by Bhikkhu Anīgha
There is no conflict between the scientific understanding of humans as primates subject to inborn biological forces, and the Buddha’s seemingly radical proposition that it is possible to have a mind that is entirely devoid of craving, provided both sides of the picture are put in their right place.
How we experience life’s various situations is determined by our body, whose nature is fundamentally physiochemical. Things like the ingestion of substances, our age, and the concentration of one hormone or the other in our body can profoundly affect how we feel in relation to an event. And those feelings in turn do have physiological manifestations like pupil dilation, changes in breathing patterns, and so on.
But when the Suttas speak of the destruction of craving, they do not refer to the disappearance or alteration of bodily phenomena such as these. Craving is a tendency that exists in relation to how we feel1, and its sole cause is ignorance (avijjā): something we’re certainly responsible for (AN 10.61) and cannot somehow be etched into our bodies, whose propensities we have no ultimate say in. And it is because of this that freedom from craving, and hence any traces of suffering, is perfectly attainable even though we can never completely override our biological conditioning.
There are two extremes: the assumption that we are justified or even required to yield to our natural urges so as to avoid suffering, and the assumption that feelings are the root of the unwholesome (which need not at all be explicit). The former inclines some to doubt the possibility of the ending of craving, and the latter leads the rest to go astray in their efforts to achieve it, even if they’re certain of following the Buddhist path. The Buddha’s ground-breaking insight centers on the transcendence of these two extremes, not by balancing them out or taking parts of each, but by completely eradicating any traces of both indulgence and denial in the broadest sense, since both are equally the result of ignorance and a mistaken sense of entitlement over experience.
“Friend, how did you cross the flood?”
“Neither standing nor swimming, friend, I crossed the flood.”
“But how did you cross the flood neither standing nor swimming?”“When I stood still, I sank. And when I swam, I was swept away. That’s how I crossed the flood neither standing nor swimming.”
“After a long time I see
a brahmin extinguished.
Neither standing nor swimming,
he’s crossed over attachment to the world.”
—SN 1.1
The drives ingrained in our physiology can only suggest, strongly as they may, certain actions in certain situations. The smell and sight of food will arouse a pull towards eating it when we’re hungry or when our tongue happens to particularly enjoy the taste of what’s on offer, or a combination of both. Insults and physical abuse directed at us will produce a sense of displeasure and nuisance that wants us to retaliate. The mere presence of these inclinations does not present an issue or involve craving in and of itself, just as a baited hook does not pose a problem for a fish until it bites it.
Recognizing that there is no causal link between our physiological drives and our choices, attitudes, and assumptions infected with craving is how the Middle Way can become intelligible, at least theoretically. No magnitude of these drives, solely on their own, can transform into actions rooted in passion and aversion, and it is owing to this inescapable responsibility for our actions that full destruction of the influxes is achievable2 while still possessing the very same human body and senses with their individual dispositions.3
He understands: “Birth is destroyed, the renunciate life has been lived, what has to be done has been done, there will be no more of this”. And he understands: “No disturbances dependent on the influxes of sensuality, being, and ignorance are found here; there is only this amount of disturbance—namely, that dependent on this six-sensed body, conditioned by life.”
—MN 121
Nibbāna can be described as the state where no matter how forcefully and intimately the urges bound with one’s form try to assert themselves and whether they are meritorious or demeritorious, the mind’s4 felt need to act in accordance with them—a need that can be categorized as passion, aversion, or carelessness/distraction depending on the type of feeling or pressure—is completely extinguished, through nothing other than right understanding and disenchantment. 5
“I am not afraid of fear,
Our Teacher is skilled in the Deathless.
Where fear cannot land—
That’s the path the bhikkhus walk by.”
—Theragātha 21
Therefore, Nibbāna is defined in the Suttas as simply the destruction of these three tendencies without any residue.
“Māgaṇḍiya, the eye likes sights, it delights in them and enjoys them. That’s been tamed, guarded, protected, and restrained by the Realized One, and he teaches the Dhamma for its restraint…
“The ear likes sounds … The nose likes smells … The tongue likes tastes … The body likes touches … The mental faculty (mano) likes mental phenomena, it delights in them and enjoys them. That’s been tamed, guarded, protected, and restrained by the Realized One, and he teaches the Dhamma for its restraint.”
…
“What do you think, Māgaṇḍiya? Take someone who used to amuse themselves with sights cognizable by the eye (sounds cognizable by the ear … touches cognizable by the body) that are likable, desirable, agreeable, pleasing, connected with sensuality, and enticing. Sometime later—having understood as it is the origin, ending, gratification, woe, and escape regarding sights (sounds … touches), and having given up craving and dispelled passion for them—they would live rid of thirst, their mind (citta) internally6 at peace. What would you have to say to them, Māgaṇḍiya?”
“Nothing, Master Gotama.”
—MN 75
‘Sensuality should be known. And its foundation, diversity, result, cessation, and the practice that leads to its cessation should be known.’ That’s what I said, but why did I say it? There are these five strands of sensuality. Sights cognizable by the eye that are likable, desirable, agreeable, pleasing, connected with sensuality, and enticing. Sounds cognizable by the ear … Smells cognizable by the nose … Tastes cognizable by the tongue … Touches cognizable by the body that are likable, desirable, agreeable, pleasing, connected with sensuality, and enticing. However, these are not sensuality. In the training of the Noble One they’re called ‘strands of sensuality’.
Passionate intention is a man’s sensuality;
The attractive things in the world aren’t sensuality.
Passionate intention is a man’s sensuality.
The attractive things remain in the world, just as they are,
But the wise dispel desire for them.
—AN 6.637
This doesn’t mean that an Arahant would never submit to the pulls of their body, but that only the neutral ones8 would potentially be acted upon depending on the situation; all other pressures, although arisen, can do nothing but loiter around in vain.
“Bhikkhus, an unlearned ordinary person speaks of the ocean. But that’s not the ocean in the training of the Noble One. That’s just a large body of water, a large sea of water. The eye is the ocean for a man, and its tide is made of sights.
One who withstands that tide is said to have crossed over the ocean of the eye, with its waves and whirlpools, its sharks and monsters. Crossed over, the brahmin stands on firm ground.
The ear … nose … tongue … body … the mental faculty (mano) is an ocean for a man, and its tide is made of mental phenomena. One who withstands that tide is said to have crossed over the ocean of the mental faculty, with its waves and whirlpools, its sharks and monsters. Crossed over, the brahmin stands on firm ground.”
—SN 35.228
“Any bhikkhu or bhikkhuni who has not given up passion, aversion, and muddledness is said to have not crossed over the ocean with its waves and whirlpools, its sharks and monsters. Any bhikkhu or bhikkhuni who has given up passion, aversion, and muddledness is said to have crossed over the ocean with its waves and whirlpools, its sharks and monsters. Crossed over and gone beyond, the brahmin stands on firm ground.
—Itivuttaka 69
Nibbāna is also known as the “Undetermined”, “Unborn”, “Unmade”, etc., and this should not be interpreted with any esoteric or mystical connotations. These epithets are meant to convey how it’s the only attitude, brought about through wisdom and not happenstance or luck, that is completely not determined and not propelled by any of the drives, coarse or refined, that are linked with our bodies.9
Another significant distinction to make is that the citta, that which ought to be cleared of defilements, is not synonymous with our brain. The citta, if we insist on outlining a relationship between the two, is that which has intentions, views, and attitudes towards what occurs in the brain, i.e., everything (for practical purposes). This includes any concepts, ideas, and mental images, which are the realm of mano, as opposed to citta.10
The mind is by definition a negative phenomenon, in that it lacks a positive or concrete substance by which it can be pinpointed, unlike a chair in a room.11 12 For this same reason, the purification of the mind does not necessarily induce any tangible alteration in the manner in which experiences—the positive or actual aspect—manifest. Suffering, just like the mind, is also a negative phenomenon; contrary to our deeply ingrained assumptions, suffering is not the presence of unpleasant feelings and moods, which are in themselves bodily (and positive). Suffering can exist only to the extent to which there is an undefined compulsion to act in some way to alter those feelings, superimposed on them without ever actually mixing with them.13 If that ambiguous compulsion to escape the inescapable is abandoned through understanding, then any unpleasant emotions originating from the brain, regardless of their intensity, will cease to be accompanied by even the smallest amount of anguish: the “second arrow” disappears.14
Embracing the view that the mind is the brain or is contained within it, as is not uncommon in modern thought, necessitates rejecting the possibility of individual choice for the sake of logical consistency, closing off the prospect of the deliberate effort required to develop one’s mind. 15
But because these two things are not the same, Nibbāna is not only possible but also fully irreversible. It means that no matter what occurs in the brain and body of a liberated being, whether it’s distressing events, a neurological disorder, the unintended psychoactive effects of a drug, or puberty, none of this can induce the defilements, since they occur at the level of the citta, which is and has always been inherently free to take a stand on whatever the brain presents. 16
Suppose there was a mountain that was one solid mass of rock, without cracks or holes. Even if violent storms were to blow up out of the east, the west, the north, and the south, they couldn’t make it shake or rock or tremble.
In the same way, when a bhikkhu’s mind is rightly freed like this, even if intense sights come into the range of the eye, they don’t overcome his mind (citta). His mind remains unaffected. It is steady and immovable, and he maintains perspective of cessation.
Even if intense sounds … smells… tastes… touches… mental phenomena come into the range of the mental faculty (mano), they don’t overcome his mind (citta). His mind remains unaffected. It is steady and immovable, and he maintains perspective of cessation.
—AN 6.55
Consequently, it’s a mistake to believe that the extent of someone’s liberation can be ascertained through objective data gathered from their brain or physiology. It’s not a guarantee that there would be any difference in that area between an Arahant and an ordinary person, and the latter could very well be confused for the former and vice versa. Hence it is stated in the Suttas that an Arahant cannot be defined or measured in terms of the arisen experience, which of course includes the domain of the brain (or the six-sensed body). Even in the case of the jhānas, an objective basis upon which they depend cannot be determined (AN 11.9, MN 25).
Having considered these points, the possibility of saṃsāra or “rebirth” also becomes more tangible without a need for mysticism, questionable metaphysical assumptions, or blind faith. Having recognized that the mind cannot lie within the brain or the body17 if we operate under the premise that our choices are real, and given that craving is an attitude that is superimposed over (bodily) phenomena and is not inherent to them, it follows that there can be no first point at which craving, and the citta for that matter, spontaneously emerged. It could not have suddenly appeared the moment we were conceived, since that would necessarily place it within the same domain as our body and sense organs, and this would mean we are forced to be fettered by it for as long as we live. Furthermore, the root of all is ignorance (avijjā): it is impossible to be ignorant of something in the present unless we have been ignorant of that same thing in the past too, and this extends back to the moment of our conception, and the time before that, ad infinitum.
“Bhikkhus, no first point of craving for being is evident, before which there was no craving for being, and afterwards it came to be. And although this is said, it is evident that there is a specific support for craving-for-being.
I say that craving-for-being is nourished by something, it’s not unnourished. And what is the nutriment of craving-for-being? ‘Ignorance,’ it should be said.
—AN 10.62
For a long time indeed have I been tricked, cheated, and defrauded by this mind (citta)!
—MN 75
This is how a stream-enterer would, owing to their own discernment and not mere faith, know beyond doubt that this life is not the only one. They would know this with the same certainty they understand the Four Noble Truths or any other aspect of the Dhamma, even if they have no concrete idea or explanation of how “rebirth” would actually play out (which is ultimately irrelevant; the value of the recognition lies only in its arousal of dispassion, not theoretical explanation):
Sāriputta, it is expected of a noble disciple who lives with effort roused up, recollection established, and a composed mind, that they will understand thus: ‘This wandering-on (saṃsāra) is indeed beginningless. There is no first discernible point of beings, hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving, transmigrating and wandering on. But the remainderless fading away and cessation of the mass of ignorance—that is the peaceful and sublime state. That is, the stilling of all activities, the relinquishment of all acquisitions, the destruction of craving, dispassion, cessation, extinguishment. This knowledge of theirs is their faculty of understanding.
—SN 48.50
The points here established also serve to highlight why the approach taken towards mental cultivation in contemporary Buddhism at large—centered on meditation techniques and similar exercises—is of not only ineffective but, in fact, counterproductive in the very goal it’s meant to achieve: a purified and pliable citta.
Consciously or not, these practices are done to manipulate the states of the brain18, and one could only regard them as an aid in the path to freedom from suffering by overlooking, as one experiences them, that those states of the brain—feelings and perceptions of forceful nature—cannot themselves be neither suffering nor the cause of it: by not understanding nor making a proper attempt to understand the Noble Truths.19
It doesn’t take a Buddha to discover that we suffer when disquiet and unpleasant moods arise, and that we wouldn’t suffer if they weren’t there: everyone knows that, which is precisely why the natural tendency is to seek external pleasures in hopes of replacing those moods with better ones. It does take a Buddha or an enlightened disciple of his to understand craving for what it is, that it alone is the root of suffering, and how to abandon it. Hence, without the Right View of a sotāpanna, who is no longer liable to confuse their feelings and moods with craving and vice versa, the majority of one’s attempts to rid oneself of suffering are likely to be missing the mark.
The Buddha stated that it’s not possible to fulfill Right View, fulfill Right Composure, or abandon the defilements, without having for oneself recognized the “signs” of the mind within the present experience (AN 6.68): anything that one might imagine suffering, craving, or the five hindrances to be before that point will be inaccurate. The only thing every practitioner can be sure about from the beginning is that actions contrary to the precepts involve craving, whether they’re able to recognize their citta or not, and from this starting point they would have to gradually refine their discernment by sequentially following the Gradual Training (MN 107), in which meditation proper is a very late stage.
To most, the absence of palpable20 suffering might appear to be all that matters. It isn’t, and even then, the way meditation is almost universally practiced brings one to it through the wrong avenue: they get the citta to a calm state by taking the winds that were blowing on it out of the picture, even if the stated aim is otherwise. The mind itself remains brittle and unable to withstand the full extent of the forces inherent to the body that it’s paired with, which would become apparent if circumstances were to push the brain back to baseline. And, quite crucially, sickness, aging, and death are just such type of powerful pressures that one will sooner or later be unable to evade. The liability to suffer on account of them, or of any other unforeseen events that would challenge one far beyond one’s tolerance threshold, has not fundamentally changed.
Three things are coming,
like a mass of flame:
death, disease, and aging.
No power can stand before them,
and no speed’s enough to flee.
—Theragātha 6.13
The Suttas do mention bodily calm (kāya-passaddhi) as an awakening factor, and it is certainly a property of right samādhi. But the critical difference is that it comes as a by-product of relinquishing all unwholesome types of volition21 in regard to the brain’s natural tendencies22. It is a by-product of giving up the five hindrances, which are always defined as defilements of the citta (AN 5.23), and are nourished precisely by misconduct of body, speech, and thought (AN 10.62). Making an effort to appease the body (brain) and what it feels in relation to sense objects, instead of the less palpable desire to act that is superimposed over that, is taking things in the wrong order, and inevitably leads to the wrong result:
“Bhikkhus, endowed with five factors, a bhikkhu is incapable of attaining right composure (sammāsamādhi): he is unable to endure sights, unable to endure sounds, unable to endure smells, unable to endure tastes, and unable to endure touches.”
—AN 5.11323
“Considering how these five hindrances are abandoned in himself, gladness is born. For one who is glad, joy is born. When the mind (citta) is glad, the body calms down. One with a calm body feels at ease. For one who is at ease, the mind becomes composed.”
—DN 2
“Bhikkhus, this mind (citta) is radiant. And it is blemished by adventitious defilements. The unlearned ordinary person does not understand this as it is. Therefore I say that for the unlearned ordinary person, there is no development of the mind.”
“Bhikkhus, this mind is radiant. And it is liberated from adventitious defilements. A learned noble disciple understands this as it is. Therefore I say that for the learned noble disciple, there is development of the mind.”
—AN 1.51-5224
In contrast, virtue—often neglected or insufficiently emphasized in comparison with these widespread techniques—is repeatedly presented in the Suttas as the indispensable precondition and basis for any proper meditation and samādhi. Virtue does actually contribute to the development, pliability, and resilience of one’s citta, though the idea of it is naturally less appealing. This is because virtue in the context of the Dhamma and training is nothing other than abstaining, regardless of the state of the brain at any given time, from any bodily or verbal choices (again, cetanā) that would involve craving in relation to said state.25 At the most elemental level, it partakes in the principle of withstanding and not yielding to one’s biology without denying it or trying to make it otherwise, and it is only when established upon this foundation that one’s efforts can be upscaled to the more refined planes in which bodily pressures are still being taken up, eventually also resulting in those pressures themselves subsiding, but for the right reason.26
Bhante, it would be great if the Blessed One would teach me the Dhamma in brief, so that having heard it I may dwell alone, withdrawn, heedful, diligent, and resolute.
Bhikkhu, you should purify the very foundation of all wholesome qualities. And what is that foundation? Well-purified virtue, and correct view. When your virtue is well purified and your view is correct, then you should develop the four foundations of recollection, founded and established upon virtue.
—SN 47.327
- Feeling: known as vedanā in the Suttas, which should be understood as the affective quality of an experience—pleasant, unpleasant, or neither—and not as “sensations”, which are simply objects of the faculty of touch in the same way as tastes correspond to the tongue. In the context of this essay, vedanā is to be taken as a bodily phenomenon. In other words, we are to regard what some may call “subjective” feelings, like the displeasure or sadness connected with the loss of something valuable, as pertaining to the body, even when there is no blatantly physical manifestation of them. ↩︎
- On the other hand, it is also because of it that we are bound in the first place. If our actions were the direct result of our natural drives, if we weren’t fundamentally always free to say either “yes” or “no” to whatever our bodies push us towards, there would be no room for suffering to manifest. Suffering necessitates freedom of choice. In the same vein, denying our responsibility and pretending that our actions “just happen” in direct response to external stimuli just as leaves are blown by the wind ameliorates our suffering, but for the wrong reason. This is why, as the Suttas say, the path can only ever begin with the acceptance of what’s sometimes called “mundane right view”: that there is action, and that we’re responsible for it. ↩︎
- This is how different Arahants in the Suttas would exhibit different traits and proclivities, despite all of them being equally free from the sense of self and conceit. ↩︎
- The “mind” discussed throughout this writing is what’s referred to in Pāli as citta. ↩︎
- And hence they cannot rightly be called urges anymore, even though their “shape” and significance remain unchanged. Any designations used here could be misconstrued as implying the presence of craving when that’s not what is meant. As explained in SN 35.70, this very principle is the essence of the Dhamma, but it can only be experienced by the wise for themselves. It cannot be accurately understood in theory, which is not to say that it is mystical, found in some hidden reality, or is “inexpressible in words”. ↩︎
- Cp. footnote 23 below. ↩︎
- It is our individual biological and chemical makeup that determines which things are attractive to us and to what extent. So, “the attractive things remain just as they are” is another way of saying “biology remains unchanged”. As stated by the Buddha later in this same discourse, it is intention (cetanā) that he calls action (kamma). The practice should thus be aimed at addressing the things that we do when we feel these biological pulls, not only bodily and verbally, but also through the more refined pathways of mental volition. ↩︎
- Things not found amidst the actions an Arahant is incapable of (AN 9.7). ↩︎
- Bearing in mind that in this context “body” includes the sixth sense base or mental faculty. We are here not concerned with existence in other realms, although the same principle applies. Broadly put, the body (kāya, lit. “heap”), physical/biological or otherwise, is that which is “there”, arisen independent of one’s wishes, pressured by which one feels the pleasures and pains that propel one to make good or bad choices. ↩︎
- In some contexts the two are used synonymously in the Suttas. But in the present context, which is the same as in AN 6.55 quoted below and others like SN 35.246, they are not the same. ↩︎
- And this is why the citta, despite this special status, cannot rightly be considered a “soul”, a “self”, or “mine”. In order to be so, it would need to be able to stand on its own feet and not be liable to change, but its very defining trait is that of “being-in-relation-to” other phenomena that are inherently impermanent and bound for destruction, after which there could not be a citta in relation to them. ↩︎
- Note also that the ability to recognize what the citta is in one’s experience is already an outstanding achievement (the stepping stone to stream-entry, see footnote 16), precisely because of its lack of positive characteristics by which it can be pinned down in the way that specific objects can (including thoughts and ideas). This is why the Suttas speak of “picking up the hint or sign (nimitta)” of the mind, and not of directly “seeing” the mind as a tangible object. This certainly doesn’t mean that the mind is “outside” of the five aggregates, which is an impossibility. ↩︎
- This vague (yet most definitely real and often agonizing) impulse to somehow fight back when touched by the six-sense body’s pressures is what craving is. This is why it’s said to “delight now here and now there” (tatratatrābhinandinī); it is by nature never fixed or specific. ↩︎
- The idea that there can be actual feelings without any trace of craving or suffering is likely to sound paradoxical, and it should. ↩︎
- The argument that there could be a part of the brain in charge of freedom of choice is untenable. If our actions were solely determined by physical processes, even if some or all of them operated randomly and unpredictably, there would still be no choice or individual responsibility proper: it would always ultimately be “this happened” instead of “I chose to do this”. This could easily masquerade as a way of arriving at anattā and the cessation of action. But it is a fallacious view, merely rehashed using modern scientific rhetoric, that already existed in the Buddha’s time and which he refuted. The Abhidhammic doctrine of “mind moments/processes” is equivalent in spirit, albeit under the guise of idealism instead of materialism. It is motivated by the misconception that any semblance of genuine agency must equal selfhood, failing to see what the sense of self is actually rooted in: the wrong assumptions of permanence, certainty, and satisfaction in relation to our genuinely deliberate choices and what they can achieve. ↩︎
- Which, again, extends as far as affectivity (feelings and moods), not only to so-called “raw sensory data”. ↩︎
- And all speculation as to “where” it is is necessarily invalid. The mind is the attitude towards anything and everything that can be found in space, which means that it cannot be in it. To be sure, that does not make it permanent or fit to be taken as self or “mine”, as already explained. ↩︎
- An attempt that can be quite successful as proven by scientific studies. The vast majority of practitioners tacitly assume, even when they don’t approach meditation through a scientific or secular lens, that their attention span is a measure of their samādhi. But samādhi, particularly the first jhāna, is about the unification of the citta (cittekaggatā) into wholesome states and an unmuddled perspective, not the unification of the brain’s processes into specific objects (AN 11.9, AN 4.12, AN 3.63). The former is a much subtler affair. MN 138 defines “scatteredness” as the presence of passion in relation to sense objects; AN 4.77 puts the range or field (visaya) of one in jhāna among four things that cannot be delineated. It is not tied down to any particular content or perceptions, and yet the mind is undeniably well-unified. What’s being described here is evidently not “absorption”, but it should not be conflated with so-called “jhāna-lite” nor “open awareness” approaches either. Those are also tangential to the purification of the citta, evidenced by how a first-hand recognition of its subtle and indirect nature is not absolutely indispensable for them (SN 47.8). ↩︎
- Naturally, teachers and practitioners will tend to conceptually align the techniques they teach and adhere to with the central Buddhist frameworks, but that doesn’t change the reality of what’s actually taking place when one succeeds in them. ↩︎
- i.e., positive, which dukkha inherently is not, as explained above. ↩︎
- Cetanā, which, not by coincidence, derives from the same root √cit as citta. ↩︎
- SN 46.51: paying the wrong type of attention to these natural phenomena is what nourishes the five hindrances, not the presence of these phenomena. ↩︎
- In fact, the first jhāna is called “the opening amidst confinement”, the “confinement” being the five senses and their agreeable and enticing objects. It’s not a separate state where those objects or their pressure are no longer perceived, but a state where the citta has not the slightest plan to succumb to them (which is what constitutes all of the five hindrances) no matter how long they last. That is where the sense of joy and safety originates from. Hence it is also said that it is impossible to enter the first jhāna without having thoroughly discerned the danger in sensuality (AN 6.73), since that is what “trains” the mind (SN 35.246) to no longer yield even when cornered on all sides by the body’s inclinations—just as a person would refuse any attempts to be thrust into a pit of burning coals (SN 35.244). See also MN 125, specifically the simile of the tamed royal elephant who no longer flinches even in the face of fierce provocation. ↩︎
- The way defilements and suffering superimpose themselves upon what we feel could be compared to two identical panes of glass joined together, except one of them has a colored tint. For one who doesn’t know better, it will genuinely seem like there is only one tinted pane, and thus in order to get rid of the tint, the entire structure needs to be removed. Similarly, the natural and implied tendency is to want to eliminate or replace the whole arisen experience (particularly unpleasant or strong emotions) when trying to clear away suffering and defilements, and this is precisely what a meditation technique helps one do. ↩︎
- Generosity is also extensively emphasized along with virtue in the context of lay practice in the Suttas, while meditation proper comes into the picture only once virtue has been well developed. Generosity not only provides mundane benefits for the brain but also cultivates the citta, as it goes against our ingrained biological tendency for possessiveness. This is also why it has a profound effect on one’s future births. ↩︎
- This “external” calm will always be temporary, however. See SN 17.30. ↩︎
- It is telling that although the Buddha’s interlocutor here (as well as in SN 47.3, SN 47.15-16, SN 47.46-47, AN 4.12, and many others) was already a bhikkhu, the importance of virtue still had to be emphasized. ↩︎