Buddhism arose in Northeast India and Nepal around 500 b.c.,
founded by an historical person known as Gotama the Buddha (also known as
Siddartha or Sakyamuni).
Buddhism eventually spread to most of South and East Asia. It
has a long and very diverse history, meaning that there have been an exceedingly
wide variety of beliefs and practices that have been associated with Buddhist
teachings.
The present essays will focus mainly on the concept of
Nibbana as presented
in the earliest still extant collection of Buddhist writings, the Pali Canon of
the Theravada Buddhist sect (the form of Buddhism now prevailing in South and
Southeast Asia), written down around 200 B.C. The purpose of this is only to
narrow the scope of inquiry. There is no implied claim that this is the best or
the only "true Buddhism."
(A note on language: Some confusions can arise due to differences between Pali and Sanskrit, which are two dialects of the same ancient language of India. The Pali Canon was written in a language now called "Pali," but other Hindu writers and later Buddhists used Sanskrit instead. Americans are generally more familiar with Sanskrit forms. For example, most Americans are familiar with the Sanskrit word "Nirvana," but in this essay I will be using the equivalent word in the Pali dialect, "Nibbana." Click here for more on Pali/Sanskrit equivalents.)
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It is important to approach this body of early Buddhist teachings in a "holistic" way, that is, as a complex and unified whole consisting of mutually defining elements, rather than a simple list of disconnected individual teachings.
"Mutually defining" refers to the fact that the meaning of each individual idea in the Pali Canon is intrinsically relational, a meaning constituted by some specific relation to other ideas and terms in the early Buddhist "system" of thought. This will also be a "contextual" understanding of Buddhist teaching, understanding each element of this teaching in the context of other elements.
In this respect, understanding early Buddhist teaching is like understanding the game of baseball. What a "pitcher" is cannot be understood in isolation from the total game of baseball. What a pitcher is can only be understood by understanding what a "batter" is, what a "strike" is, what a "hit" is, and ultimately, how "pitcher" is related to all the other elements in this one game. Baseball is thus a complex unified whole consisting of a set of mutually defining elements.
This means also that trying to understand what a "pitcher" is by trying to relate pitchers to positions in other games is of limited usefulness, and can be positively misleading. For example, suppose a person is so far only familiar with football, and asks, "Is a pitcher something like a quarterback?" "Quarterback" is probably the position in football that most resembles a "pitcher" in baseball, but the resemblance is not that close, and if pressed at all this comparison will easily become very misleading and prevent a person from understanding pitchers and the game of baseball. Baseball is a kind of "world" of its own, and to understand it a person must mentally enter into this world.
In the same way, when trying to understand early Buddhism, it is important to try to understand each element of early Buddhist thought in relation to other elements of early Buddhist thought. For example, a person only familiar with Christianity might be tempted to ask "Is Nibbana something like heaven?" ("Nibbana" is the Pali equivalent of the Sanskrit "Nirvana.")
Nibbana is probably the concept in early Buddhist thought that most closely resembles the concept "heaven" in Christian thought. But the resemblance is not really that close, and if pressed at all, this comparison can easily become misleading. To understand what Nibbana is, one has to understand its relation to other Buddhist concepts like Tanha ("Thirst") and Dukkha ("Distress"), and understand that it is something one might achieve through specific Buddhist meditation-techniques.
This is why it is good to familiarize oneself with a few specific words in the Pali language that play a central role in the Pali Canon. The very unfamiliarity of the words serves as a reminder that one is dealing here with a whole unfamiliar world, and so as a caution against using easy but misleading translations, pulling single words and single rules out of their context in Buddhist teaching as a whole. For example, one could translate Tanha as "desire," and then extract one simple isolated "rule" from Buddhist teachings, the rule "Eliminate desires." This not only makes Buddhism silly (eliminate the desire to eat), but also self- contradictory (eliminate desire to follow Buddhist teachings).
One of the purposes of the present essay is to begin describing the relational meaning of some of the central terms and themes of the Pali Canon, the way that these terms and themes are mutually defining and mutually illuminating. I will begin by treating a few of the easier Buddhist themes, to be expanded in future chapters by relating what is said here to some of the more difficult ideas in the Pali Canon.
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The group of teachings to be considered in this essay are the following:
Tanha, "Thirst" and Upadana, "Clinging" are said to be the cause of dukkha, Distress.
Dukkha/Distress is also said to be caused by impermanence, or the lack of full realization that all things are Impermanent (anicca). A frequent argument is that full realization of Impermanence would bring about the cessation of Tanha, Upadana, and Dukkha.
The complete cessation of Tanha, Upadana, and Dukkha is one way of defining Nibbana, the supreme good in human life.
These statements offer good examples of the need for contextual interpretation. Treating one of these concepts in isolation from the others can easily lead to obvious problems, "bad interpretations."
Let us start with the statement that Tanha/Thirst causes Dukkha/Distress. Suppose someone took Tanha as an isolated concept referring to all thirst or desire, and then took this statement as a description of the relation between two separate ideas, Tanha/desire and Dukkha/Distress, each of which can be understood independently of the other. Then the statement would mean that all desire causes Distress. This is obviously false. It is easy to imagine some kinds of desire that do not cause Distress. And of course this would also mean that desire for Nibbana should be avoided because it causes Distress, which would make nonsense of the entire Buddhist path. The Pali Canon claims in fact that desire for Nibbana is a "noble Thirst."
And how could the mere absence of Thirst be the supreme good in human life? It is easy to think of a story in which a person lacks desire for anything whatsoever and so is in effect a zombie. Clearly not admirable.
These statements are obviously in need of wise and intelligent, critical interpretation if they are to lead to an admirable way of life.
We can begin developing a critical interpretation by taking Tanha and Dukkha, not as isolated and independent concepts, but as mutually defining terms. In the statement "Tanha causes Dukkha" we should take Tanha to refer only to that kind of desire which does cause Dukkha, and Dukkha refers only to that kind of Distress caused by this specific kind of desire. This invites us to think of specific cases where some kind of desire does cause Distress, and think of these cases as the kind of cases that Buddhist teaching about tanha is concerned with. It is not concerned with those kinds of Tanha that do not cause Distress.
It is helpful here to bring in a third Buddhist idea, Anicca/Impermanence, which is also said to be a source of Distress. It does not seem too difficult to connect these three ideas to each other. Tanha refers to a specific kind of desire that is accompanied by an expectation of permanence in the desired object. This kind of expectation is suggested by the word Upadana, "Clinging." This would make sense of the argument that full realization of Impermanence would bring about the cessation of Tanha. Full realization of Impermanence would not bring about the cessation of all desire, but it might plausibly bring about the cessation of those desires that are accompanied by an expectation of permanence.
Along these same lines, we should understand Dukkha as a reference to one specific kind of Distress -- not all kinds of suffering or discomfort, but specifically that kind of mental Distress resulting from disappointed expectations of permanence.
The fact that the Pali Canon is written in a foreign language can be an aid to this kind of contextual understanding, since for English speakers the Pali words do not immediately evoke ordinary associations. "Clinging" in English already has many misleading associations, so it is helpful to get used to thinking of Upadana instead, and associate Upadana only with that kind of Clinging associated with an expectation of permanence, which would be a possible cause great Dukkha/Distress in the face of unexpected change.
The contextual understanding of words as mutually defining in the above way is not that unusual. Consider the American proverb, "Less is more." This is a very obvious contradiction if we take the words "less" and "more" literally, in isolation from each other. There are clearly some kinds of "less" that can in no way be thought of as "more." And there are clearly situations to which this proverb does not apply. I would not tell a starving person that "less" food will amount to "more" health.
The proverb only make sense if we take "less" and "more" as mutually defining. The proverb means to refer only to that kind of "less" that would be equivalent to some kind of "more." And it only makes sense if it is used wisely, in reference to situations in which it can be looked upon as good advice. In applying cosmetics, or decorating an apartment, too much makeup or too many decorations can ruin the effect, so a certain judicious kind of "less" in these cases can lead to something "more" attractive. Writing too many words can sometimes be more confusing than helpful, so often "less" words, carefully chosen, can lead to "more" effective writing. Even here, it will not do simply to randomly cut out some words. "Less" in this case requires carefully choosing essential ideas and conveying them succinctly but still clearly.
Contextual understanding of Buddhist teaching requires treating these teachings in something like the way we treat ordinary proverbs. What is a wise way of understanding the terms Tanha, Upadana, Dukkha, and Anicca? To what kinds of situations is it wise to apply these Buddhist concepts, and to what situations is it unwise to apply them?
One story well-known in the Buddhist tradition gives a good illustration of the kind of situation to which these teachings might be wisely applied. It is the story of Kisa Gotami, Frail Gotami, a young woman born into a very poor family.
When she grew up, she married, going to the house of her husband's family to live. There, because she was the daughter of a poverty stricken house, they treated her with contempt. After a time she gave birth to a son. Then they accorded her respect. But when that boy of hers was old enough to play and run about, he died. Sorrow sprang up within her. She thought: ‘Since the birth of my son, I, who was once denied honor and respect in this very house, have received respect.'
Kisa Gotami was so distraught that she refused to bury her son. She took to carrying his dead body around with her, asking everyone she met for "medicine" to bring him back to life. Finally she came to the Buddha. He told her
You did well, Gotami, in coming here for medicine. Go enter the city, make the rounds of the entire city, beginning at the beginning, and in whatever house no one has ever died, from that house fetch tiny grains of mustard seed.
But she was unable to find a house I which no one had ever died. This brought her to full emotional realization that all life is impermanent (anicca), that death is a universal fact of life. This realization enabled her to bury her dead son. The story concludes by saying that it also brought her well along the way toward Nibbana.
This story illustrates several points helpful in gaining a contextual understanding of Buddhist terms in relation to each other. The story describes Kisa Gotami as someone whose child had become a kind of anchor for her life, satisfying her "Thirst" (tanha) for something outside herself to give her a personal sense of self-esteem and meaning in life. This deep emotional dependency, "Clinging" (upadana) to her status as mother, had a strongly "self-centered" dimension, so that her emotional "Distress" (dukkha) was not just natural grief at the death of a loved-one, which would naturally pass after a period of mourning. It was a deeper kind of Distress connected an existential crisis in her life, a loss in what she had become inflexibly dependent on to give her a sense of self-worth and meaning to her life. That is, the story emphasizes the particular reason for her dependency, distress, and inability to adapt. It was not only the normal feeling of deep connection between mother and child. The story emphasizes that the main reason for her attachment to her son was that he was the means by which she gained recognition and respect from her in-laws, who refused her this respect before she became a mother. This self-centered and existential dependence is what had given her an inflexible emotional expectation of permanence, and an inability to accept and adapt to this change in her life-situation that was obviously beyond her control.
Note also that the story does not say there is something morally wrong with Gotami's self-centered need to have a child to gain her respect from her in-laws. It is not spoken of as a "sin" for which she will be punished. Buddhist spirituality is not about approving or disapproving something as morally right or wrong. If a person wants to go beyond meeting minimal standards of right and wrong, and voluntarily wants to achieve higher Buddhist spiritual ideals, the story of Kisa Gotami dramatizes one specific kind of obstacle that needs to be overcome to achieve these higher ideals.
This story illustrates a typical way in which tanha, upadana, anicca, and dukkha are related to each other in Buddhist thought, and how each term gets its meaning in relation to the others. "Thirst" is not just any kind of desire, but desire for something outside oneself (like a child) to give one a sense of self-worth or give meaning to one's life. "Clinging" is not just any kind of "attachment," but a deep and inflexible dependency on something particular, generating an emotional expectation of permanence, and an inability to accept and adapt to change.
The changed situation in the story (the death of the son) is something that in this case is clearly beyond the person's control. That is, the story does not interpret the doctrine of anicca/Impermanence as an encouragement to passivity in the face of controllable change (for example it does not encourage mothers to forego desires for a cure for sick and curable children who are still living). "Distress" in the story is not just any kind of emotional pain or discomfort, but is a kind of emotional paralysis resulting from Gotami's resistance to actually being in the new situation of being childless that was forced upon her.
This story illustrates one more central Buddhist teaching, the doctrine of an-atta, literally "non-self," also explained as "not-mine" -- which I will argue below is better understood as "not-me," or "not-essential-to-me" -- i.e. not essential to my sense of self-worth or meaning in life. In the story, Kisa Gotami's grief over her son had a strongly "self-centered" dimension, due to the fact that she had come to feel him as essential to her sense of self-esteem and meaning in life, being the reason why she gained the respect of her husband's family she was living with. Had she been able to regard her son as an-atta, "not me," "not-essential-to-my-self-esteem" in the sense described here, she would have grieved over his death as something that had happened to him, but not as something that had provoked an insuperable existential identity crisis for her in her own life. Normal grief over a loved one can be a manifestation of what an another essay described as an "appreciative" way of relating to deep and enriching personal connections, as distinguished from Gotami's grief which was a manifestation of more self-centered "need."
Understood relationally in context, these Buddhist teachings do not amount to a dogmatic belief that all grief at a loved one's death does have a self-centered motivation and so is wrong and should be repressed. Probably most such grief has self-centered components as well as other components of natural sadness honoring someone that one feels close to (akin to sadness at tragedies happening in plays or movies). Buddhist teachings are relevant to grief only when-and-insofar-as grief is a symptom of self-centered and inflexible dependencies. It is relevant only to this kind of grief. Diminishing deep, inflexible, self-centered dependencies would diminish this component or motivation for grief, leaving other components and motivations untouched.
As will be explained in another essay, Buddhist teachings discourage repression of any feelings, and encourage instead flexible acceptance not only of all external conditions, but also of all internal feeling-states. Grief belongs to the Khandha "feeling," explained in the essay The Five Khandhas and the Non-Abiding Viññana, and the Buddhist goal is to be able to accept and be comfortable with all feelings, rather than to have fixed and inflexible desires or aversions for any particular feelings.
For example, suppose a person not very far advanced in Buddhist spirituality does find herself caught up in life-paralyzing grief for almost entirely self-centered reasons, and this grief is for the moment uncontrollable. What would it mean for her to try to handle this grief in a way that would lead her closer to the Buddhist ideal? It would be a mistake to regard this grief as some kind of "sin" and be ashamed of it and try to get rid of it. If the grief is motivated by Tanha/Upadana, it is still after all only a symptom of Tanha/Upadana, and ridding oneself of a symptom does not by itself do anything to reduce the underlying causes of the symptom (you can't cure a cold by stopping yourself from sneezing). The ultimate Buddhist goal is to learn to accept whatever is at the moment uncontrollable. If a person's present grief is (for whatever reason) uncontrollable for the moment, the only practice that will lead closer to the Buddhist goal is to try to accept and adapt to the fact that one is at present caught up in grief. (For Vipassana practice: try to become a disengaged observer of the grief itself.)
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To make these observations relevant to modern life today, we need to generalize the ideas and think of specific kinds of cases likely to occur today.
Let us start with the idea that there do indeed seem to exist many cases in life where desire is accompanied by expectations of permanence, of ongoing sameness in one's life. Kisa Gotami had come to expect that her son, and the respect she had gained from having a son, would be a permanent fixture in her life, providing a fixed anchor for her sense of meaning and self-worth. It is easy to think of many other kinds of situations where individuals develop deep and inflexible expectations of ongoing sameness in some aspects of their lives. One can develop these expectations regarding significant others (parents and children, husbands and wives, very close friends); regarding one's job, career, or special abilities and achievements; regarding one's material possessions, wealth, comfortable and pleasurable lifestyle; regarding one's daily routine (relatively easy success in getting to work or school, manageable success in performing tasks at work, reasonably good health); regarding one's status, recognition, approval in one's community.
But it is also obvious that not all desires are accompanied by expectations of ongoing sameness, and these expectations can be more or less strong or weak. I desire and expect that I can get my chocolate cruller at Dunkin' Donuts every morning, but if they are out of chocolate crullers it does not cause me deep dukkha -- I just adapt and get a plain cruller instead. I desire and expect that my drive to work every morning will take me my usual 45 minutes, but traffic jams regularly occur, so I have learned to adapt and bring some tapes I can listen to when this happens. I'm attached to my TV shows, but if my TV gets stolen I am able to get over the shock in a few days, find something else to do in the evenings and start saving money to buy a new TV.
Why can't we treat everything in life this way? Why do expectations of permanence arise in the first place? What makes some of these expectations much more inflexible than others?
The story of Kisa Gotami again suggests an answer that also ties in closely with Buddhist and Hindu thought surrounding "self." In its most general form, this thought focuses on the desire most people have develop and maintain some specific "worthwhile identity," that will be unified, constant, and enduring amid life's changes. I speak of "worthwhile" identity, because this identity needs to fulfill one's quest for meaning in life. A worthwhile identity needs to be something a person can feel proud of, the basis for a sense of self-esteem, the basis for a sense that one is a worthwhile person leading a meaningful life.
Normally, individuals establish such an identity relationally. That is their sense of being a worthwhile person leading a meaningful life is deeply and essentially connected to some particular relation to something outside themselves. Kisa Gotami discovered a worthwhile identity in a specific relationship as "mother" to a specific other person, her son, which also gave her a particular status and respect in her community which she had previously not had.
Not all desires, and not all relations and interactions with the world, are connected to this quest for a meaningful, worthwhile identity. Changing conditions in the world that are not so connected (like the missing chocolate crullers) are the ones that cause little emotional Distress (dukkha) and that one can easily adjust to, because they do not frustrate any deep expectation of ongoing sameness. Deep expectations of ongoing sameness are generated when one's sense of being a worthwhile person leading a meaningful life becomes inflexibly dependent on some specific relation to some specific person(s) or some specific conditions in the world.
This then is another element that needs to be added to a contextual understanding of Buddhist teaching. Buddhist teaching does not concern all kinds of "desires and attachments," all kinds of "impermanence" or all kinds of "Distress". It concerns only those kinds of desires attachments that are connected to attempts to establish an ongoing worthwhile identity relationally, an identity intrinsically connected to some specific relation to some specific conditions in the world. Permanence becomes an important issue because of the instinctive human desire to establish a unified, single, specific, enduring identity, impervious to "identity crises." This deep desire for ongoing sameness in one's identity is what generates a deep and inflexible expectation of ongoing sameness in those external conditions which one's identity has become intrinsically connected to and dependent on. The Distress Buddhism is concerned with is not just any pain or discomfort, but a response to existential threats, threats to one's sense of being a worthwhile person leading a meaningful life.
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One great difficulty for beginning students of early Buddhist teachings is that they can only begin understanding these teachings by trying to imagine what effect it would have on their own lives if they began trying to put these teachings into practice tomorrow. This can give rise to many difficulties because Nibbana in the Pali Canon is (a) an idealized image of extreme perfection which can be gained only through long-term intense meditation exercises, proposed (b) to a small group of extremely idealistic individuals who had left normal social life to pursue this extreme ideal in an extremely single-minded way, sacrificing everything else to strive for this ideal. Let me suggest two ways of handling some difficulties in interpretation.
First, negative examples will occur to many students, examples of ways of interpreting Buddhist teachings that are clearly not admirable -- as for example interpreting the ideal of Nibbana in a way that leaves a person with no desires, no ambitions, no motivation to do anything. This should be regard as a "bad interpretation," and should be responded to by refinement rather than rejection. A bad interpretation of Nibbana does not show that Nibbana itself is a bad idea, only that it needs wise interpretation (just as "less is more" needs wise interpretation).
Individuals who begin trying to imagine what it would mean to practice early Buddhist teachings tomorrow will often notice that the Buddhist Nibbana-ideal seems to be the opposite of the main things that they feel to be the basis for a meaningful life: Ambition motivating one to strive for significant achievements, close connections to other people ("attachments"), strong feelings, caring for others and being responsible for them, struggling for justice to make the world a better place, taking pleasure in the joys of life. Buddhism seems to recommend giving up the main things that ordinarily motivate people to make their lives better lives and the main things that ordinarily serve as sources of meaning in life.
This gives rise to a certain kind of mistaken contextual understanding of Buddhist teaching. That is, it leads to understanding Buddhist teachings in the context of values important to many non-Buddhists, in which case it will appear to be merely the negative opposite of these values, leading to a life without motivation and without meaning.
A critical interpretation of Buddhist teaching should indeed pay close attention to these kinds of objections to Buddhist teachings. They should be regarded as "bad interpretations," which uncover ambiguities in the wording of the teachings of the Pali Canon. It does seem true that the wording of Pali Canon teachings is often extraordinarily ambiguous, but it seems true that all easy-to-understand ideas are ambiguous with respect to true goodness, because any easy-to-understand idea is susceptible of a bad interpretation. It is important to think up such bad interpretations of Buddhist teachings, because this is an indispensable stimulus and aid to formulating more refined interpretations of these teachings. We should expect that a good interpretation of Nibbana would be something difficult to arrive at and not easy to understand using familiar categories.
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Buddhists regard Nibbana as the supreme good in human life. It is an ideal of absolute perfection, very difficult to arrive at in its completeness.
If Nibbana is a "supreme good" it should be able to be understood as the difficult-to-understand perfection of some kind of goodness that we can recognize more easily in more everyday examples, not the same as Nibbana but analogous to Nibbana.
Likewise, achieving Nibbana is not an either/or affair, but a kind of goodness that one can approximate to greater and greater degrees. Every small step toward this perfect ideal should be able to be clearly seen as an improvement in a person's life. A person who does not want to make achieving Nibbana the number one priority in her life should be able to make herself a better person by less intense study, and meditating, say, a half hour a day.
This means that it is possible to imagine what it would be like to begin practicing Buddhist teachings tomorrow, but this must be done carefully. Just saying that tomorrow I should try to completely free myself of anything which could be called "Thirst," "Clinging," or "Distress" could easily lead to a listless, boring, withdrawn, escapist, meaningless life. This would not be coming closer to any kind of recognizable goodness.
The idea of analogy and approximation invites us to think of more familiar concepts that will provide us with rough and partial analogies to Nibbana. Consider again the case of Kisa Gotami. How can we describe the qualities which she lacked? The following are some suggestions, some more familiar concepts that are analogous to Nibbana:
Self-confidence. Kisa Gotami's attachment to her son was driven by a certain kind of insecurity. She did gain some more self-confidence and self-esteem when she gave birth to her son. But the quality of her self-confidence could have been improved had it been more self-contained self-confidence, less dependent on her son and on the approval of her husband's family.
"Self-confidence" is a familiar concept, and it is not difficult to think of examples in which self-contained self-confidence is clearly an admirable trait. Self-contained self-confidence is not exactly the same thing as Nibbana, but can we think of it as a rough and partial analogy, giving us some idea of the specific kind of goodness of which Nibbana might be the perfection? In this case, we could understand absence of Thirst and Clinging not as mere negative absences, but as absences reducing one's deep dependencies on external things, allowing for an increase in self-contained self-confidence. Reducing Thirst and Clinging is only admirable if it is accompanied by an increase in self-contained self-confidence, and any such increase would be approximating, coming closer to the goodness of Nibbana.
Flexible Adaptation. The death of Kisa Gotami's son did not only cause her distress, which the death of a child will always cause. It had a paralyzing effect on her. She became obsessed with reversing this unexpected but uncontrollable new circumstance in her life. She refused to recognize, accept, and adapt to this new circumstance. She refused be in this situation, but spent all her efforts on futile efforts to revive her obviously dead son and reverse the situation itself. Finally accepting the new situation and flexibly adapting to it was clearly an improvement in her previous inflexible attitude.
"Flexible adaptation" is a familiar concept, easily understood as something possibly good and admirable. Flexible adaptation is not Nibbana itself, but perhaps it provides us with a rough and partial analogy to Nibbana, related to the idea that "absence of Dukkha" is one way of defining Nibbana.
Suppose, that is, that we understand Dukkha as not just any kind of distress, but specifically as wasted and unproductive emotional energy spent resisting uncontrollable change. This concept of Dukkha is well-exemplified in the case of Kisa Gotami, and is supported by remarks on the contextual interpretation of Dukkha presented earlier in this essay. The opposite of this is readiness to accept and flexibly adapt to the uncontrollable aspects of any situation, to focus one's efforts on drawing on inner resources to "rise to the occasion" rather than spending useless energy resisting being fully in the situation.
A person beginning to practice Buddhist teaching tomorrow should be able to know she is making progress if Buddhist practice makes her more flexibly adaptable in this sense. An increase in flexible adaptability is a sign that one is coming closer to the goodness of Nibbana to a greater degree.
Outgoing generosity. Kisa Gotami's attitude to her son was due to a kind of self-centered neediness. Lack of inner self-confidence meant that she needed to get confirmation of her self-worth from outside herself. Preoccupation with this kind of need to get from others takes away from one's ability to be a more giving person, unselfishly caring for the needs of others. Progress toward Nibbana will be obviously good and admirable if the decrease in self-centered Thirst and Clinging positively leads to the release of empathy, kindness, compassion, and outgoing generosity toward others. These are attitudes frequently encouraged in the Pali Canon:
Gentle and kindly, he abides compassionate to all living beings... He does not repeat elsewhere what he has heard here in order to divide people from one another... thus he is one who reunites those who are divided, a promoter of friendships, who enjoys concord, rejoices in concord, delights in concord, a speaker of words that promote concord... he speaks such words as are gentle, pleasing to the ear, and loveable, as go to the heart, are courteous, desired by many, and agreeable to many. His mind is without ill will and he has intentions free from hate thus: 'May these beings be free from enmity, affliction and anxiety! May they live happily!'
It might seem that teachings like this are mere external adjuncts not closely related to the Nibbana-ideal. One might even think that they contradict teachings about Nibbana since they encourage "Thirst" for the welfare of others. But think of it this way: Most people have natural empathy for others. What inhibits this natural empathy is self-centered neediness which makes a person think what she can get from others, and look at them as possible competitors for the possessions or attention and status that she feels she needs. Diminishing motivations driven by self-centered need to get from the world is not admirable if it leaves one with no motivation whatsoever. It is admirable if this kind of self-centered motivation is replaced by motivations driven by outgoing generosity. A person beginning to practice Buddhist teaching tomorrow can know she is approximating, coming closer to Nibbana's goodness to a greater degree if she finds herself responding to situations less with a sense of personal neediness and more of a sense of outgoing generosity.
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The results of this essay can be summarized by giving the following more
specific definitions of the terms employed in stating the Four Noble Truths:
Tanha ("Thirst") is an:
- insecurity-driven,
- involuntary
- craving for tangible signs
- confirming one's sense of self worth or meaning in life
Upadana ("Clinging") is Tanha inflexible fixed on
particular conditions in life. (Gotami's sense of self-worth had become
inflexibly dependent on her son.)
Dukkha is wasted emotional energy resisting
uncontrollable circumstances. (Gotami's was not a possibly productive search for
a cure for a sick child, but a wasted preoccupation trying to change a condition
that was not within anyone's control.)
Vipassana is one Buddhist meditation-technique aimed at
gradually reducing the force of involuntary Tanha and Upadana.
One way of stating the goal of Vipassana is that the goal is developing the
habit of full emotional acceptance of Anicca/Impermanence, the ability to
fully accept, be comfortable with, and adapt to all the changeable circumstances
in life that are beyond one's control.
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A translation of the full passage telling the legend of Kisa Gotami will be
found at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/noncanon/comy/thiga-10-01-ao0.html. For
the rather complicated history of this story, and alternate versions, see also http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/thig/thig.10.01.than.html.
The story is not found in the Pali Canon itself, but in a later Theravada
commentary on the Pali Canon.