35. Relinquishing the Path
The Canon stresses again and again that to put an end to suffering and stress, desire and passion have to be brought to an end in a thoroughgoing way. This may be why, when the Buddha introduced his son to the path, he used the image of a mirror: You have to reflect and examine your mind thoroughly to make sure there’s no trace of blemish (MN 61).
For instance, we’ve just seen that the Buddha recommended reflecting not only on present fabrications in the here and now, but also on all fabrications past, present, and future, near and far. And in our discussions of concentration, we’ve noted frequently that you have to reflect on the drawbacks of concentration, after having mastered it if you want to gain total freedom.
However, this reflection has to apply not only to right concentration, but also to all other aspects of the triple training and the noble eightfold path as well.
This fact is shown by the final use of the Buddha’s five-step program: to induce dispassion for the five faculties, which are an expanded expression of the triple training. The five faculties are conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. The faculty of conviction is developed through the training in heightened virtue; the faculties of persistence, mindfulness, and concentration through the training in the heightened mind; and the faculty of discernment through the training in heightened discernment. SN 48:3 states that when you investigate these five faculties using all five steps of the program—discerning their origination, their passing away, their allure, their drawbacks, and the escape from them—you arrive at the first level of awakening: stream-entry. SN 48:4 states that when your mind is released from all clinging—all desire and passion—on discerning these five aspects of the faculties, you attain full awakening.
We’ve discussed many examples of how to subdue desire and passion for right concentration. Here, to round out the picture, we can cite two examples of how to subdue desire and passion for right effort and right view.
Both examples are conversations. In the conversation concerning right effort, a devatā comes to the Buddha and asks him how he crossed over the flood—in other words, how he crossed over the flood of becoming and ignorance to get to the deathless on the other side.
Then a certain devatā, in the far extreme of the night, her extreme radiance lighting up the entirety of Jeta’s Grove, went to the Blessed One. On arrival, having bowed down to him, she stood to one side. As she was standing there, she said to him, “Tell me, dear sir, how you crossed over the flood.”
“I crossed over the flood without pushing forward, without staying in place.”
“But how, dear sir, did you cross over the flood without pushing forward, without staying in place?”
“When I pushed forward, I was whirled about. When I stayed in place, I sank. And so I crossed over the flood without pushing forward, without staying in place.”
The devatā:
“At long last I see a brahman, totally unbound, who without pushing forward, without staying in place, has crossed over the entanglements of the world.” — SN 1:1
The conversation ends there, with the Buddha not really answering the devatā’s question of how he neither pushed forward nor stayed in place. He only tells her why. Perhaps he sensed that the devatā wouldn’t have understood; perhaps he knew she—along with all other meditators—would have to explore the issue herself. But we can gain a sense of what he’s talking about by referring to other passages in the Canon.
As we’ve noted, all phenomena are rooted in desire. The definition of the four noble truths takes this general statement and makes it more specific. Each process of becoming, both on the small scale and on the large, coalesces around a nucleus of desire, the act of craving that relishes “now here, now there” (SN 56:11). In fact, this act of craving is what creates the “here” and “there,” both for the world of becoming and for your identity within it.
As you develop the path, a sense of location is necessary for centering the mind and developing all the other skillful qualities of the path around that center, so on this level of right effort there is a need for a “here” and a “there.” For instance, as AN 9:41 shows, there are times when you want the mind to stay here in concentration, and not go there into afflictive distractions; there are other times when you want it to go from this state of concentration here to that better state of concentration there. The allure of right effort in cases like this is that it enables you to get the mind to go where you want it to, in line with the determination to keep training for calm.
But when the path has been fully developed, there’s no longer any need for that sense of location. You see it as a disturbance, and your determination on calm allows you to see the drawbacks of right effort in that it keeps you stuck in the here and there of space and time.
This determination leads to one last manifestation of desire and effort prior to awakening, as—in the words of AN 9:36—you turn your mind away from the aggregates you’ve been creating through right effort in the practice of jhāna, and you incline it to the property of deathlessness:
“‘This is peace, this is exquisite—the pacification of all fabrications; the relinquishment of all acquisitions; the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; unbinding.’”
If the dispassion at this point is total, it subdues desire and passion for all phenomena, all desires and determinations, skillful or unskillful, even the sense of “here” and “there” within the mind. As was the case in the Buddha’s questionnaire in SN 22:59, you drop the parameters of space entirely. With no here and there, there’s no need to choose between staying in place here and pushing forward to there. In fact, there’s nothing to do—nothing the mind can do—so there’s no fabrication, even the fabrication of the intention not to fabricate. When even these basic orientations in the world can be abandoned, right effort loses its orientation, and the mind is freed from the worlds of becoming entirely.
As Ud 8:1 states, in the dimension of unbinding there is neither coming nor going, and that’s because, as Ud 8:4 adds, that dimension has neither a here nor a there nor a between-the-two from which you could come or to which you could go. The total subduing of desire and passion for right effort, in abandoning all sense of here and there, is directly connected to that dimension.
As for seeing the allure, drawbacks, and escape from right view: One of the distinctive features of right view is that it contains the seeds for its own transcendence. That’s because it gives you insight into the fact of fabrication and also the value of fabrication. After it has helped you to see the allure, drawbacks, and escape from wrong views and all other forms of fabrication, if your reflective gaze is all around and you’re truly training for calm, you can’t help but notice that right view itself is an instance of fabrication, so it must have the same drawbacks as well. You see that its allure lies in the fact that it has freed you from many fetters, but its drawbacks lie in that, as a fabrication, it can’t, in itself, provide you with total calm. If you hold to it, you’re clinging to inconstancy and stress. This realization allows you to find the escape in subduing desire and passion for right view.
We’ve already seen this dynamic at work in the case of the teaching, “All phenomena are not-self” (MN 35; Dhp 277–279). A more extended example comes from a conversation between Anāthapiṇḍika, one of the Buddha’s lay students, and a group of wanderers. The conversation begins with the wanderers’ asking Anāthapiṇḍika to tell them the Buddha’s views. He, even though he has had his first glimpse of awakening, responds that he doesn’t know the entirety of the Buddha’s views, nor of the views of the Buddha’s fully awakened disciples.
The wanderers sneer at his response and ask him his own views. He replies that he’d be happy to tell them his views, but first he’d like to hear theirs.
They reply with the standard hot issues of the day: whether the world is eternal or not, infinite or not; whether the soul is the same as the body or something separate; whether a fully awakened being, after death, could be described as existing, not existing, both, or neither.
When this had been said, Anāthapiṇḍika the householder said to the wanderers, “As for the venerable one who says, ‘The cosmos is eternal. Only this is true; anything otherwise is worthless. This is the sort of view I have,’ his view arises from his own inappropriate attention or in dependence on the words of another. Now, this view has been brought into being, is fabricated, willed, dependently co-arisen. Whatever has been brought into being, is fabricated, willed, dependently co-arisen: That is inconstant. Whatever is inconstant is stressful. This venerable one thus adheres to that very stress, submits himself to that very stress.” [Similarly for the nine other view-standpoints expounded by the wanderers.]
When this had been said, the wanderers said to Anāthapiṇḍika the householder, “We have each & every one expounded to you in line with our own view-standpoints. Now tell us what views you have.”
“Whatever has been brought into being, is fabricated, willed, dependently co-arisen: That is inconstant. Whatever is inconstant is stressful. Whatever is stressful is not me, is not what I am, is not my self. This is the sort of view I have.”
“So, householder, whatever has been brought into being, is fabricated, willed, dependently co-arisen: That is inconstant. Whatever is inconstant is stressful. You thus adhere to that very stress, submit yourself to that very stress.”
“Venerable sirs, whatever has been brought into being, is fabricated, willed, dependently co-arisen: That is inconstant. Whatever is inconstant is stressful. Whatever is stressful is not me, is not what I am, is not my self. Having seen this well with right discernment as it has come to be, I also discern the higher escape from it as it has come to be.”
When this was said, the wanderers fell silent, abashed, sitting with their shoulders drooping, their heads down, brooding, at a loss for words. — AN 10:93
Right view allows Anāthapiṇḍika to see the escape from right view because it regards all views, not so much in terms of their content, but in terms of their fabricated nature: They’re brought into being, willed, and dependently co-arisen. When you focus on the fact of their fabrication, you get a clear view of their value.
In the case of wrong views, you see that they’re not worth the effort. The worst among them can induce you to do many unskillful things that lead to miserable destinations. Even the best among them, if you cling to them, entail stress.
But if your training in commitment and reflection is really all-around, you can’t help but turn the analysis onto the fabricated nature of right view itself. You see that the value of right view is that it frees you from the suffering inherent in wrong views. The pleasure that comes with that freedom is its allure. Its drawback, though, is the same as that of right effort and right concentration: It’s fabricated, like all other views. The fact that, ultimately, right view points you to this value judgment is what makes it right. It directs you to the escape from itself: Seeing that it’s not worth claiming as you or yours, it induces you to subdue desire and passion for it and for everything else so that you can gain all-around release.
