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1  |  Two Truths?

Buddhist traditions have long agreed that the Buddha was a strategist in the way he taught, particularly when it came to teaching the insights that lead to awakening. Various ways of analyzing the Buddha’s strategies have been devised over the centuries, one of the most prominent—both in Theravada and Mahayana traditions—being the theory that the Buddha taught two levels of truth: conventional truth and ultimate truth. In the Theravada version of this theory, conventional truths are expressed in personal terms, of individuals existing and acting in worlds. Ultimate truths are expressed in impersonal terms, of mental and physical qualities interacting, with no reference to whose qualities they are or where they are. Conventional truths adopt the language and—in the words of one scholar—the “naïve understanding” of everyday discourse. Ultimate truths adopt a language that accords with events of the world as they actually are, in and of themselves, and as they appear in liberating insight.

An example of a teaching on the level of conventional truth would be:

An example of a teaching on the level of ultimate truth would be:

The Buddha used both levels of truth in instructing his disciples. For instance, when teaching the precepts or the practice of universal goodwill, he spoke in terms of conventional truths. When teaching insight, he—for the most part—spoke in terms of ultimate truths.

Now, if these two levels of truth were simply alternative manners of speaking, there would be no conflict between them. Theirs would be like the relationship between geology and sub-atomic physics. Geology speaks in terms of sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. Sub-atomic physics makes no mention of either kind of rock, but this doesn’t mean that it denies their reality, simply that it frames its issues in other terms.

However, proponents of the two-truth theory don’t regard ultimate truths simply as a manner of speaking. For them, ultimate truths are the description of the true nature of things. And instead of simply not bothering to speak of individuals or beings, ultimate truths actually deny their existence.

Yet even though conventional truths and ultimate truths are based on mutually contradictory assumptions, the two-truth theory insists that they are both true.

The Commentary to DN 9, speaking on the level of conventional truth, adds that the Buddha, on occasion, had to talk in conventional terms because of the differing capacities of his listeners. In its words,

In other words, some people would find the ultimate reality that there are no beings too harsh to accept. That’s why the Buddha, when leading them to arahantship, had to clothe his words in conventional ways of speaking. Only after their awakening were listeners of this sort ready for the ultimate truth that beings don’t exist.

However, the Commentary never explains how two mutually contradictory descriptions of the world can both be true at the same time, or how a convention that contradicts the ultimate nature of reality can be regarded as true.

Here it’s important to note that the theory of two levels of truth does not appear in the Pali suttas, or discourses, our most reliable records of the Buddha’s own words. It’s a later addition to the tradition. This point has to be emphasized, because the theory has become so basic to Buddhist philosophy over the centuries that even well-informed scholars and insight teachers believe that it came from the Buddha himself.

However, the fact that the theory is actually a later construct is shown by the fact that many of the terms used to explain the theory—paramattha-sacca (ultimate-meaning truth), sammuti-sacca (conventional truth), vohāra-sacca (manner-of-speaking truth), nisatta (devoid of a being), nipuggala (devoid of a person)—don’t occur in the suttas.

Now, paramattha, the word that the Abhidhamma and Commentaries use to mean “ultimate meaning,” does appear in the suttas at least five times—or, if we count a contested reading in AN 10:29, six. The word is a compound of paraṁ, “highest, foremost,” and attha, which can mean “meaning,” “purpose,” “benefit,” or “goal.” In all six sutta references, however, paramattha appears to mean not a level of description, but the highest goal of the practice. In five of the instances, this interpretation is unequivocal—in other words, the context shows that this has to be the meaning of the term there. These five instances include all three attributed to the Buddha himself:

Of the instances attributed to the Buddha’s disciples, there are two in which paramattha unequivocally means “highest goal.”

There’s only one passage in the suttas where the meaning of paramattha is equivocal—it could mean either “ultimate goal” or “ultimate meaning.”

Now, because this verse isn’t attributed to the Buddha, we can’t say that paramattha meant “ultimate meaning” for him. And because the sense of the term here is equivocal, it can’t be taken as proof that paramattha definitely meant “ultimate meaning” in the suttas.

So the evidence strongly suggests that the word paramattha in the suttas is a name for the truth of the experience of nibbāna, and not an ultimate level of description about the world—and that the two-truth theory as a whole is a later addition to the tradition. This fact does not necessarily mean that it’s an inappropriate interpretation of the suttas—it could be making explicit something only implicit in the Buddha’s approach—but it so happens that when we examine some of the Buddha’s statements in the suttas about truth and teachings, the two-truth theory actually conflicts with them. This is what makes it an inappropriate interpretation of the Buddha’s strategy in teaching.

For instance, in DN 16, the Buddha states that genuine Dhamma is to be recognized by the fact that it’s internally consistent. A statement that assumes the existence of beings is not consistent with one that denies their existence. In fact, they are diametrically opposed.

In Sn 4:12, when asked why different teachers don’t teach the same thing, the Buddha replies,

When he is further asked if teachers have actually learned various divergent truths, he replies that their differences come, not from divergent truths, but from divergent perceptions about the one truth.

To say that the Buddha would adopt a strategy in which he spoke of beings and selves as existing even when he knew that, on the ultimate level, they didn’t exist, is to say that he would deal in useful fictions: statements that were beneficial for his listeners even though he knew they weren’t true. This idea, however, conflicts with the Buddha’s own explicit standards for deciding what he would and would not say: Only if something was true, beneficial, and timely would he say it. When, in MN 58, he set out the various types of speech—true or not true, beneficial or not beneficial, timely or not timely—and then made a table of the various combinations of types, the possibility that a false statement could be beneficial didn’t even make it on the table. This means that, as far as he was concerned, such statements didn’t even exist.

The question is, why would the later tradition impose the two-truth theory on teachings where it doesn’t fit? The answer seems to lie in the fact that the later tradition interpreted the Buddha’s teaching on not-self (anattā) as implying that there is no self. From there, it was a short step to saying that there are no beings. As this interpretation was being adopted, the question naturally arose: In the many passages where the Buddha talks about the self—such as taking the self as one’s own mainstay (Dhp 160) or as one’s governing principle (AN 3:40)—was he lying? The two-truth theory was apparently invented to clear the Buddha’s name.

Now, if the Buddha had taught that there is no self, there might have been a need to invent this theory. But he never did. He explicitly noted to his followers that the act of paying attention to questions such as “Do I exist?” “Do I not exist?” “What am I?” leads to such views as “I have a self,” and “I have no self,” both of which are a “thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views, a fetter of views” that stand in the way of release from dukkha: suffering and stress (MN 2).

Instead of affirming or denying the existence of a self, the Buddha described how the assumption of a self came about as a product of “I-making” and “my-making.” He did this to show how these activities lead to suffering, and how they can be abandoned through dispassion, leading to release. The not-self teaching was part of his strategy for bringing that dispassion about (MN 109; AN 6:104). [For more on these points, see “The Not-self Strategy” and “The Limits of Description.”]

Similarly, the Buddha never said that beings don’t exist. When asked to define what a being is, he didn’t say that, on the ultimate level, there are no beings. Instead, he gave a straightforward answer:

In other words, the Buddha defined beings as processes, rather than as metaphysical entities (sant satta). And even though they’re processes, they count as existing, just as the five aggregates from which they’re composed exist. This is a point worth emphasizing, because sometimes it’s believed that the word “exist” in Pali applies only to permanent existence. Actually, though, there are many instances in the Canon where temporary things and processes are said to exist. The most relevant example is this:

The Buddha also noted that process-beings are what take rebirth (SN 1:55) and he noted how, when a being has set one body aside and has yet to be born in another one, it’s sustained by craving (SN 44:9). And he noted that all beings have one thing in common: They depend on nutriment, which is the same as saying that they all suffer (Khp 4; SN 1:55).

But as he further pointed out, it’s not necessary to keep on identifying as a being. If you can develop dispassion for all acts of craving for the five aggregates of form, feeling, perception, fabrications, and consciousness, then you’re freed from being a being (SN 23:2). [See also the discussion of sant satta in Skill in Questions, Appendix Four.]

The Buddha illustrated the acts of creating a process-being—and ending the process—with the simile of boys and girls playing with little houses made of mud: As long as the they feel passion for their houses, they continue building them. But when they tire of them, they destroy them:

This last image relates to the Buddha’s description of what he himself was able to accomplish in his awakening: finding the house builder, demolishing the house, and preventing the house builder from ever building a house again:

The Buddha further discovered that those who attain the end of craving, ceasing the process of creating a being, don’t go out of existence. Instead, they’re now so immeasurable that even in this lifetime they cannot be measured or defined (SN 22:36; SN 22:85). They continue using the conventions of “I” and “me,” but only as modes of expression, free from the conceit, “I am.” (SN 1:25; MN 22). After their death, labels of existing, not existing, both, or neither—or even reappearing, not reappearing, both, or neither—don’t apply (SN 44:1; MN 72).

In other words, the Buddha never taught that beings have never existed. Beings have existed and continue to exist wherever there is craving for the aggregates. That’s what defines them. When that craving is abandoned, they no longer count as beings. They are no longer defined, so any attempt to describe them in terms of existence, non-existence, etc., is invalid.

Still, the Commentary cites the following verses by Sister Vajirā, reported in SN 5:10, as evidence from the suttas that beings, even prior to awakening, exist only on the level of convention, but not on the level of ultimate truth.

However, we have to interpret Sister Vajirā’s words in light of what the Buddha says in SN 23:2. When we do, we find that they don’t support the Commentary’s interpretation. When she speaks of a pure pile of fabrications, she’s talking of fabrications—which include the five aggregates—devoid of passion and craving. This doesn’t mean that they never were gathered together to create a being, simply that because she is now free of passion and craving, she is no longer creating a being out of them. Also, we have to note that while the mere presence of the aggregates can act as a necessary condition for the convention of a being, the acts of getting tied up and caught up in the aggregates are required as a sufficient condition for a being to be. After all, arahants can be in the presence of aggregates without forming a being out of them, but every time an ordinary person gets caught up in any of the aggregates, that constitutes a being.

Here it’s useful to compare the imagery in Sister Vajirā’s verses with the imagery in SN 23:2. The image of the assembly of the chariot parallels the image of the boys and girls building their mud houses: The act of putting the chariot together is like making the houses, and in both cases, the images symbolize acts of passion and craving. To disassemble the chariot is like destroying the mud houses, symbolizing the ending of passion. It’s not that there never was a chariot or a mud house, simply that when passion is ended, these things disband and no new ones are created.

So, given that the two-truth theory of the Dhamma is inconsistent with the suttas’ statements about truth and the Dhamma, and that the problem it seems to have been intended to solve was, in fact, not even present in the Buddha’s teachings as recorded in the suttas, there seems no reason to continue to adopt it.

Despite all this evidence calling the two-truth theory into question, there are two further passages in the suttas that the Commentary cites as evidence that the Buddha, even though he never articulated a theory of two truths, had that theory in mind when he taught the Dhamma recorded in the suttas. But here again, when the passages are examined, they don’t really support that interpretation at all.

The first is DN 9, where the Buddha, in conversation with a member of another sect, adopts the sect’s terminology to describe the “appropriation of a self,” only to go on to say that he teaches the Dhamma for the abandoning of every appropriation of a self. At the end of the discussion, he tells his listener,

The Commentary seizes on this statement as an example of the Buddha admitting that he sometimes speaks on the level of conventional truth, in which beings exist, even though on the ultimate level of truth no beings exist. This, however, is to take the statement out of context. The Buddha is simply signaling that, for the sake of the discussion, he has been using his listener’s terminology to get the listener to develop dispassion for any clingings inspired by that terminology, nothing more.

The second passage is AN 2:24, in which the Buddha makes a distinction between two types of discourses: those whose meaning needs to be inferred (literally, “drawn out,”) and those whose meaning has already been drawn out.

The Commentary states that the first category, discourses whose meaning has to be inferred, applies to discourses expressed on the level of conventional truth, in terms of persons. This type of discourse, it says, needs to have its meaning further explained in terms of ultimate truth, where persons don’t exist. The second category applies to discourses already expressed on the level of ultimate truth, with no mention of persons, but in terms of “inconstant, stressful, not-self.” Because these discourses are already expressed in ultimate terms, they should not be translated into personal terms.

Unfortunately, AN 2:24 gives no examples for its two categories, but we can look elsewhere in the suttas for passages that draw out the meanings of other passages. These can be taken as examples of the first category, discourses whose meaning has to be inferred. The suttas also contain passages where the Buddha rebukes monks for drawing inappropriate conclusions from his teachings. These teachings can be taken as examples of the second category, discourses whose meaning has already been drawn out and should not be further inferred.

There are many examples of passages in the first category, but here it’s enough to sample just a few of the most prominent ones to see that the Commentary’s explanation of this category is mistaken: It’s not always the case that a discourse whose meaning needs to be inferred is one expressed in personal terms that have to be drawn out into impersonal terms. In fact, there are even cases where the opposite pattern holds: A passage expressed in impersonal terms sometimes has to have its meaning drawn out into personal ones.

We can focus first on two sets of examples: passages from the Sutta Nipāta (Sn) that are explained in other suttas; and passages spoken by the Buddha that Ven. Mahā Kaccāna—the monk the Buddha extolled as foremost in explaining a brief passage in detail—is called on to explain. To save space, we will quote here only the examples that actually reverse the Commentary’s pattern.

In the first set, Sn 5:1 contains a passage expressed in personal terms, and SN 22:3 explains it in personal terms. Sn 5:2 contains a passage expressed in impersonal terms that AN 6:61 explains in impersonal terms. Sn 5:3 contains a passage expressed in personal terms that AN 3:32 explains in personal terms, whereas AN 4:41 explains it in impersonal terms. In a reversal of the Commentary’s interpretation, Sn 5:13 contains a passage expressed in impersonal terms that AN 3:33 explains in personal terms:

Although this passage describes activities with no reference to people or beings doing them, when the Buddha draws out its meaning, he makes reference to a person doing the activities in question:

When we look at Ven. Mahā Kaccāna’s explanations of the Buddha’s statements, we find that, overall, he tends to maintain the same level of discourse that the Buddha uses—in other words, passages expressed in personal terms are explained in personal terms (examples being MN 18, MN 133, MN 138, and the passage from SN 4:25 explained in AN 10:26), while a passage expressed in impersonal terms is explained in impersonal terms (AN 10:172).

The most interesting of these examples, though, is MN 138. Each of the Buddha’s statements that Mahā Kaccāna explains is originally expressed in personal terms, Mahā Kaccāna then reduces it to impersonal terms that he then turns around and explains in personal terms. For instance, where the Buddha says in personal terms, “He would from lack of clinging/sustenance be unagitated,” Mahā Kaccāna restates the statement in impersonal terms: “How is non-agitation caused by lack of clinging/sustenance?” But then he draws out the meaning in personal terms:

So in this way, Mahā Kaccāna, within his own explanation, reverses the Commentary’s pattern.

Perhaps the most dramatic reversal of the Commentary’s pattern, though, is in SN 35:95. There the Buddha affirms that the famous instruction to Bāhiya (Ud 1:10)—“In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen”—should be understood in these personal terms:

So the Commentary’s explanation of the first category of discourse—that discourses whose meaning needs to be inferred can be equated with teachings expressed in conventional truths—is not borne out by the evidence in the Canon. And what’s especially notable is that in these, and in all other cases of this sort, the explanations giving the meaning to be inferred never say that self, beings, or persons do not exist.

As for the second category—discourses whose meaning should not be drawn out any further—two examples stand out: In MN 136, a monk is asked, in personal terms, what one experiences after having performed an intentional action, and he responds that one experiences stress. The Buddha later rebukes him, but another monk comes to the first monk’s defense: Perhaps he was thinking of the impersonal teaching, “Whatever is felt comes under stress.” The Buddha rebukes this second monk, too, saying that when asked about the results of action, one is being asked about the three kinds of feeling—pleasant, painful, and neither—and so should respond as follows:

Taking the second monk’s words as an explanation of the first monk’s words, it would count as a passage expressed in personal terms whose meaning is wrongly drawn out in impersonal terms. This means that the Buddha’s warning about wrongly drawing out the meaning of a discourse does not apply only to attempts to translate impersonal language into personal language. Other considerations—such as whether a teaching is appropriate to a particular context or purpose (attha)—can also play a determining role. Statements have to be judged not only as descriptive, but also as performative: what they induce the listener to do. If a person is told that all action leads to stress, that person will feel no reason to put forth the effort to act skillfully rather than unskillfully. This would get in the way of his making progress on the path.

In the second example, drawn from MN 109, a monk—listening to the Buddha teaching that the five aggregates of form, feeling, perception, fabrications, and consciousness are not-self—draws out what he thinks is a logical implication of the teaching:

In other words, the monk reasons that because the aggregates are all not-self, there must be no self, so no actions will be able to touch—i.e., give karmic results to—what is not-self. This line of reasoning would give license to all kinds of unskillful behavior, which is why the Buddha, on reading the monk’s mind, says that he is senseless, immersed in ignorance, and overcome with craving. The Buddha’s original words would thus count as a passage expressed in impersonal terms whose meaning the monk has wrongly drawn out in impersonal terms.

What’s ironic here is that the Buddha decries as senseless a line of reasoning that is similar to what appears to be the assumption motivating the two-truth theory: drawing out the meaning of the not-self teaching to come to the conclusion that there is no self.

The Buddha then goes on to show the proper use of the teaching on not-self, questioning the other monks present at the discourse about their assumption of self around the aggregates until they develop dispassion and gain release.

So, taken together, these passages from MN 136 and MN 109 show that the Commentary’s equation of discourses whose meaning is already drawn out with discourses expressed in ultimate truths is not borne out by the evidence in the suttas.

MN 109 also shows one of the dangers of the two-truth theory: It’s all too easy to jump from the idea that, on the ultimate level, there is no being and no self, to the conclusion that there is no one to be harmed by unskillful actions, and no one to be held responsible for them. This conclusion is similar to a sectarian view that the Buddha, in DN 1, described as particularly evil: There is no one acting or acted on when a knife goes between the atoms in a person’s neck, and there is no one to experience the results of such an action.

There is also a more subtle danger inherent in the idea of an ultimate level of truth in descriptions of reality: Such a description, if you believe that it expresses the ultimate nature of things, is hard to let go. And if you can’t let go of it, you can’t see its limitations and what lies beyond it. Yet it is precisely the ability to see the limitations of linguistic description that can bring the mind to release.

So:

there seems no reason to continue to regard it as a legitimate explanation of the Buddha’s approach as a strategist. Instead, it’s better to view the Buddha’s teachings expressed in impersonal terms simply as a manner of speaking—a type of convention—and not as carrying a metaphysical assumption that beings don’t exist and never have. In other words, they are like the physicist’s description of the sub-atomic particles in a piece of rock: Even though they make no mention of the type of rock, that’s no reason to infer from them that different types of rock don’t exist.

This, however, still leaves unanswered the question of how best to characterize the nature of the Buddha’s strategy as a teacher, and why he found it necessary to adopt different conventions for different purposes, expressing himself sometimes in personal and sometimes in impersonal terms. For the answers to these questions, we have to look again at the suttas, conducting an inquiry into the Buddha’s approach both to gaining insight in his own practice and to teaching his listeners to gain insight in theirs. This inquiry is the purpose of the remaining sections in this essay. We will find that the Buddha’s strategies arose in response not only to the variety of people he taught, but also to strategic dilemmas posed by the problem he was trying to solve: The path to the end of suffering presented him with at least two major dilemmas, and it was in resolving those dilemmas strategically that he learned how to help others resolve them as well.

Because these dilemmas are inherent in the practice, this means that if we want to gain the most from his teachings, we will have to approach them strategically, too.

And reflectively: The Buddha found the path to the end of suffering by reflecting on his own actions and their results. To follow him, we have to use his teachings to reflect carefully on ours.

This reflective principle is so basic to the practice that when the Buddha introduced his son, Rāhula—who at the time was very young—to the path of practice as a whole, he illustrated it with the simile of a mirror: Just as a mirror is for reflection, you should repeatedly reflect on your own actions—your intentions, the acts arising from your intentions, and the results coming from those actions—in thought, word, and deed. Act only on intentions that you anticipate will avoid harm, and learn from your mistakes: the intentions and actions that actually did cause harm. This attitude of reflection is appropriate not only for small children. It’s central to all levels of the path up to and through the insights leading to release.