The Buddha’s Teaching: A Buddhistic Analysis

By G. A. Somaratne

This book approaches the Dhamma, the Buddha’s teaching, from a Buddhistic perspective, viewing various individual teachings presented in hundreds of early discourses of Pali canon, comprehending them under a single systemic thought of a single individual called the Buddha. It explicates the structure of this thought, going through various contextual teachings and teaching categories of the discourses, treating them as necessary parts of a liberating thought that constitutes the right view of one who embraces the Buddha’s teaching as his or her sole philosophy of life. It interprets the diverse individual dhammas as being in congruence with each other; and as contributory to forming the whole of the Buddha’s teaching, the Dhamma. By exploring some selected topics such as ignorance, configurations, not-self, and nibbāna in thirteen chapters, the book enables readers to understand the whole (the Dhamma) in relation to the parts (the dhammas), and the parts in relation to the whole, while realizing the importance of studying every single dhamma category or topic not for its own sake but for understand the entirety of the teaching. This way of viewing and explaining the teachings of the discourses enables readers to clearly comprehend the teaching of the Buddha in early Buddhism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Release date: Jun 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9789811624100

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© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021

G. A. SomaratneThe Buddha’s Teachinghttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2410-0_1

1. Introduction

G. A. Somaratne¹  

(1)

Centre of Buddhist Studies, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

G. A. Somaratne

Email: [e-mail]

"One should say only what one would do;

One should not say what one would not do.

The wise recognize one who talks

but does not act."

—Arahat Bākula—(Thag.v.226)

Keywords

BuddhaBuddha’s teachingBuddhist studiesDhammaDhammasMundane personNature of thingsSystemic thoughtUniversal nature

Universal Nature of Particular Nature

The discourses of the Buddha and his disciples use the Middle Indo Aryan term dhamma mainly referring to a thing, a percept, the nature of a thing or things, the Buddhas’ teaching as a whole, or a part thereof. A thing (or a dhamma) is a dependently arisen phenomenon (paṭicca-samuppanna-dhamma). Hence, it is a configured thing (saṅkhata-dhamma), configured with the conglomeration of a specific set of configurations. Configurations are those things that come to configure some other things. A thing is present for the individual as a percept, that is, as an object of perception; or as a phenomenon, that is, as a perceived thing. A percept or a phenomenon is a subjectively reconfigured thing, a cognized thing, an occurrence of name-and-matter (nāma-rūpa). To reconfigure something subjectively (in one’s retrospective sensory experience), first it must be present objectively (in one’s immediate sensory experience). Therefore, a thing that is present (in retrospective sensory experience) is always a percept having been configured twice; first with the participation of objective configurations that are positive in nature and second, with the participation of subjective configurations that are negative in nature. As mentioned above, configurations are those that configure other things in one’s world, either mental or physical, or both. An analysis into objective configurations tells us what a thing is in itself, either mental or physical. Subjective configurations are significances such as intentions, volitions, desires, memories, ideas, views, likes, and dislikes; and an analysis into them reveals that they tell how a thing is. How a thing is a matter of our subjective configurations. Subjective configurations are negative in nature, because they do not have verifiable properties. For example, when I perceive a thing as this is my cup, I have subjectively reconfigured the thing that has already been configured by objective configurations: a group of matter. What I have done to make it a my cup is to place my subjective configurations (significances) upon it. In other words, when perceiving that particular thing as this is my cup, I have attributed to a group of matter or a mode of some material behaviours, some significances (subjective configurations); such as it belongs to me, it is valuable, and something I can use for drinking water. To say this differently, in the Buddha’s language, a cup is a configured thing (saṅkhata) that is out there, and my cup is a reconfigured thing (abhisaṅkhata) that is in me as a percept.

A thing that is present to me as a percept in my nonretrospective immediate sensory experience, is in itself a configured thing; configured by some positively present objective configurations. A thing is truly the nature of a thing, or a particular nature that is distinct from all other nature or all other things. For example, I see a thing, a cup containing tea. In this case, the nature of the thing is that there is a cup containing tea that is visible to me, and it is distinguishable from a teapot next to it, and also from some other things around it. The cup containing tea that I now see is a thing, a phenomenon, a nature, a dhamma. A closer examination shows that each item that comes to construct the thing separately such as solidity (paṭhavī) and liquidity (āpo), is also a thing, a nature, a dhamma; in that each is distinct from others. To the mundane person, these dhammas are revealed first in his or her nonretrospective immediate sensory experience; that is, in his or her sensory perception that comes prior to the occurrence of the retrospective sensory experience; prior to their getting subjectively reconfigured by intentions such as they are mine, they are for me, or they are for this ‘I.’ All dhammas are particular and specific things that are seen, heard, sensed, or cognized in the immediate sensory experience.

However, as prescribed in the Buddha’s teaching, when we adopt meditative watching (vipassanā) with mindfulness-and-awareness (sati-sampajañña), we can arrive at the nature of the particular nature. For example, bracketing off the particular nature which is a cup containing tea that I now see, we can penetrate into its universal nature. Instead of a cup containing tea that is visible to me, we can see it as a sensory experience of mine, constituted by matter, feeling, perception, configurations, and consciousness. These five factors are nature that is of universal application; that is, that they are common to all particular nature or things. For example, eye-consciousness is common to all things that have ever been, or are, or will be, visible to me. Similarly, ear-consciousness is common to all things that have ever been, or are, or will be, audible to me. Further exercising of meditative watching with mindfulness-and-awareness, will also reveal that all these things or phenomena share further universal nature and hence further universal application, such as that they are dependently arisen, configured, impermanent, and without any permanent substance. All these universal nature and things of universal nature (loka-dhamma) are called dhammas, or things that make up the Dhamma, the Buddha’s teaching.

The dhamma is thus the nature of things, the universal nature of particular things, and it is what the Buddha discovered, teaches, and reveals to the world as his Dhamma or teaching. Impermanence, for example, is a dhamma, and it is a universal nature of all things. As the Puppha-sutta (S.22.94 > S.III.139) states, matter, feeling, perception, configurations, and consciousness are universal nature that define the experience of all living beings who are now, were in the past, or will be in the future. Therefore, the word Dhamma (upper case D) comes to mean the Teaching (of the Buddha), and the word dhamma (lower case d) comes to mean a particular teaching (of the Buddha) that tells us a universal nature of a particular thing or things. In other words, the Dhamma teaches the dhammas, the universal nature of particular things. For example, it teaches wholesome dhammas (kusala-dhamma) and unwholesome dhammas (akusala-dhamma); it teaches the (universal) nature (of beings) which is birth (jāti-dhamma), the nature which is ageing (jarā-dhamma), the nature which is sickness (byādhi-dhamma), and the nature which is death (maraṇa-dhamma); it teaches the nature of configured things (saṅkhata-dhamma) and the nature of the nonconfigured thing (asaṅkhata-dhamma); that is, of nibbāna. The Dhamma or a dhamma in this sense is invariable in time (akālika). As it is pointed out in the Buddha’s teaching, this quality of the Dhamma or a dhamma helps one arriving at certainty with regard to the Dhamma or all dhammas, in any of the three periods: past, present, and future.¹ For example, the fact that when aging-and-death is there, birth as a necessary condition is a dhamma, an invariable universal principle that has worked so far, is working now, and will work in the future. Because it is a universal principle, the Buddhas in the past have understood it, and the Buddhas in the future will understand it, as Gotama the Buddha understands it at present. It is the knowledge of the Dhamma as a whole that reveals the true nature of things. The knowledge of the true nature of things dissolves all subjective configurations that configure suffering. Therefore, the Buddha can assure his disciples that the knowledge of the Dhamma leads one onward, one after the other, through a series of self-transformations: to revulsion, dispassion, cessation, appeasement, higher knowledge, realization, enlightenment, and nibbāna, irrespective of time and place.

The Buddha’s teaching or the Dhamma thus forms a distinctive system of religious knowledge, that talks about the universal nature of particular things. It comes with a definite and clearly defined soteriological plan. It is within this systemic structure that the Buddha’s teaching is to be understood and interpreted, and that the Buddhist practitioner must discover the liberating effect of the knowledge of the Dhamma. The whole of the Buddha’s teaching that describes the entirety of this soteriological structure is designated as the Dhamma.² Multiple parts or a cluster of dhammas come to constitute the whole, the Dhamma. The main soteriological structure of the Buddha’s teaching is revealed, according to the popular textual analysis, in four insights called the four noble truths (cattāri ariya-saccāni)³: This is suffering; this is the arising of suffering; this is the cessation of suffering; and this is the practice that leads to the cessation of suffering.⁴ Within the main structure of the four noble truths, a number of parts or particular dhammas—such as the five aggregates, the noble eightfold path, and dependent co-arising (paṭicca-samuppāda)—are enclosed. Each part is again constituted by the constellation of further analysable parts. Hence each part is further analysable, depending upon how we look at it and to what extent we wish to examine it, to understand the true nature of things. The five aggregates, for example (itself a part of the whole), is analysable into the dhamma categories of matter, feeling, perception, configurations, and consciousness. It is also analysable into name-and-matter and consciousness. Matter, for example, is further analysable into four modes of primary material behaviours and various material objects. However, the Buddha analyses things setting a limit. He analyses things only to a soteriologically effective level where one can understand the nature of things objectively, as they truly are, for he considers any analysis beyond that limit, though is possible, a mere waste.

The significance of parts is denoted by not only their relational interaction with the whole (the main experiential structure), but also how they contribute to generating the liberating effect in the practitioner (bhikkhu). It is, for instance, meaningless to discuss the concept feeling in the Buddhist context, if we fail to link it at least either to the five aggregates, or to the totality of the teaching that constitutes both the liberating knowledge and the path of practice. Rather than understanding the parts, what is more important is the understanding of the whole, the main structure, the whole of the teaching; the Dhamma, that describes the nature of things, and also prescribes a path to understand the nature of things objectively, as they truly are (yathā-bhūta), without colouring the objective reality with one’s subjectivity. As it is assumed in the Buddha’s teaching, it is by understanding the whole structure of the teaching, that the practitioner could transform himself or herself from the present state of a mundane person, to that of a noble disciple; the highest of whom is the Arahat, the perfected sage.⁵ In other words, only the knowledge of the Dhamma, the whole of the teaching, the understanding of the universal nature of all things in one’s experiential world, that could lead one onward to revulsion, and then to dispassion, cessation, appeasement, higher knowledge, realization, enlightenment, and nibbāna. Attaining revulsion and dispassion are the prime aims of understanding things (the five aggregates) objectively, as they truly are.

What the Buddha’s teaching reveals and describes are the five aggregates, the man’s experiential structure that in the case of the mundane person functions with clinging (sa-upādāna), resulting in the arising of suffering (dukkha-samudaya), and that in the case of the noble disciple functions without clinging (anupādāna), resulting in the cessation of suffering (dukkha-nirodha). The teaching prescribes a path of practice for the mundane person who intends transforming his or her experiential structure, from its present mundane state to the supramundane state experienced by a noble disciple. In brief, the Buddha’s teaching is all about bringing in this total structural change to the mundane person’s experiential structure operative beneath his or her retrospective sensory experience, replacing its worldly mind of clinging with a noble mind of non-clinging, here and now. The teaching directs the individual to experience the world while penetrating into the whole of the experiential structure that is constituted by the five aggregates, by way of understanding the whole of the systemic structure of the Dhamma, the Buddha’s teaching. At the end, one comes to understand that the two structures, the structure of our experience (that is, the nature of things), and the structure of the Dhamma (that is, the Buddha’s teaching), are not different; the latter is a description of the former.

The parts or particular dhammas are not so significant on their own, because they themselves cannot bring about the required total structural transformation to one’s experiential structure. They are significant only in so far as they are utilized for understanding the whole, the nature of things, the Dhamma. As such the individual teachings in their own right have no soteriological value, purpose, or significance; their learning would be a mere addition to one’s knowledge of things. Some dhamma categories may directly explain the suffering, the arising of suffering, the cessation of suffering, or the practice that leads to the cessation of suffering; or any two of the four such as the suffering and the arising of suffering (on the one hand), and the cessation of suffering and the practice that leads to the cessation of suffering (on the other); or any three of the four, or all of the four. However, the value and significance of the individual dhamma categories, depends on how they contribute or how we skilfully use them to the understanding of the whole; the Dhamma, the nature of things, the four noble truths, the Buddha’s teaching. Take, for example, the teaching of the five aggregates (khandhā) which is a part of the whole, a dhamma of the Dhamma. The five aggregates must therefore be understood in relation to the whole Dhamma, perhaps to understand the suffering, the arising of suffering, the cessation of suffering, or even the practice that leads to the cessation of suffering. In other words, the five aggregates must be understood within the larger systemic structure of the four noble truths.⁶ Moreover, the teaching of the five aggregates is itself a combination of parts: dhammas. It is analysable into either name-and-matter and consciousness, or feeling, perception, configurations, matter, and consciousness. Each of these categories is again analysable into further subcategories. For example, the Upādānaparivaṭṭa-sutta (S.22.56 > S.III.59) analyses matter into four modes of primary material behaviour: solidity, liquidity, temperature, and motion—and the individual material objects that depend upon the four modes of primary material behaviour. Examination into any one of these distinct topics has no soteriological value in their own; hence discussions on a part without connecting it to the whole, are not the Dhamma. They become the Dhamma only if they are examined to understand the whole systemic structure of the Dhamma, the nature of things, and in turn the whole structure of the retrospective sensory experience of the mundane person’s experiencing suffering, the whole structure of the retrospective sensory experience of the noble person’s experiencing bliss, and to bring in the required structural transformation to the mundane person, so that he or she becomes a noble disciple here and now.

The discourses of the Buddha indicate that our misperceptions regarding the Dhamma, the nature of things, are mostly due to our inability to understand the whole of it. The Titthiya-sutta (Ud.6.4 > Ud.69), for example, defines those who fail to understand the whole but see only a part, as those folk who are seers of a single limb (janā ekaṅga-dassino). It points out that the diversity of dogmatic views prevalent among competing religious groups at the time of the Buddha, on the nature of the world, self and body relationship, and what happens to the liberated being after death, is due to not knowing fully the whole of the Dhamma, the nature of things; and dogmatically claiming partial truths to be the whole truth, while clinging to their view as: This alone is true; all else is false (idam eva saccaṃ, mogham aññaṃ). In this discourse (Ud.66–9), the Buddha compares such religious authorities to a group of men who have been blind from birth, who perceive only one part of the body of an elephant and then claim that they know perfectly who an elephant is. As the story relates, a king first made each blind man touch and experience only a part of the elephant’s body and then asked⁷:

The Buddha concludes (Ud.69):

Single System of Thought

This book has its subject matter the Dhamma, the Buddha’s teaching, or the nature of things that the Buddha’s teaching reveals concerning the experiential world of the mundane person, and that of the liberated sage. It takes the teaching found in the discourses as of a single individual called the Buddha.⁸ By so taking, it intends to view the teaching in the discourses as one whole, as one comprehensive systemic thought of the Buddha.⁹ This way of viewing and understanding of the Dhamma is said to be the starting point of the supramundane path (lokuttara-magga) that leads to nibbāna. As the discourses show, it marks the disciple’s entering the stream (sotāpatti), becoming one who has attained to right view (diṭṭhi-ppatta). This entering into the stream of higher learning and practice is a challenging task for it is said to be not for going along the currents (anusota-gāmi), but for going against the currents (paṭisota-gāmi). It marks an initial, theoretical, and retrospective understanding of the Dhamma, which gives the mundane person a new outlook. This understanding reveals to the mundane person that his or her experiential world now is revolving being clung to a belief in self (atta-vāda-upādāna) grounded on a mental inclination to conceit I am (asmi-māna); and that if this present revolving were to continue, he or she will end up in configuring and experiencing further suffering, painful and pleasurable mental and physical feelings: painful feelings in hells and the human world and pleasurable feelings in heavens and the human world. This revelation makes him or her realize that he or she is a prisoner of his or her own clinging to a belief in self (and of the subsequent psychological state of self-continuity); and that how each and every retrospective sensory experience generates suffering for him or her by way of giving birth to an I that is liable to the frailties of life and living. The initial theoretical understanding of the Dhamma, thus, provides the practitioner a new perspective, to see things differently. It tells him or her that the present manner of his or her life’s getting going must be stopped and that he or she must start going against the currents. With this orientation, the mundane person finds the need for a deeper philosophical orientation to life, and finds the Buddha’s teaching exactly providing that philosophy of life. The mundane person’s recognition of the Buddha’s teaching as his or her philosophy of life now turns him or her into a stream-enterer (sotāpanna),¹⁰ a true convert to the Buddha’s teaching.

To receive this profound philosophical orientation to life, one must view the Buddha’s teachings in the discourses in such a way, as that they constitute a single, consistent, and well-articulated system of liberation thought.¹¹ As the Alagaddūpama-sutta (M.22 > M.I.141) and the Dasabala-sutta 2 (S.12.22 > S.II.28) confirm, the Buddha expounded the Dhamma that we find scattered in thousands of discourses exactly as a single complete system of thought. The Buddha claims:

In the discourses, he presents this teaching as a realistic alternative for the mundane person, to transcend dualistic conceptions of the world that configure suffering.

This book, therefore, has as its aim, to explicate the structure of this single systemic teaching. As a hermeneutical exercise, it views various teachings, presented under diverse topics, scattered throughout thousands of early discourses in the Pāli canon, as necessary parts for formulating a sufficient system of liberating thought,¹² that is said to lead the mundane person onward to enter the stream; and that is said to enable a trainee or a noble disciple, to go against the stream of craving and clinging, moving towards the supreme happiness. It interprets the diverse parts or dhammas as being in congruence with each other; and as contributory to forming the whole of the Buddha’s teaching, as a comprehensive system for one to gain the liberating knowledge (aññā). In other words, this book has its aim to present, based on the discourses of the Buddha and his early disciples, though theoretically, the wealth of knowledge that constitutes the new philosophical orientation of a stream-enterer ¹³; one who has discovered the path to nibbāna, by way of theoretically and retrospectively comprehending the Dhamma, and embracing that Dhamma as his or her sole philosophy of life.

To achieve this aim, this book, by way of exploring some selected key topics in chapters, endeavours to explain the whole in relation to the parts, and the parts in relation to the whole, though at times having to be repetitive in the style of presentation of the subject matter. When we view the teachings in the discourses as of a single system, we will come to understand that no part of the Buddha’s teaching could be modified or changed without seriously affecting the rest. This also means that if there are teachings preserved within the discourses that are contrary to this systemic structure of a single thought that we are concerned with, it is necessary to conclude that those conflicting teachings do not form part of this particular systemic thought, the original or the earliest system of the Buddha’s teaching; but that they could belong to another system or systems alien to it. In this way, this work attempts to identify not only those teachings that constitute the Buddha’s original single systemic thought, identified as such; but also the ones, if any, which are incompatible with that systemic thought that we call early Buddhism or primitive Buddhism. However, it must be noted at the outset, that I do not find in the discourses that I have examined so far, any doctrinal point that is incompatible with the remaining doctrinal points that I have discussed in this book. How do we find this consistency in the early Buddhist teachings? As we read through the discourses, we will identify the gist of the Buddha’s teachings, to constitute those teachings that are to be on the problem of our existence; our existential suffering, and also on the solution to that problem. We will plan to identify the core teachings that come around this gist, to be supportive of the view that all topics that are discussed in the discourses, explain either the problem or the solution; in other words, either the arising of suffering or the way out of it.

Furthermore, this book lets the reader decide why this system of teaching arose in the first place in the world. Was it a creation of the religious milieu at the time in India, as historians of religion often conclude? Or was it a creation of the cosmic cycle of evolution that provides space for the appearance of a Buddha, as the Buddhists and their texts claim? In other words, had the Buddha’s teaching arisen as a historically created alternative system of philosophical thought, to the already present two contrasting systems of religious-philosophical thought¹⁴ in India: eternalism and annihilationism?¹⁵ Or had it arisen due to a compassionate and energetic being’s struggle in cosmic time, to discover the truth of existence and the solution to the existential suffering of living beings; and after that discovery, his willingness to share them with others?¹⁶ As the discourses show the presence of the two worldviews, eternalism and annihilationism, cannot be restricted to one historical period, to the sixth century B.C. India only, for they reflect the universal psychological makeup of ignorant humanity in any historical period or context. Wherever the humans live, the two worldviews are bound to manifest. However, as the discourses show, they do not guarantee the appearance of a Buddha. In the Ekapuggala-sutta (A.1.13 > A.I.22–3) the Buddha introduces himself as a rare being who appeared in the world for the benefit of the many:

This book attempts to introduce the Buddha’s teaching, as both a description of how the subjectivity (clinging to things as this is mine, this am I, this is my self,) takes place beneath one’s retrospective sensory experience, making one’s each and every sensory experience a self-experience or a personal experience, and a prescription of how the occurrence of this subjectivity could be eliminated. It takes the Buddha’s teaching as a comprehensive plan of action, given to practitioners for effecting their salvation individually (paccatta). As such, it shows that introducing his teaching as a religious-philosophical theory given to the Buddhists for defending it against other contemporary religious-philosophical theories, then or now, obscures its liberative thrust and purpose, as presented in the discourses. In other words, the book advocates that it is unwise to interpret the Buddha’s teaching as it arose merely as a religious-philosophical response to the two contrasting thoughts, eternalism and annihilationism, prevalent in the sixth century BCE India; and that today it must merely play the role of a religious-philosophical position in the midst of many others.

Sufficiency Theory

To elucidate the Buddha’s teaching as a distinct system of liberation thought, this book follows a sort of a sufficiency theory; that is, that it assumes that the teachings contain in the early discourses of the Buddha and of his immediate disciples are sufficient to understand the Buddha’s original message, and that the definitions given to various teaching categories are also sufficient to understand his original explanation of the Dhamma, the nature of things, the universal nature of particular things. This follows that it considers any analysis given in the discourses to a particular teaching or a thing, is just sufficient for achieving the practical purpose of that teaching. The analysis given in the discourses to matter (understood in relation to the whole), for example, is just enough for achieving its practical purpose of contributing to eradicating suffering, configured by one’s clinging to matter and material objects, taking them as self or as belonging to a self. A detailed discussion on matter in relation to molecules, atoms, neutrons, and photons, is clearly not required for attaining its practical purpose of putting an end to the sources of suffering by non-clinging. Furthermore, this consideration that the explanations given in the discourses to the categories of dhammas are sufficient, also implies that this book avoids incorporating the discussions found in the Abhidhamma and the Theravāda commentarial tradition to interpret the Buddha’s teachings in the discourses.¹⁷ However, this does not mean it assumes that the teachings of the Abhidhamma and the Theravāda commentaries are wrong. What it says is that those teachings represent not early Buddhism but Theravāda Buddhism. The two are two distinctive systems with slightly different agendas. For example, early Buddhism instructs the practitioners to attain the liberating knowledge here and now (diṭṭh’eva dhamme aññā); that is, in this very life within the present dispensation of the Buddha Gotama. The Theravāda tradition, on the other hand, coaches its practitioners in preparing for the attainment of liberation in the presence of the Buddha Metteyya, the next Buddha. If we do not differentiate these two agendas clearly, we are likely to mix up the two teachings and to call that mess of conflation The Buddha’s Teaching.

To understand or interpret even a dhamma category in relation to the whole, the Dhamma, it requires we put the content of many discourses together. Therefore, the doctrinal exposition of this book will naturally be an interpretation, as the title, a Buddhistic analysis, itself suggests. It is definitely a reconstruction of the Buddha’s teaching based on the doctrinal statements found enclosed in various discourses of the Pāli canon. Moreover, being an interpretive endeavour, this reconstruction involves, to a certain extent, the author’s reflexivity, and his assumptions and convictions as well, though he himself attempts to let the discourses speak for themselves, bracketing his prejudices and biases. Hence, it is necessary to state something about the author himself.¹⁸ The author considers himself to be an insider, a Buddhist, who has the conviction that the Buddha’s teaching (if properly understood and put into practice) can bring wellbeing and happiness to people, and in turn to all living beings. As such, the study presented in this book makes it a normative enterprise, and an engagement with a conviction that the Buddha’s teaching presents the truth, the true state of affairs, the nature of things; and that the truth, if known by mundane persons will be for their benefit and happiness for a long time. However, the author thinks that he interprets the discourses objectively, endeavouring to draw the message as they seemed conveyed to the original audience, early Buddhist communities. Moreover, as the author thinks, academic objectivity in any study into religious texts is merely an ideal, whether undertaken by either an insider or an outsider.¹⁹ At the same time, the author also believes that those who understand the Buddha’s teaching at least theoretically, are in a better position to view the teaching more objectively, as it truly is, than those who do not understand it at least theoretically.²⁰ In addition, the teaching of the Buddha in the early discourses, comes framed in the literary genres of narratives, poems, dialogues, and sermons. The literary genre could be identified from the use of literary forms and formulae belonging to that genre.²¹ Once the literary quality and the communication methods are understood by identifying the literary genre, the doctrines or the message embedded in them could be identified, without being misled by the beauties of the language and communication. Every literary piece is a deliberate composition to convey a message. These discourses are literary pieces that carry the message of the Buddha to diverse audiences, in a historical, social, and cultural context that is very different from ours. Hence, the message contained in these discourses must be discerned and then explained, by being equipped with experience and skills required for such an endeavour.

Buddhistic Versus Buddhological

When it comes to understanding the Buddha’s teaching, there is a fundamental methodological problem in the way that academic studies interpret it, though such studies have their own values when seen through modern mundane disciplinary perspectives. In academic study of Buddhology, for example, what we normally do is to undertake historical, philological, comparative, or social scientific studies into the canonical and commentarial texts; setting a Buddhist concept like suffering (dukkha) or not-self (anatta), within the larger Indian religious-philosophical or social-economic texts and contexts; considering its etymological roots, Indo-European connections, Brāhmaṇic and Upaniṣadic origins; and its subsequent developments in the hands of different Buddhist schools and traditions, as well as its so-called interpretations in Buddhist modernism (the pejorative term used by the Western Buddhological scholars to discourage any theological, soteriological, or even psychological studies into the teaching of the Buddha).²² Though such Buddhological studies have their own intrinsic values within the larger Buddhist studies field, where the real psychological and soteriological meaning, purpose, and effect of the Buddha’s teaching for people are concerned, such (academic) studies tend to divert the Buddha’s teaching from its main psychological and soteriological systemic structure within which its intended meaning and purpose are to be seen in order to be beneficial for people for bringing transformations to their lives.²³ Moreover, academic and non-academic studies into the Buddha’s core message (the noble truth that this is suffering), have often ended up, either intentionally or unintentionally, giving the Buddha’s teaching a pessimistic outlook. The reason for this is that they seem to assume the Buddha’s teaching to be all about suffering.²⁴ Moreover, they seem to take the suffering that the Buddha discusses, to be something which we normally think it to be in our common idiom. If the Buddha’s teaching of suffering, is as the present scholarship opines it to be in their studies, no doubt, anyone would be able to understand it with ease. As the Buddha states in the Saṅkāsanā-sutta (S.56.19 > S.V.430), this suffering that he teaches is with many nuances, details, and implications. Considering this, this book aims to examine the core teaching of suffering (dukkha), its cessation, and other related dhamma topics as found in the discourses, taking a somewhat Buddhistic position that the Buddha defines these topics very differently than we normally understand them to be and that the pessimistic outlook that some scholars, either voluntarily or involuntarily, attempt to bring into his teaching is contrary to what he actually teaches in the discourses.

Since this study, is about the early Buddhist teachings found in the discourses preserved in an ancient Indian dialect now called Pāli, it naturally follows the text-critical method to interpret the texts. The use of the text-critical method in this study, however, is not in its normal sense of pursuing a philological, historical, or comparative study of texts; but in the sense of applying the Buddhist text-critical method of dhamma-nirutti (analysis of the nature of things) to the discourses of the Buddha. This method, as pointed out above, takes the Buddha’s teaching found in the discourses as a single systemic thought; and calls it as the texts call it, the Buddha’s Dhamma (teaching). For example, it takes the topic suffering as an integral and main part of that single system of thought; seeing it as again the texts call it, a dhamma, a particular teaching that comes within the teaching. By so taking, it attempts to unravel many nuances, details, and implications of the Buddha’s teaching: by bringing clarity and illumination to the part, the individual dhamma categories, as well as to the whole, the entire body of his teaching as it could be comprehended from the discourses. With this method, it studies the part, a dhamma, for example, the topic suffering; not for its own sake, but for understanding the whole or the entirety of the teaching of the Buddha known as the Dhamma.²⁵ As it could be observed from many early discourses, the Buddha’s teaching is such that any single part of it, if studied wisely and attentively, is self-sufficient to understand to a greater degree, the whole: the Dhamma. It is only through understanding the whole of the Dhamma, that one could bring total transformation to one’s totality of life. For example, one who understands the whole of the Dhamma is virtuous, not by observing precepts but by nature.

Outline of Chapters

This book presents the Buddha’s Dhamma in fifteen chapters for the purpose of understanding it theoretically. This chapter (Introduction) introduces the basic meanings of the terms Dhamma and dhamma, and also the methodology adopted to understand the Dhamma, and the overall focus and chapter division in the book. Chapter 2 (Learning the Dhamma) explains the essentiality of right view and right thinking, for understanding the Buddha’s teaching; and introduces the types of immediate benefits that one possessing right view enjoys. Among the benefits, it highlights two important immediate benefits: the skill of meeting one’s death mindfully and with awareness; and the ability to remain unmoved in the face of misfortunes of life. Chapter 3 (The Middle Theory) introduces the theory of dependent co-arising, and also presents an overview of India’s religious background at the time of the Buddha. It highlights how dependent co-arising, as the Buddha’s causal theory of conditionality, situates his teaching as the middle doctrine; while excluding not only the two extreme ideologies of eternalism and annihilationism, but also scepticism. It also presents the causal formulations that analyse the arising of suffering, as well as the cessation of suffering.

Chapter 4 (Ignorance of Ignorance) discusses the Buddha’s definition of ignorance, and the necessity of initial trust in the Buddha’s teaching, if one wishes to destroy ignorance. It emphasizes the fact, that only the Buddha’s teaching can give one a perspective to recognize ignorance as ignorance. As the mundane person who