When Christians are told: 'Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God,' a way is shown by which any act, however lowly, can, by the addition of a remembrance (a Sati), be surrounded by the halo of a high moral enthusiasm; and how, by the continual practice of this remembrance, a permanent improvement in character can be obtained. The Buddhist idea is similar. But the remembrance is of what we should now call natural law, not of a deity. This has been made a corner-stone of the system of ethical self-training. The corresponding cornerstone in the West is conscience; and indeed, so close is the resemblance in their effects that one scholar has chosen 'conscience' as a rendering of Sati;-wrongly, we think, as this introduces a Western idea into Buddhism. The curious notion of an internal monitor, distinct from the soul, yet speaking independently of the will of the man himself, is confined to animistic modes of thought. Buddhaghosa uses it, indeed, as a simile, to explain the connotations of Sati; but he expressly pours scorn on any idea of a separate entity.1 On the other hand though Sati (Smrti) does not occur in any ethical sense in pre-Buddhistic literature, it is possible that the Buddhist conception was, in one way, influenced by previous thought. Stress is laid in the Upanishad ideal on Intuition, especially as regards the relation between the soul, supposed to exist inside each human body, and the Great Soul. In the Buddhist protest against this, the doctrine of Sati, dependent not on intuition, but on grasp of actual fact, plays an important part. This opposition may have been intentional. On the other hand, the ethical value of Mindfulness (in its technical sense) would be sufficient, without any such intention, to explain the great stress laid upon it. The following are some of the proposed translations of Sati: See Mrs. Rhys Davids's 'Buddhist Psychology,' p. 16, note 1; and note I above on Vol. I, p. 81. 2 He renders kâyagatâ sati, where the word occurs in its technical serse, as meditation on the body.' He has other renderings for Exa "sage. اتا 1544 mest Contemplation, Warren, 'Buddhism in Translations,' 353- Pischel, Buddha,' 28. Oldenberg, 'Buddha' (English translation), 128. The other word in the compound that gives the title to this Suttanta is Patthâna-which would mean etymologically 'putting forward, setting forth.' It does not occur in preBuddhistic literature. It has not been yet found in the Nikâyas in its concrete, primary, sense; or in any connexion except this. Buddhaghosa here paraphrases it, exegetically only, by gocara, which is the feeding-ground, resort, of an animal. The mediaeval use of the word (in its Sanskrit form) was in the sense of starting off, going away, departure. It is the title of the most often quoted book in the Abhidhamma, and there means probably Origins, Starting-points, as it gives under twenty-four categories the paccayas (causes) of phenomena. In one passage of a fifth-century commentator (Jât. I, 78.5) the Abhidhamma Pitaka as a whole is said to be samantapatthâna, 'having (or giving) the settings-on-foot, the points of departure, of all things.' Childers gives the word as a neuter. It is masculine throughout our Suttanta. But he analyses the compound (sub voce upatthânam), not into Sati+patthâna, but into Sati+upatthâna. This is a possible contraction, and Buddhaghosa gives it as an alternative explanation which he does not adopt. Had we adopted it, the rendering of the title would have been 'The gettingready of Mindfulness.' Neumann renders it 'Pillars of Insight,' and Warren Intent Contemplations.' Neither of these is much more than a distant cousin of the Pâli. It is not easy at first sight to understand the choice of just those four fields or areas (comp. patthânâ=thânâ=gocarâ), to which, in this Suttanta, ' mindfulness' is to be applied, or in respect to which it is to be set up. We need ourselves to be mindful, lest, in interpreting them, we follow too closely European points of view. In trying to avoid this danger, we do not consider our choice of terms leaves nothing to be desired, or to be explained. The ethical desirableness of Sati, as the instrument most efficacious in self-mastery, lay in the steady alertness of inward vision which it connoted, whether past or present experience was contemplated. In discussing it, the Buddhist was concerned, not with the outer world as such, but with the microcosm of his subjective experience, and with the vehicles thercof-sense and mind. These he is here represented as considering under the fourfold aspect of 59. (1) kâya, physical structure and activities. (2) vedanâ, the emotional nature, first as bare feeling, then as having ethical implications. (3) citta, conscious life, consciousness or intelligence, considered under ethical aspects. (4) dhammâ, with its subdivisions (a) the Five Hindrances. (b) the Five Groups. (c) the Six Spheres of Sense. (d) the seven Factors of Enlightenment. the four Aryan Truths. Now it is always difficult to make any English term coincide with either dhamma or dhammâ. Here, as elsewhere in Buddhist diction, it is chiefly the context that must be the guide to meaning. The Suttanta is a discipline-the supreme discipline-in ethical introspection. And in Buddhist introspective analysis, dhammâ (elsewhere translatable now by 'things, now by 'qualities') are, more especially, 'cognoscible objects.' These are related to mano (consciousness as apprehending), just as each kind of sense-object is related to one kind of sense-organ; thing-seen, for example, to sight. A cognoscible object is any presentation (German, Vorstellung), that has got beyond the stage of mere sensory re-action. It is an idea or perception in the wider sense used by Locke :— 'Whatsoever is the immediate object of perception, thought, or understanding.' But neither cognoscible object, nor presentation, is a term which lends itself with sufficient simplicity and impressiveness to ethical homily. We have therefore decided to perpetuate the Lockean 'idea.' For the same reason we use 'thought' for citta, in preference to a term of more psychological precision; and we understand by thought', thinking, or knowing, or being intelligently conscious, and do not restrict the word to any special mode of cognition. Hence we get this distinction of aspects in (3) and (4): under citta, the ever-changing ever-active continuance of consciousness, or re-acting intelligence; under dhammâ, those same activities considered objectively, as concrete states, procedure, 'content of consciousness,' as the psychologists phrase it. Under (3) we watch the agency as a whole, in its chameleon-like phases. Under (4) we take transverse cuttings, so to speak, of our subjective experience. It is interesting to note that Buddhaghosa, explaining the inclusion, under No. 4, of the Six Senses and the fivefold Khandha doctrine, says :-' in contemplation of the body the Exalted One taught only the grasp of matter, in contemplation of feeling and consciousness, only the grasp of the immaterial. Now in order to teach grasp of matter and the immaterial mixed (rûpârûpamissakapariggaho), he' spoke of dhammâ. And again: 'grasp of the rûpa-khanda being taught by contemplation of body, and grasp of the khandhas of feeling and viññâna (cognition or consciousness) by contemplation of feeling and citta, He now, to teach grasp of the khandhas of perception and sankhâra (let us say, volition and other mental factors) went on' to speak of dham mâ. [XXII. MAHA SATI PATTHÂNA SUTTANTA. SETTING-UP OF MINDFULNESS.] [200] Thus have I heard. 1. The Exalted One was once staying among the Kurus. Kammâssadhamma is a city of the Kuru There the Exalted One addressed the brethren, saying, 'Bhikkhus!' 'Reverend sir!' responded the brethren. And the Exalted One said: country. The one and only path, Bhikkhus leading to the purification of beings, to passing far beyond grief and lamentation, to the dying-out of ill and misery, to the attainment of right method, to the realization of Nirvana, is that of the Fourfold Setting up of Mindfulness.2 Which are the Four? Herein 3, O bhikkhus, let a brother, as to the body, continue so to look upon the body that he remains ardent, self-possessed, and mindful, having overcome both the hankering and the dejection common in the world. And in the same way as to feelings, thoughts, and ideas, let him so look upon each, that he remains ardent, self-possessed, and mindful, having overcome both the hankering and the dejection common in the world. 1 Ñâya. Practical Buddhism is summed up (Majjhima I, 181, 197) as exertion in ñâya, dhamma, and kusala (the Method, the Norm, and the Good). Ñâya is defined at Samyutta V, 388 as what comes pretty much to our method in philosophy. Above (p. 167) it is rendered System. There, in a very old verse, the Buddha says that seeking after Good he had been a pilgrim through the realm of System and Law, outside of which no victory can be won. 2 See Introduction. 3 The commentarial tradition sees in this word idha, the implication of 'belonging to this order or doctrine or school' (imasmim sâsane), and thus an antithesis to 'ito bahiddhâ,' outside this [order] -an expression which occurs immediately after the verse mentioned in the last note. |