THE PARADOX OF BECOMING

The Paradox of Becoming

Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu

(Geoffrey DeGraff)

Copyright

Copyright © 2008 Thanissaro Bhikkhu

for free distribution

You may copy, reformat, reprint, republish, and redistribute this work in any medium whatsoever without the author’s permission, provided that: (1) such copies, etc. are made available free of any charge; (2) any translations of this work state that they are derived herefrom; (3) any derivations of this work state that they are derived and differ herefrom; and (4) you include the full text of this license in any copies, translations or derivations of this work. Otherwise, all rights reserved.

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More Dhamma talks, books and translations by Thanissaro Bhikkhu are available to download in digital audio and various ebook formats at dhammatalks.org and accesstoinsight.org.

printed copy

A paperback copy of this book is available free of charge. To request one write to: Book Request, Metta Forest Monastery, PO Box 1409, Valley Center, CA 92082 USA.

questions

Questions regarding this book may be addressed to: The Abbot, Metta Forest Monastery, PO Box 1409, Valley Center, CA 92082 USA.

Contents

  • Cover
  • Copyright
  • Opening Verse
  • Abbreviations
  • Preface
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1: Two Stories
  • Chapter 2: Two Analogies
  • Chapter 3: Three Levels
  • Chapter 4: Four Clingings
  • Chapter 5: Two Incorrect Paths, One Incomplete
  • Chapter 6: One Way Out
  • Chapter 7: No Location, No Limitation
  • Appendix I
  • Appendix II
  • Glossary

Opening Verse

Look at this world:

Beings, afflicted with thick ignorance,

are unreleased

from passion for what has come to be.

All levels of becoming,

anywhere,

in any way,

are inconstant, stressful, subject to change.

Seeing this—as it has come to be—

with right discernment,

one abandons craving         for becoming,

without delighting         in non-becoming.

From the total ending of craving

comes dispassion & cessation without remainder:

Unbinding.

For the monk unbound,

through lack of clinging/sustenance,

there is no further becoming.

He has conquered Māra,

won the battle,

having gone beyond becomings—

Such.— Ud 3:10

Abbreviations

AN Aṅguttara Nikāya
Dhp Dhammapada
DN Dīgha Nikāya
Iti Itivuttaka
Khp Khuddakapāṭha
MN Majjhima Nikāya
Mv Mahāvagga
SN Saṁyutta Nikāya
Sn Sutta Nipāta
Thag Theragāthā
Thig Therīgāthā
Ud Udāna

References to DN, Iti, and MN are to discourse (sutta). Those to Dhp are to verse. Those to Mv are to chapter, section, and sub-section. References to other texts are to section (saṁyutta, nipāta, or vagga) and discourse.

All translations are based on the Royal Thai Edition of the Pali Canon (Bangkok: Mahāmakut Rājavidyālaya, 1982).

Preface

The topic of becoming, although it features one major paradox, contains other paradoxes as well. Not the least of these is the fact that, although becoming is one of the most important concepts in the Buddha’s teachings, there is no full-scale treatment of it in the English language. This book is an attempt to fill that lack.

The importance of becoming is evident from the role it plays in the four noble truths, particularly in the second: Suffering and stress are caused by any form of craving that leads to becoming. Thus the end of suffering must involve the end of becoming. The central paradox of becoming is also evident in the second noble truth, where one of the three forms of craving leading to becoming is craving for non-becoming—the ending of what has come to be. This poses a practical challenge for any attempt to put an end to becoming. Many writers have tried to resolve this paradox by defining non-becoming in such a way that the desire for Unbinding (nibbāna) would not fall into that category. However, the Buddha himself taught a strategic resolution to this paradox, in which the fourth noble truth—the path to the end of suffering—involves creating a type of becoming where the mind is so steady and alert that it can simply allow what has come into being to pass away of its own accord, thus avoiding the twin dangers of craving for becoming or for non-becoming.

My first inkling that the resolution of the paradox of becoming was strategic—and paradoxical itself—rather than simply linguistic came from reading the following passage in The Autobiography of Phra Ajaan Lee. In this passage, Ajaan Lee is teaching meditation to a senior scholarly monk in Bangkok.

One day the Somdet said, … “There’s one thing I’m still doubtful about. To make the mind still and bring it down to its basic resting level (bhavaṅga): Isn’t this the essence of becoming and birth?“

“That’s what concentration is,“ I told him, “becoming and birth.”

“But the Dhamma we’re taught to practice is for the sake of doing away with becoming and birth. So what are we doing giving rise to more becoming and birth?“

“If you don’t make the mind take on becoming, it won’t give rise to knowledge, because knowledge has to come from becoming if it’s going to do away with becoming.”

This book is essentially an attempt to explore in detail the ways in which the Buddha’s own resolution of the paradox of becoming employs the very same strategy.

In the course of writing this book, I found it necessary to revisit themes treated in some of my earlier writings. For instance, the topics of clinging and Unbinding, treated in The Mind Like Fire Unbound, and kamma and causality, treated in The Wings to Awakening, had to be covered again to give a full picture of the causes of becoming along with a sense of the rewards that come when becoming is overcome. But even though there is some overlap between this book and those—in terms of points made and passages cited—I am treating these topics from a different angle, posing different questions and arriving at a different range of answers. Thus the discussion here, instead of being redundant, adds new dimensions to what was written in those earlier works.

Many people have read earlier incarnations of the manuscript for this book and offered valuable suggestions for improving its substance and style. In addition to the monks here at the monastery, I would like to thank the following people for their help: Ven. Pasanno Bhikkhu, Ven. Amaro Bhikkhu, Michael Barber, Peter Clothier, Peter Doobinin, Bok-Lim Kim, Nate Osgood, Xiao-Quan Osgood, Rose St. John, Mary Talbot, Ginger Vathanasombat, Barbara Wright, and Michael Zoll. Any mistakes, of course, are my own responsibility.

Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu

Metta Forest Monastery

Valley Center, CA 92082-1409 USA

July, 2008

Introduction

We live in the same world, but in different worlds. The differences come partly from our living in different places. If you live to the east of a mountain and I to the west, my world will have a mountain blocking its sunrises, and yours its sunsets. But—depending on what we want out of the world—our worlds can also differ even when we stand in the same place. A painter, a skier, and a miner looking at a mountain from the same side will see different mountains.

Our worlds are also different in the sense that each person can move from one world to another—sometimes very quickly—over time. If you’re a painter, a skier, and a miner, you will see the same mountain in different ways depending on what you want from it at any given moment—beauty, adventure, or wealth. Even if you stay focused on nothing but the desire to paint, the beauty you want from the mountain will change with time—sometimes over years, sometimes from one moment to the next. Your identity as a painter will continue to evolve. Each and every desire, in fact, has its own separate world; and within those worlds, we take on different identities.

The Buddha had a word for this experience of an identity inhabiting a world defined around a specific desire. He called it bhava, which is related to the verb bhavati, to “be,” or to “become.” He was especially interested in bhava as process—how it comes about, and how it can be ended. So “becoming” is probably a better English rendering for the term than “being” or “existence,” especially as it follows on doing, rather than existing as a prior metaphysical absolute or ground. In other words, it’s not the source from which we come; it’s something produced by the activity of our minds.

The Buddha’s analysis of becoming as process throws a great deal of light on how imaginary, fictional, or dream worlds are created, but that was not his main concern. He was more interested in seeing how the process of becoming relates to the way suffering and stress are brought about and how they can be brought to an end. One of his first discoveries in analyzing the relationship between becoming and suffering was that the processes of becoming operate on different scales in space and time. The process by which the mind creates a psychological sense of location for itself in states of becoming within this lifetime is the same process by which it establishes a location for itself in another world after death. The question of whether death was followed by rebirth was hotly debated in the Buddha’s time, so in teaching the fact of rebirth he was not simply parroting the assumptions of his culture. The experience of his Awakening is what gave him proof that becoming has both psychological and cosmological dimensions—within the moment and stretching over lifetimes—with a parallel pattern in each. You can learn how the mind finds a place for rebirth by watching how it moves from one becoming to another here and now.

The Buddha’s Awakening also taught him that the craving and clinging leading to stress are identical to the craving and clinging that lead to becoming. So becoming is inevitably stressful. This explains why the typical human way of avoiding suffering—which is to replace one state of becoming with another—can never fully succeed. If, to escape the sufferings of being a painter, you decide to become a miner instead, you simply exchange one set of sufferings for another. Regardless of what identity you take on, or however you experience the mountain of the world, it’s going to entail some degree of stress.

Thus to put an end to suffering, it’s necessary to put an end to becoming. And to do that, it’s necessary to understand the process that gives rise to becoming, so that the problem can be attacked at its cause. This is why the Buddha focused on becoming as process. And he found that the process has three components, which he likened to the act of planting a seed in a field. The field stands for the range of possibilities offered by past and present kamma. The seed stands for consciousness, together with other kammic factors that nourish it. The water moistening the seed represents the present mental act of craving and clinging, which fixes on a specific spot in the range of possibilities offered by the field, allowing becoming to develop from the potentials offered by the seed.

This is where the Buddha ran into the central paradox of becoming, because the craving and clinging that provide the moisture do not have to delight in the field or the resultant becoming in order to bear fruit. If the mind fastens on a particular set of possibilities with the aim of changing or obliterating them, that acts as moisture for a state of becoming as well. Thus the desire to put an end to becoming produces a new state of becoming.

Because any desire that produces becoming also produces suffering, the Buddha was faced with a strategic challenge: how to put an end to suffering when the desire to put an end to suffering would lead to renewed suffering. His solution to this problem involved a paradoxical strategy, creating a state of becoming in the mind from which he could watch the potentials of kamma as they come into being, but without fueling the desire to do anything with regard to those potentials at all. In the terms of the field analogy, this solution would deprive the seed of moisture. Eventually, when all other states of becoming had been allowed to pass away, the state of becoming that had acted as the strategic vantage point would have to be deprived of moisture as well. Because the moisture of craving and clinging would have seeped into the seed even of this strategic becoming, this would eventually mean the destruction of the seed, as that moisture and any conditioned aspects of consciousness the seed might contain were allowed to pass away. But any unconditioned aspects of consciousness—if they existed—wouldn’t be touched at all.

This is precisely what the Buddha attempted, and he found that the strategy worked. Becoming could be allowed to end through creating a specific state of becoming—the condition of mental absorption known as jhāna—watered by specific types of craving and clinging. This type of becoming, together with its appropriate causes, is what constitutes the path he later taught. Once the path had done its work, he found, it could be abandoned through a process of perceptual deconstruction, and the quest for the end of suffering would be complete. Freed from both suffering and becoming, the mind would be totally released from the limitations of any identity or location—a freedom that beggars the imagination, but captures it as well.

This book is an attempt to analyze the Buddha’s teachings on becoming, and in particular to probe the paradox of becoming and the Buddha’s paradoxical strategy in response to it. It is organized as follows:

The first chapter explores two stories illustrating the process of becoming in both its psychological and cosmological dimensions, providing a broad sketch of the role played by past and present kamma in bringing it about.

The second chapter explores two versions of the field analogy, showing how they throw light on the broad sketch provided in Chapter One, and in particular on the way in which craving and clinging provide the sense of location—the “there”—at the center of any state of becoming.

The third chapter explores the three levels of karma—pertaining to sensuality, form, and formlessness—that provide openings for the three levels of becoming, both now and in future lifetimes.

The fourth chapter explores the four types of clinging—to sensuality, to views, to habits and practices, and to doctrines of self—again showing the consequences of these forms of clinging both now and after death. It also shows how all forms of clinging are based on clinging to a view, anticipating the results of clinging, and how they also involve, explicitly or implicitly, attachment to certain habits and practices, together with doctrines of the self. The fact that every form of clinging incorporates these three types explains why the state of becoming that constitutes the path depends on these three types of clinging as well.

The fifth chapter explores three modes of practice taught in the Buddha’s time that were unsuccessful in putting an end to becoming because they were based on an incomplete understanding of clinging.

The sixth chapter then explores the Buddhist path as an attempt to create a state of becoming that allows for the mind to view what has come to be simply as it has come to be, without watering the desire either to destroy it or to turn it into a further state of becoming. The first part of this chapter focuses on why jhāna, a strong meditative absorption free of sensuality, is the state of becoming suited to this task. The second part focuses on the types of perception used to undercut all clinging, even to the path itself.

The final chapter focuses on passages from the Canon describing the experience of a person who has gone beyond all the limitations of becoming to a freedom totally beyond identity and location.

In presenting this material, I have included many passages from the Pāli Canon, so as to provide direct access to the words of the Buddha and his awakened disciples. Seven passages in particular have provided the framework for the discussion. To keep them from getting lost in the plethora of other quotations, and to help the reader keep their importance in mind, I am giving them here. The book as a whole can be understood as an exploration of the first passage, with the remaining six passages providing guidance in the quest to make the hints given in the first passage clear.

The first passage—excerpts from the Buddha’s first sermon—sets out the general terms of the thesis: The second noble truth states the paradox of becoming; the duty appropriate to the fourth noble truth hints at the Buddha’s paradoxical strategy in finding a path around the original paradox; and his claim to Awakening hints at the type of knowledge beyond becoming and non-becoming that the path allows.

To expand on these points, the second and third passages give the two versions of the field analogy with which the Buddha explains the process of becoming, with the second passage also delineating the three levels on which becoming can take place. The fourth passage sets forth in more detail the strategy by which one can put an end to becoming without falling into the trap of craving either becoming or non-becoming. The fifth passage points to the paradoxical element in the strategy: the state of becoming—concentration—that has to be developed for the strategy to function. The sixth passage details the mode of perception—the highest form of right view, freed from thoughts of being and non-being—that, based on concentration, carries through with the strategy. Finally, the seventh passage offers an analogy for understanding consciousness freed from the limitations of becoming after the Buddha’s strategy has done its work.

§ 1. “And this, monks, is the noble truth of the origination of stress: the craving that makes for renewed becoming (bhava)—accompanied by passion & delight, relishing now here & now there—i.e., craving for sensuality, craving for becoming, craving for non-becoming….

“Vision arose, insight arose, discernment arose, knowledge arose, illumination arose within me with regard to things never heard before: ‘This is the noble truth of the way of practice leading to the cessation of stress’ …. ‘This noble truth of the way of practice leading to the cessation of stress is to be developed (bhāvetabba)’ …. ‘This noble truth of the way of practice leading to the cessation of stress has been developed’ ….

“As soon as this—my three-round, twelve-permutation knowledge & vision concerning these four noble truths as they have come to be (bhūta)—was truly pure, then I did claim to have directly awakened to the right self-awakening unexcelled in the cosmos with its devas, Maras & Brahmās, with its contemplatives & priests, its royalty & commonfolk. Knowledge & vision arose in me: ‘Unprovoked is my release. This is the last birth. There is now no further becoming.’”— SN 56:11

§ 2. Ven. Ānanda: “This word, ‘becoming, becoming’—to what extent is there becoming?”

The Buddha: “If there were no kamma ripening in the sensuality-property, would sensuality-becoming be discerned?”

Ven. Ānanda: “No, lord.”

The Buddha: “Thus kamma is the field, consciousness the seed, and craving the moisture. The consciousness of living beings hindered by ignorance & fettered by craving is established in/tuned to a lower property. Thus there is the production of renewed becoming in the future.

“If there were no kamma ripening in the form-property, would form-becoming be discerned?”

Ven. Ānanda: “No, lord.”

The Buddha: “Thus kamma is the field, consciousness the seed, and craving the moisture. The consciousness of living beings hindered by ignorance & fettered by craving is established in/tuned to a middling property. Thus there is the production of renewed becoming in the future.

“If there were no kamma ripening in the formless-property, would formless-becoming be discerned?”

Ven. Ānanda: “No, lord.”

The Buddha: “Thus kamma is the field, consciousness the seed, and craving the moisture. The consciousness of living beings hindered by ignorance & fettered by craving is established in/tuned to a refined property. Thus there is the production of renewed becoming in the future. This is how there is becoming.”— AN 3:76

§ 3. “Like the earth property, monks, is how the four standing-spots for consciousness should be seen. Like the liquid property is how delight & passion should be seen. Like the five means of (plant) propagation is how consciousness together with its nutriment should be seen.

“Should consciousness, when standing, stand attached to form, supported by form [as its object], landing on form, watered with delight, it would exhibit growth, increase, & proliferation.

“Should consciousness, when standing, stand attached to feeling, supported by feeling [as its object], landing on feeling, watered with delight, it would exhibit growth, increase, & proliferation.

“Should consciousness, when standing, stand attached to perception, supported by perception [as its object], landing on perception, watered with delight, it would exhibit growth, increase, & proliferation.

“Should consciousness, when standing, stand attached to fabrications, supported by fabrications [as its object], landing on fabrications, watered with delight, it would exhibit growth, increase, & proliferation.

“Were someone to say, ‘I will describe a coming, a going, a passing away, an arising, a growth, an increase, or a proliferation of consciousness apart from form, from feeling, from perception, from fabrications,’ that would be impossible.”— SN 22:54

§ 4. “Overcome by two viewpoints, some human & divine beings adhere, other human & divine beings slip right past, while those with vision see.

“And how do some adhere? Human & divine beings delight in becoming, enjoy becoming, are satisfied with becoming. When the Dhamma is being taught for the sake of the cessation of becoming, their minds do not take to it, are not calmed by it, do not settle on it, or become resolved on it. This is how some adhere.

“And how do some slip right past? Some, feeling horrified, humiliated, & disgusted with that very becoming, delight in non-becoming: ‘When this self, at the break-up of the body, after death, perishes & is destroyed, and does not exist after death, that is peaceful, that is exquisite, that is sufficiency!’ This is how some slip right past.

“And how do those with vision see? There is the case where a monk sees what’s come to be as what’s come to be. Seeing this, he practices for disenchantment with what’s come to be, dispassion for what’s come to be, and the cessation of what’s come to be. This is how those with vision see….

Those, having seen

what’s come to be

as what’s come to be,

and what’s gone beyond

what’s come to be,

are released in line

with what’s come to be,

through the exhaustion of craving for becoming.

If they’ve comprehended what’s come to be—

and are free from craving

for becoming & not-,

with the non-becoming

of what’s come to be—

monks come to no renewed becoming.— Iti 49

§ 5. “Develop (bhāvetha) concentration, monks. A concentrated monk discerns things as they have come to be. And what does he discern as it has come to be?

“‘This is stress,’ he discerns as it has come to be. ‘This is the origination of stress… This is the cessation of stress… This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress,’ he discerns as it has come to be.”— SN 56:1

§ 6. “By & large, Kaccāyana, 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 [the six sense media] with right discernment as it has come to be, “non-existence” with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world with right discernment as it has come to be, “existence” with reference to the world does not occur to one.

“By & large, Kaccāyana, this world is in bondage to attachments, clingings, & biases. But one such as this does not 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 mere stress, when arising, is arising; stress, when passing away, is passing away. In this, his knowledge is independent of others. It’s to this extent, Kaccāyana, that there is right view.”— SN 12:15

§ 7. “Where there is no passion for the nutriment of physical food, where there is no delight, no craving, then consciousness does not land there or grow. Where consciousness does not land or grow, name-&-form does not alight. Where name-&-form does not alight, there is no growth of fabrications. Where there is no growth of fabrications, there is no production of renewed becoming in the future. Where there is no production of renewed becoming in the future, there is no future birth, aging, & death. That, I tell you, has no sorrow, affliction, or despair.

[Similarly with the nutriment of contact, intellectual intention, and consciousness.]

“Just as if there were a roofed house or a roofed hall having windows on the north, the south, or the east. When the sun rises, and a ray has entered by way of the window, where does it land?”

“On the western wall, lord.”

“And if there is no western wall, where does it land?”

“On the ground, lord.”

“And if there is no ground, where does it land?”

“On the water, lord.”

“And if there is no water, where does it land?”

“It does not land, lord.”

“In the same way, where there is no passion for the nutriment of physical food… contact… intellectual intention… consciousness, where there is no delight, no craving, then consciousness does not land there or grow. Where consciousness does not land or grow, name-&-form does not alight. Where name-&-form does not alight, there is no growth of fabrications. Where there is no growth of fabrications, there is no production of renewed becoming in the future. Where there is no production of renewed becoming in the future, there is no future birth, aging, & death. That, I tell you, has no sorrow, affliction, or despair.”— SN 12:64

Dhamma Paññā

BQT trang Theravāda cố gắng sưu tầm thông tin tài liệu Dhamma trợ duyên quý độc giả tìm hiểu về Dhamma - Giáo Pháp Bậc Giác Ngộ thuyết giảng suốt 45 năm sau khi Ngài chứng đắc trở thành Đức Phật Chánh Đẳng Chánh Giác vào đêm Rằm tháng 4, tìm hiểu thêm phương pháp thực hành thiền Anapana, thiền Vipassana qua các tài liệu, bài giảng, pháp thoại từ các Thiền Sư, các Bậc Trưởng Lão, Bậc Thiện Trí.