4 : Setting the Standards

The instructions with which the Buddha inspired noble attainments in his first six noble disciples—the group of five monks and Yasa the householder—established precedents in terms of what he taught and how he taught it. These are precedents that he followed throughout his career in bringing others to the noble attainments as well, showing that the content and style of his teachings were mature from the very start.

By examining these early instructions, we can clearly grasp the context in which all his other teachings and teaching methods should be viewed and understood. This is helpful in two ways. One, we can use these precedents as a baseline for understanding later incidents where, on the surface, a talk that inspired a noble attainment seems to depart from the established pattern. Two, we can also see where later generations, up to the present day, have misinterpreted his teachings by taking them out of context. When we can reestablish the right context, many obscured issues become clear.

These early instructions fall into four episodes: the Buddha’s preliminary remarks to the group of five monks, his two discourses to that group, and the graduated discourse he gave twice to Yasa.

Preliminary Remarks

When, after his awakening, the Buddha decided to teach, he first thought of teaching his former teachers, on the grounds that they would quickly understand the Dhamma. But then he realized that they had died and been reborn in the formless realms, where they were impossible to reach because they had withdrawn from the five physical senses.

The next group he thought of teaching were the five monks who had attended to him during his six years of austerities. Here, though, he faced a challenge: They had left him in disgust when he had abandoned his austerities. So he would have to reestablish their faith in him.

He did this in two ways. On the one hand, when he first met with them, he didn’t refer to himself in the usual way as “I.” He now referred to himself as “the Tathāgata”— meaning one who had reached the highest spiritual goal—and he chided them for calling him “friend.” On the other hand, when they objected that he had abandoned the true path, he insisted that that was not the case. He had actually found the true path to the deathless. When they remained skeptical, he reminded them of his truthfulness: He had never made a claim like this before. So even though he was a changed person, that aspect of his character remained the same. When they reflected on his past truthfulness, they decided to lend ear to what he said. In that way, he inspired within them the beginning level of conviction needed to open their hearts to his message.

But he also tried to inspire another quality, joy, with his first statement of what he was going to teach:

“The deathless has been attained. I will instruct you. I will teach you the Dhamma. Practicing as instructed, you will in no long time reach & remain in the supreme goal of the holy life for which clansmen rightly go forth from home into homelessness, knowing & realizing it for yourselves in the here & now.”

The Buddha’s reference to the deathless here echoes his first statement to Sahampati Brahmā when he accepted the Brahmā’s invitation to teach the Dhamma to human and divine beings:

“Open are the doors to the deathless.

Let those with ears show their conviction.” — MN 26

It’s hard to overstate how positive these first messages were. The deathless had long been the goal of spiritual quests in India. The ancient Vedas and the Upaniṣads had framed their quest in terms of a search for a deathless happiness sustained by an unending source of physical or mental food. Centuries later, the ideal of transcending death was still a strong inspiration in the Buddha’s time. He himself had framed his search in terms of a deathless that transcended all things negative:

“When I was still just an unawakened Bodhisatta… the thought occurred to me, ‘What if I, being subject myself to birth, seeing the drawbacks of birth, were to seek the unborn, unexcelled rest from the yoke: unbinding? What if I, being subject myself to aging… illness… death… sorrow… defilement, seeing the drawbacks of aging… illness… death… sorrow… defilement, were to seek the aging-less, illness-less, deathless, sorrow-less, undefiled, unexcelled rest from the yoke: unbinding?’” — MN 26

And he wasn’t the only one. Sāriputta and Moggallāna, before meeting with the Buddha, had expressed their spiritual yearning in the same terms, associating it, like the Buddha-to-be, with a deathless happiness:

And at that time Sāriputta & Moggallāna were living the holy life under Sañjaya. They had made this pact: “Whoever attains the deathless first will inform the other.” — Mv I.23.1

After Sāriputta had reached the first stage of awakening while hearing a synopsis of the Buddha’s teaching, he sought out Moggallāna:

Moggallāna the wanderer saw Sāriputta the wanderer coming from afar and, on seeing him, said to him, “Clear, my friend, are your faculties—pure your complexion, and bright. Have you attained the deathless, my friend?”

“Yes, my friend, I have attained the deathless.” — Mv I.23.6

So the Buddha’s first teaching to the group of five monks was joyous in two ways: The deathless had been attained, and he could teach them the path of practice by which they, too, could attain it in the here and now.

When we view this double claim as forming the context for the rest of the Buddha’s teachings, we can clear up three major misunderstandings about those teachings that have developed over the centuries.

1) The first misunderstanding has to do with the question of what kinds of happiness can be realistically pursued. All too often, the teachings on the three perceptions of inconstancy, stress, and not-self—which the commentaries turned into metaphysical principles by naming them the three characteristics (lakkhaṇa)—are taken to be the Buddha’s basic description of the nature of reality. This would mean that they form the context in which we should search for happiness. In other words, we would have to content ourselves with trying to find a happiness that’s marked by inconstancy and stress, outside of our control. Thus the Buddha’s message would be that he was opening the door to reduced expectations. We’d have to lower our sights and accept the limitations that the world places on the possibility of true happiness.

Yet by placing the possibility of the deathless as his most basic message, the Buddha established the context in the opposite order: We don’t have to content ourselves with a happiness constrained by the vagaries and shortcomings of the world. We can realistically set our sights high, viewing all the rest of his teachings as aids in attaining that higher aim. In other words, our desire for a happiness unlimited by death takes priority. All the rest of the Buddha’s teachings—including the three perceptions—instead of placing restrictions on that desire, actually function as tools in the service of realizing it.

2) The second misunderstanding has to do with the general tenor of the Buddha’s teachings. His emphasis on the issue of suffering in the first discourse has all too often been seen as a sign of pessimism. This interpretation has been compounded by the mistaken belief that, because the first noble truth states that birth, aging, and death are suffering, that negative valuation must apply to all of life in between. This, to many people, is an unfair valuation, in that it shows no appreciation for life’s positive joys. But as we’ll see when we consider the first discourse, this view is misinformed. The Buddha didn’t say that life is suffering, and the four noble truths aren’t simply suffering, suffering, and more and more suffering. They point out that suffering has a cause, its cause can be identified and abandoned, and there’s a path of practice for abandoning it. It’s hard to think of a teaching more useful, positive, and joyful than that.

The fact that the Buddha mentioned the possibility of the deathless as an introduction to the four noble truths changes the emphasis of the four truths right from the start. Instead of focusing on the suffering mentioned in the first noble truth, the possibility of the deathless focuses attention on the potential for freedom found in the third. The possibility of a path of practice to the deathless focuses attention on the fourth. These are the two truths that give hope. And coming from the possibility of a deathless happiness, the emphasis on the suffering in birth, aging, and death in the first truth is entirely fair: Why content yourself with things subject to these limitations when something so much better is attainable?

3) The third misunderstanding has to do with the question of what role there can be on the path for action motivated by desire. Three of the Buddha’s teachings have been melded in such a way that they seem to discourage the idea that a path of action would be a positive thing, or even possible. Two teachings—(a) the teaching that the craving that leads to becoming is a cause of suffering; and (b) the Buddha’s general recommendation of contentment as a virtue—have sometimes been interpreted to mean that the Buddha would not have approved of the idea of a path of action based on a desire to change things. The third teaching, on the influence of past karma, is sometimes interpreted in such a deterministic way that a path of action to change things wouldn’t even be possible. With no room for changing things in the present, you couldn’t choose to follow any path of practice toward any goal at all. You’d be doomed to be overpowered by influences from the past. So the conclusion is sometimes drawn that people should live without goals and simply accept the present moment as it comes, devoid of any desires for things to be different from what they are.

All of these interpretations are misguided.

(a) The Buddha never said that all desire is bad. Skillful desires, he said, are part of the path factor of right effort, and a basis for success in concentration practice (SN 45:8; SN 51:13).

(b) He taught contentment with material things but, as we’ve already noted, he said that being discontent even with skillful mental qualities was the secret to his awakening (AN 2:5).

(c) The Buddha was severely critical of deterministic views, saying that they left a person unprotected because they rendered meaningless any idea that some actions should be done and other actions shouldn’t (AN 3:62). He described causality in such a way that there were patterns of cause and effect that could be learned, but that those patterns could also be manipulated through your choices to make a difference in the present moment so as to lead to worthwhile goals.

It’s important to keep in mind the fact that the Buddha taught the goal first, and only then did he explain the path leading there. Without the goal, the path is meaningless. Looking at the Buddha’s life—both in his quest for awakening and then in his efforts to establish the true Dhamma and Vinaya for posterity—it’s hard to think of a more goal-oriented person. Looking at what he taught, it’s hard to think of a more goal-oriented path.

When we give priority to the Buddha’s teaching that, if his listeners acted in line with his instructions, they could attain the deathless, we can avoid falling for the three above misunderstandings. The group of five monks didn’t even think of them. They were prepared to aim at the highest goal and to open their minds to the Buddha’s words, to learn what they should and shouldn’t do to arrive at that goal.

The First Discourse

They didn’t have to wait long. The very first sentence of the talk delivered a two-fold “should” about the two extremes that should be avoided: devotion to sensual pleasures and devotion to self-affliction. This was followed by a description of what could be accomplished by following the middle path that avoided these two extremes, and then by a description of the eight factors that comprised the middle path. Next came a description of the first factor of the path, right view: a quick description of the four noble truths and then a “wheel” covering full knowledge of those truths.

The fact that the discourse is named “Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion” points to the fact that the wheel is the central part of the discourse. So it’s important to understand what ancient Indians meant by the term, “wheel” (cakka).

In addition to its ordinary meaning as a physical wheel—say, on a chariot—cakka was also used symbolically in two ways.

The first way was as a technical term for what we would call a “table,” in which two variables are placed against each other—one horizontally and one vertically—and all the possible combinations of those variables are filled in the spaces of the resulting rectangle. The image of a wheel seems to come from visualizing the spokes of a wheel, in which the spokes stand for the various permutations. To run through the permutations of a wheel of this sort, you could imagine yourself at the hub, while you named the permutations as they rotated around you.

Wheels of this technical sort were most commonly used in legal treatises to cover all possibilities related to a particular rule or law. So a wheel would carry the implication that it gave complete knowledge of the topic at hand.

In this case, the Dhamma wheel covers all four noble truths set against three levels of knowledge for each truth: knowing the truth, knowing the duty associated with the truth, and knowing that the duty has been completed. The duties—another list of things that should be done—are these: Suffering is to be comprehended, its origination abandoned, its cessation realized, and the path to its cessation developed.

In the course of setting this wheel in motion—the action that gave the discourse its name—the Buddha noted that his awakening came when he had knowledge and vision, as it had come to be, of all twelve permutations of the wheel. By using a wheel to describe his awakening, the Buddha was delivering the message that his awakening was complete.

That was the explicit message. The implicit message was that the group of five monks should follow his example in completing the four duties appropriate to the four noble truths as well. Carrying through with the promise that he would instruct them in how to attain the deathless in the here and now, the Buddha is here giving a more comprehensive picture of what the group of five should do and directly know while they are listening.

The fact that this message was delivered as part of the wheel emphasized the importance of these four duties. And because the entire discourse was framed as a description of the truth of the path, the duty of developing the path would probably have held the most interest for them. This would have been appropriate. As Ven. Sāriputta later noted in a series of discourses recorded in SN 38, the duties with regard to the first three noble truths are fulfilled by completing the duty with regard to the fourth.

It was while the Buddha delivered this message that the leader of the group of five monks, Koṇḍañña, gained the Dhamma eye: Whatever is subject to origination is all subject to cessation. He thus became the Buddha’s first noble disciple.

There are a number of points worth noting about this discourse:

• Its first sentence, about the extremes to be avoided, was aimed directly at a misunderstanding under which the group of five monks were operating. It provided the corrective they needed in order to be willing to receive the rest of the Buddha’s message. As far as they saw, there were only two paths of practice: the ignoble path of sensual indulgence and the noble path of self-torture. In their eyes, the fact that the Buddha had abandoned the path of severe self-torture was no proof that the path was a dead end. It was simply a sign that he had failed to follow it all the way.

So it probably would have come as a shock to hear the path of self-torture relegated to the same status as the path of sensual indulgence as an ignoble and unprofitable extreme to be avoided. It would have also surprised them to learn that there was a third alternative, a middle path between the two extremes. Simply hearing this reframing of the issue may have not been enough to convince them that it was true, but it at least opened their minds to new possibilities.

• When the Buddha set out the four noble truths as the expression of right view, he was departing from a general tendency among philosophers of his time, who liked to base their teachings on a foundation of first principles. Instead, he focused on a problem: the problem of suffering. This was unique in two ways:

a) The idea that the deathless could be found by focusing on this particular problem was original with him. Other philosophers of his time relegated the problem of suffering to the side, and in many cases argued from first principles about reality either that suffering was unreal or that nothing could be done about it. Other ascetics—the group of five included—actually viewed suffering and pain in a positive light, as the means for purifying the mind. But the Buddha was now proclaiming that suffering was definitely a problem—a real and important problem—that human action was capable of solving it, and that the solution could take you far: all the way to the deathless.

That’s because we create suffering through our clingings and cravings, and in doing so we create more birth, aging, and death. If we want to find the deathless, we can’t just contemplate it. We have to stop producing the mental activities that lead to more death. So our focus has to be on the skills in the path of practice that stops those mental activities.

This is a pattern that we find repeated again and again in the Buddha’s teachings: He’s less concerned with the what than with the how-to—the skills needed to get the desired effect. He conveyed this point in his first talk by not even mentioning the word “deathless,” and instead focusing entirely on the four truths that explained the problem of suffering and how it could be solved.

He further emphasized the importance of those truths by calling them “noble” (ariya). This term connected the truths to the goal of the noble search for what doesn’t die. Some people have asked what’s noble about suffering and craving, but that’s missing the point. These mental actions aren’t noble. It’s the truths about these facts that are noble, in that they take a noble approach to suffering and craving, pointing out that the things we crave and cling to are bound up in suffering and stress, and recommending a course of action that leads to the deathless by abandoning them. The mind state that sees its cravings and clingings in this light steps back from them, adopts a mature, noble attitude toward them, and so is on the noble path.

b) Many of the philosophers of the time presented their theories as scientific—some were actually based on the astronomy or physics of the time—and it’s been popular to this day to present the Buddha’s teachings as scientific, too. But it’s important to qualify that assertion by noting that his teachings are not a pure science, like physics or chemistry. Instead, they’re like an applied science, like medicine or engineering. Pure sciences aspire to a coherent body of knowledge whose first principles are taken from fundamental natural laws that have been experimentally verified, along with some underlying assumptions about the nature of physical laws. In some cases, those assumptions could actually assert that all experience is totally predetermined.

Applied sciences, however, focus on solving problems. Their reason for being is that they can arrive at solutions, drawing on first principles only when those are relevant to the problem at hand. And they never draw on the idea that experience is totally predetermined. If it were, there would be no way your actions could make a difference in solving a problem.

This is why the Buddha actively sought out and argued against philosophers who taught strict determinism, as it would have made the solution of the problem of suffering meaningless and actually impossible.

The parallel between the Dhamma and applied science is reflected in the Buddha’s own image of himself as a doctor (Iti 100, AN 3:22, MN 63, MN 75), in the resemblance of the four noble truths to a doctor’s approach to diagnosing and curing a disease, and in the Buddha’s image of the noble eightfold path as a chariot, one of the most complex pieces of engineering of his time (SN 45:4).

• In setting out the four noble truths, the Buddha showed that the path to the deathless lay in focusing on things that were immediately present to awareness, with many of them appearing directly in the mind itself. Suffering, its cause, and the path to its cessation required focusing on things of which his listeners were already aware in their present-moment experience. If they brought the proper knowledge to that level of experience, they could directly experience the end of suffering as well.

However, the Buddha didn’t simply point the group of five to their present-moment experience, telling them just to be here and now. He provided them with a new vocabulary and a new frame of reference for detecting, analyzing, and shaping what was going on in their here-and-now experience.

The first purpose of the vocabulary and the framework was to alert them to the fact that present-moment experience wasn’t simply a given. It was shaped by present-moment actions informed by your views.

Within that context, the vocabulary named events in the mind that were relevant to putting an end to suffering. By naming them, you could step back from them and see them as parts of ongoing processes.

The framework provided by the duties of the four noble truths provided standards for passing judgment on those events and processes so that you would know what to do with them so as to arrive at the deathless.

Here, though, we run into one of the major paradoxes of the Buddha’s first discourse. Although he states in his preliminary remarks that he’s going to explain the path to the deathless—i.e., the noble eightfold path—when he gets to the body of the discourse, he simply names the eight factors of the path and explains only one of them, right view. And even with that factor, he leaves many of the terms unexplained: He identifies the essence of suffering as the five clinging-aggregates, but he doesn’t explain what a clinging-aggregate is, or which five they are. In the second noble truth, he doesn’t explain the three types of craving that cause suffering, even though the noble eightfold path is aimed at developing dispassion for precisely those three things.

It’s unlikely that the group of five monks would have been familiar with these terms. They may have picked up on some of the implications of the Buddha’s words in Pāli that don’t carry over in English translation. For instance, they probably knew the meaning of craving—taṇhā, or thirst; and of clinging—upādāna, or sustenance. And they might have caught the underlying imagery of those two terms: Thirst leads to taking sustenance, meaning that suffering can be understood as similar to the act of feeding. Also, Koṇḍañña may have seen that the need to go beyond becoming (bhava) meant that passion for the path had to be dropped once it was developed (bhāvita). And regardless of language, he may have picked up on the implication of the image of the path: that you have to follow the path but then go beyond it when you arrive at the goal. Still, even though all of them would have known such terms as view, resolve, all the way to concentration, there would have been no way that they would have known what made the seven last factors of the noble eightfold path right.

So two possibilities present themselves: 1) Perhaps Koṇḍañña was able to draw the correct conclusions from the Buddha’s brief explanation of right view and fill in all he needed to know of the remaining factors of the path and of how to apply the path to the cause of suffering. After all, as we’ll see in the course of this book, other people gained noble attainments after hearing even less of the Dhamma. Or (2) what we have here is only the outline of the actual discourse that the Buddha gave to the group of five.

Here we have to think of the discourse as we have it not as the words heard by the group of five, but as a text passed down after the event. A common feature of teaching texts in the oral culture of ancient India was that a person would memorize the main outline of a teaching and then, when later reciting it to others, would fill in the details as was appropriate to the needs of the audience. This may have been the way the message of the first discourse was passed on by members of the early Saṅgha as they spread the Dhamma to others.

But regardless of whether the text we have was a complete transcription of the first discourse or simply an outline, the outline gives us an idea of how the four noble truths were taught for the remainder of the Buddha’s career. MN 28 and MN 141 show how Ven. Sāriputta explained the four noble truths in detail to the monks, and in both cases the explanation follows, with only minor variations, the outline given here. The Canon tells of 30 times that the Buddha taught the four noble truths to lay people who gained the Dhamma eye while listening to his explanation, and although we don’t have the text of these talks, it’s very likely that they followed the outline of the Buddha’s explanation of the truths and their duties as given in the first discourse.

These facts relate to the second symbolic meaning of the Pāli word cakka, or wheel. It stands for power. In ancient India, a ruler’s power was said to extend as far as the wheels of his chariot could go unimpeded by others. In the same way, once the Buddha had set the Dhamma wheel in motion, it was powerful in two ways: First, it established the standards for judging all other teachings of the Dhamma, determining how they should be used. This may have been what Ven. Sāriputta had in mind when he said that the four noble truths were like the footprint of an elephant: Just as the elephant’s footprint could contain all the other footprints of legged animals, the four noble truths contained all the rest of the Dhamma (MN 28).

Second, the Dhamma wheel could conquer all other teachings in all parts of the world where people with ears showed their conviction that the main problem in life—suffering—could be brought to an end through a path of action.

The Second Discourse

When the Buddha gave his first discourse, all five of his listeners delighted in it, but only one of them gained the Dhamma eye. In the succeeding days, the Buddha gave the remaining members of the group further teachings that were not recorded, and which may have involved explaining the five clinging-aggregates, the three forms of craving, and the right factors of the noble eightfold path. In any event, after all five had gained the Dhamma eye, the Buddha gave them his second discourse.

To understand this discourse and the impact it had on the group of five, we have to keep in mind their background. In gaining the Dhamma eye, they had directly seen all four of the noble truths. In particular, with regard to the third noble truth, they had already had their first glimpse of the deathless, and from that point on, they would view pleasure and suffering from that perspective: No pleasure offered by fabricated experiences could compare with the happiness they had seen. In fact, all fabricated pleasures would actually appear stressful in comparison with the deathless. With regard to the first noble truth, they had seen how suffering boiled down to the five clinging-aggregates. They no longer assumed any sense of “I am this,” around the aggregates, but they still had a lingering sense of “I am,” which was a subtle object of clinging (SN 22:89). That subtle clinging was still a limitation on their minds.

The Buddha aimed his second discourse at that lingering sense of self, and once he had directed their attention to it, the group of five would have understood it as pertaining to the first noble truth: something to be comprehended so that any lingering desire and passion for it should be abandoned. This is why, as we’ll see, they so readily agreed to what he had to say.

The discourse is devoted to the premise that the five aggregates should be seen as not-self—a perception we’ve already encountered above. The Buddha gives two arguments for this premise.

• The first is that the aggregates don’t respond to your wishes that they be like this or not be like that.

It might be possible to take immediate issue with this argument: There are, for example, plenty of ways that you can create perceptions and thought-fabrications as you might like. And as the Buddha himself pointed out elsewhere, you create the path out of aggregates (AN 9:36 [§17]). If you couldn’t choose to manipulate them in that way, the path to the end of suffering wouldn’t be possible. It could also be argued further that this partial ability to control the aggregates might be taken as a sign that, to at least some extent, they are related to your self.

But if, like the group of five, you had already gained an experience of the deathless, your standards for what you might want out of the aggregates—that they could effortlessly provide the happiness of the deathless—would be heightened. You would see clearly that the limited amount of control you might have over them would not justify clinging to them, especially when that clinging would get in the way of a full experience of the deathless.

So the first argument derives its force from the verified confidence the group of five already had in the deathless.

• The Buddha’s second argument starts with a questionnaire, in which he asks the group of five to examine the five aggregates, one by one, as they experience them. For each aggregate, he asks: Is this aggregate constant or inconstant. “Inconstant,” they reply. If it’s inconstant, is it easeful or stressful? “Stressful.” “And is it fitting to regard what is inconstant, stressful, subject to change as: ‘This is mine. This is my self. This is what I am’?” “No, lord.”

Notice that—contrary to some interpretations of this argument—the Buddha here is not asking the group of five to come to the conclusion that there is no self. Instead, he’s simply asking them to pass a value judgment: If something is inconstant and stressful, is it worth clinging to as “me” or “mine”? In other words, is it worth the desire and passion required to cling to it?

Here he’s asking the group of five to focus on one of the steps of his five-step program for dealing with any defilement: discerning its drawbacks. From there, they could judge that the drawbacks outweigh the allure, and so gain escape by developing dispassion for the allure.

And here again, if you believed that the only prospect for happiness in this life lay in clinging to the aggregates, despite the stress and inconstancy that would adulterate that happiness, you might easily judge that it would be worth your while to keep on clinging. But this is another case where we have to remember what the group of five have seen: the happiness of the deathless that comes from letting go. So for them—and for anyone who, lacking a direct experience of the third noble truth, nevertheless believes in it—the obvious judgment is No: The aggregates are not worth clinging to as “me” or “mine.”

The Buddha then continues his second argument by drawing two conclusions. The first is that all instances of the aggregates—near or far; past, future, or present; gross or sublime—should be seen with right discernment, as they have come to be, as “This is not mine. This is not my self. This is not what I am.” In other words, no matter where or when you might experience an aggregate within the range of the “All”—the six senses and the mental processes dependent on them—you should perceive it as “not-self” so as to avoid suffering.

This part of the argument serves the purpose of cutting off any tendency to hold out hope that even though present aggregates aren’t worth identifying with, there might be better aggregates worth identifying with: either those remembered from the past, or those anticipated in the future. By extending the net of his argument this far, the Buddha closes off any attempt by the mind to remain attached even to subtle aggregates in the higher heavens, for example, or to any aggregates surrounding the experience of the deathless.

This leads to the second conclusion: The noble disciple, seeing this, grows disenchanted with all aggregates of any sort. From disenchantment comes dispassion; from dispassion, release, followed by knowledge of release and the realization that there is no more birth. The holy life has been fulfilled.

On hearing this discourse, the group of five were totally released from the effluents.

There are several points worth noting here.

1) The first is a question of context. As we mentioned above, the Buddha’s arguments using the three perceptions derive their force from the fact that the group of five had already directly experienced the four noble truths. This shows that the four truths provide the context for the perceptions of inconstancy, stress, and not-self, and not the other way around, as has often been assumed. On their own, these three perceptions carry no inherent duties. They can—and have been—applied in the service of purposes diametrically opposed to those of the Dhamma. One popular example is the idea that we should embrace the fleeting pleasures of life in all their bitter-sweetness, knowing that we’ll soon be parted from them. But when the three perceptions are viewed and used in the context of the duties of the four noble truths, their role in service of the Dhamma is clear: to develop dispassion for the objects of clinging and craving, so as to lead to the realization of the third noble truth.

2) A related point is that the Buddha labels the terms, “inconstant,” “stressful,” and “not-self” as perceptions (saññā). He never calls them characteristics (lakkhaṇa), a label they acquired in later commentaries on the Canon, when—as we mentioned above—they were converted from tools for developing dispassion into metaphysical principles for describing reality. Although these perceptions are true descriptions of fabricated phenomena (AN 3:137), they are at best partially true (SN 22:60; SN 22:95) and not always beneficial to apply in the course of the practice (MN 109 [§55]; MN 136). As tools, they are meant to be picked up when useful, and put down when not. And because they are perceptions, they’re not the goal of the path. They have to be put down just as all other dhammas must be put down when the goal is reached.

3) In focusing attention on the five aggregates, the Buddha was not telling the group of five that the five aggregates constituted what they were. He was simply pointing out, as he said many times elsewhere, that people create their sense of self out of these aggregates, assume that that’s what they are, and then suffer as a result of clinging to that assumption (SN 22:2). To stop that suffering, the perception of not-self serves to deconstruct that assumption and any passion and desire related to it. The Buddha did state that attachment to the aggregates led to there being a “being,” but in recommending that you end that attachment, he never said he was getting you to go out of existence (SN 23:2). Instead, he said that you would no longer be limited by that attachment (SN 22:36), and it would be for your long-term welfare and happiness to let it go (MN 22).

4) It’s worth noting that when the Buddha gave this questionnaire, he never mentioned the broader application of the perception of not-self, to all phenomena, fabricated or unfabricated, in line with the statement, “All phenomena are not-self” (AN 3:17; Dhp 279). Instead, he limited the questionnaire to fabricated phenomena: most frequently, the five aggregates, as in the case of the group of five, or the six sense spheres plus the aggregates, as in the case of Ven. Rāhula (MN 147). Why he limited it in this way, he never explained, but perhaps the reason was connected to a point we noted under his first conclusion: by reminding his listeners to apply the perception to all instances of the aggregates, no matter how subtle, they might catch sight of any desire or passion around the experience of the deathless and let go of that, too.

5) Finally, there’s the question of what was going on in the minds of the group of five as they listened to this discourse. As we’ve already noted, the Buddha said that the ideal listener is in concentration while listening to a talk. He also said that if you’re in jhāna and break into speech, you leave the jhāna. So what state of mind were the group of five in when they were answering the Buddha’s questions?

There’s no definitive answer to this question, aside from noting that it’s possible to leave jhāna long enough to answer a question, and then, when you fall silent, to immediately return to your concentration and pick up where you left off. Because the Buddha was asking the group of five to apply appropriate attention to their minds while listening to the talk, we can assume that they were in the sort of jhāna where you’re in a jhāna but analyzing it at the same time—in other words, not fully absorbed, but absorbed enough to count as being gathered into oneness. And because the questions concerned events directly experienced while in jhāna, any disturbance required to give an answer would have been minimal. The group of five could then immediately return their focus to their concentration.

The questionnaire that the Buddha gave to the group of five proved to be so useful that he and his disciples gave it to many others. The Canon lists 49 times in all that they did so. Not all of those to whom the questionnaire was addressed gained a noble attainment, but it appears that people or heavenly beings benefitted in one way or another in every case.

The Graduated Discourse

The Buddha’s next noble disciple, after the group of five monks, was a young layman named Yasa. The son of a moneylender, he had lived a delicate life in three palaces, one for each of the seasons of the Indian year: hot, rainy, and cool. One night, as his lady minstrels were entertaining him with song and instrumental music, he fell asleep. They fell asleep soon after, sprawled across the floor, while an oil lamp continued to burn. Yasa happened to be the first to awaken. He saw the minstrels drooling and babbling in their sleep, and the mass of their bodies appeared to him like a charnel ground. Struck by the drawbacks of sensuality, he exclaimed to himself, “How distressing! How oppressive!”

Putting on his golden slippers, he left the house feeling a strong sense of disillusionment and dismay. Non-human beings—probably devas—opened the doors and gates leading to the Isipatana game reserve, where the Buddha was staying.

There the Buddha had already awakened and was doing walking meditation. Seeing Yasa coming in the distance, he sat down. As Yasa drew near, the Buddha called him by name, saying, “Yasa, this isn’t distressing. This isn’t oppressive. Come, Yasa. Sit down. I'll teach you the Dhamma.”

Yasa, thrilled at the Buddha’s words, took off his slippers, approached the Buddha, bowed down to him, and sat to one side. There the Buddha gave him a graduated or step-by-step discourse (anupubbī-kathā). We don’t have a transcript or even an outline of what he said. All we have is a list of the topics:

• giving,

• virtue,

• heaven;

• the drawbacks of, degradation in, and defilement in sensuality; and

• the rewards of renunciation.

When the Buddha saw that Yasa, following the thread of this discourse, was of ready, malleable, and unhindered mind, he taught him the four noble truths. Then, in the words of the Canon,

Just as a clean piece of cloth, free from grime, would properly take dye, in the same way, the dustless, stainless Dhamma eye arose for Yasa as he was sitting right there: “Whatever is subject to origination is all subject to cessation.” — Mv 1:7.6

This graduated discourse became another standard teaching that the Buddha gave repeatedly to lay people throughout his teaching career. The Canon lists 30 times that he gave it in all, and in each case there were those who gained the Dhamma eye. So it’s worth considering why he would use this particular list of topics.

It’s also worth considering why we have only the list. The apparent reason is that the Buddha tailored his discussion of these topics to the mind state of his listeners. This would have been necessary because, as the Canon shows, they were quite varied: They included, among others, men and women householders, a king, two wealthy adherents of the Jains, an outcaste, a leper, and even groups of hired assassins. In some cases, the Buddha’s explanations of these topics would have had to be quite long. In others, short. The fact that we have just the list helps to underscore the underlying dynamic of how the Buddha led even some apparently unlikely listeners to an experience of the Dhamma eye.

From the list, we can see that it was designed to foster in the listener the three qualities that we noted, in Chapter 3, were ideal for getting the most out of a Dhamma talk: conviction, concentration, and discernment.

The list begins with topics aimed at inspiring conviction:

By affirming the value of giving and virtue, the Buddha showed his listeners that he was a principled teacher, unlike many of the teachers of his day who taught that giving and virtue were fruitless conventions and a waste of time (DN 2). If his listeners had any sense of integrity—even hired killers can have a sense of right and wrong—they would recognize that the Buddha was affirming values worthy of respect. This would help to keep them from regarding the Buddha with contempt.

If they themselves were already practicing giving and virtue, the affirmation that these activities were rewarded in heaven would encourage them not to regard themselves with contempt. In fact, it would inspire joy: They were engaging or had engaged in activities worthy of praise and of reward. On hearing this, they would be unlikely to regard the Buddha’s talk with contempt.

The particular way in which the Buddha taught giving and virtue would also be a source of joy, especially to his listeners who were poor. The rewards of generosity, for instance, didn’t depend on the material value of the gift. Instead, they depended on the motivation behind the act of giving, the appropriateness of the gift, the sense that you were doing something fruitful, and the joy you felt after the gift was given (AN 5:148; AN 7:49; AN 6:37). For the Buddha, the fact that the gift was voluntary was especially important. Brahmans were known for their insistence that the only fruitful gifts were those given to brahmans, and it was written into the script of their funeral rites that they would insist that the mourners had to keep giving more. In contrast, when the Buddha was asked where a gift should be given, he didn’t say to give to him or his followers. Instead, he said to give wherever the heart feels inspired with confidence (SN 3:24).

Similarly with virtue: Unlike the ritualistic precepts of some of the other religions of his time—which could count as broken even if they were broken unintentionally or unknowingly, thus leading to a great deal of anxiety—the Buddha’s precepts could be broken only intentionally. You could be confident that—once you knew a precept—if you didn’t intend to break it, it wasn’t broken.

As for the discussion of heaven: The fact that the Buddha could describe the sensual pleasures of heaven in positive terms showed that he wasn’t a killjoy. This would inspire his lay listeners to trust him when he later pointed out the drawbacks even of heavenly sensual pleasures. In fact, his listeners might feel joy when the Buddha treated them as mature, heedful agents in warning them of the drawbacks of those pleasures and of the safety in renunciation.

They could also derive joy from his explanation of what renunciation entailed: that abandoning the pleasures of sensuality didn’t mean abandoning pleasures of all kinds. Instead, it meant replacing the pleasures of sensuality with the more refined, reliable, and harmless pleasures of the mind in right concentration. The path to safety was one that provided joy along the way.

In explaining these five topics, the Buddha most likely had to explain his teachings on kamma and rebirth, which—when compared with the teachings given by other schools of his time on these topics—would also be a source of joy.

In terms of kamma, he taught that actions were real, you were free to choose them, they gave results, and those results were determined by the state of your mind both while doing the action and while receiving the results (AN 3:62; AN 3:101). All of this was empowering.

As were his teachings on rebirth: Your rebirth was determined, not by your current caste, nor by the wealth you could lavish on sacrifices. Instead, it was determined by the purity of the state of mind with which you acted—something anyone can manage.

Those are just a few of the ways in which the topics of the graduated discourse could inspire conviction and its attendant joy in the hearts of the Buddha’s listeners.

As for the concentration and discernment inspired by the discourse, these two qualities have to be discussed together because they’re developed together. In brief, the discourse establishes the listener in the principles of the first discernment factor, mundane right view—the right view leading to a good rebirth—in speaking of the rewards of giving and virtue in this life and in heaven. Then, when moving to the topic of the drawbacks of sensuality, the discourse tends toward the transcendent right view that aims to go beyond rebirth.

At the same time, the discourse establishes the listener in the principles of the second discernment factor, mundane right resolve. The discussion of virtue inspires the resolve on non-ill will and harmlessness, and the discussion of the drawbacks of sensuality and the rewards of renunciation inspires the resolve on renunciation. If the listener follows along with these instructions—nurturing these resolves in the mind instead of just hearing about them—the mind becomes malleable and unhindered, two qualities associated with right concentration (MN 119). In this way, mundane right resolves grow into transcendent right resolve—the directed thought and evaluation in the first jhāna (MN 117). The mind is now ready to receive and benefit from the four noble truths.

Actually, the mind of the listener has already begun to embark on some of the factors of the noble eightfold path even before learning of the noble truths. The dynamic of the list of topics replicates, on a mundane level, the dynamic of the noble path itself, starting with right view, and then developing right resolve and the other factors of the path for the sake of right concentration. This dynamic would lay the groundwork for the noble version of the path—the stream—to come together in the listener’s heart.

This is why the graduated discourse was such an ideal tool for preparing the Buddha’s listeners to get the most out of the four noble truths. It provided them not only with the conceptual framework for accepting the truths, but also with a psychological preparation for seeing the truths in action in their own hearts and minds.