states) as closely as that person can. Someone who examines himself honestly and tries to give up his faults is “easy to speak to”. Someone who does not, and who sees only other people’s faults, is “difficult to speak to”. All of this depends on viriya (energy).

Energy is in the mind. The ancient texts say that viriya (energy) is always mental, never bodily. A monk who walks up and down to keep himself from falling asleep seems to be using bodily energy. In truth the walking happens because of viriya (energy), which is a cetasika (mental factor).

The man of eighty. The book tells of a man of about eighty who had listened to the teaching in many places and thought carefully about it. When he heard a radio programme about vipassanā (insight), he wrote down the address of the Dhamma Study and Support Foundation and set out to go there in order to make a donation. He left his house at nine in the morning and arrived at two in the afternoon. He had no time for lunch. That is the viriya (energy) of an elderly person who went against the stream of his own comfort in order to do good.

Trying too hard. Some people who develop satipaṭṭhāna (mindfulness of realities) want to see results quickly, so they strive with all their might. They get tired and have to stop. The result cannot be made to come sooner. Satipaṭṭhāna (mindfulness of realities) is awareness of the realities that naturally appear in daily life, and only in that way can they be understood as anattā (non-self). Trying to hurry the result is not satipaṭṭhāna (mindfulness of realities).

King Saṃvara. The Saṃvara Jātaka (birth story number 462) was told about a monk who had stopped striving. As a young man he had heard the Buddha teach, gained confidence, and become a monk. He learnt the rules by heart, studied for five years, and then went to live in the forest. Villagers built him a leaf hut. For three months of the rainy season he worked at his meditation with great effort, but he reached nothing. He decided that he must be a pada parama (one who can understand only the words), the lowest of the four kinds of listeners, and he went back to the Jeta Grove to be near the Buddha. The Buddha said to him that the highest fruit of the teaching cannot be reached by someone who is lazy, and that in the past he had been full of energy and easy to teach: although he had been the youngest of the hundred sons of the King of Vārāṇasī, he had won the white umbrella and become king.

Then the Buddha told the story. King Saṃvara, the youngest of a hundred princes, was chosen as king by his brothers and the people because of his good qualities. His eldest brother, Prince Uposatha, asked him how this had come about, and Saṃvara answered in verse. He never grudged honour to the great sages who seek what is highest, but fell at their feet with a humble mind. Wise men taught him continually, and he liked to listen and had no envy. He did not cut the pay of his soldiers, his guards or his charioteers, but gave them their due. Nobles and wise counsellors helped him, so that Vārāṇasī abounded with rice, fish and drinking water, and merchants from other lands prospered under his protection. When all the people heard this, they saw that he was worthy to be king.

At the end the Buddha said: “Monk, long ago you followed the instruction, but why do you not now strive?” He declared the truths, and the monk became a sotāpanna (stream-enterer). The monk had been King Saṃvara. Sāriputta had been Prince Uposatha. The courtier who advised the king had been the Buddha himself.

Three occasions. The Buddha said that ardent energy is to be put forth on three occasions: to prevent bad states that have not arisen, to bring about good states that have not arisen, and to endure bodily feelings that are painful and sharp. A person who makes an effort on these three occasions is called “strenuous, wise and mindful so that he makes an end of dukkha [suffering]”.

Chapter 6. Khanti (patience)

Khanti (patience) is acceptance. The book says it has a wide meaning: patience is to be developed not only towards what is unpleasant, but also towards what is pleasant, so that lobha (attachment) does not arise when something delightful appears.

Two kinds of endurance. People can endure a great deal in the akusala (bad) way. Someone may stay awake all night in order to get what he wants. That is endurance with lobha (attachment). The question the book asks is whether a person can endure as much as that in order to develop kusala (good). Endurance in the development of good is the perfection of patience.

“It is very hot.” With the perfection of patience a person can stand heat or cold. That does not mean the weather changes. It means that because of hot or cold weather, akusala citta (bad consciousness) does not arise. If the weather is liked, there is lobha (attachment); if it is disliked, there is dosa (aversion); either way there is no patience. If sati-sampajañña (mindfulness with understanding) does not arise, a person may say “It is very hot,” and akusala citta (bad consciousness) has probably already arisen. Patience with one’s living conditions, the weather, the place, the dhamma of each moment, is called adhivāsanā khanti (patience with one’s surroundings). The ancient texts say it is the highest tapa (austerity, burning away).

With people. Patience is needed with people of different characters and habits. People who do everything quickly should be patient with people who are slow. When people travel together there are bound to be difficulties about seats and sleeping places; a person who does not complain and does not criticise is praised by his companions. There is patience in speech too: before speaking, considering whether what is about to be said is of any use, and if it is not, keeping quiet. And the book adds, as always: there is no person, being or self who is patient. There are only sobhana cetasika (beautiful mental factors) that have been developed.

What the commentary says of patience. The commentary on the Cariyāpiṭaka (Basket of Conduct) praises patience in a long passage. Patience is “the unimpeded weapon of the good”, because it dispels anger, the enemy of all good qualities. It is “the adornment of those capable of vanquishing the foe”: a person without anger is beautiful without any other ornament. It is “a stream of water extinguishing the fire of anger”, “a mantra for quelling the poisonous speech of evil people”, “an ocean on account of its depth”, “a panel closing off the door to the plane of misery”, and “a staircase ascending to the worlds of the gods and Brahmas”. Then it gives thoughts with which patience can be strengthened when someone does wrong to us:

• If there were no wrong-doers, how could the perfection of patience ever be accomplished? A wrong-doer is also a benefactor.
• All beings are like my own children. Who becomes angry over the misdeeds of his own children?
• The deed by which wrong was done, and the one who did it, have at this very moment ceased. With whom, then, should there be anger now?
• When all phenomena are anattā (non-self), who can do wrong to whom?
• If the wrong-doer has good qualities, there is no reason to be angry with him. If he has none, he deserves compassion.
• Anger is the only real enemy, and when one has patience one has no enemies.

The buffalo and the monkey. The Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) was once born as a buffalo. A monkey came and dirtied him four times, on his shoulder, his forehead and his eyebrows. A yakkha (a spirit) told him to kill the monkey. The buffalo did not give in to anger. He wanted to keep his sīla (good conduct) pure, and he aspired to become a Buddha. He said that someone of wisdom, who forgives disrespect from the low, the middling and the high, obtains what he aspired to. The book says a wise person can endure words of disdain from anyone, higher or lower or wicked, because patience is to be developed towards everybody.

Dhamma and Adhamma. In another life the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) was a devaputta (son of a heavenly being) named Dhamma, and Devadatta was Adhamma. On Uposatha (observance) days Dhamma came among people and taught the ten good deeds, and Adhamma taught the ten evil ones. One day their chariots met in mid-air, and each claimed the right of way. Adhamma said:

By iron gold is beaten, nor do we
Gold used for beating iron ever see:
If Wrong against Right shall win the fight today,
Iron as beautiful as gold will be.

Dhamma answered that even though what Adhamma said was neither good nor wise, he would swallow all those evil words and give him the way. He gave way, with patience, loving-kindness and compassion. And the earth opened and swallowed Adhamma. There is a lesson here for everyone who joins in blaming a wrongdoer again and again: at that moment the citta (consciousness) is akusala (bad), and the person is really on the side of Adhamma, not of Dhamma.

King Pukkusāti. This is the long story of the chapter. King Pukkusāti ruled in Takkasilā and King Bimbisāra ruled in Rājagaha (two cities of ancient India). They were the same age, and though they had never met, they became friends through the merchants who travelled between them. Pukkusāti sent Bimbisāra eight precious cloths. Bimbisāra gave four to the Buddha and kept four, and then wondered what he could send back that was finer. He was a sotāpanna (stream-enterer), and nothing gave him joy but the Tiratana (the Triple Gem). So he had a sheet of gold made, four cubits long and a span wide, and on it he had engraved the qualities of the Buddha, the ten perfections, the qualities of the Dhamma (the teaching) and the Saṅgha (the community of enlightened disciples), the four satipaṭṭhāna (foundations of mindfulness), the eightfold path and ānāpānasati (mindfulness of breathing). At the end he wrote that if his friend could really grasp this, he should become a monk. He wrapped the sheet in soft cloth and put it in a box, the box in a golden box, that in a silver one, and so on through boxes of pearl, coral, ruby, emerald, crystal and ivory, and sent it off on his best elephant under the white umbrella, walking with it himself to the border and bowing to it with the fivefold prostration as it went, because, he thought, the Teacher was going to the border country.

Pukkusāti received it alone in his palace. He opened box after box, found the golden sheet and began to read. When he read of the qualities of the Buddha, such joy arose that the hairs of his body stood on end and he did not know whether to sit or stand, and he had to wait for the rapture to calm before he could read on. He read of the Dhamma and the Saṅgha in the same way. Then he read the instructions on mindfulness of breathing, practised them, and reached the fourth and fifth jhāna (deep calm of mind). For a month nobody saw him but his page. The citizens gathered and complained that the king no longer looked at the city or gave judgements, and that kings sometimes send gifts to steal a kingdom. The king heard them and asked himself: “Shall we maintain the Kingdom or shall we maintain the teachings?” He answered: the teachings. He cut off his hair with his sword, sent his page to buy two yellow robes and an earthenware bowl, put them on, and walked out of the palace. The dancing girls at the doors did not recognise him.

He thought that the Buddha had gone forth alone and on foot, and so would he. His feet, which had never walked on hot ground, blistered and bled, and he hid the pain by entering jhāna (deep calm of mind) each night under a tree. The merchants he travelled with gave him coarse rice, gravelly curry and over-salted soup, and he ate it like divine food. He walked a hundred and ninety-two leagues. Because the letter said the Buddha had appeared at Rājagaha, he passed the gates of the Jeta Grove at Sāvatthī without asking, and walked forty-five leagues more. At Rājagaha a villager told him that the Buddha was at Sāvatthī, the place he had just passed. It was evening, so he took lodging in the workshop of the potter Bhaggava.

That morning the Buddha had seen him with his mind, and had thought: if I do not go, he will die tomorrow without reaching the third stage of enlightenment. So the Buddha, who had walked forty-five leagues in half a day, hiding his glory like the full moon behind a cloud, came to the potter’s door and asked, as an ordinary monk, whether he might spend one night there. “Spacious, friend, is the potter’s dwelling,” said Pukkusāti; “stay, friend, according to your pleasure.” The Buddha spread grass on the dirty floor among the broken pots and sat down as if in his own fragrant chamber. The two sat in the workshop, Pukkusāti in jhāna (deep calm of mind), straight and still as a golden statue, the Buddha in phala samāpatti (the attainment of fruition). The Buddha did not teach at once, because his guest was tired from the road.

Later the Buddha asked him whose teaching he followed. “The recluse Gotama,” said Pukkusāti, and told him that he had never seen the Buddha and would not know him if he saw him. Then the Buddha taught him the Dhātuvibhaṅga Sutta (the Discourse on the Analysis of the Elements): that the elements of earth, water, fire, wind, space and consciousness are not mine, not I, not myself. As he listened, Pukkusāti understood who was speaking. He rose, put his robe over one shoulder, bowed his head to the Buddha’s feet and asked forgiveness for having called the Teacher “friend”. The Buddha forgave him, saying that to see a fault as a fault and confess it is growth in the discipline of the noble ones. Pukkusāti asked for full ordination. The Buddha said that Tathāgatas do not ordain anyone who is not complete as to bowl and robe. So Pukkusāti went out to look for a bowl and robe, and a cow swerved and killed him. The monks asked the Buddha what had become of him. The Buddha said that he had been clever and had not troubled him with questions, that he had destroyed the five lower fetters, and would reach nibbāna (the end of all troubles) without returning to this world. He had become an anāgāmī (non-returner) and was reborn in the Avihā plane, the first of the Suddhāvāsa (Pure Abodes). The book says that Pukkusāti, who gave up a kingdom and walked all that way, must have had the utmost patience, and that the Buddha, who walked the same road and slept on the floor of a potter’s shed, shows the patience to be developed with regard to seats and beds and everything in one’s surroundings.

The teaching of the Buddhas. The Ovāda-pāṭimokkha (the exhortation that sums up the teaching) begins with patience:

Khantī paramaṃ tapo titikkhā: patience, endurance, is the highest austerity.
Nibbānaṃ paramaṃ vadanti Buddhā: nibbāna is supreme, the Buddhas say.
Na hi pabbajito parūpaghātī: he is not a recluse who harms another.

Sabbapāpassa akaraṇaṃ: not doing any evil,
kusalassa upasampadā: doing what is good,
sacittapariyodapanaṃ: purifying one’s own mind,
etaṃ Buddhāna sāsanaṃ: this is the teaching of the Buddhas.

The commentary explains that a person who harms another, even a fly or a mosquito, cannot be called a recluse, because he lacks adhivāsanā khanti (patience with his surroundings).

The disadvantages of impatience. The Buddha listed five: the impatient person is not dear to many people; he is full of malice; much harm comes to him; he dies confused; and he is reborn in an unhappy place. The one who is angry harms only himself, and that an angry mind at the moment of death is a danger far worse than any danger in this world. Patience is needed above all to listen to the Dhamma and to consider it, because the perfections take a very long time to develop: the ancient texts call this cira-kāla-bhāvanā (development over a long time).

The old monk and his sons. The Kassapamandiya Jātaka (birth story number 312) was told about an old monk. A young nobleman of Sāvatthī had become a monk and soon an arahant (fully enlightened). When his mother died he persuaded his father and his younger brother to become monks too. One day the three were walking back to the Jeta Grove. The elder brother went ahead to prepare the lodging and told the novice, the younger brother, to bring their father along slowly. The old man walked very slowly, and the boy, to hurry him, butted him in the back with his head. The old man was so angry that he turned round, walked back to where they had started and began again, and this went on until it was dark. The next day the Buddha blamed the old monk, not the boy, and said that he had behaved the same way in a past life. In that life the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) was an ascetic in the Himālaya, and the old monk was his father. The son bathed his father’s feet, massaged his back, set a pan of charcoal by him, and then said: “Father, young boys are just like earthen vessels, they are broken in a moment. Once they are broken it is not possible to mend them. Young boys may be abusive or censure others, but old men should bear with them patiently.” And he spoke these lines:

Even wise men may quarrel,
But quickly they can become closely united again.
But fools part asunder like untempered clay,
They cannot calm down their hate.

He added that a person who admits in words that he was wrong keeps his friendships whole, and that a person who can make peace even with someone who has wronged him and does not apologise takes on a weighty and worthy task. The old recluse trained himself from then on. But in his next life, the book says, he acted as he used to act. Nobody can control dhammas (realities). Defilements that have not been eradicated lie dormant and can arise at any time, and the only cure is to develop paññā (wisdom) with patience, little by little, until one day the four noble truths are seen.

Quiz 3 (chapters 5 and 6)

Click an answer. Each question tells you at once whether it is right. For the written ones, show the answer and mark yourself.

Chapter 7. Sacca (truthfulness)

Sacca (truthfulness) is sincerity and truthfulness with regard to realities. The book says it means truthfulness through body, speech and mind. To reach the four noble truths, a person has to be truthful about himself, which means truthful about the realities that appear, just as they are. Kusala (good) is kusala (good) and akusala (bad) is akusala (bad); they cannot be otherwise, whether they arise in oneself or in someone else.

Bean soup. In the Tipiṭaka (the Three Baskets) deceitful speech is compared to bean soup. When bean soup is cooked, some beans are cooked and some are not, and whoever eats it now and then bites on a hard one. It is the same with speech. When a person talks a great deal, some deceptive words may be mixed in. Or it may be that everything he says is true, from the first word to the last. Only paññā (wisdom) knows which it is, and it knows it from inside, not from outside.

Truthful to the Triple Gem. Truthfulness in doing good begins with truthfulness towards the Tiratana (the Triple Gem: the Buddha, the Dhamma, his teaching, and the Saṅgha, his community of enlightened disciples). When a person sees a Buddha statue, is there respect for the Buddha’s qualities, or is there a request for favours: protection, possessions, praise, a good position? That question shows how truthful the citta (consciousness) is. After the Buddha passed away, the Dhamma (the teaching) became the teacher in his place. Being truthful to the Dhamma means studying it sincerely, in order to understand it, not in order to gain anything.

“Thus have I heard.” After the Buddha’s passing, five hundred arahant (fully enlightened) monks, led by the Venerable Mahā-Kassapa, met at the Sattapaṇṇi Cave near Rājagaha (a city in India) to recite the whole teaching together. This meeting is called the First Council. The Venerable Ānanda, who had been the Buddha’s attendant and had heard all his discourses, sat down in the teacher’s seat to recite them. Some devas (heavenly beings) who saw him there thought that Ānanda must now have become a Buddha himself, since he had inherited the Buddha’s teaching. Ānanda knew their thoughts with his mind, and he would not accept praise for a quality he did not have. So he began with the words evaṃ me sutaṃ (thus have I heard): “On one occasion the Blessed One was living at Sāvatthī, in Jeta’s Wood, Anāthapiṇḍika’s Park.” By those words he showed that he was only a disciple, repeating what he had heard. The five hundred arahants (fully enlightened ones) and thousands of devas (heavenly beings) cried “sādhu” (good), the earth trembled and flowers fell from the sky. Many of the devas (heavenly beings) felt saṃvega (urgency), thinking that what they had heard in the Buddha’s presence was now being spoken again without him.

Those four words still open every discourse in the Tipiṭaka (the Three Baskets). They console everyone who is sad not to have seen the Buddha: the teaching is not the teaching of a dead teacher, because the Dhamma (the teaching) itself is now the teacher. And she adds that the best time to hear the Dhamma is now. It is not easy to find the chance, and people with important tasks hear other things instead.

Not by water. Near Gayā (a place in India), on cold winter nights, a crowd of matted-haired ascetics were plunging into the river and climbing out again, and pouring water and burning offerings, believing that this made them pure. The Buddha saw them and said:

Not by water is one pure, tho’ many folk bathe here.
In whom is truth and dhamma, he is pure and he’s a brāhmin.

The commentary explains why. A thing can only be the enemy of what it destroys, as light is the enemy of darkness and knowledge the enemy of ignorance. Water does not destroy the roots of evil, so water cannot wash evil away. If it could, the fish and the tortoises, the cows and the buffaloes would all be pure. What makes a person pure is truth: truthful speech, keeping away from lies, and above all paramattha sacca (ultimate truth), the truth about realities. The ancient texts call truth “the Deathless word” and “the sweetest of flavours”.

How the Bodhisatta practised. The commentary gives a short rule for the Bodhisatta’s (the Buddha-to-be’s) daily practice: “He should work energetically for the welfare of beings, be capable of enduring everything whether desirable or undesirable, and should speak without deception. He should suffuse all beings with universal loving-kindness and compassion.” One point stands out. People usually have mettā (loving-kindness) for good people and not for bad ones. When someone looks down on a person who does wrong, the citta (consciousness) of the one who looks down is akusala (bad), the same kind of citta (consciousness) as the wrongdoer’s. Kindness that leaves anyone out is not yet universal.

The commentary also says: “Without truthfulness, virtue, etc., is impossible, and there can be no practice in accordance with one’s vows. All evil states converge upon the transgression of truth. One who is not devoted to truth is unreliable and his word cannot be accepted in the future.” The Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) made a paṭiññā (vow) to become a Buddha. A vow can only be kept by someone who is steadfast in truth.

Hārita, who would not lie. The Hārita Jātaka (birth story number 431) tells of a life in which King Brahmadatta reigned in Vārāṇasī (a city in India); that king was later the Venerable Ānanda. The Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) was born into a very rich brahmin (priest) family, and because of his golden skin they called him Hārita Kumāra (Young Goldskin). When he was grown up he thought: my parents gathered this treasure, and they have died; I too will die. So he gave away his wealth and became a recluse in the Himālaya, where he reached the five abhiññā (higher powers) and the eight samāpatti (attainments).

One day he came to Vārāṇasī for salt and sour food. The king saw him, had faith in him, built him a dwelling in the royal park and fed him from the palace. He lived there twelve years. Then the king went away to settle trouble on the border and asked the queen to look after the recluse. One day the queen, waiting for him, lay down by the open window in a fine robe. When Hārita came flying through the air to the window, she started up and her robe fell. The moment he saw her, the kilesa (defilements) that had lain quiet in him for thousands of aeons rose up like a poisonous snake out of a box. His skill in jhāna (deep calm of mind) vanished, he could not find sati (mindfulness), and he and the queen did wrong together.

The whole city talked about it. The ministers wrote to the king. The king would not believe it. When he came home he asked the queen, and she said it was true. He still would not believe it. He went to the park, bowed to the recluse, and asked whether the rumour was true, adding that he took it to be false. Hārita thought: if I say I did not do it, the king will believe me. But in this world there is no surer foundation than truthful speech, and someone who forsakes the truth cannot attain Buddhahood, even if he sits at the foot of the Bodhi tree. The ancient texts say that in some lives a Bodhisatta (a Buddha-to-be) may break other rules, but he never tells a lie. So Hārita answered:

The rumours, great King, you have heard are true.
Infatuated by the objects of delusion, I have done wrong.

The king asked what use his paññā (wisdom) was if it could not drive out lust. Hārita answered that four defilements in the world are coarse and very strong: lust, hate, ignorance and intoxication; when they overpower a being, paññā (wisdom) cannot develop, as if the being had fallen into a great river. The king praised his honesty and urged him to throw off the lust that was destroying him. Hearing this, the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) came back to himself and said:

Sense pleasures are blinding,
they cause much suffering.
They injure gravely.
I shall look for the root of sensuousness,
I shall cut down lust with its bonds.

He regained jhāna (deep calm of mind), saw that the royal park was no place for him, went back to the forest, and at the end of his life was reborn in the brahma (highest heavenly) world. The Buddha told this story to a monk who wanted to leave the Order after seeing a beautifully dressed woman. He said that even he, as the recluse Hārita, with all his powers, had fallen from jhāna (deep calm of mind) because of that kind of defilement. “Why should a strong wind that strikes Mount Sineru not carry off a withered leaf?” Nobody is as steady as Mount Sineru (the great mountain at the centre of the world); people are withered leaves, and the wind is lobha (attachment), dosa (anger) and moha (ignorance). When the Buddha had explained the truths, that monk became an arahant (fully enlightened).

Kaṇhadīpāyana and the snake. In another life the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) was the seer Dīpāyana. For more than fifty years he was unhappy as a recluse, and he told no one. He stayed only because he feared the blame of people who would say that he had left his wealth and now wanted it back. He kept his hiri (shame) and ottappa (fear of blame), and he stayed, sometimes with tears running down his face. He was called Kaṇhadīpāyana (Black Dīpāyana) because he had sat all night beside his friend Maṇḍavya, who had been impaled on a stake, and the drops of blood dried black on his body. He nursed his friend back to health.

One day a brahmin friend came to visit with his wife and little son, Yaññadatta. The boy threw a ball, it rolled near a poisonous snake, and when the boy felt for it the snake bit him. He fell to the ground. His parents were in agony, and the seer with them. Then Dīpāyana made a saccakiriyā (an assertion of truth). He said that for only seven days had he lived the holy life gladly, and that for more than fifty years he had lived it unwillingly, and by that truth might the poison be destroyed and Yaññadatta live. The boy shook himself, stood up and was well. The Cariyāpiṭaka (Basket of Conduct) ends: “There was no one equal to me in truth; this was my perfection of Truth.” The commentary asks why the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be), who had loved the homeless life for thousands of lives, was unhappy in it in this one. The answer: because of the instability that belongs to all who are not yet enlightened.

Small matters. Truthfulness is also keeping one’s word about little things, such as appointments. Even small children notice whether a person acts in accordance with his words. If a person gets into the habit of small lies, lying becomes easy and he stops seeing that it is wrong. If he keeps to the truth, truthfulness becomes natural to him, and then he can see the danger of akusala (bad states) at the very moment a lie is about to be told. It is hard to know the truth even about worldly things, such as the news. To know realities as they are is harder still. That is why the perfection of truthfulness has to be developed together with paññā (wisdom), and with the next perfection, adhiṭṭhāna (determination).

Chapter 8. Adhiṭṭhāna (determination)

Adhiṭṭhāna (determination) is the firm resolve to reach the four noble truths, even though the way is long and will take an endlessly long time. The ancient texts say that determining upon the requisites of enlightenment means having the firm determination to develop the ten perfections.

Why it is needed. Many different types of citta (consciousness) arise and fall away: kusala citta (good consciousness) arises, and shortly afterwards akusala citta (bad consciousness) arises. Sometimes there is determination for good, but when a bad moment comes and pushes towards something bad, the good is easily given up. That is why firm determination is needed. A person who is infatuated with pleasant sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touches will want them again and again and never be satisfied, and then will not be inclined to develop the perfections at all.

Wise Temiya. This is the life in which the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) developed determination to the highest degree, the paramattha pāramī (ultimate perfection) of adhiṭṭhāna (determination). It is told in the Mūgapakkha Jātaka (birth story number 538). The Buddha said that in that life he was the son of the king of Kāsi, and that he was named Mūgapakkha, which means deaf and crippled, but people called him Temiya. Temiya means wet: on the day of his birth a great shower of rain fell.

King Kāsirājā ruled in Vārāṇasī (a city in India). He had sixteen thousand wives, but none of them had a child, and the people begged him to pray for a son. His chief queen, Candādevī, lived a virtuous life. On the full-moon day she kept the Uposatha (observance day) rules and made an act of truth: “If I have never transgressed sīla [good conduct], may by this assertion of truth a son be borne to me.” Then the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) was conceived. On the day he was born, five hundred boys were born in the houses of the ministers, and the king made them the prince’s companions. Sixty-four nurses looked after the prince.

When the prince was one month old the nurses brought him to the king, and the king sat with the baby on his hip. Just then four robbers were brought in to be sentenced, and the king gave each of them a terrible punishment. When the baby heard his father pass those sentences, he was shaken. He was afraid of doing such grievous deeds himself and being reborn in hell.

The next day he lay under the white umbrella of royalty, and when he woke he looked at it and wondered where he had come from. He remembered his past lives. Before this life he had been in a heaven. Before that he had suffered in the Ussada hell. And before that he had been king in this very city. He thought: “I do not need the kingdom. How can I escape from this house of robbers?” A goddess who lived in the umbrella, and who had been his mother in a former life, told him the way: pretend to be dumb, crippled and deaf. From that day he did.

His parents and the nurses looked at his jaw, his ears, his hands and his feet, and saw none of the signs of a child who is dumb, deaf or crippled. So they began to test him. For a whole day they gave him no milk, but hungry as he was, he made no sound. For a year they gave him milk only at intervals. For five years they tried him with cakes, sweets, fruit and toys. Then they tried fear: fire, a wild elephant, snakes, a man waving a sword. He showed no fear, because he thought the danger of hell was a hundred times, a thousand times, a hundred thousand times more fearful. They brought mimes and musicians with conches and drums to make a deafening noise. They lit lamps and fires in the dark. They smeared him with molasses and laid him where flies swarmed; they would not let him bathe; people mocked him; they put pans of burning coals under his bed. For sixteen years they tested him in great ways and small, and he did not change his mind. At sixteen they bathed him in perfumed water, dressed him like a son of the gods, filled his rooms with flowers and sent the most graceful women to tempt him. He held his breath so that they could not touch him, and they ran away saying he must be a yakkha (a spirit), not a man.

His parents pleaded with him many times, saying that they knew he was not dumb and begging him not to destroy them. He pretended not to hear. At last the king called the fortune-tellers, who said that the boy was not disabled at all but was a person of ill luck, a danger to the king’s life, his power and his queen. The king, afraid, ordered that the boy be taken out by the back gate in an unlucky chariot and buried in the charnel ground. When Temiya heard this he rejoiced: the wish he had held for so long was about to come true.

Queen Candādevī went to the king and asked that the kingdom be given to her son. The king refused. She asked for seven years, then six, five, four, three, two, one; then seven months, six, down to one; then half a month; then seven days. To seven days the king agreed. So the prince was crowned, seated on an elephant under the white umbrella and led around the city. For five nights his mother begged him: “O Temiya, I did not sleep for sixteen years, I have wept because of you, my child, so that my eyes have become swollen and my heart is pierced with sorrow. I know that you are not cripple, deaf and dumb, do not make me utterly destitute.” He did not answer.

On the sixth day the king ordered the charioteer Sunanda to take the boy at dawn, bury him in the charnel ground and fill in the hole. The queen told her son, “Tomorrow you will die.” He rejoiced that his sixteen years of effort were nearly over, but his mother’s heart was as if cut in two. In the morning the charioteer came, said to the queen, “O queen, be not angry with me. I just follow the king’s command,” and carried the prince down. The queen collapsed with a cry. Temiya looked at her and thought: if I do not speak, she will die of sorrow. And then: if I speak, my sixteen years will be wasted; if I keep silent, it will be for the good of myself and of my parents. He kept silent.

The chariot went three leagues to the edge of a forest. The charioteer took off the prince’s ornaments, took a spade and began to dig. Temiya thought: “This is my time for effort.” He rubbed his hands and feet, stepped down from the chariot, walked up and down, and found he had strength enough to walk a hundred leagues. He lifted the chariot by its back as if it were a child’s toy cart. Then he taught the charioteer: “You are dependent on me, the son of the king. If you bury me in the forest, you will commit evil. It is as if a person who sits or lies in the shade of a tree will not break the branches.” The king was the tree, the prince was the branch, and the charioteer was the traveller resting in its shade. Sunanda begged him to come home. Temiya told him about his past lives and his fear of hell, and said he would become a recluse (a person who leaves home to train the mind). Sunanda wanted to become a recluse too. Temiya said: “O, charioteer, take the chariot back and return after you have paid your debts, because a recluse should not have debts, as is the exhortation of all hermits.”

Sunanda told the king everything. The king set out with his whole army, the nurses and the citizens to see his son. Temiya had sat down on a mat of leaves, reached the eight samāpatti (attainments) and the five abhiññā (higher powers), and was living happily in a hut. The king begged him to come and rule. He refused, and taught the king the Dhamma (the Buddha’s teaching) in many ways, until the king felt saṃvega (urgency), saw the harm in sense pleasures, and wanted to become a recluse too, together with the queen and many of the court. At the end of their lives they were all reborn in the brahma (highest heavenly) world. The Buddha said that the goddess in the umbrella was Uppalavaṇṇā, the charioteer was the Elder Sāriputta, the parents were the royal family, and wise Temiya was himself.

Wanting is not resolving. The book tells of a person who studied the Dhamma (the teaching), thought about the long cycle of birth and death and the number of his defilements, and longed for rebirth to end. But he took no interest in developing satipaṭṭhāna (mindfulness of realities). Wanting the end of rebirth, she says, is not the same as being steadfast in one’s determination to develop paññā (wisdom).

Four firm foundations. The commentary names four adhiṭṭhāna dhamma (foundation dhammas), basic to all the perfections:

1. Sacca (truthfulness). Steadfastness in truth, even in small matters. Some people think it does not matter if they miss an appointment. Even small children notice whether someone acts in accordance with his words. A person steadfast in truth stays truthful even when his life is in danger.
2. Cāga (relinquishment). Not only giving things away, but giving up kilesa (defilements). This includes guarding the six doors: the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. A person who guards them is not worried and preoccupied, and does not think about things that make him unhappy, angry, jealous or proud. The Venerable Sāriputta, when a monk falsely accused him, felt no ill will. He said he was like a duster, which wipes up everything, clean and foul, without disgust.
3. Upasama (calm). Freedom from being disturbed by sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touches.
4. Paññā (wisdom). Gained by listening to the teaching, considering it, and asking questions. Someone who thinks that listening once or a few times will free him from the cycle of birth and death does not yet have firm determination.

The great resolve. The commentary says that a person who aspires to become a Sammāsambuddha (a fully enlightened Buddha) needs eight things: to be a human being, to be a man, to have the right supporting conditions, to meet a living Buddha, to have gone forth from home, to have gained the samāpatti (attainments) and abhiññā (higher powers), to have extreme dedication, and to have strong desire. Extreme dedication is shown by the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) in his life as Sumedha: when people were clearing a road for the Buddha Dīpaṅkara and it was not ready, Sumedha threw himself down in the mud so that the Buddha could walk on him. Strong desire is described with pictures. If such a person heard that only one who could cross a whole world full of water by the strength of his arms could become a Buddha, he would not think it hard; he would be filled with desire for the task and would not shrink away. The same if the world were full of red-hot coals, or thorny creepers and bamboo thickets, or if he had to be tortured in hell for four incalculable periods and a hundred thousand aeons. Because of the Buddha’s great compassion, nobody now has to do such things. The teaching is here to be listened to.

Quiz 4 (chapters 7 and 8)

Click an answer. Each question tells you at once whether it is right. For the written ones, show the answer and mark yourself.

Chapter 9. Mettā (loving-kindness)

Mettā (loving-kindness) is wishing for the welfare of living beings. In the Abhidhamma it is the cetasika (mental factor) adosa (non-hate), the reality that is freedom from anger. When mettā (loving-kindness) arises, there is at that moment no hate and no aversion at all.

Why it comes after determination. The commentary says that loving-kindness follows determination in the list of ten because it is loving-kindness that carries out the determination to work for the welfare of others, and that work goes on steadily only when determination is unshakeable. A person firmly set on giving up the kilesa (defilements) finds it natural to practise mettā (loving-kindness).

The one that is forgotten. Here is a searching question. A person may feel that he has already given enough, kept the rules well enough, is content with little, is not easily discouraged, is patient, speaks the truth and keeps to his resolves. But has he developed mettā (loving-kindness) as much as the others? It is easy to forget to help, again and again, and to help strangers as readily as friends. If the inclination to help others is weak, the reason should be looked for. Is it conceit? Is it the thought that helping is a waste of time? Is it worrying about what the other person will think of him? The book says that what another person thinks of us concerns only him, not us. And it says that no matter how much good has been done, it is never enough, until arahatta (full enlightenment) is reached.

No limits. True mettā (loving-kindness) has no limits. If it is kept for some people and not others, it may not be mettā (loving-kindness) at all, but lobha (attachment), which only looks like kindness from the outside. The test is this: if there is true mettā (loving-kindness), a kind deed for a stranger feels exactly the same as a kind deed for someone close. When kindness is limited, the citta (consciousness) at that moment should be examined to see whether it is kusala (good) or akusala (bad).

A mother and her child. The Tipiṭaka (the Three Baskets) compares deeds done with mettā (loving-kindness) to a mother’s care for her child. She gives up everything for the child, and looks after it even when it is dirty and unpleasant to touch. But there is a warning. A mother’s attachment to her own child is not mettā (loving-kindness). The picture is of her selfless care. A person who can care for other people the way a good mother cares for her baby practises mettā (loving-kindness).

The woman in Indonesia. A monk who had lived in Indonesia told of a woman there whose husband was killed by a young man’s reckless driving. She did not take him to court, because she did not want to cause unhappiness to anyone. More than that, she said she would pay for the young man’s education. The book says this was very hard for her, and she did it. Such great acts can be done by someone who has accumulated loving-kindness and compassion over a long time.

Anger lasts one moment. The Cariyāpiṭaka (Basket of Conduct) says that the citta (consciousness) of the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) became calm without difficulty, because he could quickly extend mettā (loving-kindness) even to his enemies. When anger arises towards someone, it helps to know that anger arises only for a moment and then falls away, and that mettā (loving-kindness) can arise in its place. A person who stays angry for a long time can see from that how much is still to be done.

The four divine abidings. Mettā (loving-kindness) is one of four brahmavihāra (divine abidings), four sublime ways of living:

1. Mettā (loving-kindness), which is adosa (non-hate): wishing beings well.
2. Karuṇā (compassion): wishing to take away a being’s suffering.
3. Muditā (sympathetic joy): rejoicing in another’s happiness and success.
4. Upekkhā (equanimity), which is tatramajjhattatā (even-mindedness): impartiality towards all beings, with neither attachment nor aversion.

The Atthasālinī (The Expositor) says that just as the Brahmā (highest heavenly) beings live with faultless thoughts, so people who live with these four states live like the Brahmās. It calls them the “immeasurables”, because their field is beings without limit. And it gives a picture of four children. Mettā (loving-kindness) is like the care for a small child, whom everyone wishes to grow up well. Karuṇā (compassion) is like the care for a sick child, whom the mother wants to see cured. Muditā (sympathetic joy) is like the gladness of parents whose child is growing up well. Upekkhā (equanimity) is like the calm of parents whose child can now manage his own affairs. Everybody is like a baby to be helped.

Look-alikes. Each of the four has a near enemy, a state that looks like it but is akusala (bad). It is hard to tell muditā (sympathetic joy) from lobha (attachment): when a person is thrilled by someone else’s gain and praise, there may be attachment, not joy. The near enemy of upekkhā (equanimity) is plain indifference, “based on the home life”, which means based on sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touches. When something is seen and there is no reaction, that is not necessarily kusala (good). It may be moha (ignorance), not knowing the truth. Only paññā (wisdom) can tell them apart.

Kindness at the right time. When people see someone doing a harmful deed, they are upset and hope he will get what he deserves. When later he suffers the result, they feel sorry for him. That is the wrong way round. The moment for mettā (loving-kindness) and karuṇā (compassion) is the moment he does the deed, because that deed is the cause of his future suffering. “If one sympathizes with him when he receives an undesirable result, one sympathizes too late.” A real friend helps a person to give up bad deeds and thoughts.

No persons. In the ultimate sense there are no beings and no persons; there are only realities arising and falling away, each with its own character. Thinking about people and events is done with kusala citta (good consciousness) or akusala citta (bad consciousness). A person who lives by the Dhamma (the teaching) comes to know at once when there is no loving-kindness but akusala (bad states), and can then have loving-kindness at once, even for a person who behaves like an enemy.

Chapter 10. Upekkhā (even-mindedness)

Upekkhā (equanimity, even-mindedness) is being undisturbed by the troublesome conduct of people and by trying events, by the ups and downs of life, whether they are pleasant or unpleasant, such as gain and loss, praise and blame. The book compares it to a pair of scales that is well balanced.

The snake and the man who kills it. When people see someone kill a snake, they believe they feel compassion for the snake. In reality, the book says, they are disturbed by aversion towards the person who kills it. The citta (consciousness) at that moment should be examined. There may not be loving-kindness. But there can be upekkhā (even-mindedness) when it is remembered that everyone receives the results of his own deeds. And when kusala citta (good consciousness) arises there can be compassion for the killer, who will receive the result of what he does. A person with upekkhā (even-mindedness) is not disturbed, and does not say unsuitable things to someone doing wrong. A disturbed citta (consciousness) is akusala (bad), even when it feels righteous.

No expectations. A person should not have expectations about when the four noble truths will be realised. As long as there are many kilesa (defilements) arising all the time, together with a wish for enlightenment, the goal is very far away. The thing to do is to develop every kind of good, patiently, so that the conditions are gradually built up.

Each perfection is the enemy of attachment. The commentary explains how each of the ten perfections is opposed to lobha (attachment), dosa (anger) and moha (ignorance). Giving is opposed to them because there is alobha (non-attachment) to the gift, adosa (non-hate) towards the one who receives it, and amoha (non-ignorance) about the result. The book gives an example. A person sees a beggar and notices that he is strong, or sees that the beggar drags a disabled child along, and feels irritated, and so does not give. At that moment there is aversion towards the receiver, and no giving. Wisdom is opposed to them because they create blindness and wisdom restores sight. Patience is opposed to lobha (attachment) “by accepting the desirable, the undesirable, and emptiness”. Loving-kindness is opposed to them because it is free from the five nīvaraṇa (hindrances): kāmacchanda (sense desire), vyāpāda (ill will), thīna-middha (sloth and sleepiness), uddhacca-kukkucca (restlessness and worry) and vicikicchā (doubt). And upekkhā (even-mindedness) is opposed to them by dispelling attraction towards pleasant things and repulsion towards unpleasant ones, and by going on evenly whatever happens.

A thousand goods on the doorstep. An ancient commentary compares the Buddha’s teaching to a thousand goods laid down on the doorstep of every house, for the benefit of the family inside. Some people open the door and take them in. Others never open the door. Another passage compares people’s confusion about cause and result to a cotton thread so tangled into a knot that nobody can undo it alone. Only two kinds of person can undo it: a Sammāsambuddha (a fully enlightened Buddha who teaches the world) and a Paccekabuddha (a silent Buddha, who finds the truth alone but does not teach it).

Lomahaṃsa, who slept among the bones. The Cariyāpiṭaka (Basket of Conduct) calls this the Great Astounding Conduct. It is the life in which the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be) developed upekkhā (even-mindedness) to the highest degree, the paramattha pāramī (ultimate perfection).

He was born into a wealthy family and learned every branch of knowledge from the teacher Disāpāmukha. When his parents died, his relatives begged him in tears to take charge of the family’s wealth. But he had thought about impermanence with wise attention and about the foulness of the body, and he felt saṃvega (urgency). He thought of becoming a monk. Then he reflected that a monk receives honour and gifts because of the excellence of monkhood, and he did not want honour or gain. So he decided to live with just enough, as a layman, and to be moderate in gain and loss and the other ups and downs of the world.

He resolved: “I shall accumulate the practice of supreme patience, enduring derisive speech from others. I shall develop the perfection of equanimity to the highest degree.” He left home in the clothes he was wearing. When he had no strength, he behaved as if he had strength. Though he was not dumb, he behaved as if he were dumb, and people mocked him because he looked like a fool. He wandered through villages, towns and the capital, staying one night in each place, and where he was mocked the most, he stayed longer. When his clothes wore out he would not take new ones, but went about in a rag that only covered him.

In one village he met a gang of children, some of them from the royal household, who were cruel and violent, who mocked everyone and threw dust over the backs of the old and poor. He thought: here is a chance to accumulate the perfection of equanimity, and he stayed. When the children began to torment him, he pretended to be afraid, so that they would follow him. He led them to the cemetery, where nobody would stop them, lay down, and took a skeleton for a pillow. The children spat on him, poked grass into his ears, left filth on him and jeered, day after day. Wise people who saw it told the children to stop, saying that this was a great ascetic, and they honoured him with flowers, scented oils and food.

The Buddha said of that life: “I slept in a cemetery, taking as a pillow the skeleton of a corpse. I had evenmindedness with regard to what is clean and what is dirty.” And he described his mind at that time: the children made him suffer, the wise people gave him pleasant things; he was impartial and even-minded to all of them; he had no special affection for those who helped him, and no angry words or thoughts of revenge for those who did not. “I am evenminded towards happiness and misery, towards honour and dishonour; I am impartial towards everything, and this is my perfection of equanimity.”

The commentary adds that in that same life he developed all ten perfections: dāna (giving) in giving away all he had, and his own body to whatever others wanted to do with it; sīla (good conduct) in keeping from all wrong; nekkhamma (letting go) in leaving home; paññā (wisdom) in knowing what helped and what hindered; viriya (energy) in enduring suffering; khanti (patience) in forbearance; sacca (truthfulness) in speech and in keeping from wrong; adhiṭṭhāna (determination) in the unshakeable practice of what was right; and mettā (loving-kindness) for all beings without picking and choosing. He was not a monk, but the commentary says he was a monk at heart, and his life was like the life of an arahant (a fully enlightened person).

All ten. The book ends with the list once more: dāna (giving), sīla (good conduct), nekkhamma (letting go), paññā (wisdom), viriya (energy), khanti (patience), sacca (truthfulness), adhiṭṭhāna (determination), mettā (loving-kindness) and upekkhā (even-mindedness). None of them should be neglected. All of them are needed, and developing them is the only way to have wise attention to whatever is met, and so to develop paññā (wisdom).

Quiz 5 (chapters 9 and 10)

Click an answer. Each question tells you at once whether it is right. For the written ones, show the answer and mark yourself.

The defilements of the perfections

The book ends with a short chapter on what makes each perfection imperfect. The commentary calls this the kilesa (defilement) of the perfections. The rule is simple: “When attachment arises, when we have enjoyment and clinging, the ten perfections are defiled.” Then it goes through them one by one. What makes each one imperfect is a vikappa (a discriminating thought), a thought that picks and chooses where there should be no picking and choosing.

The book gives two examples for sīla (good conduct). Some people keep the rules of respect towards particular persons, such as their parents, but not towards other people. Some keep the rules only on the Uposatha (observance) day, the full-moon and new-moon days and the quarter days, and think they are perfect in conduct, although on the other days they do not keep them. That is the defilement of the perfection of good conduct. And for upekkhā (even-mindedness) she notes that a person may be even-minded about the unpleasant but not about the pleasant.

The last words of the book are these. The more the Dhamma (the teaching) is understood in detail, the more a person will be inclined to practise it. Formerly it may have seemed that the perfections were beyond reach. But if the benefit of each one is seen, and they are developed little by little, they will in the end become accomplished. Listening to the Dhamma and studying it is of the greatest benefit, because it makes it possible to apply the Dhamma in daily life, and to develop satipaṭṭhāna (mindfulness of realities) together with all ten perfections.

Word list

Every Pali word in this book, with the English used for it. The words are in the order of the English alphabet, ignoring the marks on the letters.

Where the stories come from

This book follows The Perfections Leading to Enlightenment by Sujin Boriharnwanaket, translated from the Thai by Nina van Gorkom (Zolag, London, 2007). The whole book can be read free of charge on abhidhamma.org, as a PDF or as an interactive book with questions. The ten chapters here keep to her order, her stories and, as far as a book for young readers allows, her words.

Her book draws on these ancient texts:

• The Cariyāpiṭaka (Basket of Conduct), a book of the Khuddaka Nikāya (the Minor Collection) in the Tipiṭaka (the Three Baskets), and its commentary, the Paramatthadīpanī, written by Dhammapāla. The definitions of the ten perfections (what each one is, what it does, how it shows itself and what it needs) come from this commentary, in the translation by Bhikkhu Bodhi in The All-Embracing Net of Views (Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy).
• The Jātaka (birth stories) and their commentary. The stories retold here are, by number: Akitti (480), Sona Nanda (532), Susīma (411), Yudañjaya (460), Dasaṇṇaka (401), Saṃvara (462) and Mūgapakkha, the story of Temiya (538), with others named in their chapters.
• The Ghaṭīkāra Sutta (Middle Length Sayings 81) and its commentary, for Jotipāla.
• The Mahāniddesa and Cūḷaniddesa (ancient commentaries in the Khuddaka Nikāya), for Piṅgiya, Jatukaṇṇi, the two cities and the hero.
• The Atthasālinī (The Expositor), the commentary on the Dhammasaṅgaṇī, the first book of the Abhidhamma, for the pictures of energy and of shame and fear of blame.
• The Vibhaṅga (Book of Analysis) and its commentary, the Sammohavinodanī (Dispeller of Delusion).
• The Anumāna Sutta (Middle Length Sayings 15), the Aṅguttara Nikāya (Gradual Sayings) and the Saṃyutta Nikāya (Kindred Sayings), for the suttas quoted.

Where this book quotes a sentence in quotation marks, the words are those of Sujin’s book or of the translation it uses. Everything else is retold in plainer English for readers of about ten years old. Where the ancient texts and modern scholars differ, this book follows the ancient texts.