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VISTAS:
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Self Is The Refuge Of Self
"Self is the refuge of self." 1
At a casual glance, this contradicts the doctrine of anatta. How can self be the refuge of self when there is no self? But the seeming contradiction is merely a superficial one, and appears as a contradiction at all due to its having been shifted out of context.
Life is beset with impersonality because the five aggregates of an individual field are facile and not self-controlled, an effervescence that splits and re-splits. Nevertheless, even a personality which splits is still a personality, and if properly controlled may even attain to heights of ultimacy. As it is said:
"Be unto yourself a refuge, an isle, and not elsewhere. Let the dhamma be refuge, the isle, and not elsewhere..Thus shall the limit of darkness be reached,for those who are desirous to learn." 2
If there is going to be any sort of self at all, therefore, it is obviously this dhamma which will have to be established as such. And since equilibrium of consciousness is of the very essence, the way to mental poise is not to loosen the peripheral faculties incessantly upon externality, which is already confusion enough, but to establish them at some internally centralized point.
As it happens, this problem is already solved by nature (dhamma). For in the human debris of personality such an integrated point already exists. Namely, in the pit of the diaphragm. Seated at which point a nucleus (or sphere) of dhamma rests. Were it not for this nucleus, wherein all the four elements and consciousness fuse, the human organism would never have come to exist. This sphere of dhamma serves as the base for the manifestation of organic human personality as such, and is termed Pathama Magga (First Step).
Now as soon as the human form issues from the mother's womb, it begins the gradual process of sense-contact (phassa) with the environment, activating along the network of nerves. Which culminates in the attention being directed to the external form, thereby established and identified as the self.
As for the nucleus of Pathama Magga at diaphragm level, it passes from sight, because from birth onwards all men's activities are centred outside, not inside. When the peripheral faculties are withdrawn from external contact and centred within, the initial attempt is seldom crowned with success, considering that perception through protracted externality of contact has become crudified and gross. Initial attempts at introverted perception usually only result in a sensation of swimming and whirling in the dark.
What is more, once the nucleus of Pathama Magga is perceived it is too small and effervescent to fixate attention there- on for long. This is significant of the habitual hectic state of the peripheral mind. Initial attempts are always tangled up at this point, and the problem is always how to fix attention upon the nucleus of light and keep it there. As it is said:
"There are three factors necessary, O Bhikkhus, for one intent on the attainment of the higher consciousness (adhicitta). Namely, the factors of concentration, of energy, and of equanimity. If, O Bhikkhus, only the factor of concentration is applied, then consciousness conduces to laxity. If only the factor of energy is applied, then consciousness conduces to agitation. If only the factor of equanimity is applied, then consciousness conduces to that state which is devoid of the potential necessary for the destruction of the defilements. But if O Bhikkhus, concentration, energy, and equanimity, in proportion as the need for them demands, is initiated, then consciousness becomes flexible, potent, and translucent, so as to instigate the destruction of that which is defiled. Thus only does it attain to the capacity of beholding in perceptive immediacy any state or circumstance at which it is aimed." 3
Now once the peripheral faculties have been sunk and gravitated to the pit of the diaphragm (slightly above navel)and the sphere of Pathama Magga manifests translucent and bright, it is to be understood that in this sphere the aggregates (sankharas) have their seat. It is a process of nature to aggregate in spheres, a repository self-contained. If the aggregates were not integrated and condensed thus, they would disintegrate and disperse and memory as such would no longer exist, not to mention selfhood and personality.
Also, if penetrated into detail, in this sphere of Pathanna Magga lie the aggregates of morality, concentration, and wisdom, such as pertain to the human personality, and such as have been accumulated from antecedent lives. It is not enough, however, that these aggregates (or spheres) of morality (sila), concentration (samadhi), and wisdom (panna) are discovered, they have to be developed and purged. Therefore are they called accomplishments (sampadas). They are the steps to the fashioning of the integrated personality, which is a matter strenuously to be accomplished, and not something given and ready-made.
This is made plain by the exhortation "We will not shrink back, but will struggle on ...... if there came to be a vortex of energy so that which is not yet won might be won by human strength, by human energy, by human striving."
We note the emphasis on the human base, from which it all begins. For that is how dhamma arises. As given in the Anguttura Nikaya:
"Bhikkhus, if you are asked by non-believers about the dhamma, you shall answer them as follows: The root of dhamma is will. All dhamma arises whensoever attention is focussed thereon. All dhamma appears through sense contact. All dhamma combine aided by perception. All dhamma culminate in the jhanas. All dhamma are by attentiveness controlled. All dhamma are by wisdom overcome. All dhamma have release as goal. All dhamma are in deathlessness submerged. All dhamma ends in Nibbana."4
It would seem that in Buddha's discourse to Potthapada the teaching is one 'for the rejection of the getting of any self', and that this implies a doctrine and a technique of annihilation. It, however, does not need much insight to comprehend that what is implied is the extinction of the mundane aggregates (lokiya dhamma) as signified by the human, celestial, Brahma, and Arupa-Brahma forms. This becomes obvious at once when the lines which follow are perused: a way by which impure conditions can be put away and pure conditions brought to increase..and therein abide.'
What impure conditions? The root evils of delusion (moha), hate (dosa), and greed (lobha). What wholesome things? The Noble Path, called the best of paths, in that unlike all other paths it leads to emancipation of mind.
'Putting away' or cessation, in Buddha's sense, never implies decrease but increase. There is no annihilation of a conscious-subject, or such nonsense as 'dewdrop sinking into sea'. Each emancipated one has his own supramundane 'field' of radiant personality, the end-result of an aeonic accumulation of parami, the perfections of experience, which are by no means extinguished at death. As it is said:
"Even here and now, in this present body (not to mention after death thereof) that essential emancipated consciousness which is the Tathagata's remains unplumbed. And although this is what I teach, there are those who accuse me falsely of proclaiming a doctrine which is annihilationist..As of old, so now proclaim I only this: suffering and the ceasing of suffering."5
And, again, in the discourse to Nigrodha:
"All corruption shall be put away and wholesome things brought to increase." 6
And once this increase (namely, wisdom and insight) is attained (by supernormal concentration) 'to therein abide'.
Cessation, therefore, even if it is difficult of comprehension, is never the extinction of a conscious-subject. On the contrary, it is a gradual build-up of potential, by intensifying steps:
"Great becomes the fruit, great the advantage of concentration when it is encompassed by morality. Great the fruit and advantage of wisdom when encompassed by concentration. The mind encompassed by wisdom is from the defilements set free."7
The function of morality is to purify, of concentration to penetrate, of wisdom to liberate. In that they are a unity, they do comes to exist through the process of contact (phassa), of impression, and of intensification. As soon as a child is born, its very physicality serves as the base for psycho-formative reproduction. For the human organism is not merely a consistency of dead cells, it is infused with activity. It is this active potentiality which contains in it the germ of psycho-physical replication.
Now the 'field-of-form' in which all this psycho- physical activity is strung, inevitably partakes of the characteristic feature and form derived from the original base of crude materiality, being 'stamped', as it were, therewith, and sustaining the impress thereof Each form, derived in this replicated style, serves as the base for further development in turn each reed-like in its inverted sheath. The human organism from the moment of birth, in its ceaseless impressionistic psycho-physical interplay of reciprocity (annamanna), thus serves as the base or 'template' for the intensification of continuous refinement in involuted style. Form (rupa) is impressed with feeling (vedana), and feeling with the sense of form, aggravated to immediate consciousness (vinnana) by the supporting imagery of perception (sanna) and memory (sankharas).
In the Abhidhamma, this refined human counterpart is not classified in its formal (kaya) but in its psychological aspect (citta) as a resultant (vipaka). It is to be noted, therefore, that this particular formation is to be regarded as psychic in content, although tinges of crudely derived materiality linger therein. It is classified in the sensual sphere of origination (kamavacara) and does not rise above that status, being fettered by the attachments peculiar to the sense-sphere of existence, its psychic-supports (arammana) determining its status quo.
Now the potential faculties pass from the crude human form and impermeate this refined human counterpart, thus experiencing activity therein. It is then instigated to penetrate in mindfulness (satipatthana) the further development of the Path, as signified by the spheres of morality, concentration, and wisdom, issuing out in release (vimutti) from the refined human aggregate, and the perception thereof (vimutti nana dassana).
Whereupon the next stage, the crude celestial form or aggregate (dibba kaya hina) appears.
It cannot be too often repeated that each successive form or sphere is, through the intensification of 'smelting' (bhavana), a creative process, a replicative force, pushing to ever increasing degrees of refinement. Each successive form is established with a Path (signified by the spheres of morality, concentration, and wisdom), and since the celestial aggregate is a more refined product than the human, its Path too is consequently more refined. And so forth for all that follows.
This, then, is what is implied by the obscure utterance:
"Self is the refuge of self."
Namely, through contact (phassa) each antecedent form (self) serves as the 'template' for the production of a more refined one, which again serves as the base for the next. All of which are only subtler reproductions of the five basic aggregates of personality (pancupadanakkhandha) which go to fashion existence in the mundane (lokiya) sphere.
The crude celestial form (dibba kaya hina) and its refined counterpart (dibba kaya panita) are products of the refined human form as base. They come to exist through the same intensification process of impressionistic smelting. Nature knows little limit in its potential capacity for refinement, which can be either instigated deliberately (as in the jhanic method alluded to here) or by the mere force of meritorious living. For it is to be understood that a meritorious life lived is not a mere desultory drifting to nothingness and dissolution but an activity which bears psychic fruit, brought about through the gradual accumulation and retention (tadarammana) of wholesome (kusala) impulses from psychic moment to moment.
In the Abhidhamma, this embodiment of the celestial aggregate is classified as beneficial (kusala), but like the refined human form does not rise above the level of sensual attachments peculiar to the sensual sphere (kamavacara).
The other forms which follow from the celestial aggregate as base, are the Brahma form (brahma kaya hina) and its refined counterpart (brahma kaya panita).
Unlike the celestial aggregate, these Brahma forms do not arise merely through meritorious living as such, but have to be deliberately instigated (by jhanic concentration). Only those who practice jhana (whether by concentration on any one of the kasinas, or on such states of mind as compassion etc.) attain this formal embodiment, which surpasses the sensual sphere.
In the Abhidhamma, this embodiment is classified in the form-sphere (rupavacara), due to its absorption in formal states and because materiality is still present. Its emotional and psychic supports (arammana), however, are of jhanic content, based on equanimity or bliss, as the case may be.
From the refined Brahma form as base the Arupa-Brahma form and its refined counterpart are produced, being proficient in the absorptions of formlessness (arupajhana), whether it be the experience of the infinity of space, the infinity of consciousness, voidness, or neither perception nor non-perception.
In the Abhidhamma, this embodiment is classified in the formless-sphere (arupavacara), because materiality is no longer present and because of the intangibility of its psychic supports (arammana). It would be misleading, however, to infer from this that the conscious-subject is formless as such. It is the support which is formless, the subject is endowed with form, composed of the cognitive element (vinnana dhatu). It is to be noted that consciousness (vinnana) is one of the four forms of nutriment (ahara) and in the Dependent Origination process (paticca samuppada) it is consciousness (vinnanam) which serves as the base for the arising of immateriality-materiality (nama-rupa). It (vinnana), therefore, is to be reckoned as a quantity with the capacity for formative manifestation, and is not formless as such.
With the attainment of the refined Arupa Brahma form, mundane aggregates reach their limit.
It is also to be understood that some already possess a celestial or Brahma form at birth, This in no way implies that they are ready-made but simply that the human form which they impregnate at conception (patisandhi) receives their life-impulse once their exhaustion of meritorious potential in the upper planes has culminated. These celestials and Brahmas have no expedient but to be reborn, and once relinked by human birth are submerged in the new life which arises. These aggregates of personality, however, still continue to exist, sunk in the life-continuum substrate (bhavanga) at diaphragm-pit. They are to be understood as resultant levels (vipaka), whose function is only three-fold: as departing consciousness (cuti), as relinking consciousness (patisandhi), and as life-continuum substrate (bhavanga).
It is a matter to be investigated, that experience is not confined to the human level of consciousness, but that there also exist in latency (Plato's theory of forms) other aggregates of experience accumulated in other spheres. The human level alone is inadequate to support the aspirant for release from mundane limits, because in the first place consciousness aspires for release only after it has had a surfeit thereof. As long as the hunger for mundane delights (as well as celestial bliss) remains, so long does the tendency to release fail to present itself. Only he who has had his fill of mundane things - at the all-inclusive levels of human celestial, Brahma, and Arupa-Brahma attainment - is beset by an urge for higher things, and it would be useless to speak of such higher things to one who has not yet had his fill. That is why it is said that there are creatures who delight in becoming, and when they hear of putting a stop to becoming their minds do not respond.
In the search for selfhood (Buddha: which is better, young men, to go in search of a woman or to go in search of your self? ) we have arrived at this point of the Arupa-Brahma aggregate. But, like all the other aggregates earlier passed, it is merely a higher level of the mundane personality (upadanakkhandha) and cannot be identified as the permanent refuge and isle of self, or in any way be established as such, because it too decays and dies. A man becomes a deva, a Brahma, or an Arupa-Brahma deity only because he worked from the human level as base, at death being translated to the upper planes.
To be satisfied with the attainment of the Arupa Brahma plane as something endowed with self-sufficiency would be unrewarding, to say the least, considering that the wheel of birth and death rolls on. The problem of discovering the root and base of all these offshoots of personality, labouring under the delusion of an eternal self, remains. Of which it is said:
'No opening can be discovered by which creatures, mazed in ignorance, fettered by a thirst for becoming, stray and wander."
The 'no opening' referred to here is the anatta process of split-personification, leaving no trace of the split-origin already discussed in the chapter on anatta (Samma Ditthi volume), of the amorphous plurality which comes about through the dependent origination (paticca samuppada) process.
This is why we witness Buddha preserving a noble silence on whether the self exists after death or does not exist after death. In one sense it does, in another sense it doesn't, the whole truth of it being inextricably bound up in the anicca-anatta process of split- personality.
However, when the Arupa-Brahma aggregate is pushed on to dead centre, and on into the spheres which signify the Path, a more refined form manifests itself, called the Dhammakaya Gotrabhu. It is so termed because of the transition-of-lineage from mundane to supramundane.
The Dhammakaya Gotrabhu is a refinement of the Arupa- Brahma form as base, As we have already observed, all the antecedent forms issued forth under the transmutative agency of an intensification process, each antecedent form serving as the 'template' for the emergence of a succeedent, in chain-reaction impress. At this juncture, the Dhammakaya Gotrabhu serves as the psychic link between the mundane (lokiya) and the supramundane (lokuttara) consciousness, and is otherwise termed 'converted'. It is the 'bridge', whereon and whereby the mundane aggregates maybe viewed in retrospect, and the promise of supramundane excellence viewed in prospect.
In its initial stages this Dhammakaya is not something to be regarded as final and complete, because it is by the same process of intensification susceptible to further degrees of refinement. The realization of the four Noble Truths begins to dawn at this point, unfolding itself in perspective with the consequent abandonment of wrong views and the defilements in ever ascending scale, making for the Sotapanna, Sakadagamin, Anagamin, and Arahatta aspects of consciousness respectively.
It cannot be too often repeated that the production and emergence of all these forms and spheres is the result of an intensification process. Each form or sphere in its centre is void, and it is in this very voidness that the causal force of will is pushed. The void serves as the passive condition whereby things may arise. It is the force of direction and will, however, which actually instigates their rise. All phenomena, whether through will or occasion, arise in the basic condition of voidness, and it is due to this hiatus of voidness (between one manifestation and the next) that Hume asserts that no causal connection can be perceived from the appearance of one thing to the next.
It is only in the nature of things that there always be a void serving as the basic condition. The void in this context is always necessary as a passive conditional matrix of emptiness (natthi paccaya) wherein the causal seed may be sown before any result (vipaka paccaya) may issue forth. It is in this passive matrix, or receptacle, that the determining force of will is put and pushed.
But will (cetana) or the controlling faculties (indriya paccaya), is not enough, it must possess some antecedent 'material' on which to work, so that what is merely in the state of potentiality becomes actuality. In the case of these forms and spheres of ever increasing refinement, each antecedent form or sphere of the same nature serves as the material (ahara paccaya) which is srnelted down by will into the voidness at its centre, whereon a refined counterpart of it appears. Only in this light does the injunction 'self is the refuge of self' become clear. For an antecedent 'self' is harnessed as the base for the production and emergence of a more refined one, until all sense attachment to mundane residues is purged.
All the Dhammakaya forms are release (vimutti) forms, in contrast to the mundane forms which are only of temporary (sammuti) usage. Unless the release forms are attained, emancipation from the mundane' sphere of things remains an impossibility, because the mundane forms are too crude to comprehend in their totality the Noble Truths, the characteristics of mutability, suffering, and impersonality, and the way to the transcending thereof.
Vipassana (penetrative insight) good and proper begins only when the Dhammakaya Gotrabhu (transition-of-lineage, from mundane to supramundane) is attained. Samatha (jhanic tranquillity) carries consciousness up to Arupa-Brahma status and there reaches its limit. That is why the yogis of old were unable to penetrate the process of Dependent Origination (paticca samuppada) by which personalities arise. Surpassing the domain of Samatha, Buddha arrived at Gotrabhu Nana (transition-of-lineage insight). With consciousness impregnated in the Dhammakaya form, he took stock of all that which goes to compose the mundane. Before Buddha there was only Samatha. Vipassana begins with the Buddha.
The Dhammakaya forms are called 'release' (vimutti) forms because they have become so refined that no attachment remains, and they become the vehicles of emancipation. They are expedited to review mundane aggregates, to observe the crudity therein, and to attain emancipation therefrom. This process (of a more refined form observing the crudity in a lesser form) is a necessary process, because it is not in the power of a crude form to comprehend the refinement in a higher form, or to jump immediately thereto. The process is not confined to an observation of the human aggregates of personality, but to the celestial, Brahma, and Arupa-Brahma aggregates. And this is so, because if the observation is constrained merely to the human level of aggregates all that the mind will be emancipated from is the human aggregates, when as a matter of fact there are other subtler levels of a more insidious nature to be emancipated from.
The process by which this takes place is through an objectification technique. Consciousness is not only capable of objectifying itself, but is by its very nature a matter of divisiblity. If this were not so, then it would never be able to observe 'itself'. At any moment of time, it is always a posterior aggregate of consciousness which observes an anterior one. One group of percepts is always observing another group. The word 'itself' is misleading, because it is only one group of aggregates which is being observed and not the totality thereof. This is one reason why it is said that all phenomena are characterized by a series of not-selves (anatta). To say, at any one time, that it is the same 'self' is not to be exact. To say, again, that it is a different 'self' is also not to be exact. There are states of awareness which arise and perceive other states. States arise and states vanish, aggregates appear and aggregates disappear. The psychic process is a series of looking-back and looking-front and looking-around. This is its very nature, and it only becomes more refined the higher it proceeds in the attainment (samapatti) scale.
Although it is already a process of nature for one moment of consciousness to reflect upon another, it is never carried to such lengths as in this gymnastic of penetrative-insight called Vipassana. It is due to identification with a certain moment of consciousness that man (by that moment) becomes enslaved. Feelings arise, reactions arise, by the second. Mind-control remains a dream. In the average man the aggregates of experience (sankharas) are in such a state of confusion and disunity as to prevent exact perceptive facility. Only when the mind is centralized by the Samatha-Vipassana technique and purged thereby does it become keen enough to observe psychic phenomena with ease. This facility too is. the method by which detachment (upekkha) is attained.
The problem of the practitioner of Samatha-Vipassana is to unify whatever levels, or aggregates, of consciousness there may be and harness them into service so as to be available to perceptive immediacy at a moment's notice. Once this facility, of. transiting from the crudest level to the most refined, has been attained, it can be said that the practitioner is in command of his faculties and an adept in the concentrated-absorption of mundane and supramundane states of consciousness.
It is to be observed that the term 'mystic' is not applied to these states, for there is nothing amorphous or dreamy about them. On the contrary, they are if anything extremely clear-cut and keen. For if they were not as clear-cut and keen as they are, there would surely be no release from the ceaseless round of birth and death, without end.
When faced with refinements of the mind, terminology fails. The Pali terms of manas, citta, vinnana, are scarcely adequate to express the various aspects of mind, capable as they are of being pushed to translucent limits. Not only is consciousness passive, it is also active, It perceives, is aware, and cogitates at different levels of refinement. All of which involves a thorough comprehension of mind-instants and the analysis of to what extent the gamut of conscious states is resultant (vipaka), functional (kiriya or volitional (kusala).
It is to be understood. therefore, that Vipassana involves something more than mere desultory human awareness. The confusion has always been to assume that mindfulness (satipatthana) at the human level of consciousness is all there is to Vipassana. Satipatthana is vigilance of mind, a basic necessity of awareness whether in or out of jhana. It is not to be transmuted immediately into the highest perceptive insight of Vipassana Nana.
The Satipatthana Sutta concludes with the promise:
"Verily, O Bhikkhus, whosoever practices these four foundations of mindfulness (on formations, feelings, thoughts, and mental objects) in this manner for seven years..seven months..seven days..then one of these two fruits may be expected by him: highest knowledge (arahattaship) here and now, or if some remainder of clinging is yet present, the state of non-returner (anagamin). Because of this was it said: this is the only way, O Bhikkhus, which leads to the purification of creatures, to passing beyond sorrow and lamentation, to the destruction of grief and despair, to the attainment of the Method, to the realization of Nibbana. Namely, the four foundations of mindfulness."8
The paucity of Arahattas and Anagamins in the world is not due to any lack of practice, but rather to a fundamental misunderstanding of Buddha's promise. Namely, that he was speaking in an especial context, in a specific period of history, knowing by supernormal insight that many were those who possessed the faculties ripe for attainment. This promise cannot be converted at this juncture to mean all and sundry.
Nevertheless, although attainment is something dependent on individual maturity, the path to enlightenment is always open to all. As delivered to Subhadda, the last convert, before the final passing away:
"Subhadda, if bhikkhus were to live rightly (samma vihareyyum) the world would not be void of Emancipated Ones."9
And the living rightly, as already made known, begins and ends with right understanding (samma ditthi) and right concentration (samma samadhi).
Notes:
1. The Bhikshu (Mendicant) Dhp. v 380.
2. Sutta 26: Cakkavatti-Sihanada Sutta III.58 (DN 26.1.)
3. Nimitta Sutta AN III.100 (xi-xv)
4.
5.
6. Sutta 25: Udumbarika-Sihanada Sutta DN III.36
7.
8. Sutta 22: Mahasatipatthana Sutta, DN II.290
9. Sutta 16: Mahaparinibbana Sutta, DN II.72
Abbreviations: AN ..... Anguttara Nikaya (by nipata and sutta) Ap. ..... Apadana (i = Therapadana) Comy. ..... Commentary Dhp. ..... Dhammapada DN ..... Digha Nikaya (by sutta) MN ..... Majjhima Nikaya (by sutta) SN ..... Samyutta Nikaya (by samyutta and sutta)
