Chapter 2: Two Analogies

AN 3:76 provides an analogy to describe how becoming is produced:

The basic message of this analogy is relatively simple. Kamma provides the range of possibilities in which the seed of consciousness can be planted and on which it can feed. Craving is the moisture that keeps the seed alive and allows it to grow into a state of becoming.

The apparent simplicity of this analogy is complicated, however, by the fact that each of the three factors it covers—kamma, consciousness, and craving—is fairly complex.

Kamma, for instance, is complex both as a term and as a fact. As a term, it can mean different things in different contexts. In some, it means the intention motivating an action, along with the action itself.

In others, kamma means not only intentional action but also the results of that action.

As a fact, kamma is complex in that the relationship between old kamma and new kamma is more intertwined than a superficial reading of the above passage would indicate.

For example, the six sense media (āyatana) are old kamma in that they themselves and many of the objects that impinge on them are products of past actions. However, this is not true of all the objects of the senses, for when a person does a present action, the action and its immediate results impinge on the senses as well. At the same time, one’s experience of the input from the senses goes through many stages of mental filtering, as some sensory contacts are highlighted or elaborated on, while others are ignored or suppressed. This filtering is a form of present kamma, too, which means that all kamma—past or present—is experienced through the agency of present kamma.

Now, present kamma may often be influenced by past kamma, but it does not need to be. The mind can, if it wants to, make a break with old habits. A change in knowledge—new information, new standards of judging what is important and not—can lead to a change in one’s present decisions. This means that past kamma does not absolutely determine one’s experience of the present moment. This point needs to be emphasized strongly, for there is a common misperception that the Buddha’s teachings on kamma are deterministic. Actually, the Buddha was a strong opponent of determinism.

In other words, there is a tendency for a certain type of kamma to lead to a certain type of result, but the intensity of that result is not a fixed thing. It is also influenced by a factor of present kamma: one’s state of mind at the moment when a particular instance of past kamma ripens.

Thus the kamma of one’s state of mind in the present moment plays a crucial role in influencing how the ripening of past kamma is experienced. In terms of the six senses, this means that past kamma offers a range of possibilities as to what might be experienced at a particular moment, while present kamma chooses among those possibilities to create an actual experience.

The territory covered by the six sense media is sometimes analyzed in an alternative mode, as the five aggregates (khandha) of form, feeling, perception, fabrication, and consciousness. And the same pattern of interaction between past and present kamma applies to this mode of analysis as well. A great deal of the raw material shaping the five aggregates comes from past kamma, while the intentional processes of fabrication operating in the present shapes this raw material into an actual experience of the aggregates:

In other words, there exists at any moment the potential for many different ways of experiencing the aggregates. In some cases, past kamma plays a role in limiting these potentials; in others, it opens opportunities. Fabrication—which SN 22:56 equates with intention—chooses from among these limitations and opportunities to shape the actual experience of a particular type of aggregate in the present moment.

Because new and old kamma are so intimately intertwined, it would appear that kamma in the field analogy is meant to cover kamma both past and present. This point is confirmed in two ways when we look at the way kamma functions in dependent co-arising as a factor leading to the arising of becoming.

First, the principle of causality underlying dependent co-arising involves the interaction of past and present causes in shaping any present experience. Thus it would follow that both past and present kamma can act as a precondition for any present state of becoming.

The causal principle is this:

This pattern is best understood as the interaction of two principles. The more obvious of the two, expressed in (2) and (4), connects events over time. The arising of A will, at some point in time, cause the arising of B. The ceasing of A will, at some point in time, cause the ceasing of B. An example here would be the relation between a physical feeling of pleasure or pain and a complex emotion (or, to use the Buddhist technical term, a fabrication) based on the feeling: There can be a lapse in time between the arising of the feeling and the arising of the emotion, just as there can be a lapse in time between their ceasing.

The second principle, expressed in (1) and (3), connects two events in the present moment. When A exists, B exists. When A stops existing, B stops existing. This principle operates primarily on the level of subtle mind states repeatedly arising and passing away, with the process—for example—of each moment of attachment’s aging-and-death occurring simultaneously with the process of its taking birth. The Buddha stated that his ability to detect this level of causality was a “breakthrough of discernment” (SN 12:10; SN 12:65), which suggests how difficult it is to perceive. Nevertheless, the principle can be readily observed in the relation between contact and feeling: When contact arises at any of the senses, a corresponding feeling immediately arises; when the contact stops, the feeling immediately stops.

These two causal principles intersect, so that any particular experience will be conditioned by both past and present events. This indicates that the field of kamma in which becoming can grow would also consist of kamma both past and present.

The second way in which dependent co-arising confirms that the field of kamma is composed of both past and present kamma is that kamma appears twice in the list of factors in dependent co-arising, once as intention and once as the results of past intentions. Its first appearance is under the factor of name, where it appears as the sub-factor of intention. Then, in the adjacent factor, it appears as the six sense media, i.e., old kamma. Because of the dual causal pattern underlying dependent co-arising as a whole, the relationship between intention and the six sense media can operate on two levels. On the one hand, intention can function as the past intention that ripens in the present as an experience of the raw data at the senses. An example would be an intention to follow the practices leading to a human rebirth, resulting in the experience of human sensual pleasures in a later lifetime. On the other hand, intention can function as the present intention shaping the raw data at the senses into an intended direction or interpretation. An example here would be the intention to focus on attractive sights, etc., in order to provoke lust within the mind.

Thus, in terms of kamma’s role in the field analogy, the field of possibilities for renewed becoming is clearly composed of both past and present kamma, both intentions and the results of intentional action. Because kamma is fabricated through mental activity, this means that—just as becoming is not a primary metaphysical absolute—neither is its ground. Becoming is not grounded in the unconditioned, or in the absolute of “singleness” or the All. This is why, in MN 1, the Buddha is highly critical of anyone who would try to posit any of these ideas as the source of being. At the same time, becoming does not arise inevitably from its ground. Instead, past and present kamma simply provide the range of possibilities in which the seed of consciousness, moistened by craving, can grow into renewed becoming.

The second factor in the field analogy—consciousness of the six senses—occurs, like kamma, both explicitly and implicitly in the list of factors comprising dependent co-arising. The simple fact of its appearance in this list is noteworthy. All of the factors listed in dependent co-arising are conditioned events, which means that sensory consciousness as a member of the list is not functioning as a metaphysical absolute or pure essence. It is a kammically active and productive function, neither experienced nor existing in and of itself. It is something that is done. It occurs and is experienced as part of a causal network, conditioned by the factors from which it is born, and conditioning other factors to which it gives birth. This is why the Buddha depicts it as a seed.

For this reason, any state of becoming dependent on the seed of consciousness grows from an unstable seed. We have noted above that the basic principle of causality underlying dependent co-arising is inherently complex because it involves the interaction of many past and present causes and effects. It is also inherently unstable, for in addition to explaining how events cause other events to arise, it also shows that the passing away of causes will inevitably entail the passing away of their effects. This principle is so important that Ven. Assaji, one of the five brethren who listened to the Buddha’s first sermon, declared it to be the essence of the Buddha’s teachings.

Thus any state of becoming dependent on consciousness—which is liable to arise and pass away—is also liable to pass away. This inherent instability is one of the prime reasons why becoming is inherently stressful.

This instability is compounded by the fact that consciousness occurs twice in the pattern of dependent co-arising, once explicitly and once implicitly. Its first occurrence, explicit, is prior to name and form—and thus to intention—and to the six sense media. This would seem to contradict the above passages from MN 38 and SN 35:93, as well as the field analogy, in which the past-kammic elements in the field exist prior to the seed. However, consciousness also occurs implicitly in dependent co-arising in the factor of contact, which follows the six sense media.

Thus consciousness, in its first and second occurrences in dependent co-arising, both precedes and follows the six sense media, both precedes and follows intention. In fact, the continuation of the above passage states that another level of intention follows on this second occurrence of consciousness as well.

This alternating pattern between consciousness and intention can be explained in two ways. First, the general complexity of the causal principle underlying dependent co-arising—with present causes interacting with past causes to shape the present moment—opens the door to many feedback loops of just this sort. Consciousness and feeling, for example, alternate in just this way, as do consciousness and perception. Second, the specific interaction of consciousness and intention here helps to explain the nested quality of becoming, in which one state of becoming can start within another one, which is nested in yet another one, much like a set of nested boxes or Russian dolls. For example, the seed of consciousness that led to one’s birth on this physical plane of becoming is what has made possible one’s experience of this world through the six senses. Based on intentions interacting with that experience, other moments of consciousness have been conditioned, which serve as seeds for purely mental states of becoming within this lifetime: dreams, plans, and worlds of the imagination. Within those states of becoming, the mind produces further intentions and encounters another level of sensory experience, which conditions further moments of consciousness, and so on—dreams within dreams, stories within stories.

And, from the Buddha’s point of view, instability within instability and—for the most part—suffering compounded by suffering.

Viewed in light of the field analogy, the interaction of consciousness with old and new kamma shows how the field of possibilities for renewed becoming is potentially infinitely renewable. Just as plants growing in soil fertilize the soil when they decay, so too acts of consciousness interacting with old and new kamma lead to further new kamma—which, on becoming old kamma, can continue to act as soil nourishing further seeds of consciousness well into the future.

However, this process requires one further element for those seeds to grow: the moisture of craving, the third factor in the field analogy. At first glance, craving would not seem to merit a separate function within the field analogy, for it is a type of present kamma, and as such could be included as part of the field. However, in the Buddha’s definition of the craving that leads to renewed becoming, he states that one of the primary functions of craving is as a locator: choosing a location to relish, around which a state of becoming can form.

Thus the moisture of craving is a type of kamma that chooses which seeds, planted where in the field, will grow. Only the seeds moistened in this way will develop into states of becoming. In other words, the mental qualities of passion, delight, and craving select a particular spot in experience to focus on, and in so doing provide a place for becoming to be produced. This is why discourses such as Sn 5:2 and Thag 14:2 describe craving as a “seamstress”: It stitches the elements of becoming together, like a button on a piece of cloth, in a particular place. The story of flavor-earth illustrates this principle when it describes craving as “alighting” on the flavor-earth. We should keep in mind, though, that the notion of place here is not limited to a physical place. It can also denote a mental event, as when a feeling, perception, or act of consciousness becomes the nucleus around which a state of becoming can grow.

As we have seen in the analysis of the field, this nucleus can be composed either of past or present kamma: either the raw materials provided by past kamma or the activity of present intentions shaping those materials into a desirable form. When the raw materials from the past are favorable, craving can focus on trying to extend them and squeeze as much pleasure out of them as possible. When they are unfavorable, it can focus on trying to destroy them or convert them into something better. In either case, craving requires a constant doing, in anticipation of the happiness to which the doing will lead. In using the word anticipation here, however, it is important to note that, with so much kamma focused on shaping the present, anticipation means not only a desire for the future but also a desire to mold a favorable present moment.

This anticipation is often accompanied by delight—either in the prospect of maintaining a pleasant situation or changing an unfavorable one. And as the Buddha points out, this delight is equivalent to clinging.

This means that the origination of stress, as defined above, is not craving alone; it is craving plus clinging. When these two qualities land on any of the aggregates, they produce clinging-aggregates, which form the essence of suffering and stress in the context of the four noble truths. And because craving and clinging are the proximate causes of becoming, every state of becoming is thus permeated—either subtly or blatantly—with stress.

This stress is compounded by the fact that craving and clinging are so haphazard and erratic. As the standard definition of the origination of stress notes, they relish “now here, now there.” They can change their focus at any moment, abandoning the construction of one state of becoming to start work on a new one.

In terms of the field analogy, the primary reason why craving and clinging focus on a particular spot in the field is to enjoy the potential happiness they anticipate that the spot has to offer. However, when the spot is fabricated, it is tied to other conditions—those on which it depends, and those that depend on it. Craving and clinging are thus tied to those other conditions as well, whether they are desirable or not.

For example, a seed may be planted in a lovely spot, but if a drought, flood, or fire comes through the spot, the resulting plant could easily be killed. Even when craving and clinging try to avoid this drawback by moving their location from place to place—this is, in fact, their most common tactic for avoiding pain—the mind becomes exhausted from its inability to find genuine rest. Often, in rash desperation to escape an undesirable place, craving and clinging choose another place without careful consideration, landing in spots that quickly prove disastrous. And of course the mind is extremely fickle. Having decided that it likes a particular spot, it can immediately change its mind. This change can come so quickly that the Buddha—normally a master of the apt analogy—had to admit that he could not find an adequate analogy for it.

Thus the fluid changeability of the moisture of craving adds even more stress to the stress already inherent in the instability of the field and the seed.

In this way the field analogy shows how elements that are stressful and conditioned—kamma, consciousness, and craving—combine to form states of becoming that are inherently stressful and conditioned as well. “Being” is not an absolute state; it fluctuates as becoming, which in turn is based on unstable ground and given life by fleeting acts of consciousness and fickle acts of craving and clinging.

However, before we draw further lessons from this analogy, it is important to note that SN 22:54 contains another version of the analogy, with some interesting variations. Considering the two analogies together helps to bring some of their elements into fuller relief.

The second field analogy is this:

Although this second field analogy differs in some details from the first, both share a common structure: ground, seed, and moisture. The ground in the first is kamma, whereas in the second it’s the first four aggregates: form, feeling, perception, and fabrication. The seed in the first is consciousness, whereas in the second it’s consciousness together with its nutriment. The moisture in the first is craving, whereas in the second it’s delight.

As our discussion has already shown, some of these differences even in the details are not differences at all. The four aggregates are composed of both past and present kamma. Delight is conjoined with craving in the standard definition of the origination of stress. The main difference is that the seed of consciousness in the second analogy is supplied with nutriment—actually, with four kinds of nutriment. Even here, though, the difference is one more of emphasis than of substance, for the four nutriments of consciousness are simply versions of kamma past and present.

Physical food becomes available through kamma past and present. Contact is listed twice in the description of dependent co-arising, once as a sub-factor under name-&-form, and once as the intermediate link between the six senses and feeling. In the latter location, “contact” obviously means sensory contact. In the former, its meaning is less obvious but it apparently means contact among the various mental events and physical properties that make up name-&-form. Although the standard description of dependent co-arising lists name-&-form as dependent on consciousness—in which case consciousness would serve as food for contact—other versions of dependent co-arising (e.g., at DN 15 and SN 12:67) list name-&-form and consciousness side by side as mutually supporting. Thus “contact” in this context apparently means contact among mental events and the physical properties. Because these events and properties are shaped by kamma, contact is shaped by kamma as well.

Because kamma is defined as intention, the nutriment of intellectual intention is simply mental kamma in the present. Consciousness is listed as the fourth nutriment for consciousness because, as we have already seen, consciousness appears twice in the standard list of dependent co-arising, allowing the first occurrence of consciousness to act as food for the second. Consciousness in the role of nutriment apparently corresponds to the consciousness aggregate, which would explain why many discourses discuss all five aggregates, and not just the first four, as the ground for becoming.

Some passages in the Canon actually depict all four forms of nutriment as a ground for becoming, thus supporting the interpretation that they are essentially kamma with another name.

So the introduction of kamma as nutriment in the second field analogy adds nothing substantially new to the first. What it does add is an emphasis on an important aspect of conditionality as a whole, which is that causal dependency is best seen as an act of feeding. The Buddha underscores this point with his most fundamental teachings on the topic. In the Novice’s Questions, a short catechism for young people, he introduces the theme of conditionality in the very first question, under the image of feeding.

Unlike later schools of Buddhism, which illustrate causal dependence with the image of light reflecting from jewels and mirrors—suggesting an innocent, dazzlingly beautiful process—the Buddha uses the image of feeding to portray causal dependence in a much more disturbing way, so as to induce dispassion for it.

Thus the inherent stress of becoming lies not only in the instability of the factors on which it depends, but also on the stress and pain involved in those factors—pain felt not only by the person creating those states of becoming, but also by any beings who provide nourishment for that person’s physical existence. Viewed in this way, the two field analogies show why becoming offers no lasting happiness, and why that happiness is rarely blameless. This means that becoming, when looked at objectively, is not a desirable process in which to be engaged. Because these analogies also suggest why renewed becoming is potentially an infinitely renewable process, they show why anyone looking for true happiness would want to search for a way to bring becoming to an end.

At the same time, the field analogies indicate why there would be a paradox inherent in the desire to put an end to becoming: The desire to deprive the seed of moisture would function as a form of moisture as well.

The Buddha expresses this point in his full description of the origination of stress:

Like bhava, “non-becoming”—vibhava—is a term that the Buddha does not define. It is related to the verb vibhavati, which means to stop becoming, to stop being, to go out of existence. Iti 49 gives an example of how delight in non-becoming would be expressed:

Thus craving for non-becoming would mean a desire for something already existing to perish or be destroyed.

In terms of the field analogies, this craving could focus on the destruction of the ground or the nutriment in the seed. Now, the desire to interact kammically with these factors in any way is the moisture that nurtures the seed of kammically active consciousness, thus causing renewed becoming to grow. When the desire aims at destroying a particular spot in the field, all the elements for producing becoming are nevertheless in place: the ground of past and present kamma, the kammically active seed, and the moisture of clinging and craving. In this case, the clinging and craving are focused in anticipation on present kamma—as the desire to do whatever is necessary to bring about the destruction of the field—and thus these factors function as moisture nevertheless.

MN 106 shows that another form of craving for non-becoming would be the desire to maintain equanimity in the face of a particular spot in the field, in anticipation of the peace to be experienced in merely letting it pass. This, too, contains all the elements needed to produce becoming: The act of trying to maintain equanimity is present kamma; and the delight in the equanimity itself, or in anticipation of a higher peace it will lead to, the moisture. The result, while peaceful, is still a state of becoming.

Because becoming inherently involves suffering, these facts present a strategic challenge to anyone who wants to bring suffering to an end: how to put an end to renewed becoming without falling into the trap of craving for subtle becoming or craving for non-becoming.

However, in addition to pointing to this strategic challenge, the field analogies also point to a possible solution to that challenge. The ground provided by past kamma in no way determines that the plants of becoming will have to grow, or that suffering will have to continue without end. It only opens the possibility that these events can happen. If, however, present kamma in the form of the moisture is withheld or allowed to run dry, the potentials offered by the field and seed will not have to be actualized. For this approach to work, though, there must be a particular type of becoming that can supply the mind with an appropriate identity in a particular location where it can develop dispassion for all types of kamma, clinging, and craving. Once that dispassion has allowed all other locations of moisture to run dry, it can then turn to allow the moisture providing its own location to run dry as well. In other words—and this is the practical corollary to the paradox of becoming—there must be a state of becoming that can act as a preliminary stage of the path that leads ultimately to the end of all becoming. The Buddha’s main strategic discovery was to find that such a state of becoming actually exists, and that—with proper discernment—it can actually be used to bring suffering to an end.

But before we examine his approach in detail, we should understand in terms of the field analogies what this second paradox entails. Putting the mind in a skillful location where it can experience dispassion for all states of becoming necessarily entails some present kamma. This present kamma is ground and nutriment for a seed. For it to grow, this seed must be watered with delight and moistened by craving. At the same time, this seed must grow in supportive soil, within the context of a mind that is still producing repeated becoming. Thus the path to the end of becoming requires all the factors underlying becoming—the field of kamma, the seed of consciousness together with its nutriment, and the moisture of clinging and craving. In other words, becoming and its supporting factors are not only part of the problem. They must also be part of the solution.

However, not just any state of becoming is conducive to this purpose, nor is every type of clinging, craving, or kamma a potential means to Awakening. In some states of becoming—such as a life devoted to sexual pursuits—the pleasure is so distracting that it steals all the moisture from the path. In others—such as a life trapped in a war zone or in severe depression—the moisture is stolen by the desperate need to find relief from the anguish and pain. In most states of becoming the mind is so befuddled with sensual longing or mistaken views that it cannot observe the components of becoming with enough clarity to work effectively with them. And in many states of becoming, one’s existence can be maintained only by feeding on other beings in a way that causes harm.

So the first order of business in developing a path to the end of becoming is to identify which types of becoming, kamma, clinging, and craving are helpful to the path and which ones are not. This further requires a thorough knowledge of the many forms that becoming and its causal factors can take. Thus, before examining the role of becoming in the path, we must make a more detailed survey of the various types of becoming and the factors that give rise to them. In terms of the field analogies, this will entail looking in more detail at the possibilities offered by the ground and nutriment provided by kamma—the topic of Chapter Three—and at the moisture provided by clinging and craving for actualizing those possibilities—the topic of Chapter Four.