Health, mind, and food
In the Sutra of Golden Light, Buddha Shakyamuni lists the benefits of contact with this sublime sutra. He says:
Those who hear this sutra,
Those who cause others to hear it,
Those who rejoice upon hearing it
And make offerings to it,
For tens of millions of eons
Shall be venerated by gods and nagas,
Humans and kinnaras,
Asuras and yakshas.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche, urges us to recite the Sutra of Golden Light
The Vinaya (Pali and Sanskrit, literally meaning “leading out”, “education”, “discipline”) is the regulatory framework for the sangha or monastic community of Buddhism based on the canonical texts called the Vinaya Pitaka. The teachings of the Gautama Buddha can be divided into two broad categories: Dharma “doctrine” and Vinaya “discipline”.
Extant vinaya texts include those of the Theravada (the only one in Pali), the Kāśyapīya, the Mahāsāṃghika, the Mahīśāsaka, theDharmaguptaka, the Sarvāstivāda and the Mūlasarvāstivāda.[1]
The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta[1] (MN 10: The Discourse on the Establishing of Mindfulness) and the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta[2] (DN 22: The Great Discourse on the Establishing of Mindfulness) are two of the most important and widely studied discourses in the Pāli Canon of Theravada Buddhism, acting as the foundation for mindfulness meditational practice. These suttas (discourses) stress the practice of sati (mindfulness) “for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, for the extinguishing of suffering and grief, for walking on the path of truth, for the realization of nibbāna.”
Sloth and torpor follow sensual desire and aversion in the list of the five hindrances. Accustomed to the stimulation of constant desire and aversion, some people become tired or deflated when these stimuli are absent. After meditation has calmed the mental activity of wanting and averting, sloth and torpor may be the hindrance that needs to be overcome. Doing so renews a healthy state of energy and alertness.
The five hindrances are key psychological forces that obscure the natural luminosity and healthy functioning of the mind. Because they hinder attention, it is important for people practicing mindfulness to become wise about them.
Sloth and torpor are forces in the mind that drain vitality and limit effort. Sloth manifests as a physical absence of vitality. The body may feel heavy, lethargic, weary, or weak. It may be difficult to keep the body erect when meditating. Torpor is a mental lack of energy. The mind may be dull, cloudy, or weary. It easily drifts in thought. Being caught in sloth or torpor can resemble slogging through deep mud. When this hindrance is strong, there is not even enough mindfulness to know we’ve fallen in.
Discouragement, frustration, boredom, indifference, giving up, hopelessness, and resistance are some of the psychological causes of sloth and torpor. Mental and physical tiredness may resemble sloth and torpor, but differ in not arising from a psychological attitude.
The presence of sloth and torpor does not mean that energy is not available. It means we are not accessing it. With a change in conditions, energy may reappear in a moment. This can be seen clearly in young children who switch from being “tired” (while shopping, for instance) to being energetic (about an offer of ice cream, for instance) in a matter of seconds. The energy level depends on whether they evaluate the situation as boring or exciting.
The term nāmarūpa is used in Hindu thought, nāma describing the spiritual or essential properties of an object or being, and rūpathe physical presence that it manifests. These terms are used similarly to the way that ‘essence‘ and ‘accident‘ are used in Catholic theology to describe transubstantiation. The distinction between nāma and rūpa in Hindu thought explains the ability of spiritual powers to manifest through inadequate or inanimate vessels – as observed in possession and oracular phenomena, as well as in the presence of the divine in images that are worshiped through pūja.
Nāma Rupatmak Vishva is the Vedanta (a school of Sanatana Dharma/Hinduism) term for the manifest Universe, viz. The World as we know it. Since every object in this World has a Nāma and Rupa,the World is called Nāma Rupatmak Vishva. The Paramātma (or Creator) is not manifest in this Nāma Rupatmak Vishva but is realized by a Sādhaka(student) by means of Bhakti (devotion), Karma (duty), Jnana (knowledge), Yoga (Union, a Hindu school), or a combination of all of these methodologies.
This term is also used in Buddhism, to refer to constituent processes of the human being: nāma is typically considered to refer to psychological elements of the human person, while Rūpa refers to the physical. The Buddhist nāma and rūpa are mutually dependent, and not separable; as nāmarūpa, they designate an individual being.[1] Namarupa are also referred to as the five skandhas.
Saṅkhāra (Pali; Sanskrit saṃskāra) is a term figuring prominently in Buddhism. The word means ‘that which has been put together’ and ‘that which puts together’.
In the first (passive) sense, saṅkhāra refers to conditioned phenomena generally but specifically to all mental “dispositions”.[1] These are called ‘volitional formations’ both because they are formed as a result of volition and because they are causes for the arising of future volitional actions.[2] English translations for saṅkhāra in the first sense of the word include ‘conditioned things,’[3]‘determinations,’[4] ‘fabrications’[5] and ‘formations’ (or, particularly when referring to mental processes, ‘volitional formations’).[6]
In the second (active) sense of the word, saṅkhāra refers to karma (sankhara-khandha) that leads to conditioned arising, dependent origination.[7][8]
aṅkhāra is a Pali word, that is based on the Sanskrit word saṃskāra.[9] The latter word is not a Vedic Sanskrit term, but found extensively in classical and epic era Sanskrit in all Indian philosophies.[9][10][11] Saṃskāra is found in the Hindu Upanishads such as in verse 2.6 of Kaushitaki Upanishad, 4.16.2–4 of Chandogya Upanishad, 6.3.1 of Brihadaranyaka Upanishad as well as mentioned by the ancient Indian scholar Panini and many others.[12] Saṅkhāra appears in the Buddhist Pitaka texts with a variety of meanings and contexts, somewhat different than the Upanishadic texts, particularly for anything to predicate impermanence.[12]
It is a complex concept, with no one word English translation, that fuses “object and subject” as interdependent parts of each human’s consciousness and epistemological process.[9] It connotes “impression, disposition, conditioning, forming, perfecting in one’s mind, influencing one’s sensory and conceptual faculty” as well as any “preparation, sacrament” that “impresses, disposes, influences or conditions” how one thinks, conceives or feels.[9][13][10]
In the first (passive) sense, saṅkhāra refers to “conditioned things” or “dispositions, mental imprint”.[13][9][14] All precepts, state early Buddhist texts, are conditioned things.[9] It can refer to any compound form in the universe whether a tree, a cloud, a human being, a thought or a molecule. All these are saṅkhāras, as well as everything that is physical and visible in the phenomenal world are conditioned things, or aggregate of mental conditions.[9] The Buddha taught that all saṅkhāras are impermanent and essenceless.[15][16]These subjective dispositions, states David Kalupahana, “prevented the Buddha from attempting to formulate an ultimately objective view of the world”.[13]
Since conditioned things and dispositions are perceptions and do not have real essence, they are not reliable sources of pleasure and they are impermanent.[13] Understanding the significance of this reality is wisdom. This “conditioned things” sense of the word Saṅkhāra appears in Four Noble Truths and in Buddhist theory of dependent origination, that is how ignorance or misconceptions about impermanence and non-self leads to Taṇhā and rebirths.[17] The Samyutta Nikaya II.12.1 presents one such explanation,[17] as do other Pali texts.[18]
The last words of the Buddha, according to the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta (in English and Pali), were “Disciples, this I declare to you: All conditioned things are subject to disintegration – strive on untiringly for your liberation.” (Pali: “handa’dāni bhikkhave āmantayāmi vo, vayadhammā saṅkhārā appamādena sampādethā ti.“)
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| The Five Aggregates (pañca khandha) according to the Pali Canon. |
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| Source: MN 109 (Thanissaro, 2001) | diagram details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In the second (active) sense, saṅkhāra (or saṅkhāra-khandha) refers to the form-creating faculty of mind. It is part of the doctrine of conditioned arising or dependent origination (paṭiccasamuppāda).[19][20] In this sense, the termSankhara is karmically active volition or intention, which generates rebirth and influences the realm of rebirth.[19]Sankhara herein is synonymous with karma, and includes actions of the body, speech and mind.[19][21]
The saṅkhāra-khandha states that living beings are reborn (bhava, become) by means of actions of body and speech (kamma).[22] The Buddha stated that all volitional constructs are conditioned by ignorance (avijja) ofimpermanence and non-self.[23][24] It is this ignorance that leads to the origination of the sankharas and ultimately causes human suffering (dukkha).[25] The cessation of all such sankharas (sabba-saṅkhāra-nirodha) is synonymous with Enlightenment (bodhi), the attainment of nirvana. The end of conditioned arising or dependent origination in the karmic sense (Sankharas), yields the unconditioned phenomenon of nirvana.[26]
As the ignorance conditions the volitional formations, these formations condition, in turn, the consciousness (viññāna). The Buddha elaborated:
‘What one intends, what one arranges, and what one obsesses about: This is a support for the stationing of consciousness. There being a support, there is a landing [or: an establishing] of consciousness. When that consciousness lands and grows, there is the production of renewed becoming in the future. When there is the production of renewed becoming in the future, there is future birth, aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair. Such is the origination of this entire mass of suffering & stress.’[27]
Skandhas (Sanskrit) or khandhas (Pāḷi) means “heaps, aggregates, collections, groupings”.[1] In Buddhism, it refers to the five aggregates concept that asserts five elements constitute and completely explain a living being’s mental and physical existence.[2][3][4] The five aggregates or heaps are: matter or body (rupa), sensations or feelings (vedana), perceptions (samjna), mental formations (sankhara), and consciousness (vijnana).[5][6][7]
The skandhas explain what is a “being or individual”, and the skandhas theory complements the anatta doctrine of Buddhism which asserts that all things and beings are without self.[8][3][9] The anatta and “five aggregates” doctrines are part of the liberating knowledge in Buddhism, wherein one realizes that there is no-self, a being is five aggregates, each of which are “not I, and not my self”, and each of the skandha is empty, without substance.[10][11]
In the Theravada tradition, suffering arises when one identifies with or clings to an aggregate. This suffering is extinguished by relinquishing attachments to aggregates. The Mahayana tradition asserts that the nature of all aggregates as intrinsically empty ofindependent existence. The skandhas concept to explain a thing or being is unique to Buddhism among major Indian religions, and is not shared by Hinduism and Jainism which believe that a living being has a soul, metaphysical self.[12][13]
The Twelve Nidānas (Pali/Sanskrit: nidāna “cause, motivation, link”) are twelve links doctrine of Buddhism where each link is asserted as a primary causal relationship between the connected links.[2][3] These links present the mechanistic basis of repeated birth, Samsara, and resultant Dukkha (suffering, pain, unsatisfactoriness) starting from avidyā (ignorance, misconceptions).[2][a]
The Twelve Nidānas doctrine is one application of the Buddhist concept of pratītyasamutpāda (dependent origination).
Samādhi (Sanskrit: समाधि, Hindi pronunciation: [səˈmaːd̪ʱi]), also called samāpatti, in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and yogic schools refers to a state of meditative consciousness. It is a meditative absorption or trance, attained by the practice of dhyāna.[1] Insamādhi the mind becomes still. It is a state of being totally aware of the present moment; a one-pointedness of mind.
In Buddhism, it is the last of the eight elements of the Noble Eightfold Path. In the Ashtanga Yoga tradition, it is the eighth and final limb identified in the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali.[2][3]
The Abhidhamma teaches us about different kinds of wholesome cittas. There are kamavacara kusala cittas (kusala cittas, belonging to the sensuous plane of citta), rupavacara kusala cittas (which are rupa- jhanacittas) and arupavacara kusala cittas (which are arupa-jhanacittas). All these types of citta are kusala but they do not eradicate the latent tendencies of defilements. Only lokuttara kusala cittas (magga-cittas) eradicate the latent tendencies of defilements. When all defilements are eradicated completely there will be an end to the cycle of birth and death.
Each citta experiences an object. What is the object experienced by the lokuttara citta?
The lokuttara citta experiences the dhamma which does not arise and fall away, it experiences nibbana.
There are four paramattha dhammas: citta, cetasika, rūpa and nibbāna. Citta, cetasika and rupa are realities which arise and fall away, they are conditioned dhammas (sankhāra dhammas). Nibbāna does not arise and fall away. It has no conditions through which it arises, it is an unconditioned dhamma (visankhāra dhamma). We cannot experience the unconditioned reality unless paññā is developed to the degree that it can experience the conditioned dhammas as they are: impermanent, dukkha and anattā (not self).
Do both magga-citta and phala-citta directly experience nibbāna?
The magga-citta and the phala-citta are lokuttara cittas, thus they have nibbāna as the object. When the magga-citta has fallen away, it is succeeded immediately by the phala-cittas which experience the same object. When one performs kāmāvacara kusala kamma (kusala kamma of the sensuous plane of consciousness) the vipāka does not follow immediately. Even if the vipāka were to arise soon after the kamma, it could never arise in the same process of citta. It is different with the lokuttara citta. The magga-citta has to be followed immediately by the phala-cittas, which are two or three moments of citta, depending on the individual.