How to Study & Practice Dhamma
By Kingsley Heendeniya
This article is not written for the general casual reader,
however pious, who has but a mere dilettante passing interest in study
and practice of the teaching of the Buddha that I prefer to call ‘Dhamma’
rather than by the popular word ‘Buddhism’.
Buddhism is many things to many people, mostly laden with rites, rituals, icon worship, so-called collection and transference of merit etc. - things the Buddha clearly rejected as non-Dhamma. In short, there is no ‘Buddhism’ in Dhamma. The Buddha taught with only one objective – surcease and escape from the round of re-becoming. Living beings, from ignorance of Dhamma, are trapped in a continuum of re-becoming from a beginning he says that is beyond comprehension, and in any case a waste of time to speculate upon.
The Dhamma is concerned solely with the present. Why is that? ‘Let not person revive the past or on the future build his hopes. The past has been left behind and the future has not been reached. Instead, with insight, let him see each presently arisen state. Let him know that and be sure of it, invincibly, unshakably. Today the effort must be made. Tomorrow, Death may come. Who knows?’ [Bhaddekaratta Sutta]. To live in the present, in Dhamma, in each moment, mindfully and aware, is the only certainty.
The Dhamma is found only in the Suttas and connected texts such as the Sutta Nipata, Dhammapada, Udana, Itivuttaka, and Theratherigatha. [I here refer only to Theravada]. That is, one must be eclectic in reading Dhamma books written by persons who have not attained at least the stage of sotapatti. It is not difficult to state the Dhamma but it is impossible for a person who has not attained magga to understand it [parinna].
For example, I found grievous miccaditthi statements in a recent issue of a Wesak Journal of a prestigious institution, even in an essay by a professor of Buddhism. The unfortunate part is that people genuinely think they understand what they in fact do not understand and mislead themselves and others, and block progress. Have any professors or preachers or scholars or writers of Buddhism, or Buddhist civilization or Abhidhamma attained magga?
Why are there no aryasavaka now? I have visited several forest hermitages and found that they are all charades. How many graduates of the University of Ceylon have thought it necessary to ordain asked the Cambridge educated English monk and sotapanna, Nanavira Thera more than 40 years ago? Nanavira Thera wrote ‘Only a vertical view, straight down into the abyss of his own personal existence, is a man capable of apprehending the perilous insecurity of his situation; and only a man who does apprehend this is prepared to listen to the Buddha’s Teaching…many people on first coming across the Suttas, are puzzled to know what their relevance is in the elaborate context of modern thought….’
The first requirement to study Dhamma, if you are below 50 years or so is to learn Pali. Ignorance of Pali has been a severe handicap at my advanced age. All translations are hazardous. To make things more difficult, there is very little by way of explanation of the Pali words in the Suttas; and there was this problem even in the time of the Buddha when disciples either asked him or the seniors. The Buddha used words in his dialect sometimes loosely but at all times emphasized it was their meaning that was important.
For example, the precise meaning and differences of words such as vedana, sanna, sankhara, vinnana, and cetana are not explicit leading to endless quarrels by scholars. But the earnest student can clearly understand as he progresses because nowhere in Dhamma is there any conflict in meaning and context. Nowhere has the Buddha said here contradicting what he said there. Connected with this is the next difficulty because the Suttas in the main five Nikayas are not arranged in an orderly way as for example the chapters in a text book of physics. They are arranged according to length. The longest 34 discourses are in the Digha Nikaya. The most useful and adequate is the Majjhima Nikaya with 152 discourses. Unfortunately, the books are expensive. The Majjhima is about 2500 rupees. The two volumes of the Samyutta cost more than 8000 rupees. In any case, it is more than enough to thoroughly learn 25-30 selected Suttas in order to attain magga. Those interested for guidance are welcome to contact me.
Read a Sutta once from beginning to end. Once you have noted the main theme, settle down to study it paragraph by paragraph. Underline key words and think. Make notes and write you own Dhamma book. The Buddha is rightly described as a teacher par excellance. He attempts only two things: (a) make you think and (b) gradually train you in an orderly way to lead onwards to realize immediately ‘this true [sandittiko, opanaiyko]’. The thrust is: ‘accept only when you know in yourself this is true’. The truth of what he says is beyond doubt; it is beyond reasoning and logic [atakkavachara]. It is one step from inferential thinking. It is patisotagami or against the current of conventional thinking.
Consider the following statement: Pemato jayati soko, pemato jayati bhayam. [From affection springs grief, from affection springs fear]. Conventional minds will recoil to the idea - as it indeed did when the Buddha said it. The truth and meaning of Dhamma becomes a private experience by the wise only when there is insight or vipassana. But vipassana depends on samadhi or concentration. And samadhi depends on Sammaditthi. Thus, everything in Dhamma is connected. Why is that? The Buddha is speaking, albeit in diverse ways, only of one thing and one thing alone – dukkha and the cessation of dukkha.
Sometimes though, he makes cryptic statements for the higher trained disciples, such as: ‘Whatever is felt is dukkha – but that was said by me in reference to the impermanence of determinations’; ‘The world is tormented by contact’; ‘You shall be neither here nor there nor in between the two – it is the end of dukkha’. Put by such abstruse statements till you have understood thoroughly the fundaments. Later, when you detect the structural principle of the arising and cessation of dukkha, paticcasamuppada, in the entirety of the teaching, then you would have arrived at the true Dhamma.
Please note that patisotagami means that you must make unrelenting struggle to paddle upstream and not just float downstream as most books are wont to make you do with their parrot-talk. To make Dhamma easy is a travesty. Always learn to ask: Why is the Buddha saying this and not that? Omit the traditional Commentaries as they are often misleading, and even false. Note that the method of the Dhamma is indirect and that it is a description. It is not an explanation of phenomena. For example, even if you contemplate a million times on ‘Sabbe dhamma anatta’ you shall never realize it. The only way to arrive at private experience of anatta, when the subject/object duality has ceased and there is just objectivity or yathabhuta nanadassana, is indirectly through comprehension of sabbe sankhara anicca. But sabbe sankhara aniccata is subjective! To understand this, there should be 100% comprehension of Dhamma; 99.9% will not take you to magga. For example, it is fatal to understand sankhara as kamma. Finally, as you grow in Dhamma you shall discover that seclusion is sine qua non to study and practice Dhamma; and that living in the present, in the satisampajanna mode, mindfully and aware, bhavana leads surely to the pinnacle of wisdom.