Dialogues of the Buddha, Part II — trans. T. W. and C. A. F. Rhys Davids (1910)

Then Sakka, touching the earth with his hand to call it to witness, called aloud thrice : —

* Honour to the Exalted One, to the Arahant, to the Buddha Supreme ! '

Now while he was speaking in this dialogue, the stainless spotless Eye for the Truth arose in Sakka, the ruler of the cmds, to wit : ' Whatsoever thingr can come to be, that must also cease to be '.' And this happened also to eighty thousand of devas besides.

1 See Vol. I, p. 184.

B. ii. 289. THE QUESTIONS OF SAKKA. 32 1

[239] Such were the questions which Sakka was invited to ask, and which were explained by the Exalted One \ Therefore has this dialogue the name of ' The Questions of Sakka.'

1 'Was invited' is doubtful. Sakka had not been invited to put any particular questions. Leave had been granted him generally to put any question he liked. Yet the editions printed in Siam and Ceylon read 'the invited questions put.' Buddhaghosa reads ajjhitta. It is doubtful whether the other reading (ajji//M) could be properly applied to a question. In Vin. I, 113 it is applied to a person who is invited to speak. It looks here like a conjectural emendation of a lectio difficihor.

III.

INTRODUCTION

TO THE

MAHA SATIPA77WANA SUTTANTA.

The doctrine here expounded is perhaps the most important, after that of the Aryan Path, in early Buddhism ; and this tract, the oldest authoritative statement of the doctrine, is still in frequent and popular use among those Buddhists who have adhered to the ancient faith.

The two doctrines are closely connected. The exposition here of mindfulness (Sati) includes that of the Path, and no exposition of the Path is complete without the inclusion of mindfulness. Whosoever neglects the fourfold practice of mindfulness he misses the Path, whosoever practises mindfulness has found the Path (Sa/wyutta V, 179, 180, 294). The right way to the practice of mindfulness is precisely the Aryan Path (ibid. 183). And that practice is in turn, in one passage, called the Path to the Unconditioned (Asawkhata, that is, Arahantship, Nirvana, the goal of the Aryan Path).1

What then is this Mindfulness? This Suttanta will show. But a few observations may help the student of it. Etymologically Sati is Memory. But as happened at the rise of Buddhism to so many other expressions in common use, a new connotation was then attached to the word, a connotation that gave a new meaning to it, and renders ' memory ' a most inadequate and misleading translation. It became the memory, recollection, calling-to-mind, being-aware-of, certain specified facts. Of these the most important was the impermanence (the coming to be as the result of a cause, and the passing away again) of all phenomena, bodily and mental. And it included the repeated application of this awareness, to each experience of life, from the ethical point of view. ' Thus does he cultivate those qualities which ought to be practised, and not those which ought not. That is how repetition is the mark of Mindfulness,' says Nagasena2, in complete accord with our Suttanta.

1 Satfzyutta IV, 363. 2 Questions of King Milinda, I, 59.

When Christians are told : ' Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God,' a way is shown by which any act, however lowly, can, by the addition of a remembrance (a Sati), be surrounded by the halo of a high moral enthusiasm ; and how, by the continual practice of this remembrance, a permanent improvement in character can be obtained. The Buddhist idea is similar. But the remembrance is of what we should now call natural law, not of a deity. This has been made a corner-stone of the system of ethical self-training. The corresponding cornerstone in the West is conscience ; and indeed, so close is the resemblance in their effects that one scholar has chosen ' conscience' as a rendering of Sati; — wrongly, we think, as this introduces a Western idea into Buddhism. The curious notion of an internal monitor, distinct from the soul, yet speaking independently of the will of the man himself, is confined to animistic modes of thought. Buddhaghosa uses it, indeed, as a simile, to explain the connotations of Sati; but he expressly pours scorn on any idea of a separate entity.1