Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
The three things that actually produce the condition a rich man reads as luxury are absorption, the immeasurable heart, and knowing the roots are gone.
The compliment, and the assumption inside it
The brahmin’s praise is worth reading in full because it is genuinely lovely and genuinely wrong. The Buddha’s faculties are clear and his complexion pure and bright, like a golden brown jujube in autumn, a ripe palmyra fruit freshly plucked, a pendant of Black Plum River gold laid on a cream rug where it shines and glows and radiates.
Then the inference: surely the worthy Gotama gets when he wants, without trouble or difficulty, various kinds of high and luxurious bedding. And the list runs to a dozen items — sofas, couches, shag-piled woolen covers, silk studded with gems, rugs for elephants and horses and chariots, antelope hide, deer hide, a canopy above and red cushions at both ends.
This is the inventory of AN 3.35, where the Buddha described exactly this bedroom to Hatthaka. The Threes clearly had a stock description of what wealth looked like, and it is used twice in this collection to make opposite halves of one point: there, that it does not prevent the fever; here, that it is not the reason the man in front of you looks well.
The brahmin’s reasoning is not stupid. Good condition follows from good living; this man is in visibly good condition; therefore he lives well. Every step is respectable, and the discourse answers by disputing the middle term rather than the logic.
Not allowed
“Brahmin, these various kinds of high and luxurious bedding are hard for renunciates to find. And even if they do get them, they’re not allowed.”
Two separate facts, and the second is the interesting one. It is not merely that monastics cannot afford such things; it is that the training forbids them. High and large beds are the seventh of the eight sabbath factors and a standing monastic rule, which AN 3.37 has just been through.
So the answer is not a boast about austerity. It is a flat statement of the rule, delivered to someone who did not know it, and it clears the ground for the joke that follows.
Three high and luxurious beds
“There are, brahmin, these three high and luxurious beds that I get these days when I want, without trouble or difficulty.” The phrasing deliberately borrows the brahmin’s own — when I want, without trouble or difficulty — and the word for bedding is kept.
All three answers share a frame that is repeated word for word, and the frame is half the content: robing up in the morning, entering the village for alms, returning after the meal, entering a forest, gathering up some grass or leaves into a pile, and sitting cross-legged with the body straight and mindfulness present.
A pile of grass. The bedding question is answered three times over from a heap of leaves in a wood, and the brahmin’s list of silks is never mentioned again.
What the three actually are
The heavenly bed is the four absorptions, given in the standard formula: the first with rapture and bliss born of seclusion, the second with the mind at one, the third equanimous and mindful, the fourth with pure equanimity and mindfulness.
The divine bed is the four immeasurables — love, compassion, rejoicing, equanimity — each spread to one direction and then to all, abundant, expansive, limitless, free of enmity and ill will. These are the brahmavihāra, the divine abidings, which is why this one is called divine, and they are the 慈悲喜捨 of East Asian practice.
The noble bed is the shortest and needs no attainment described at all: I’ve given up greed, hate, and delusion, cut them off at the root, made them like a palm stump, obliterated them, so they’re unable to arise in the future. One sentence, and it is knowledge rather than a state.
The order is worth noticing: a training available to a practitioner, a heart available to anyone, and a fact available only to somebody finished. And each ends with the same four lines — when practicing like this, my walking is heavenly, my standing, my sitting, my lying down. The bed turns out not to be a piece of furniture but a way of occupying all four postures.
Using it
This is a discourse to teach for its structure rather than its content, since all three of its formulas are given more fully elsewhere. What it does that no other discourse does is put them in a frame that a lay audience recognizes immediately: somebody looks well, and the question is what he has been sleeping on.
The brahmin’s misreading is also worth dwelling on, because it is the standard modern misreading too. The visible signs of a good life are being read as evidence of comfortable circumstances, and the discourse’s answer is that the same signs are produced by three things none of which cost anything and one of which cannot be bought at all.
For a class, the exercise is the frame: read the identical eight lines three times and notice that the only variable is what happens after the leaves are piled up.
Key terms
The text
Arrival at Venāgapura
§1At one time the Buddha was wandering in the land of the Kosalans together with a large Saṅgha of mendicants when he arrived at a village of the Kosalan brahmins named Venāgapura. The brahmins and householders of Venāgapura heard: “It seems the ascetic Gotama—a Sakyan, gone forth from a Sakyan family—has arrived at Venāgapura. He has this good reputation: ‘That Blessed One is perfected, a fully awakened Buddha, accomplished in knowledge and conduct, holy, knower of the world, supreme guide for those fit for training, teacher of gods and humans, awakened, blessed.’ He has realized with his own insight this world—with its gods, Māras, and divinities, this population with its ascetics and brahmins, gods and humans—and he makes it known to others. He proclaims a teaching that is good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end, meaningful and well-phrased. And he reveals a spiritual practice that’s entirely full and pure. It’s good to see such perfected ones.”
§2Then the brahmins and householders of Venāgapura went up to the Buddha. Before sitting down to one side, some bowed, some exchanged greetings and polite conversation, some held up their cupped palms toward the Buddha, some announced their name and clan, while some kept silent. Then the brahmin Vacchagotta of Venāgapura said to the Buddha:
A compliment, and its assumption
§3“It’s incredible, worthy Gotama, it’s amazing, how your faculties are so very clear, and the complexion of your skin is pure and bright. It’s like a golden brown jujube in the autumn, or a ripe palmyra fruit freshly plucked from the stalk, or a pendant of Black Plum River gold, fashioned by a deft smith, well-wrought in the forge, and placed on a cream rug where it shines and glows and radiates. In the same way, your faculties are so very clear, and the complexion of your skin is pure and bright. Surely the worthy Gotama gets when he wants, without trouble or difficulty, various kinds of high and luxurious bedding, such as: sofas, couches, woolen covers—shag-piled, colorful, white, embroidered with flowers, quilted, embroidered with animals, double-or single-fringed—and silk covers studded with gems, as well as silken sheets, woven carpets, rugs for elephants, horses, or chariots, antelope hide rugs, and spreads of fine deer hide, with a canopy above and red cushions at both ends.”
§4–5“Brahmin, these various kinds of high and luxurious bedding are hard for renunciates to find. And even if they do get them, they’re not allowed. There are, brahmin, these three high and luxurious beds that I get these days when I want, without trouble or difficulty. What three? The heavenly high and luxurious bed, the divine high and luxurious bed, and the noble high and luxurious bed. These are the three high and luxurious beds that I get these days when I want, without trouble or difficulty.”
The heavenly bed
§6“But what, worthy Gotama, is the heavenly high and luxurious bed?” “Brahmin, when I am living supported by a village or town, I robe up in the morning and, taking my bowl and robe, enter the town or village for alms. After the meal, on my return from almsround, I enter within a forest. I gather up some grass or leaves into a pile and sit down cross-legged, setting my body straight, and bringing mindfulness to the present. Quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unskillful qualities, I enter and remain in the first absorption, which has the rapture and bliss born of seclusion, while placing the mind and keeping it connected. As the placing of the mind and keeping it connected are stilled, I enter and remain in the second absorption, which has the rapture and bliss born of immersion, with internal clarity and mind at one, without placing the mind and keeping it connected. And with the fading away of rapture, I enter and remain in the third absorption, where I meditate with equanimity, mindful and aware, personally experiencing the bliss of which the noble ones declare, ‘Equanimous and mindful, one meditates in bliss.’ With the giving up of pleasure and pain, and the ending of former happiness and sadness, I enter and remain in the fourth absorption, without pleasure or pain, with pure equanimity and mindfulness. When I’m practicing like this, if I walk, at that time my walking is heavenly. When I’m practicing like this, if I stand, at that time my standing is heavenly. When I’m practicing like this, if I sit, at that time my sitting is heavenly. When I’m practicing like this, if I lie down, at that time my lying is heavenly. This is the heavenly high and luxurious bed that I get these days when I want, without trouble or difficulty.”
The divine bed
§7–8“It’s incredible, worthy Gotama, it’s amazing! Who but the worthy Gotama could get such a heavenly high and luxurious bed when he wants, without trouble or difficulty? But what, worthy Gotama, is the divine high and luxurious bed?” “Brahmin, when I am living supported by a village or town, I robe up in the morning and, taking my bowl and robe, enter the town or village for alms. After the meal, on my return from almsround, I enter within a forest. I gather up some grass or leaves into a pile and sit down cross-legged, setting my body straight, and bringing mindfulness to the present. I meditate spreading a heart full of love to one direction, and to the second, and to the third, and to the fourth. In the same way above, below, across, everywhere, all around, I spread a heart full of love to the whole world—abundant, expansive, limitless, free of enmity and ill will. I meditate spreading a heart full of compassion to one direction, and to the second, and to the third, and to the fourth. In the same way above, below, across, everywhere, all around, I spread a heart full of compassion to the whole world—abundant, expansive, limitless, free of enmity and ill will. I meditate spreading a heart full of rejoicing to one direction, and to the second, and to the third, and to the fourth. In the same way above, below, across, everywhere, all around, I spread a heart full of rejoicing to the whole world—abundant, expansive, limitless, free of enmity and ill will. I meditate spreading a heart full of equanimity to one direction, and to the second, and to the third, and to the fourth. In the same way above, below, across, everywhere, all around, I spread a heart full of equanimity to the whole world—abundant, expansive, limitless, free of enmity and ill will. When I’m practicing like this, if I walk, at that time my walking is divine. … my standing is divine. … my sitting is divine. When I’m practicing like this, if I lie down, at that time my lying is divine. This is the divine high and luxurious bed that I get these days when I want, without trouble or difficulty.”
The noble bed
§9–10“It’s incredible, worthy Gotama, it’s amazing! Who but the worthy Gotama could get such a divine high and luxurious bed when he wants, without trouble or difficulty? “But what, worthy Gotama, is the noble high and luxurious bed?” “Brahmin, when I am living supported by a village or town, I robe up in the morning and, taking my bowl and robe, enter the town or village for alms. After the meal, on my return from almsround, I enter within a forest. I gather up some grass or leaves into a pile and sit down cross-legged, setting my body straight, and bringing mindfulness to the present. I know this: ‘I’ve given up greed, hate, and delusion, cut them off at the root, made them like a palm stump, obliterated them, so they’re unable to arise in the future.’ When I’m practicing like this, if I walk, at that time my walking is noble. … my standing is noble. … my sitting is noble. When I’m practicing like this, if I lie down, at that time my lying is noble. This is the noble high and luxurious bed that I get these days when I want, without trouble or difficulty.”
Going for refuge
§11–12“It’s incredible, worthy Gotama, it’s amazing! Who but the worthy Gotama could get such a noble high and luxurious bed when he wants, without trouble or difficulty? Excellent, worthy Gotama! Excellent! As if he were righting the overturned, or revealing the hidden, or pointing out the path to the lost, or lighting a lamp in the dark so people with clear eyes can see what’s there, worthy Gotama has made the teaching clear in many ways. We go for refuge to the worthy Gotama, to the teaching, and to the mendicant Saṅgha. From this day forth, may the worthy Gotama remember us as lay followers who have gone for refuge for life.”
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