In the Buddha's Words - Bhikkhu Bodhi [100]
The use of imagery also figures prominently in Text VI,5, whose theme is the transience of human life. Buddhist literature frequently advises us to contemplate the certainty of death and the uncertainty of the time of its arrival. This recommendation is not made to induce an attitude of chronic morbidity but to help us break our infatuation with life and develop detachment. For this reason, recollection of death has become one of the most important subjects of Buddhist meditation. The Buddha elsewhere says that the recollection of death “when developed and cultivated, gains a foothold in the Deathless and culminates in the Deathless” (AN 7:46; IV 47–48). Here the transience of life is underscored by counting up the number of days, seasons, and even meals in a single life.
Text VI,6 is an excerpt from the Raṭṭhapāla Sutta, which recounts the life of the disciple the Buddha called “the foremost of those who have gone forth out of faith.” Raṭṭhapāla was a young man from a well-established family who was so deeply stirred upon hearing the Buddha preach that he at once decided to embrace the homeless life of a monk. The Buddha asked him to obtain his parents’ permission, but his parents, being strongly attached to their only son, adamantly refused to give their consent. Raṭṭhapāla thereupon lay down on the ground and refused to eat or drink, determined to die right there or receive the going forth. His parents finally relented and permitted him to become a monk on the condition that he later return to visit them. Years later, when he visited his parents, they tried to entice him back to the household life, but since he had already attained arahantship he was now beyond any possibility of disrobing. After leaving their home, he went to the royal pleasure garden, where he gave a discourse to King Koravya on “four summaries of the Dhamma.” This discourse conveys his profound insights into the depth and universality of suffering, explaining in simple and lucid words why he, like countless other capable men and women in the prime of life, chose to leave the comforts of the household for the uncertainties of the homeless state.
Craving for sensual pleasures is one trap that keeps beings bound to the round of rebirths. Another major trap is attachment to views. Thus, to clear the path to Nibbāna, the Buddha not only had to dispel infatuation with sensual pleasures but also to expose the danger in views. This is the theme of section 7.
The most dangerous of wrong views are those that deny or undermine the foundations of ethics. Text VI,7(1) draws together a number of perils posed by this type of wrong view; prominent among them is rebirth in the lower realms. Views also lead to one-sided, biased interpretations of reality that we cling to as accurate and complete. People who cling tenaciously to their own views of a particular situation often come into conflict with those who view the same situation in a different light. Views thus give rise to conflicts and disputes. Perhaps no text in all of world literature has depicted this danger in dogmatic clinging more succinctly than the famous parable of the blind men and the elephant, included here as Text VI,7(2).
Text VI,7(3) draws a contrast between the pair of distorted views known as eternalism (sassatav̄da) and annihilationism (ucchedav̄da), also called, respectively, the view of existence (bhavadiṭṭhi) and the view of nonexistence (vibhavadiṭṭhi). Eternalism affirms an eternal component in the individual, an indestructible self, and an eternal ground of the world, such as an all-powerful creator God. Annihilationism denies that there is any survival beyond death, holding that the individual comes to a complete end with the demise of the physical body. Eternalism, according to the Buddha, leads to delight in existence and binds beings to the cycle