Ārāḍa and Udraka (II)

The prince, hearing this teaching, asked Ārāḍa further: "What, then, is the actual practice? And where, in the end, does it lead?

What kind of holy conduct is to be undertaken, and for how long must it be sustained?

Why cultivate this holy conduct at all, and to what point ought the Dharma be carried?

I ask you to explain to me every one of these essential points, in full."

Ārāḍa, drawing again upon his own scriptures and treatises, now made a further, more detailed distinction, according to his own wisdom and skillful means: "First one leaves the ordinary household life and goes forth, relying on alms begged from others, and gathers together a full range of proper deportment, upholding the precepts correctly.

With few desires and knowing contentment, taking whatever one receives, whether fine or coarse, one delights in solitude and cultivates a life of quiet withdrawal, diligently studying the scriptures and treatises.

Seeing craving and desire as a source of dread, and the coolness that comes from being free of desire, one gathers in one's faculties as one would gather in a village's own boundaries, and settles the mind in quiet stillness.

Free of desire, free of evil and unwholesome states, free of every affliction belonging to the realm of desire, and with this freedom giving rise to joy and bliss, one attains the first dhyāna, accompanied still by examination and sustained reflection.

Having attained the bliss of this first dhyāna, together with its examining and reflecting mind, one may give rise to a strange and mistaken notion — the foolish mind clings to this very state with delight, and, its heart resting on the bliss of this seclusion, is reborn, at the end of that life, in the Brahmā heavens.

But the wise, knowing this for themselves, apply skillful means to still even this examination and reflection, and, striving diligently to advance further, attain accord with the second dhyāna.

Should one become attached instead to the joy and bliss found there, one is reborn in the Heaven of Radiant Sound; but applying skillful means to become free even of this joy and bliss, one cultivates further and advances to the third dhyāna.

Content in its ease and seeking nothing more excellent, one is reborn in the Heaven of Universal Purity; but relinquishing even this contentment of mind, one attains the fourth dhyāna.

Both suffering and pleasure now equally stilled, one may at this point give rise to the notion that this itself is liberation.

Yet resting merely in the fruit of this fourth dhyāna, one is reborn instead in the Heaven of Great Reward, so called because of the great length of life enjoyed there.

Rising up from within this very absorption, one comes to see that having a body at all is itself a fault, and, advancing further in the cultivation of wisdom, grows weary of even this fourth dhyāna.

Resolved to press on still further, one applies skillful means to remove all attachment to form, beginning with the very apertures of one's own body, and gradually cultivates an understanding of emptiness.

In the end, this understanding becomes firm and complete, resolving entirely into the contemplation of empty space; and, setting aside even this object of the contemplation of space, one advances to the contemplation of infinite consciousness.

Skilled now in inward stillness, free of both self and what belongs to the self, one contemplates the utter absence of anything at all — and this is called the base of nothing whatsoever.

As a caged bird set free into the wild sky is free of its confinement, or as the pith is separated at last from the bark and bone of the body — liberation, too, is exactly like this: a being's freedom from every object of the senses.

This is the supreme attainment of the brahmins, in which the eternal is separated from the physical form entirely; the wise ought to understand that this alone is true liberation.

As for the practice you have asked me about, and the pursuit of liberation itself — it is exactly as I have explained above, and whoever has deep faith in it ought to take up this very practice.

The seer Vaiśika, and Jaigīṣavya, Bhāradvāja, and every other seeker of the path besides — every one of them has followed this very same path, and thereby attained true liberation."

The prince, hearing this teaching, reflected carefully on its actual meaning, and, drawing on causes and conditions from a former life, questioned him further still: "I have heard of your excellent wisdom, and the subtle and deeply refined meaning you have taught — yet as long as one does not set aside even the very knowing of the cause itself, this cannot be the ultimate path.

You speak of liberation as the knowing of the cause behind the transformation of this primal nature — but as I examine it, this very cause remains itself a conditioned thing, no different from a seed still capable of germinating.

You hold that once the self is purified, this alone is true liberation — yet should it ever again meet with the right causes and conditions, it would surely be bound all over again.

It is just like that very seed: when earth, water, fire, and wind are withheld from it, its own capacity to sprout lies dormant and separated from what it needs — but the moment it meets those same conditions again, the seed sprouts once more.

To call it liberation simply because ignorance, karmic action, and craving have been set aside, while a self is still held to remain — this cannot, for any of these sentient beings, be a truly final liberation at all.

In every stage of the path you describe, one sets aside three things and attains, in turn, three more excellent ones — yet because the self itself is held to exist permanently throughout, these three subtle qualities merely follow along after it in ever finer form; and it is precisely because these subtle faults continue to follow the self in this way that the mind, in the end, remains without any true and final means of escape.

You call it true liberation simply because life is thereby prolonged to a great length — you say this is "being apart from what belongs to the self," yet if this "apart" is genuine, then nothing at all would remain to be apart from anything else.

Since the very sum of these qualities themselves has never actually been left behind, how could one claim to be apart from the qualities (guṇa) they belong to?

And so, wherever such qualities still exist, one ought to understand that this is not liberation at all.

The knower (puruṣa) and the qualities (guṇa) known differ in meaning, and yet share one and the same underlying reality — to claim that they can be truly separated from one another is, in the end, simply not possible.

Just as the warmth of a form cannot be separated from its fire — a fire distinct from that very warmth cannot be found at all — so, too, prior to the existence of a body, there is no such thing as "a person" apart from it.

In just this same way, prior to the existence of these qualities, there is no such thing as a knower of them apart from them either — and so, were one to claim liberation comes first, and only afterward the body's own bondage, this too cannot be right.

Furthermore, as for this very "knowing of the cause" apart from the body — is it a knowing, or is it no knowing at all? If you say it is indeed a form of knowing, then there must be something that is thereby known; and if there is indeed something known, then this cannot be liberation at all.

But if you say instead that it involves no knowing whatsoever, then this "self" would have no function to serve at all — for a knowing that exists apart from any self would make that self no different from a mere piece of wood or stone.

[Your system] fully acknowledges both the coarse and the subtle forms of this predicament, and simply turns its back on the coarse in order to exalt the subtle instead.

Only if one is able to set aside every one of these entirely can what one has undertaken finally be brought to its true completion."