Dhammacakkapavatana Sutta

WORDS OF DHAMMA

Dukkhaṃ dukkhasamuppādaṃ, dukkhassa ca atikkamaṃ; Ariyaṃ caṭṭhaṅgikaṃ maggaṃ, dukkhūpasamagāminaṃ. 
Etaṃ kho saraṇaṃ khemaṃ, etaṃ saraṇamuttamaṃ; Etaṃ saraṇamāgamma, sabbadukkhā pamuccati.

-Suffering, the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the Noble Eightfold Path leading to the cessation of suffering.
-This indeed is the safe refuge, this the refuge supreme. Having gone to such a refuge, one is released from all suffering.

— Dhammapada 191-192, Buddhavaggo

Dhammacakkapavatana Sutta

The Buddha’s first discourse is called The Discourse of the Turning of the Wheel of Dhamma. Principal Teacher S.N. Goenka gave the following exposition on this Sutta in Hindi and in English at the Vipassana International Academy, Dhammagiri in January 1991.

Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammasambuddhassa.
-Homage to him, the blessed one, the worthy one, the fully enlightened Buddha.

The sutta that we have taken up now is not only the first, but one of the most important teachings of the Buddha. Like the first rays of the rising sun have appeared dispelling the darkness of ignorance. The entire teaching of the Enlightened One for 45 years are summarized in this sutta. That is why it has it’s own special importance.

Ekam samayam bhagava baranasiyam viharati Isipatane Migadaye.
-At one time the enlightened one was in the city of Varanasi, Isipatana Migadā ya.

Isipatana,Isi means a saintly person, a hermit, a recluse. Patana , where they arrive. This word also means seaport. It was a very sacred place because it is believed that previous Paccekabuddhas (non-teaching Buddhas), and Sammāsambuddhas came to this place. Therefore this Buddha also got attracted and came here. Migadāya, a deer park, a sanctuary, where no animal could be killed.

After his enlightenment, he stayed for seven weeks in the area around the bodhi tree (bodhiman¹a) experiencing Nibbānic peace and then with his bodhi eyes he looked around the world and found there was so much darkness. He reflected, “People have such thick curtains over their eyes. The Dhamma that I have discovered, although it is a very simple law of the nature, such people who have so much mental conditioning about this blind belief, that blind belief, this philosophical belief or that philosophical belief will not understand. How will they understand such a delicate subject?” When such thoughts came in his mind, a Brahma who was a disciple of a previous Sammāsambuddha, approached from the Brahma realm. This Brahma considered that if this person did not teach Dhamma, then the entire world would not get Dhamma. This was the time for it to arise because this person had been working for so many lives, so many eons. So he came, and paying respects to the Buddha he said, “What you have been thinking is quite true, but the curtain, the veil in some people is very thin and with a slight effort by you the veil will be broken.” The Buddha smiled at this and thought, yes, now to whom should Dhamma be given? Out of a feeling of gratitude he considered his previous teacher ¾lara Kalama who was master of seven jhanas. However he found with his bodhi eyes that he had passed away a week before and he had taken birth in the arupa-brahma-loka. This is the brahma world where there is no material body, because after the fourth jhana, the jhanas from the fifth jhana to the eighth jhana are connected to the arupa-brahma-loka, so whoever practices these jhanas takes rebirth in the arupa-brahma-loka.

The next person he considered was Uddaka Ramaputta who had taught him the eighth jhana and with his bodhi eyes he discovered that just the night before he had also passed away, and again due to being a master of the eighth jhana he had been reborn in the arupa-brahma-loka where Vipassana cannot be taught because there is no material body there, so these beings cannot practice.

Then whom else should he give Dhamma to? Then he remembered the five recluses, the five brahmins from Kapilavatthu who had served him for the last six years. Where were they? And he found they were in Varanasi, Isipatana, Migadaya, so he walked from the bodhi tree all the way to this place Isipatana, Migadaya.

Tatra kho bhagava pañcavaggiye bhikkhu amantesi:
-The Blessed One addresses the group-offive- monks, saying:
“Dve’me, bhikkhave, anta pabbajitena na sevitabba,
-“There are these two extremes, monks, that one who has gone forth from worldly life should not associate with.
yo cayam: kamesu kamasukhallikanuyogo hino gammo pothujjaniko anariyo anatthasamhito…
-which is this: attachment and clinging to sensual pleasures, which is low, vulgar, worldly, ignoble and not connected with the goal…

He started his discourse by saying that anybody who leaves the householders life with the intention of attaining liberation should abstain from going to two extremes. One extreme is rolling in sensual pleasures and the other extreme is torturing the body.

What happens is that in the period between one Sammā Sambuddha and the next Sammā Sambuddha the pure Dhamma slowly gets deteriorated. For some time people keep on practicing the pure Dhamma but later on they get tilted to one end or the other end. Now they keep on remembering the words of the Buddha, they keep on remembering the aim of the life as taught by the Buddha: the aim that you have to come out of the misery of the cycle of birth and death, birth and death and that it is possible only when you are free from craving, free from aversion, free from illusion, delusion. All those words remain. The aim is to become liberated. The aim is to become free from craving (vitaraga), free from aversion (vitadosa), free from delusion (vitamoha). All those teachings remain but how to attain this gets lost.

One thing that remains in peoples minds is the knowledge that to reach the final goal we have to come out of the householder’s life so they become ascetics (pabbajita). One end, one extreme exists where, even though they have come out of the householder’s life, they have not yet come out of their desires, their craving for sensual pleasures. Therefore, even though they wear the robes of a recluse, live the life of a recluse, they keep on enjoying sensual pleasures. Their monasteries (viharas) had all the sensual requests of the householder. And because they wear the robes of a recluse and because they preform certain rights, rituals and ceremonies they remain under the impression that certainly they will become vitaraga, vitadosa, vitamoha, they will certainly get liberated. This is one extreme of people who go towards this end thinking that in spite of rolling in all kinds of sensual pleasure, certainly they will get liberated because of their rights, their rituals, their appearance etc.

…yo cayam: attakilamathanuyogo dukkho anariyo anatthasamhito.
…and this: attachment to self-mortification, which is painful, ignoble, and not connected with the goal.
Another end, another extreme is where recluses think that this life of sensual pleasure is harmful, and realize they can not come out of sensual pleasure and get liberated from it by rolling in it. Therefore, they go to the other extreme and torture their bodies, thinking that they have performed all unwholesome actions (kammas) with the body, so if they torture the body, if they practice penances, then certainly all their impurities will get washed away and they will be liberated. The aim is the same in both cases but the way to attain that aim has been lost.

Then an enlightened person, a Buddha arises and teaches the way of pure Dhamma, practicing which you can reach the final goal. And these are the first teachings of an enlightened person:

Ete te bhikkhave ubho ante anupagamma majjhima patipada tathagatena abhisambuddha, cakkhukarani, ñanakarani, upasamaya abhiññaya sambodhaya nibbanaya samvattati.
-Within both these extremes, this middle path, realised by the Tathagata, produces vision, produces knowledge, and leads to peace, deep insight, to enlightenment, to liberation.

Therefore, he says these two extremes are not to be followed and he teaches the middle path that is discovered by an enlightened person, a Tathagata; a middle path that gives one the Dhammacakkhu, the eyes of Dhamma. This means one starts experiencing the Dhamma. The law of nature is not just an intellectual game. A law of nature, which is experienced by oneself, is cakkhukarani. With your own eyes, you see things; you do not just hear about things and then accept them. It is your own experience, cakkhukarani. The wisdom that arises, ñanakarani, is not intellectual wisdom, not intellectual understanding, it is right understanding through your own experience. Upasamaya, for the eradication of the impurities that one has accumulated over so many past lives. Abhiññaya, high wisdom where you understand the entire law—how misery arises, what the cause of the misery arising is, and how this cause can be eradicated. The entire law of the universe becomes very clear. Sambodhaya, for enlightenment. Nibbanaya, for liberation. The middle path is for the attainment of all these goals.

Katama ca sā bhikkhave majjhima patipadā , tathagatena abhisambuddha, cakkhukarani, ñanakarani, upasamaya abhiññaya sambodhaya nibbanaya samvattati?
-Now what is this middle way, monks, that was realised by the Tathagata, which produces vision, produces knowledge, and which leads to peace, deep insight, to enlightenment, to liberation?
What is this middle path, which takes us to the final goal? And he explains the middle path is the eightfold noble path.

Ayam-eva ariyo atthangiko maggo, seyyathidam - sammaditthi, sammasankappo, sammavaca, sammakammanto, sammaajivo, sammavayamo, sammasati, sammasamadhi.
-This Noble Eightfold Path, namely - right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.

The word samma means right, correct, and something is right only when you have directly experienced it, otherwise it is only hearsay. If someone has told you something and you accept it or you just play an intellectual game or an emotional game with it, but you do not practice it, then it is not samma. The entire eightfold path has to be practiced personally with direct experience. This is what an enlightened person discovers.

Ayam kho sa bhikkhave majjhima patipada, tathagatena abhisambuddha, cakkhukarani,ñanakarani, upasamaya abhiññaya sambodhaya nibbanaya samvattati.
-This is the middle path, bhikkhus, that was realised by the Tathagata, which produces vision, produces knowledge, and which leads to peace, deep insight, to enlightenment, to liberation.

Next, he explains these four noble truths.

Idam kho pana bhikkhave dukkham ariyasaccam:
Now this monks is the noble truth of suffering:

He says ariyasaccaṁ, ariyasaccaṁ in the sense that anybody who learns to observe misery objectively becomes an ariya, a noble person, a liberated person, a saintly person, and comes out of the stage of anariya, a non-ariyan. If one keeps rolling in this misery then one is not coming out of it. So the universal truth of misery exists, it is a universal truth, but if you keep on reeling in it, you can never come out of it. The whole technique of the noble eightfold path gives us a way how to observe it objectively, and understand it’s nature from the grossest level to the subtlest level. Moreover, that makes one a liberated person because that is how one can experience the reality which is beyond mind and matter.
And he explains what this dukkha, this suffering, this misery is:

Jatipi dukkha jarapi dukkha vyadhipi dukkho maranampi dukkham appiyehi sampayogo dukkho piyehi vippayogo dukkho yampiccham na labhati tampi dukkham sankhittena pañcupadanakkhandha dukkha.

Birth is misery, old age is misery, disease is misery, death is misery, getting associated with unwanted things is misery and getting disassociated with wanted things is misery. Also, not getting what one desires is misery. Having explained all this, he then explains the depth that this noble eightfold path takes us to, and that depth is sankhittena pañcupadanakkhandha dukkha. In short, and at a very deep stage, one starts realising that the real dukkha is the attachment to these five aggregates—the body, matter (rupa) and the four parts of the mind: conciousness (viññana), perception (sañña), sensation (vedana), reaction (sankhara). There is a tremendous amount of attachment to the combination of these five which brings nothing but misery. But you keep on generating these five aggregates (khandhas) again and again, life after life, because of upadana, craving and clinging towards these five aggregates, which generates more and more of these five aggregates, and so misery continues. This has to be understood not merely at the intellectual level, not merely at the logical level, and not merely at the blind devotional level. This eightfold noble path enables us to feel this, to understand this at the direct experiential level and by experiencing it you come out of this upadana, you come out of your misery. But as long as this upadana is present, misery is present. The gross miseries of birth, death, disease, old age etc. are so obvious, but the biggest illusion or delusion starts when you go to a slightly deeper stage and start experiencing very pleasant, subtle sensations. You start experiencing very deep tranquility and calmness, and then start feeling that this is wonderful and start developing attachment to it without understanding that this experience is also within the field of mind and matter, the five aggregates. You are not beyond the five aggregates. This is still the field of the five aggregates and you are having upadana for it—this is misery. Therefore what is called a pleasant experience in the worldly way is not a pleasure, in reality this is not happiness; in reality it is misery where there is only an illusion of happiness, where there is an illusion of tranquillity, but still you are in the field of mind and matter and attachment towards it is still present. So the first noble truth has to be understood to this depth.

(to be continued)