34. Allure & Drawbacks

The Canon provides other guidelines for how to reflect in a way that gives rise to the value judgment that all things fabricated are not worth the effort that goes into them. Two guidelines in particular stand out, both because they’re repeated so frequently in the discourses and because they provide details that are missing in the guidelines offered in AN 9:41 and AN 9:36.

The first provides a general overview for the reflections aimed at subduing desire and passion, dividing those reflections into five steps: You look for the

The discourses apply this formula to the six internal sense spheres (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, intellect), the six external sense spheres (sights, sounds, aromas, tastes, tactile sensations, ideas), the four physical properties (earth, water, wind, fire), and the cosmos as a whole (SN 14:31, SN 35:13–14; AN 3:104). It applies a seven-step variant of this formula to the five aggregates, incorporating in its first four steps the pattern of the four noble truths—what the aggregates are, their origination, their cessation, the path of practice leading to their cessation—followed by the three steps of seeing their allure, their drawbacks, and the escape from them in the subduing of desire and passion (SN 22:57).

However, the Canon also contains two discourses that, put together, apply the five-step formula to the aggregates as well (SN 22:5; SN 22:26). In fact, these two discourses flesh out the five-step formula in more detail than any of the others.

The five steps fall into two parts. The first two steps focus on the fact of fabrication; the last three, on its value.

In the first two steps, the origination is sometimes identified in a way that follows the explicit wording of the standard version of dependent co-arising, and sometimes not. And it’s more interesting when it doesn’t. SN 22:5 is a case in point. It says that the aggregate in question originates when you “enjoy, welcome, and remain fastened to” it. It passes away when you don’t. This is in line with the teaching that all phenomena are rooted in desire—which, as we noted earlier, implicitly underlies dependent co-arising even though it’s not explicitly mentioned in it.

The part of the reflection that focuses on the value of fabrication begins with a step not mentioned in either AN 9:36 or AN 9:41: seeing the allure of what it is that you desire. This step is crucial. Until you see the actual allure of the desired object—what you find attractive about it—you can’t really let go of your desire and passion for it, no matter how much you focus on the drawbacks of the fabrication in question. As long as the allure stays buried, you can’t identify it clearly and so can’t abandon it.

SN 22:26 says simply that the allure lies in whatever pleasure or joy arises in dependence on the fabrication, which doesn’t tell us much.

More informative is a list in DN 22 that details all the places where craving arises and settles. Wherever your craving is located, that’s where you’ll find the allure. It could be focused on:

For instance, if you crave a person and want to get past that craving, you have to determine whether the allure is in the sight, sound, etc., of that person, in the perceptions you have about that person (or of yourself in relation to that person, as you build your self image around that relationship), in the things you tell yourself about that person, or in the act of craving itself—as when people are in love with the idea of being in love.

The location of the allure can often be obscured by conflicted emotions around it, which is why determination on truth plays an especially important role in this step of the reflection. The same point applies to seeing the drawbacks: As long as you’re protective of your desire and passion for the allure, you’ll resist seeing the drawbacks for what they actually are.

However, when you can honestly compare the allure with the drawbacks and see that the fabrication in question is not worth the trouble involved in continuing to fabricate it, that’s when you can arrive at an honest value judgment: The allure is worthless. That judgment is what takes direct aim at subduing desire and passion. After all, desire and passion are aroused by the allure. When you can pinpoint the allure and see that it has been lying to you—promising happiness but making you pay a heavy price—it loses its appeal. The more thorough your understanding of the allure and of the drawbacks, the more thorough the dispassion and release that result.

This is where the Buddha’s second guide to inducing dispassion comes in. In his second discourse (SN 22:59), he focuses on three perceptions that, when applied in a thoroughgoing way to the aggregates, can result in full awakening. In terms of the five-step program, these perceptions function on the fourth step: seeing the drawbacks of the aggregates.

We’ve already encountered these perceptions in AN 9:36: inconstancy, stress, not-self. There we saw that any of them can induce dispassion for the aggregates, but in SN 22:59 the Buddha fleshes them out further in two ways.

First, he shows the interrelationship among them: If something is inconstant, it’s inherently stressful, because any happiness based on it is unreliable. If it’s inconstant and stressful, it’s not worth claiming as you or yours. In other words, you have to perceive it as not-self.

Here the Buddha is asking his listeners to engage in some verbal fabrication to arrive at a value judgment: The aggregates—and all other fabrications—don’t measure up to the standards set by the question that lies at the base of discernment: “What when I do it will lead to my long-term well-being and happiness?” If something is inconstant, it doesn’t qualify as long-term. If it’s stressful, it doesn’t qualify as well-being and happiness. And if something isn’t long-term happiness, it’s not worth claiming as “me” or “mine.” In more basic terms, whatever the allure of those fabrications, it’s outweighed by their drawbacks. Whatever effort goes into fabricating those fabrications is simply not worth it.

This value judgment, of course, can be effective only if you’re convinced that a higher happiness is possible if you let go of what you’re attached to. This is why this reflection carries weight only in the context of the four noble truths: Either you’ve already had a glimpse of that higher happiness in your first glimpse of the deathless—this was the case of the Buddha’s listeners in SN 22:59—or you firmly believe in the reality of the third noble truth: that dispassion constitutes the end of suffering.

Applying the perceptions of inconstancy, stress, and not-self to the fabrications you’re experiencing in the here and now is enough to induce dispassion for those fabrications, but the mind might be able to imagine satisfaction in better fabrications at some other time or place. That would keep its dispassion from being complete.

Which is why the Buddha doesn’t stop there. He goes on to have his listeners reflect that all the aggregates—“past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near”—should be seen as: “This is not mine. This is not my self. This is not what I am.” This reflection covers every option in time and space. If you truly follow it, it leaves only one possibility open: dropping the parameters of time and space entirely.

That’s when desire and passion are totally subdued, and that’s the total escape. The mind is totally released.