Action and suffering in the Theravadin tradition

·期刊原文
Action and suffering in the Theravadin tradition
By Ninian Smart

Philosophy East and West

Volume 34, no. 4(October 1984)

P.371-378

(C) by the University of Hawaii Press

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P.371

It is a curious thing that if I were to translate
into Pali the two main terms of the title I would of
course most naturally use the words kamma and
dukkha, and yet these terms mean something very
different in their Theravadin ramificatons than do
their English counterparts. So it should not be
surprising if the Theravadin 'solution' to the
problem of suffering should turn out to be--from a
Western angle--unexpected. The key to understanding
the Buddhist approach to dukkha lies in the
mentalistic pa.ticcasamuppaada, and a kind of
mentalistic philosophy underlies the quest for
liberation. But while it is important to look to
intellectual analysis (for Buddhism weaves such
analysis into its message), that should in turn be
seen as embedded in the practical life.

It is of course nothing new to say that the
problem of liberation has to be viewed through the
lens of the pa.ticcasamuppaada formula (which
henceforth for the sake of brevity I shall call the
PS formula).(1) But it is important to see precisely
the implications of the assertion. Now, of course,
much debate has surrounded the PS formula, its
antiquity, its separability into two parts, and so
forth. The number of steps in the chain varies, the
statement of the PS formula sometimes precedes
anuloma, sometimes pa.tiloma (with the lie of the
hair, and against), while commentarial explanations
both ancient and modern vary. But I shall take the
full twelvefold versions as normative, for even if
it be the case that other versions of the PS formula
end with consciousness as the top link, the early
texts, and many of those in the Theragatha, make
much of the concept of aasavas, and this includes
avijjaasava. So even if the extra two steps in the
twelve-step formula were added, they were added
fully in accord with the logic of the earliest
Buddhism. One can see the very great antiquity of
the aasava idea because it occurs in the Jaina
traditions: like a number of other elements in
Buddhism it belonged to a set of notions current in
the sramanic circles frequented by the Buddha, and
therefore going back to times before the rise of
Buddhism itself. This is, of course, not to forget
that though the Buddha drew on this heritage he in
effect transformed it by his highly innovatory
synthesis; as elsewhere in comparative studies, we
must see the organic context of terms, which partly
derive their meaning from that context. The
translations of aasava vary. As there is contained
in it the idea of flowing, and the idea of a kind of
impurity, I shall, perhaps a little punningly, use
the English word effluent. Anyway, aasavakkhaya or
'destruction of the effluents' is often another word
for liberation, nibbaana. Moreover, early Buddhism
sees in greed, hatred, and confusion (moha) the
three roots of bad behavior, and moha is an informal
equivalent of avijjaa.

Although dukkha, of course, is often translated
as suffering--so much so that this has become the
more or less standard translation of the word in
English--the suggestion is too strong. Really dukkha
means illfare as opposed to sukha,

P.372

welfare. If there is an expression which sums up the
nature of this illfare, it is jaraamara.naa or 'old
age and death'. Looked at negatively (and this is
the natural or anuloma way to look at the matter),
age and death signalize the depressing impermanence
and fragility of our pleasures and achievements;
looked at positively, on the other hand, the
realization of our impermanence is a step towards
the solution of the problem of illfare.
Jaraamara.naa is coupled with grief, lamentation,
sorrow, and despair.

From one point of view the overcoming of such
illfare--angst in the face of decay and death--lies
in banishing ignorance or avijjaa. One could look on
Buddhist doctrine in an existentialist light. Of
course, avijjaa is not ignorance in a merely
negative sense.(2) The prefix suggests otherness
rather than just absence of knowledge or insight. It
means moha--a kind of confusion; but even more than
that it involves having a wrong view of the world.
So it is by a partly intellectual revolution that
illfare is banished. It is by what we might speak of
as existential insight, pa~n~naa; it is important to
stress the 'existential' as involving an active
appropriation in experience of the truth. So though
the dharma is in fact expressed in propositions, it
is not just by believing certain propositions that
one is liberated, but by 'knowing' them in a
pregnant sense--like gnosis--that liberation is
achieved.

Sometimes this hits early Buddhists like a
conversion experience. One of the most striking
examples is a poem by Nagasamaala (Thag: 267ff):

Got up with flowers and perfumes
Dressed in alluring clothes,
The dancing-girl in the main-street
Swayed to the sound of a band.

I'd gone down into the city
To beg and had seen her there
In all her finery, dancing,
A snare that the Tempter had laid.

Then the basic truth of the matter
And the misery of it all
Became at once transparent
And so produced distaste.

My mind was thus liberated:
Behold the doctrine's truth!
I've gained the threefold wisdom
And done the Buddha's word.

If what is liberating is a kind of gnosis
(typically prepared for by good deeds and yoga) then
it follows that what binds us to this world is also
mental. This is where it is indeed vital to stress
that ignorance is really something positive: an
erroneous outlook which soaks our whole existence,
if we are to believe the Theravadin texts. So in one
sense, deeds or kamma are not at all important in
the Theravadin scheme. They play a merely
intermediate role and can be considered as
epiphenomenal to intentions, dispositions,
sankhaara. If we look, moveover, to

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the famous passage in Sutta Nipaata(3) na jaccaa
vasalo hoti/na jaccaa hoti braahma.no--

Not by birth is one an untouchable
Not by birth is one a brahmin:
By action one is untouchable
And it is by action one is a brahmin...

(it goes on to mention a Ca.n.daala who attained
great heights of sanctity)--we can see that kamma or
action here primarily refers to actions exhibited in
this life. It does not primarily refer to action in
a previous existence, for then it would be affirming
a conservative defence of the var.na system (that
is, a brahmin 'deserves' his status because it is in
consequence of actions meritoriously performed in a
previous existence that he is reborn as a brahmin).

Of course rebirth is important in preparing the
character of the good person. But how concretely
does this happen? We note that generally speaking in
the Indian tradition, including the medical writings
of the Caraka-sa^mhitaa, there has to be a third
force, apart from the material supplied by the male
and female parents. This 'third force' is that which
provides the mode for karmic factors to bridge over
from one life to another. This force is, put in
rather mythic fashion, a gandhabba.(4) It is not
that a celestial being comes down and presides over
conception, but rather that forces are ready to act
on the interuterine processes to produce a new
jaati. Not doubt the use of the term gandhabba was
part of the process of rationalizing some of the
preexisting mythic language. The logic of calling
the transitional entity (between one birth and
another) a gandhabba is that these are at the lowest
level of the gods who themselves inhabit the highest
level of the kaamadhaatu. So they occupy a place
immediately above the human being--and so are the
lowest manifestation of non-bodily life. Be that as
it may, the bridging force is a form of vi~n~naana
in which the sa^nkhaara are active.

The term sa^nkhaara(5) has, of course, a certain
ambiguity, which accounts for the variety and
uncertainty of English translations. I personally
prefer `dispositions', which covers intentions ('I
am disposed to act in such and such a way'),
dispositions in the usual sense of being those short
or long-term states of the individual disposing or
inclining him to act in a certain way, and those
karmic activities and dispositions which carry over
from one life to another. Actions. then, are from
one angle the natural outcome of intentions: the
behavioral outflow of sa^nkhaara. But actions
themselves help to create dispositions which lead to
future actions in this life and, more distantly, in
the next life. The life-to-life effect of
dispositions is an extension of the within-life
effect: a disposition waits for the occasion to act,
as when I say that I would like to have a trip to
the Maldive Islands--and then an opportunity to do
just that crops up and I grasp it.

Since the bridging entity--or, more correctly,
process--is consciousness (the so-called
sa^mva.t.tinikam vi~n~naa.na^m), outward forces are
only a partial condition of rebirth. If kamma acts
it does so through a funnel constituted by
conscious-

P.374

ness. But this consciousness which acts thus between
lives is in a subtle condition, and long-term
dispositions, as it were, cling to it. This notion,
present in the Theravada, and developed by the
Sautraantikas, also lies behind the concept of the
aalayavij~naana of the Yogaacaara School.

Incidentally, the latter can be seen as more
'realist' than the Western category, often applied
to it, of idealism: every supposed entity owes
something to projection (or representation)--the
world is bifurcated, as it were, into the graspable
and that which grasps. There is a reality underlying
both, but it is not characterizable: it is, that is,
noumenal. One might look on it in Buddhist fashion
as being (not things in themselves but) processes in
themselves--or, more correctly, perhaps, process in
itself. This is not idealism in the sense that
process in itself is a projection; rather, the world
as we encounter it is a projection upon this process
in itself. Hence correctly the vij~naanavaada should
be translated 'representationalism', This is not as
far away as is sometimes thought from earlier
thought, hence Vasubandhu did not need to make such
a severe transition as the doctrine of two
Vasubandhus suggests.

The idea of the store-consciousness itself is an
adaptation of the notion of consciousness in the
subtle, sa^nkhaara-accompanied condition, which is a
necessary part of the Buddhist explanation of kamma.

All this implies that the Buddhist explanation
of the continuance of illfare. suffering, dukkha, is
to do not strictly with outer material forces, but
with the general state of a person's consciousness.
Kamma or action is a sort of side effect. Perhaps
this is putting it too strongly, however, and it
might be better to say that action is a necessary
expression of intention. Thus evil intentions are
realized either in this life or in some future life.
More basically, the desire for
existence--bhava--expresses itself in outer form. If
it is still present at death when one's present
outer form dissolves, then a new outer form will be
found. The Buddha's perception of actions as the
necessary expression of intentions in this life is
thus extended to lives beyond the present one.

Since all life is in principle illfare, one
could thus say that the total explanation of
suffering lies in a consciousness having certain
dispositions, being bound to the outer world by
pleasure, the drive for continued existence and
ignorance or confusion. Intrinsically, existence
involves suffering even if it is only because all
good things, including life in heaven, come to an
end. But of course the particular forms and degrees
of suffering are not totally explained by this
general principle. For according to Buddhist
cosmology there are, of course, some peculiarly
horrendous hells--or strictly purgatories, for
happily they, too, come to an end. All this adds a
dimension to karma which is not fully explained by
the pa.ticcasamuppaada.

Is this idea of heavens and purgatories and
other forms of rebirth just a fanciful addition to
Buddhist teaching, designed to make its existential
force more vivid and pictorial? No doubt the
Theravaada drew upon some preexisting cosmological
motifs. But the difference it all makes is that the
person whose actions and

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therefore intentions are bad suffers for them
acutely in this life or the next or some time or
other, while the good person gains intensely because
of the likelihood of a heavenly existence. (In this
respect Buddhism is rather optimistic.) Kamma theory
becomes, as it were, a system of punishments and
rewards. But this is not entailed by the PS formula
itself, nor by the doctrine of craving (ta.nhaa).

Another way of posing the question is by asking
how it comes about that the cosmos responds to
merit. Part of the answer is that there is a general
assumption in Theravadin cosmology that like
attracts like: for instance, a person who has
attained some of the higher stages of jhaana is apt
to be reborn in a higher realm within the
cosmos--since the heavens come to be matched to the
hierarchy of meditations. The benevolent person goes
to a realm or a destiny in which others display
benevolence. Nature itself--more broadly, the
cosmos--is part of this scheme. Thus in the
Mahaaparinibbaana Sutta the causes of earthquakes
are in part seen as responses to tremendous events,
such as the Enlightenment or death of the Buddha.
The picture drawn in the Pall canon is of a
responsive universe. This is where the concreteness
of actions can be important, even if actions as such
are secondary to intentions. Actions are the way in
which the dispositions are expressed, and they
communicate the good or evil to other parts of the
responsive universe, including, of course, those
most immediately affected by good or evil deeds.

Thus the primary role of the actual deed,
considered as an external event (as distinguished
from the states of mind which accompany it), is as a
mode of communication, to which some other process
in the universe either in this life or the next
responds. We may see in this a parallel to social
forms of exchange: the meritorious gift or other
sacrifice may appear altruistic, not expecting an
immediate quid pro quo--but it attracts a reward
somewhere and somewhen. From this standpoint,
rebirth has a somewhat subtle lesson to propound,
which I can express somewhat as follows.

The cosmos itself 'responds' to good and evil
deeds, and the continuing consciousness of the
individual suitably homes in upon a suitable life
and environment. Even if the fit is not perfect (and
indeed it never is, insofar as the individual at the
end of a life still trails dispositions from a
previous life), there is always a future life to
consider: in the long run 'justice' is done. The key
lies in the sa^nkhaara embedded, so to say, in the
continuing consciousness. When these are evil they
increase the cosmic response. So reducing evil
sa^nkhaara not only reduces one's own ultimate
suffering but also that of others. Thus there is a
solidarity between compassion and ultimate
self-interest. There is, however, a Catch 22 on the
positive side. Not only will my gentleness help
others to be gentle and happy. but it will help me,
too, in a future life. But who is that future
person? If I have lost all craving for existence
then there will be no such person. Or, to put it
another way, ultimate welfare means complete
egolessness. This, in turn, means that I am in
higher truth no more closely related to the future
'me' than I

P.376

am to any other living being. Looking after my own
future becomes as much altruism as looking after
that of others. On the other hand, a dying person
still in the grip of aasavas has to 'reincarnate' as
an individual, for it is individual existence which
gives rise to individuals. If individuality gives
rise to anything it is further individuality. This
is a main basis for the whole doctrine of rebirth.

It follows that the exchange between action and
reward, between individuals and the cosmos, is a
kind of generalized exchange (from one point of
view) and echoes the relationship between laity and
sa^ngha (as analyzed recently by Ivan Strenski(6)).

At the heart, then, of the whole process is the
mind--consciousness with dispositions embedded in
it, or conscious states stained by the effluents.
The cure for its entanglement in the world begins
with a conscious turning of direction. This is why
right effort is a vital ingredient in the eightfold
way.

We may see the whole process of dealing with
suffering, then, as a dialectical process:
consciousness which has dispositions embedded in it
evolves an embodiment; the embodied consciousness is
in contact with the cosmos and gains a love for it;
the collisions between the cosmos and the embodied
consciousness bring suffering; these collisions,
which stem from the dispositions inherent in
suffering itself, can stimulate the beginnings of
effort to remove it; effort can lead to a stilling
of entangling dispositions--such effort needs,
however, to be guided by clarity of thought and
increasing insight; with the stilling of the
dispositions and the gaining of deep insight, the
essential difference between the transcendent and
the compound world is perceived and liberation
ensues. As the cosmos communicates with us through
the channel of contact, so we communicate with it
through action (kamma).

This account is put in substantive terms. In
fact, but for the cumbrousness of language I would
have used the language of processes. I would have
said: As a result of conscious states which are
accompanied by impulses to act, there evolve bodily
states which create contacts with cosmic processes
and cause conscious states to be affected by desires
for aspects of those processes... and so on.

All of this implies that though the mechanisms
of suffering are somewhat complex, at root the cure
for suffering lies in freely diverting our
dispositions towards a life of insight. Thus in an
important sense the root cause of suffering lies in
ourselves, and this is, after all what the PS
formula says.

I would just add a few brief comments on how the
Theravadin scheme hooks up with other Indian
developments and add, too, some quotations which
bring out the spirit of the system. First, the
scheme is not, of course, all that different from
Saa^mkhya, but effectively abolishes substances in
favor of processes (so neither is transcendent
liberation a transcendent thing or being, but a
state which supervenes upon effluent-tainted
conscious processes). Second, look at the cosmos as
a series of interacting and responsive, but egoless,
processes, in which karman is funneled through
consciousness and you get the aalayavij~naana
doctrine. Third, the divine eye, whereby the Buddha
can see processes in the cosmos,

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expresses a sense of the interconnectedness of
events in the universe (as implied by the karman
doctrine) which heralds Hua-yen.

The emphasis which Buddhism placed upon
intentions in combating evil in oneself and others
well justifies that famous first verse of the
Dhammapada: manopubba^ngamaa dhammaa manose.t.thaa
manomayaa/manasaa ce padu.t.thena bhaasati vaa
karoti vaa. /Tato nam dukkham anveti; cakka^m va
vahato padam: Mind is the forerunner of all
processes: it is chief and they are mind-made; if
with an impure mind one talks or acts then illfare
follows as the wheel follows the ox's step.

And in Valliya's little poem, citta is implicitly
referred to as a simian:

There is this monkey in a hut
Pacing around from door to door
Beating against all five of them.
Stop, monkey: don't go running round
For the situation now has changed:
Insight has caught you: never more
Will you go roaming far and wide.(7)

(makka.to pa~ncadvaaraaya^m ku.tikaayam
p.asakkiya/dvaarena anuparyeti gha.t.tayanto
muhu.m/ti.t.tha makka.ta maa dhaavii, na hi te ta.m
yathaa pure;/niggahito `si pa~n~naaya, neto duuram
gamissasiiti.)

And a good sense of the conquest of evil (or hope
for it) can be got from these extracts from a
longish poem by Talapu.ta:(8)

When shall I go to live alone,
Migrant among the mountain caves,
And see the impermanence of things?
When, Oh when will it come to be?
When shall I go in ragged robes
A yellow-clad recluse with all
Hate, passion, and illusion dead?
When, Oh when will it be?
.................................
When in the wooded hill ravines
Will twice-born tufted peacocks call
And rouse my will to try to gain
The immortal? When, when will it be?

When shall I break through desire's hold
Like a battle elephant, to
Reach, by meditation. freedom from
All outer signs of loveliness?

Kadaa nu'ha.m pubbatakandaraasu ekaakiiyo addutiyo
vihassa.m/aniccato sabbabhavam vipassa.m, tam me
ida.m tam nu kadaa bhavissati/kadaa nu'am
bhinnapatandhara muni kaasaavattho amamo
niraasayo/kadaa raaja~n ca dosa~n ca tath'eva moham
hantvaa sukhii pavanagato vihassam/kadaa mayuurasa
sikhandino vane dijassa sutvaa girigabbhare
ruta.m/paccu.t.thahitvaa amatassa pattiyaa
sa^mcintaye, ta.m nu kadaa bhavissati. The battle
elephant reminds us that the conquest of suffering
was also the battle agains Maara. Thus did Buddhism
tend to clothe in mythic form the

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realities of the spiritual and ethical life--and
this was an added aid in what is after all a heroic
task, the stilling of the mind and the cleansing
from it of the effluents.

NOTES

1. See Hajime Nakamura, "The Theory of
'Dependence Origination' in its Incipient Stage," in
Buddhist Studies in Honor of Walpola Rahula (London,
1980), pp. 165ff.
2. See the clear discussion of this by B. K.
Matilal in his article "Ignorance or Misconception:
A Note on Avidyaa in Buddhism," in the volume cited
in note 1, pp. 154ff.
3. Sn, p. 136ff.
4. MN I.265, pp. 23ff. The gandhabba is driven
from the state of intermediate existence,
antaraabhava, by the karmic requirements of the
situation.
5. I am indebted to the discussion of this by
Andrew Olendski, in an unpublished dissertation, in
preparation (University of Lancaster).
6. "On Generalized Exchange and the
Domestication of the Sangha," Man (September 1983).
7. Theragaathaa 125-6.
8. Ibid, pp. 1091ff.