38. The Gist

Ven. Sāriputta first encountered the Dhamma when he was a wanderer studying under another teacher. One morning he happened to see one of the Buddha’s first five arahant disciples, Ven. Assaji, going for alms in the city of Rājagaha. Inspired by Assaji’s comportment—“gracious in the way he approached and departed, looked ahead and behind, drew in and stretched out his arm; his eyes downcast, his every movement consummate”—he followed Assaji outside of the city and asked him who his teacher was, and what Dhamma that teacher taught. Assaji replied that he was a student of the Great Contemplative from the Sakyan clan. Modestly, he added that he was still new in that teacher’s Dhamma and so couldn’t explain it in detail, but he could give the gist.

Sāriputta replied,

Assaji then said,

“Whatever phenomena arise from cause:
 	their cause
	     & their cessation.
Such is the teaching of the Tathāgata,
          the Great Contemplative.”  — Mv I.23.5

Hearing this verse and taking its message inwardly, Sāriputta gained the Dhamma eye. The fact that he could penetrate the gist of the teaching so quickly and effectively was one of the reasons why, after he was ordained under the Buddha and attained full awakening, the Buddha extolled him as foremost among his students in discernment.

Another reason was that, according to the Buddha, Sāriputta was foremost among his students in leading others to gain the Dhamma eye as well (MN 141).

In light of our discussion so far, it’s tempting to ask whether Sāriputta’s recommendation for how to introduce the Dhamma to those who have never heard it before—“Our teacher teaches the subduing of desire and passion”—is related to either or both of these other manifestations of his discernment. In other words, when he first heard Assaji say, “Whatever phenomena arise from a cause,” did he immediately intuit that desire and passion were the cause? We don’t know for sure, but it’s an intriguing possibility.

The other possibility is that, as he later taught others the path to stream-entry, he may have found that focusing on the issue of subduing desire and passion was the most effective way of getting his listeners to connect the gist of the Dhamma to their own experience. Three main reasons stand out.

First, the compound “desire-and-passion” (chanda-rāga) is accessible. It’s used by the Canon to define technical terms in the Buddha’s teachings, but it’s never defined itself. This means it was considered to be immediately comprehensible, a commonly used expression of the time. The Buddha himself used it to describe the cause of suffering to a layman who had no background in his Dhamma at all (SN 42:11). So it would have been a term familiar to anybody, one that people could immediately relate to their own experience.

Second, it’s rousing. Sāriputta’s listeners, knowing their own desires and passions, would be forewarned that the task the Buddha taught—the subduing of desire and passion—would not be an easy one, and that it approached the problem of suffering in a radical way. In challenging his listeners right from the start, Sāriputta was not only instructing them. He was also trying to rouse in them the fighting spirit that he knew the practice of the Dhamma would require.

Third, “desire-and-passion” is comprehensive. As we’ve come to see, desire and passion lie at the gist of all of the Buddha’s main teachings related to right view:

The first noble truth:

The second noble truth:

The third noble truth:

The fourth noble truth:

By focusing on the issue of desire and passion, Sāriputta was able to reveal the thread that ties all of the teachings together. Whichever teaching most resonated with a student, Sāriputta was able to clarify it and to show its connections with the rest of the Dhamma by focusing on the role that desire and passion play in understanding it.

At the same time, he showed that the subduing of desire and passion is the gist of these teachings and of the Dhamma as a whole. The word I’ve translated as “gist” here, attha, has other meanings as well: the meaning of a word or teaching, and the goal or purpose of a particular practice. By focusing on the gist, Ven. Sāriputta was able to clarify the meaning of the teachings and to help others train themselves to attain the goal that was the purpose of those teachings to begin with: total freedom and nothing less.