Free Course Day 1: Majjhima Nikaya 1

Welcome to the first lesson of this course.

Today we will be taking a look at the first sutra in the Majjhima Nikaya,

Called the root sequence sutra,

Or the Pali name which is the Mulya Pariyaya Sutta.

I apologize to any Pali scholars that are listening because I am sure to utterly butcher any and all Pali words that I come across.

Interestingly enough,

The title can be broken down into two parts.

The first of which is Mulya,

Which means root,

Beginning,

Or start,

Meaning that this is the start of the Majjhima Nikaya in a way,

Or the start of the first sutra within it.

Then there is Pariyaya,

Which is a conjunction of two words,

Which means something along the lines of to go around,

Which could be interpreted as going around a topic or trying to see something from all of its sides.

Interestingly,

This word is used for a lot of titles,

Or is a part of a lot of the titles of the sutras,

Both in the Majjhima Nikaya and elsewhere in the Pali canon.

Here in the root sequence sutra,

The Buddha examines how the notion of a permanent self emerges from the process of perception,

How the world that reflects back at us is used by us to build a false narrative of permanence.

A wide range of phenomena are considered,

Embracing both naturalistic and cosmological dimensions in the sutta.

Buddha discusses the difference between how an unawakened person interprets experience in terms of a self,

While those more advanced have the same experiences without attachment.

So he goes through reviewing the variety of levels through which one has practiced,

And how that practice engages with the perceptual world as we most often view it.

More so,

The Buddha reviews in depth one of the most fundamental principles of Buddhist thought and practice,

Namely that there is no thing,

Not even nirvana and awakening itself,

That can rightly be regarded as the source from which all phenomena and experience emerge,

And that to cling to anything as permanent,

Or having an independent origination,

Is a mistaken view.

It is rather odd how the first sutta in the whole of the Majjhima Nikaya is considered one of the most difficult and complex,

Because it can be interpreted as rather simply,

But due to its foreign nature and concepts to many westerners or people not raised in this kind of society,

It can come across as difficult,

Strange,

Or foreign.

And of course,

They wouldn't let us start off easily,

Those rascally Buddhists throughout the ages,

Now would they?

But how does Buddha do this specifically in this sutra?

By taking the perception of the four kinds of people that he saw,

And describe the way in which their perception and understanding affect the way in which they interact with the world as we see it through our perception.

The first is how the cognitive process of an ordinary person,

And by ordinary he means one who hasn't practiced at all,

Views existence and the perceptions that are coming up.

He discusses this at great length,

Because it requires the most work to understand and move from.

In meditation and in practice within Buddhism,

It is a shared opinion,

But also my opinion,

That moving from 0 to 1 is the hardest move,

Rather than moving beyond from 1 to 2 to 2 to 3,

Etc.

Then he moves on to someone who has undertaken a certain amount of training in meditation,

Life,

And study.

Then he moves on to the variety of higher attainments through the descriptions of an arhat,

And an arhat,

Or an arhant,

Which is a highly attained person in Theravada or general Buddhist cosmology.

And finally he describes the cognitive process of the Tathagata,

Or rather through the lens of a Buddha or the Buddha himself,

Someone who has fully awakened and has fully attained.

Awakening.

The Buddha teaches each of these perspectives from the view of the same things.

He goes through them all completely with the cognitive process of the ordinary person,

But thankfully the translator gave us the Sparks Notes version in the later perceptive descriptions.

Now if you open up a copy of the Mashimanikaya from a translator like Bhikkhu Nanamoli or Bhikkhu Bodhi,

You can get the full description where he goes through each of them individually over and over.

An interesting note as to why these things are repeated over and over again is because,

As we learned in Day 0,

It was originally for memorization.

And so throughout the sutras you will see many things repeated over and over again as a mnemonic tool to help with memorization of the text.

So let's go through the cognitive process of an ordinary person.

I will be reading from the root sequence sutta,

Specifically the Bhikkhu Bodhi translation,

And stopping to provide some minor explanations here and there.

Here Bhikkhus,

And a Bhikkhu is someone who has decided to undertake the Buddhist training or is a Buddhist monk or nun,

An untaught ordinary person who has no regard for the noble ones.

A noble one are those who have attained deep realizations and insight.

Don't think of noble as of noble birth,

But of someone who has spent a long time doing something.

A master carpenter would be called a noble carpenter,

Or a master musician may be a noble musician.

So when he says noble ones throughout any of the sutras,

Note he's not referring to societal rank and status,

But rank within the practice of the buddha dharma.

So an untaught ordinary person who has no regard for the noble ones and is unskilled and undisciplined in their dharma.

Let me pause again.

Here dharma means perception of phenomena rather than teaching.

Dharma itself has many definitions,

But in this particular regard,

Dharma means perception of phenomena rather than teaching.

So let's just read through where we are up to here.

Here Bhikkhus,

An untaught ordinary person who has no regard for noble ones and is unskilled and undisciplined in their dharma,

Has no regard for true people and is unskilled and undisciplined in their dharma,

Perceives four elements,

Meaning earth,

Water,

Fire,

And air,

As the respective element.

So what does this mean?

The four elements here are just the descriptors of the concept of the most basic things which make up the world during the time of the buddha.

During the time of the buddha they were used as descriptions as what makes up everything,

Earth,

Water,

Fire,

And air.

If you look around and you try to kind of break down the world without any scientific knowledge,

You can see that yeah,

Everything's kind of made of these four things in one way or another.

So having perceived the element as earth,

Water,

Fire,

Or air,

They convince themselves as the element.

They convince themselves in the element.

They convince themselves apart from the element,

And they convince themselves to be mine.

So they delight in the element.

Why is that?

Because he has not fully understood it.

Don't worry about this last part.

I promise we will get to this when we finish this short reading from the Mashimanikaya,

But I think it's important to go through it before we do the full explanation.

Continuing on with the reading,

Buddha says,

He perceives beings as different beings in the universe.

Beings,

Being gods,

Brahma,

Gods of streaming radiance,

Gods of effligent glory,

Gods of great fruit,

Overlords,

Anything and everything in the cosmology of deities,

Beings,

Animals,

Etc.

And their planes of existence.

Having perceived beings as beings,

He conceives beings.

He conceives himself in beings.

He conceives himself apart from beings.

He conceives beings to be mine,

And he delights in beings.

Why is that?

Because he has not fully understood it.

So in this passage,

The Buddha is describing both ideas put forth in the Vedic Brahmanism that was around Buddha at the time,

And were important ideas to the priestly class or the Brahmins,

And the people listening around him.

So he's reading his crowd to give this,

And he's saying that the ordinary person who has no spiritual training or no training in the practice of the Dharma perceives all of these things as we would ordinarily perceive them,

Without any knowledge,

Wisdom,

Or insight into their true nature,

You could say.

So he continues to say he perceives the dimensions,

And what he means by dimensions is like the base of infinite space,

Infinite consciousness,

Nothingness,

Neither perception nor non-perception,

And these are all like Buddhist concentration absorption states as such.

Having perceived the dimensions as dimensions,

He convinces himself as the base of infinite space.

He conceives himself as the base of infinite space.

He conceives himself apart from the base of infinite space.

He conceives the base of infinite space to be mine,

And he delights in the base of infinite space.

Why is that?

Because he has not fully understood it.

Again,

Here the Buddha is describing the higher states of what are called the jhanas,

Which are concentration absorption states of meditation,

And how an ordinary person who finds themselves in them for some reason would view them incorrectly,

Or just reading about them or studying about them would have a misconstrued view because of their practice.

He perceives the four classes of sense-data,

Seen as the seen,

Heard as the heard,

Sensed as the sensed,

And cognized as the cognized.

Having perceived the seen as the seen,

He convinces himself as the seen.

He conceives himself in the seen.

He conceives himself apart from the seen.

He conceives the seen to be mine,

And he delights in the seen.

Why is that?

Because he has not fully understood it.

Here the Buddha is teaching how the ordinary person attaches the idea of themselves to the sense-data that is presented to them,

And how the perception is using these illusions that are absorbed through the mind to kind of generate the idea of self in space-time,

And try to attach itself to this idea of permanence rather than the flowing impermanence of the moment to moment.

Then the Buddha goes on to say,

He perceives unity as unity.

Having perceived unity as unity,

He conceives himself as unity.

He conceives himself in unity.

He conceives himself apart from unity.

He conceives unity to be mine.

He delights in unity.

Why is that?

Because he has not fully understood it.

He perceives diversity as diversity.

Having perceived diversity as diversity,

He conceives himself as diversity.

He conceives himself in diversity.

Why is that?

Because he has not fully understood it.

He perceives all as all.

Having perceived all as all,

He conceives himself as all.

He conceives himself in all.

He conceives himself apart from all.

He conceives all to be mine.

He delights in all.

Why is that?

Because he has not fully understood it.

With these three last passages that were just read,

The Buddha is describing how the self attaches itself to greater ideas,

And he is also negating the ideas of monism or oneness.

He's negating the idea that everything is diverse and completely separate from each other,

And that the self is all,

Which were ideas that were present in the spiritual practices around him during his time.

But here he is negating them,

Saying that to view the self as these things is a wrong view.

He goes on to say,

He perceives nirvana as nirvana.

Having perceived nirvana as nirvana,

He conceives himself as nirvana.

He conceives himself in nirvana.

He conceives himself apart from nirvana.

He conceives nirvana to be mine.

He delights in nirvana.

Why is that?

Because he has not fully understood it.

In this passage,

The Buddha is talking about the false ideas of nirvana,

Or in the Pali Nibbāna,

That the self can grasp onto rather than the actuality of awakening.

So what does this all mean though?

I mean,

I can read you the whole sutta if I want,

But that doesn't help because it's just me reading a text to you and not really getting into the meat and bones of it.

What the Buddha is getting at means that to the everyday ordinary person who has not taken the time to go through meditative inquiry,

Training,

Self-reflection,

And perceived direct insight,

That their conception of the world is filled with ignorance,

And a kind of conceptual proliferation from the exact moment of any sensory perception.

That they cling,

That they crave,

That they judge,

That they unconsciously tether themselves to all of these perceptions.

This is how we develop our view about how things are,

Or how we think they are,

Should be,

And how we relate to them.

From our simplest of ideas and view,

To the most grandiose and complex of metaphysical questions,

This is what happens.

Ordinary people here develop the concept of yourself,

Their self,

And self in general through this cognitive process.

We become attached to things when they bring us delight,

Which of course causes us,

Consciously or unconsciously,

To crave them and cling to them as that permanent thing which brought about the delight rather than as an ever-changing and impermanent object.

When the ordinary person conceives through this lens,

It is a state of cognitive distortion,

Which are led by the three defilements,

Which are known as tanha,

Which translates to craving,

Mana,

Which is arrogance,

Pride,

And conceit,

And ditti,

Which is the wrong view generated by the previous two defilements.

So this is the view of the ordinary person from the perspective of the Buddha in this case on cognitive reality.

The other cognitive processes are much shorter and to the point,

And I won't be reading from the Majjhima Nikaya 1,

Rutsuta,

Because we've already been through that.

So the person who has gone through training is attempting not to conceive and perceive things in the wrong way by training to not identify with them,

By training not to cling to them,

And by practicing not attaching the idea of themselves to them.

The way that you get to this point is the deep practice of Insight Meditation and seeing things,

Or directly knowing things,

Exactly as they are through the three doors of Insight,

Which are impermanence,

Suffering,

And non-self.

But there are still traces of clinging,

Attachment,

And mental disposition at this stage.

The arhants are awakened,

Enlightened beings who can see directly into the truth of reality with no distorted conceptions,

Having uprooted all trace of the three defilements of greed,

Hatred,

And delusion.

The arhat has seen and blown out even the subtlest of clinging,

Attachment,

And mental disposition,

And sees directly into the truth of reality,

With no distortion of concepts,

Having uprooted those defilements.

And finally,

The perception of the Buddha is an awakened,

Enlightened being that can see directly into the truth of reality with no distorted conceptions,

Uprooting even the smallest traces of the three defilements,

And understanding fully and completely the root cause of suffering.

In summary,

The Buddha takes the cognitive process of these kinds of people and understands how they deal with the root of suffering,

How suffering arises in them through the process of perception,

Clinging,

Desiring,

Etc.

And how it can be ended in each instance through insight into the nature of reality.

The sutra continues on to describe a variety of things,

Including the 24 bases of cognition,

But this is the gist of the first sutta.

Due to the descriptions and difficult nature of this particular sutta,

If you do find yourself wanting to sit down and read it and you don't feel like you understood anything,

Don't worry,

Because it is often taught that one should just read through it and come back later when you have a better grasp on some of the other ideas and a bit more time spent practicing meditation,

Mindfulness,

And insight,

Both on and off the cushion.

It is so typical sometimes in the sutta for them to begin with the most difficult,

Whether it's the mashimanikaya or it's the anguttaranikaya or any of them.

So I hope you enjoyed this summary and short look at the root sequence or mulga-pariyaya sutta of the mashimanikaya,

And I'm looking forward to hear your questions.

In the next lesson we will be looking at the second sutta of the mashimanikaya.

A good reminder,

Again these are kind of off the cuff and lowly edited because I just want to give you my straight and honest thoughts and ideas on these sutas like we were having a conversation and you just asked me about them.

If you have any further questions you can reach out to me via email or if you have one-on-one discussions for anything concerning Buddhism,

Meditation,

Or this particular sutta or course,

Please let me know and you can engage with me through the mentorship program offered by Insight Timer.

Thank you so much,

And if you would like to get these lessons on your front page or mine them more easily,

Please give me a follow on Insight Timer.

I am so excited to do the rest of the mashimanikaya with all of you,

And I wish you a wonderful day.