5 : Talks Inspiring Stream-Entry

Most of the cases in which people gained the Dhamma eye while listening to a Dhamma talk fall into the pattern of the graduated discourse. Because the accounts of these talks all follow the standard form the Buddha used when teaching Yasa—always word-for-word—we won’t include them in our discussion here. Instead, we’ll focus on the talks that don’t follow the standard pattern.

Before looking at those talks, though, we first have to examine in more detail one of the attributes of stream-enterers that we mentioned in Chapter 2: the fact that they are consummate in view. We need to know this in more detail because it helps to explain some of the unusual features in the talks we’ll be considering here.

We noted in Chapter 1 that those who have gained stream-entry have directly seen all four noble truths. Even though they still have more work to do in terms of discernment, this direct vision of the four noble truths is what makes them consummate in view.

However, the suttas also mention another way in which this consummation can be described. In AN 10:92, the Buddha says that there is a noble method that stream-enterers have “rightly seen and ferreted out through discernment.” That noble method is dependent co-arising in its description of the many steps by which ignorance gives rise to suffering, and of the steps by which suffering ends when there is a total dispassion for and cessation of ignorance.

These two ways of describing what it means to be consummate in view—in terms of the four noble truths and in terms of dependent co-arising—are actually very closely connected. Their mutual relationship is explained by the suttas in two major ways.

The first is that dependent co-arising can be viewed as an extended version of the four noble truths. In its description of how suffering is originated, it contains the central connection between craving and clinging, but then elaborates on this connection in two directions: Prior to craving, it traces the series of conditions giving rise to craving back through ignorance. After clinging, it traces the conditions that clinging sets in motion, leading to the pain, sorrow, and despair of birth, aging, and death.

In reverse order, dependent co-arising states that dispassion for ignorance leads to its cessation, which in turn brings about, one by one, the cessation of the factors dependent on it. In the course of this mass cessation, there comes to be the cessation of craving, clinging, and their attendant sufferings.

What’s missing in this description is an explanation of how dispassion for ignorance can be developed.

That crucial detail is provided by the second way in which the relationship between the four noble truths and dependent co-arising is explained: Ignorance is defined as not knowing “in terms of” the four noble truths. The suttas show that this means two things: not having direct knowledge of the four noble truths, and not applying the framework of the four noble truths to the factors of dependent co-arising.

With regard to the first meaning, i.e., direct knowledge of the truths, ignorance cannot be ended until there has been an experience of the third and fourth noble truths. In other words, you can’t cut the sequence of the factors of dependent co-arising simply through an act of will or through observing their connections. You have to develop all the factors of the noble eightfold path so that you can develop the dispassion that actually makes the connections fall apart.

With regard to the second meaning, applying the framework of the truths, two suttas—MN 9 and Sn 3:12—show how the framework of the truths can be applied to any pair of factors in dependent co-arising, leading to dispassion for those factors. For instance, seeing that feeling is conditioned by contact, and observing how ephemeral contact is, you develop the factors of the noble eightfold path around this connection, leading to dispassion both for the contact and for the feeling. This causes feeling to cease. Similarly, the same approach can be applied to fabrication and its immediate condition, ignorance; or to craving and its immediate condition, feeling.

When any one pair of factors is contemplated in this way, it can cause the entire sequence of factors to cease. That’s because of a special feature of how all the factors are interrelated. Even though the standard description of dependent co-arising is linear—i.e., the factors are listed in a straight line—a detailed analysis of its factors, such as the one provided in SN 12:2, shows that the list actually contains many feedback loops, in which factors can turn around and condition factors earlier in the line-up. This leads to a non-linear system with many feedback loops. In such a system, when one pair of factors falls away through dispassion, the interdependence of all the factors connected by those loops means that the whole system can collapse.

In this way, the framework of the four noble truths can be applied to any pair of factors and bring the web of suffering to a halt.

This fact has important implications for how the Buddha and his disciples taught. To begin with, they didn’t have to explain the whole system every time they taught their listeners about how to end suffering. Just focusing on the connection, say, between craving and clinging, or between contact and feeling, was enough to inspire their listeners to break through to the deathless, either while listening to a talk or later in the course of their meditation.

The fact that the framework of the four noble truths can be applied to any pair of factors also explains why listeners could hear just the framework of the four truths, apply it to develop dispassion for any cause-and-effect connection they could observe in their minds, and gain the Dhamma eye as a result, even if they knew nothing of the sequence of dependent co-arising or the definitions of the four truths beforehand.

Sāriputta & Moggallāna the wanderers

This is especially true in the case of Sāriputta and Moggallāna, who were wanderers in another sect when they first heard the Dhamma and gained the Dhamma eye.

The story of how this happened is one of the most famous in the Canon. Sāriputta and Moggallāna were followers of Sañjaya, one of the non-brahmanical contemplative teachers of the Buddha’s time. They had made a pact with each other: Whoever of the two first attained the deathless would tell the other one. Sañjaya’s teachings are reported in DN 2, and it’s obvious that they were not aimed at the deathless. So it would appear that Sāriputta and Moggallāna had lost faith in Sañjaya and were on their own independent paths.

One day, Sāriputta saw Ven. Assaji, one of the group of five monks, going for alms in Rājagaha. Inspired by the serene calm with which Ven. Assaji moved through the city, Sāriputta was convinced that he was either an arahant or else on the path to arahantship. This point, by the way, has been emphasized repeatedly to monks in training over the centuries: The way you behave, even on something as ordinary as an almsround, can inspire those who see you to open or close their hearts to the Dhamma.

In this case, Sāriputta’s heart flew wide open. He followed Assaji until the latter had left the city. Then he approached him, asking him who his teacher was. Assaji replied that he was a follower of the Great Contemplative, a son of the Sakyans. When Sāriputta then asked what Dhamma his teacher taught, Ven. Assaji modestly said that he was newly gone-forth in the Blessed One’s teaching, and so couldn’t expound the teaching in detail. He could only explain the gist.

When Sāriputta said that the gist was all he wanted, Ven. Assaji taught him a short verse:

“Whatever phenomena arise from cause:
	their cause
			& their cessation.
Such is the teaching of the Tathāgata,
     		the Great Contemplative.”

Having heard this verse, Sāriputta gained the Dhamma eye.

As Sāriputta returned to find his friend, Moggallāna saw him coming from afar. When Sāriputta arrived, Moggallāna commented on how bright and pure his faculties appeared. Had he found the deathless?

Sāriputta replied that he had. He then told Moggallāna what had happened.

When he repeated Assaji’s verse, Moggallāna gained the Dhamma eye as well.

This event was historic for several reasons.

To begin with, it was the first recorded instance in which someone gained the Dhamma eye, not by listening to the Buddha himself, but to one of his disciples.

And it’s noteworthy that Ven. Assaji didn’t repeat the Buddha’s words. He reframed the teaching using his own words from his own insight. This proved that the Dhamma eye could be inspired by words other than the Buddha’s as long as they were in line with the Dhamma.

Finally, the fact that Moggallāna could gain the Dhamma eye by listening to someone who hadn’t even met the Buddha proved that the Buddha was right to spend so much time and effort in establishing the Dhamma and Vinaya so that they would last for many generations: People who hadn’t even met the Buddha could still inspire others to reach the noble attainments.

Although we’ll focus most of our attention on the wisdom of Sāriputta and Moggallāna in being able to gain awakening after hearing such a short teaching, it’s good to look first at Ven. Assaji’s wisdom in expressing the gist of the Buddha’s teaching in the way he did.

Here we can only speculate at his reasons for doing so. Maybe he was following the ancient Indian tradition of intellectual riddles, presented as challenges. If that was the case, he was alerting Sāriputta that he would have to pay extra close attention to what he was saying and what it might mean.

But it’s also possible that Ven. Assaji’s reasons for expressing the gist of the Dhamma in this way related more to his own experience of reaching the deathless. His personal history shows that his conviction in the possibility of a deathless element had been strong for a long time, and that it had been blocked by a misunderstanding that the Buddha’s first discourse pinpointed and cleared away.

In brief, Ven. Assaji must have seen that the Buddha’s teachings were distinctive precisely because of their views on causality and on how the principles of causality could be best used. Unlike other teachers of the time, the Buddha showed that the way to the deathless was to be found by tackling the problem of suffering, and that this problem had to be solved by understanding how things are caused, how the pattern of cause and effect could be manipulated, and how that manipulation should focus on bringing about the cessation of something by putting an end to its cause or causes. This is the underlying dynamic of the four noble truths and of dependent co-arising. Having seen how this understanding cleared up the blockage in his own mind, Ven. Assaji must have assumed that it would be similarly effective for someone like Sāriputta who was also eager to find the way to the deathless.

This eagerness is worth noting. We also find it in the case of Bāhiya, who, like Sāriputta, gained a noble attainment after hearing only a brief passage of Dhamma. We’ll consider his case in Chapter 8, but for now we can simply comment that Sāriputta’s and Bāhiya’s eagerness for the path proves that desire, when properly focused on the path, is not an obstacle to attainment. It’s actually a necessary part of the path.

But both Sāriputta and Bāhiya brought more than the eagerness of strong conviction. Their personal histories also show that they believed that the attainment of the deathless would require a path of practice. It didn’t just happen on its own. This belief provided both of them with an element of appropriate attention that they brought to the Dhamma.

In Sāriputta’s case, we can get a sense of what else he brought to Ven. Assaji’s instructions by comparing those instructions with the pattern given in MN 9 for how the framework for the four noble truths should be applied to the sequence of dependent co-arising. This pattern is a useful point of comparison, for two reasons: (a) It provides a general standard that’s close to what Ven. Assaji said; and (b) it was formulated by Ven. Sāriputta himself at a later date. In formulating this general pattern, he may have been reflecting on what he had had to bring to his own attainment of the Dhamma eye.

When we compare Ven. Assaji’s instructions to the pattern in MN 9, we can see that those instructions lacked four important elements that Sāriputta had to intuit, using his own discernment.

• One we’ve already alluded to: Even though the pattern in MN 9 follows the pattern of all four noble truths—event, origination, cessation, path—Ven. Assaji’s instructions mention only the first three. They make no mention of a path of practice needed to bring about the cessation of the cause of the events in question. Sāriputta’s prior conviction in a path of practice was needed to fill that point in.

• The second point is actually a cluster of points concerning location: where Sāriputta had to look for an example of what Ven. Assaji was talking about. He had to intuit that “whatever phenomena” referred to events appearing directly in the body and mind, that the cause of those events also had to be in the mind, and that the path to the cessation of that cause had to be a mental act or series of mental acts. We know that the Buddha used the word “origination” (samudaya) to refer to causes arising in the mind, but we don’t know whether that connotation was universal in his time or was distinctive to him. Yet even if it was universal, Assaji didn’t even use the term in his verse. Instead, he used the more general term for cause—hetu—which could refer to any kind of cause at all, internal or external, mental or physical. So Assaji’s verse gave no clues at all as to where to look for phenomena, causes, and the path to the cessation of causes. Sāriputta had to intuit all of this on his own.

• The third point he had to intuit was the fact that cessation means not simply the passing away of the phenomena in question through the passing away of their causes. It has to mean the total ending of both.

• The fourth point is that this cessation has to be brought about through dispassion for the cause. This is an especially remarkable insight, as there were many possible alternatives Sāriputta could have assumed. For example, there were theories at the time that blockages to the deathless could simply be burned away through the intensity (tapas) of one’s efforts—the Buddha himself had tested this theory in the course of his austerities—so Sāriputta had to intuit that that was not the case here.

Finally, there’s one extra element that even the pattern in MN 9 doesn’t mention. That’s the fact that, once the path has done its work in inducing dispassion, Sāriputta had to note that the path itself arose from causes, so he would have to develop dispassion for the causes of the path as well.

If Sāriputta had been able to intuit even just one of these points when listening to Assaji’s verse, it would have been remarkable. The fact that he was able to intuit all five is truly amazing.

While we can marvel at his intuitive discernment, we also have to remember that Moggallāna proved to be just as perceptive in gaining the Dhamma eye when Sāriputta repeated Ven. Assaji’s verse to him. The fact that the Buddha later declared Ven. Sāriputta to be foremost among his disciples in terms of discernment thus rested on more than just his ability to gain the deathless after hearing only the gist of the teaching. It also rested on his ability, over the years, to elaborate on the Buddha’s teaching and to bring many other people to an experience of the deathless as well (MN 141).

Finally, it’s worth noting that the Canon gives special treatment to the story of how Sāriputta and Moggallāna gained the Dhamma eye. This is one of the few—if not the only—places in the Canon where the narrator of the events pauses to address the characters in the narrative, expressing amazement at their ability to gain so much from so few words.

This special treatment of the story has extended over the centuries. Ven. Assaji’s verse has been inscribed on temple walls and on amulets given to Buddhist pilgrims as a short synopsis of the gist of the Buddha’s teachings—a rare honor considering that this gist is not even expressed in the Buddha’s own words.

Ven. Channa

Another case in which the teaching on dependent co-arising plays a role in the arising of the Dhamma eye is that of Ven. Channa. His case, however, is in many ways the opposite of that of Sāriputta and Moggallāna. They gained the Dhamma eye after hearing only a short passage of Dhamma. Channa had to have things explained to him in great detail, many times, often to no effect at all. It was only through the patience and compassion of Ven. Ānanda that Channa finally broke through to the deathless after the Buddha’s total unbinding.

The story goes that Channa had been a servant of the Buddha when the latter was still a prince. Channa later ordained, but because of his special connection with the Buddha, he showed no respect to the rest of the Saṅgha. The Vinaya contains many stories of his insulting attitude, the most egregious example being this:

“You think you are to admonish me? It is I who should admonish you! The Buddha is mine, the Dhamma is mine, it was by my young master that the Dhamma was realized. Just as a great wind when blowing would gather up grass, sticks, leaves, & rubbish, or a mountain-born river would gather up water weeds & scum, so you, in going forth, have been gathered up from various names, various clans, various ancestries, various families. You think you are to admonish me? It is I who should admonish you!” — Pācittiya 12

Finally, the Buddha, on the night of his total unbinding, told the Saṅgha to impose the brahmā penalty on Channa: He was to be allowed to act and speak as he liked, yet the Saṅgha would no longer try to criticize or admonish him. When Channa learned of this penalty, he fainted, realizing that he was in serious trouble (see AN 4:111 [§30]). When he regained his senses, he had a total change of heart.

The Canon contains two accounts of what followed. The Cullavagga (XI 1.15) says that he went off alone, practiced diligently, and became an arahant. SN 22:90, the account we follow here, says that he sought instruction from the other monks. They taught him to see the five aggregates as inconstant and not-self, to see that all fabrications are inconstant, and that all phenomena are not-self. He had already heard this teaching many times, to no effect, because he was still agitated by the question, “But who, then, is my self?”

He then sought out Ven. Ānanda and told him of his problem. Ānanda reassured him that he would be capable of attaining the Dhamma. This aroused Channa’s joy and conviction in his ability to learn the Dhamma after all.

Ānanda’s instructions to Channa are best understood in light of the definition of appropriate and inappropriate attention as given in MN 2 [§32]. There, inappropriate attention is defined as paying attention to questions surrounding personal existence and identity in the past, future, and present: such questions as, “Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?” These questions are to be avoided because they lead, not to the end of suffering, but instead to a “thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views, a fetter of views.”

Appropriate attention is defined as ignoring these questions and instead paying attention to the four noble truths as they’re directly experienced: “This is stress … This is the origination of stress … This is the cessation of stress … This is the way leading to the cessation of stress.”

Ānanda’s instructions to Channa follow the same outline, attacking inappropriate attention and explaining appropriate attention. However, his explanations of both steps differ in their details. Under the topic of appropriate attention, he replaces the four noble truths with the sequence of dependent co-arising in forward and reverse order. This much is unremarkable. What’s interesting is how he treats inappropriate attention.

Most of the Canon’s treatments for deconstructing the assumption “I am this” focus on taking apart the concepts of “I” or “this.” But given that this approach hadn’t worked for Channa, Ānanda instead quotes a discourse that focuses on the other term of the sentence—the “am”—recommending a state of mind that drops the duality of existence and non-existence. If Channa could cultivate a state of mind in which the terms “existence” and “non-existence” don’t occur to the mind, then the question of the existence or non-existence of the self would be a non-question.

That’s the state of mind the discourse aims at inducing.

In the original discourse, the Buddha was addressing a monk named Ven. Kaccāna Gotta. Ānanda quotes the discourse word-for-word:

“‘By & large, Kaccāna, this world is supported by [takes as its object] a polarity, that of existence & non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it has come to be with right discernment, “non-existence” with reference to the world doesn’t occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it has come to be with right discernment, “existence” with reference to the world doesn’t occur to one.’”

Note that the Buddha here is not saying that phenomena originated by causes can’t be properly described in the abstract as existing or not existing. After all, in SN 22:94, he says clearly that the five aggregates—which are originated by causes—do exist. And he’s not interested in defining what it means to exist. At the same time, he’s not telling Kaccāna simply to stop thinking in terms of “existing” or “not existing.” Instead, he’s describing a state of mind engrossed in directly observing the origination and cessation of the world of the six senses in such a way that the concepts of “existence” and “non-existence” simply don’t occur to the mind.

The discourse goes on to say that when the mind is in this state, it lets go of attachments and clingings to a sense of self, and it views all arising and passing away simply as instances of stress arising and passing away—i.e., things to be comprehended so that any desire or passion for them is to be let go.

“‘By & large, Kaccāna, this world is in bondage to attachments, clingings (sustenances), & biases. But one such as this doesn’t get involved with or cling to these attachments, clingings, fixations of awareness, biases, or obsessions; nor is he resolved on “my self.” He has no uncertainty or doubt that, when there is arising, only stress is arising; and that when there is passing away, only stress is passing away. In this, one’s knowledge is independent of others. It’s to this extent, Kaccāna, that there is right view.’”

When the sense of self can be seen, not as a thing, but simply as an instance of stress arising and passing away, it’s easier to let go of any desire to identify with it.

The question remains: how to get the mind in a state where it sees things in these terms. The answer is that you contemplate dependent co-arising both in its mode of origination and in its mode of cessation. This is why the Buddha, when addressing Kaccāna Gotta—and Ānanda, when addressing Channa—followed the above discussion with a discussion of dependent co-arising, with its repeated emphasis on origination and cessation. This is their description of appropriate attention. Had they followed the example of MN 2 [§32] in illustrating appropriate attention with the shorter and less explicit example of seeing the four noble truths, it might not have had the same effect.

At any rate, Ven. Channa followed Ven. Ānanda’s instructions while Ānanda was speaking. As a result, he broke through to the Dhamma and became a stream-enterer.

The Canon notes elsewhere that the questions of inappropriate attention, concerning the existence and non-existence of the self, are dropped not only for the strategic purpose of completing the path. They’re also dropped once and for all after you’ve seen the deathless. That’s because you now see they weren’t worth asking to begin with.

“When a disciple of the noble ones has seen well with right discernment this dependent co-arising & these dependently co-arisen phenomena as they have come to be, it’s not possible that he would run after the past, thinking, ‘Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what, what was I in the past?’ or that he would run after the future, thinking, ‘Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future? Having been what, what shall I be in the future?’ or that he would be inwardly perplexed about the immediate present, thinking, ‘Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?’ Such a thing is not possible. Why is that? Because the disciple of the noble ones has seen well with right discernment this dependent co-arising & these dependently co-arisen phenomena as they have come to be.” — SN 12:20

Prince Abhaya

The last two examples of talks inspiring stream-entry are two of the four we mentioned in Chapter 3 in which the Buddha’s listeners question him in the course of his talk.

One of them concerns Prince Abhaya, a son of King Bimbisāra of Magadha. Abhaya is most famous for his role in MN 58, in which the Nigaṇṭhas appeal to his vanity, persuading him to put a trick question to the Buddha, on the grounds that he would become famous far and wide for asking a question that the Buddha couldn’t answer. The question was this: Would the Buddha say anything displeasing to others? If he said Yes, Abhaya could respond: “Then how is there any difference between you, lord, and run-of-the-mill people?” If the Buddha said No, Abhaya could respond, “Then how, lord, did you say of Devadatta that ‘Devadatta is doomed to deprivation, Devadatta is doomed to hell, Devadatta will stay for an eon, Devadatta is incurable’? For Devadatta was upset & disgruntled at those words of yours.”

But when Abhaya actually put the question to the Buddha, the Buddha replied that there was no categorical Yes or No answer to the question. Instead, it required an analytical answer, drawing distinctions that the question neglected to take into consideration.

Using the simile of a child who got a sharp object in his mouth, the Buddha got Abhaya to admit that compassion required getting the object out, even if it meant drawing blood. In the same way, the Buddha would say only things that are true and beneficial, and would know the right time and place to say things that were pleasing or displeasing.

At the end of the discourse, Abhaya declared himself a lay follower who had gone for refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma, and Saṅgha.

However, the passage in MN 58 that’s most relevant to the fact that he later broke through to the Dhamma is the one where Abhaya mentions that he was well-known for his knowledge of the parts of the chariot. This would be equivalent to people at present who are expert in their knowledge of how to fix trucks and cars. It suggests that Abhaya had an inquisitive, practical mind, the kind of mind that, if it focused on issues of stress and its cessation, would immediately try to get to the heart of the problem and figure out its solution: how cessation could be brought about.

That’s exactly what happens in SN 46:56. Abhaya approaches the Buddha, who is staying on Vulture Peak Mountain, and asks some questions that go straight to the point. He wants to know about causes: those that obstruct knowledge and vision of things as they have come to be, and those that promote that knowledge and vision. The Buddha teaches him that the five hindrances act as obstructions to that knowledge and vision, whereas the seven factors for awakening “dependent on seclusion, dependent on dispassion, dependent on cessation, resulting in letting go” promote it.

This seems like an incredibly short talk to cause a layperson to break through to the Dhamma, but if Abhaya was actually trying to abandon the hindrances and cultivate the factors for awakening as the Buddha was describing them, all the necessary factors for stream-entry would have been present in his mind.

Recall for a moment the definition of the stream: the coming together of all the factors of the noble eightfold path. Here, however, the Buddha speaks in terms of the seven factors for awakening. Those seven factors are often described as the final step in the practice leading to clear knowing and release.

“Just as when the devas pour rain in heavy drops & crash thunder on the upper mountains: The water, flowing down along the slopes, fills the branches of the mountain ravines & gullies… the little lakes… the big lakes… the little rivers… the big rivers. When the big rivers are made full, they fill the great ocean. Such is the food of the great ocean, and thus is it made full. In the same way, when associating with people of integrity is made full, it fills [the conditions for] hearing the true Dhamma… conviction… appropriate attention… mindfulness & alertness… restraint of the senses… the three forms of right conduct… the four establishings of mindfulness… the seven factors for awakening. When the seven factors for awakening are made full, they fill [the conditions for] clear knowing & release. Such is the food for this clear knowing & release, and thus are they made full.” — AN 10:61

This sequence of factors is essentially equivalent to the noble eightfold path. So when these factors are complete, they satisfy the conditions for entering the stream.

The reason the factors of awakening play such an important role in this sequence is because they contain both concentration and discernment. To begin with, to develop them you have to apply the discernment of appropriate attention to starve the hindrances and feed the causes for each of the factors for awakening (SN 46:51 [§33]). Also, the second factor for awakening—analysis of qualities—is, in and of itself, a factor of discernment. It focuses directly on observing the mind and on applying the principles of transcendent right view (MN 117).

This is especially true when all the factors are practiced “dependent on seclusion, dependent on dispassion, dependent on cessation, resulting in letting go.” The seclusion here is the mind in at least the first jhāna. The dispassion and cessation come from abandoning the causes for suffering. The letting go would involve seeing even the drawbacks of the path after it has done its job, and so gaining an escape from it.

Given the fact that Abhaya had an inquisitive and practical mind, focused on how-to questions, we can understand how, on hearing this teaching and putting it into practice right then and there, he could have broken through to stream-entry. As he says at the end of the sutta, the fact of having broken through to the Dhamma allayed the mental and physical fatigue he felt from climbing the mountain where the Buddha was staying.

Sakka the Deva-king

The conversation between Sakka the deva-king and the Buddha reported in DN 21 is a second instance in which the listener, Sakka, asks some important questions. In this case, though, he asked many questions, and we can only guess which of the Buddha’s answers to those questions sparked Sakka’s attainment of stream-entry.

One way of approaching this issue is to focus on the two most important questions that Sakka asks. The first has to do with the psychological sources for rivalry and hostility. It’s easy to understand why this issue loomed large in Sakka’s mind. He had just defeated an attempt by the asuras, another group of heavenly beings, to seize his realm by force.

The Buddha answers Sakka’s question by going step by step through the causes of rivalry and hostility, tracing them back—in a manner very much like dependent co-arising—to the perceptions and categories of objectification (papañca), like this:

Sakka doesn’t ask what the perceptions and categories of papañca are, but it’s a question worth asking. The Canon gives no clear definition for papañca, aside from saying that the perceptions and categories of papañca always lead to conflict. Sn 4:14 tells where they come from, stating that the root of the categories of papañca is the perception, “I am the thinker.” From this self-reflexive thought—in which you objectify a “self,” a thing corresponding to the concept of “I”— a number of categories can be derived: being/not-being, me/not-me, mine/not-mine, doer/done-to.

Once your self becomes a thing or a being under the rubric of these categories, it’s impossible not to be assailed by the perceptions and categories derived from these basic distinctions. When you identify as a being (SN 23:2), you have to feed, because all beings need to feed (Khp 4). This gives rise to thoughts of desire. At that point, based on the feelings arising from sensory contact, some feelings will seem endearing and appealing—worth feeding on—and others will seem worth pushing away. From this there grows stinginess, which comes into conflict with the desires of others who are also feeding because they, too, are beings engaging in papañca. This is how inner objectification breeds external rivalry.

Perhaps Sakka was already familiar with the term papañca, which is why he didn’t need for it to be defined. Instead, he expressed joy in the Buddha’s answer and then proceeded to the next important question, a how-to question like Prince Abhaya’s: how to practice for the right ending of the perceptions and categories of papañca.

The Buddha replied by sketching out the practice of concentration based on joy and grief—most likely, the grief that comes when you realize that there is a deathless goal that you haven’t yet attained (MN 137)—and then on equanimity, both with and without directed thought. It may have been that Sakka, while listening to this sketch, took his joy in the Buddha’s answers, applied it to the practice of concentration, reflected on the causal chain leading to and building on the perceptions and categories of papañca, developed dispassion for them, and broke through to the Dhamma.

There are other possible explanations for how Sakka became a stream-enterer during this conversation, but this one seems to be most in line with the Buddha’s more general remarks about what’s needed to gain the noble attainments while listening to the Dhamma.

MN 37 reports that Sakka later approached the Buddha and asked a question related to arahantship:

“Briefly, lord, in what respect is a monk released through the ending of craving, utterly complete, utterly free from bonds, a follower of the utterly holy life, utterly consummate: foremost among devas & human beings?”

The Buddha answered the question:

“There is the case, deva-king, where a monk has heard, ‘All dhammas are unworthy of adherence.’ Having heard that all dhammas are unworthy of adherence, he directly knows every dhamma. Directly knowing every dhamma, he comprehends every dhamma. Comprehending every dhamma, then whatever feeling he experiences—pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain—he remains focused on inconstancy, focused on dispassion, focused on cessation, focused on relinquishing with regard to that feeling. As he remains focused on inconstancy, focused on dispassion, focused on cessation, focused on relinquishing with regard to that feeling, he is unsustained by [doesn’t cling to] anything in the world. Unsustained, he isn’t agitated. Unagitated, he totally unbinds right within. He discerns: ‘Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.’”

However, instead of acting on this answer, Sakka simply showed respect to the Buddha and then vanished. He returned to his heaven, where he heedlessly became immersed in his sensual pleasures as before.

This story is cautionary. As the Buddha notes in SN 55:40, it is possible for a person endowed with the qualities of a stream-enterer to become satisfied with those qualities and not to make any further exertion in solitude or seclusion.

“For him, living thus heedlessly, there is no joy. There being no joy, there is no rapture. There being no rapture, there is no calm. There being no calm, he dwells in pain. When pained, the mind does not become concentrated. When the mind is unconcentrated, phenomena do not become manifest. When phenomena are not manifest, he is reckoned simply as one who dwells heedlessly.” — SN 55:40

This may be why, on the night of his total unbinding, the Buddha’s last words to the assembled monks urged them to be heedful, even though the most backward of the monks present were stream-enterers. Although their future attainment of arahantship was assured, they could still face a fair amount of suffering in the meantime if they fell heedless between now and then.

Then the Blessed One addressed the monks, “Now, then, monks, I exhort you: All fabrications are subject to ending & decay. Reach consummation through heedfulness.” That was the Tathāgata’s last statement. — DN 16