In the Buddha's Words - Bhikkhu Bodhi [203]
With Text X,5(7) we return to the metaphor of the lion’s roar, introduced earlier, with a lengthy simile that compares the Buddha’s proclamation of universal impermanence to the roar of a lion when he emerges from his den. Like the closing passage of the First Sermon (see Text II,5), this text draws our attention to the cosmic scope of the Buddha’s mission. His message extends not only to human beings, but reaches up to the high heavenly realms, shaking the delusions of the deities.
Finally, Text X,5(8) offers us a series of brief explanations why the Buddha is called the Tathāgata. He is called the Tathāgata because he has fully awakened to the nature of the world, its origin, its cessation, and the way to its cessation; because he has fully comprehended all phenomena within the world, whether seen, heard, sensed, or cognized; because his speech is invariably true; because he acts in conformity with his words; and because he wields supreme mastery within the world. The text ends with an inspired poem, probably attached by the compilers of the canon, which celebrates the Buddha as the supreme refuge for the world.
The personal devotion toward the Tathāgata expressed by both the prose text and the poem introduces us to the warm current of religious feeling that runs through Early Buddhism, always present just beneath its cool and composed exterior. This religious dimension makes the Dhamma more than just a philosophy or an ethical system or a body of meditative techniques. Animating it from within, drawing its followers upward and onward, it makes the Dhamma a complete spiritual path—a path rooted in faith in a particular person who is at once the supreme teacher of liberating truth and the foremost example of the truth he teaches.
X. THE PLANES OF REALIZATION
1. THE FIELD OF MERIT FOR THE WORLD
(1) Eight Persons Worthy of Gifts
“Monks, these eight persons are worthy of gifts, worthy of hospitality, worthy of offerings, worthy of reverential salutations, the unsurpassed field of merit for the world. What eight?
“The stream-enterer, the one practicing for the realization of the fruit of stream-entry; the once-returner, the one practicing for the realization of the fruit of once-returning; the nonreturner, the one practicing for the realization of the fruit of the nonreturning; the arahant, the one practicing for arahantship.
“Monks, these eight persons are worthy of gifts, worthy of hospitality, worthy of offerings, worthy of reverential salutations, the unsurpassed field of merit for the world.”
(AN 8:59; IV 292)
(2) Differentiation by Faculties
“Monks, there are these five faculties. What five? The faculty of faith, the faculty of energy, the faculty of mindfulness, the faculty of concentration, the faculty of wisdom. These are the five faculties.
“One who has completed and fulfilled these five faculties is an arahant. If they are weaker than that, one is practicing for the realization of the fruit of arahantship; if still weaker, one is a nonreturner; if still weaker, one is practicing for the realization of the fruit of nonreturning; if still weaker, one is a once-returner; if still weaker, one is practicing for the realization of the fruit of once-returning; if still weaker, one is a stream-enterer; if still weaker, one is practicing for the realization of the fruit of stream-entry.
“But, monks, I say that one in whom these five faculties are completely and totally absent is ‘an outsider, one standing amid the worldlings.’”
(SN 48:18; V 202)
(3) In the Dhamma Well Expounded
42. “Monks, the Dhamma well expounded by me thus is clear, open, evident, and free of patchwork. In the Dhamma well expounded by me thus, which is clear, open, evident, and free of patchwork, those monks who are arahants with taints destroyed—who have lived the spiritual