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

Now it is always difficult to make any English term coincide with either dhamma or dhamma. Here, as elsewhere in Buddhist diction, it is chiefly the context that must be the guide to meaning. The Suttanta is a discipline — the supreme discipline — in ethical introspection. And in Buddhist introspective analysis, dhamma (elsewhere translatable now by ' things,' now by ' qualities ') are, more especially, ' cognoscible objects,' These are related to ma no (consciousness as apprehending), just as each kind of sense-object is related to one kind of sense-organ ; thing-seen, for example, to sight. A cognoscible object is any presentation (German, Vorstellung), that has got beyond the stage of mere sensory re-action. It is an idea or perception in the wider sense used by Locke : — ' Whatsoever is the immediate object of perception, thought, or understanding.' But neither cognoscible object, nor presentation, is a term which lends itself with sufficient simplicity and impressiveness to ethical homily. We have therefore decided to perpetuate the Lockean ' idea.'

For the same reason we use 'thought ' for citta, in preference to a term of more psychological precision ; and we understand by 'thought', thinking, or knowing, or being intelligently conscious, and do not restrict the word to any special mode of cognition.

Hence we get this distinction of aspects in (3) and (4) : under citta, the ever-changing ever-active continuance of consciousness, or re-acting intelligence; under dhamma, those same activities considered objectively, as concrete states, procedure, ' content of consciousness,' as the psychologists phrase it. Under (3) we watch the agency as a whole, in its chameleon-like phases. Under (4) we take transverse cuttings, so to speak, of our subjective experience.

It is interesting to note that Buddhaghosa, explaining the inclusion, under No. 4, of the Six Senses and the fivefold Khandha doctrine, says : — ' in contemplation of the body the Exalted One taught only the grasp of matter, in contemplation of feeling and consciousness, only the grasp of the immaterial. Now in order to teach grasp of matter and the immaterial mixed (ruparupamissakapariggaho), he' spoke of d ham ma. And again: 'grasp of the rupa-khanda being taught by contemplation of body, and grasp of the khandhas of feeling and viiifiawa (cognition or consciousness) by contemplation of feeling and citta, He now, to teach grasp of the khandhas of perception and sankhara (let us say, volition and other mental factors) went on' to speak of dhamma.

[xxn. mahAsatipatyt/Anasuttanta.

*

SETTING-UP OF MINDFULNESS.]

[290] Thus have I heard.

i. The Exalted One was once staying among the Kurus. Kammassadhamma is a city of the Kuril country. There the Exalted One addressed the brethren, saying, ' Bhikkhus ! ' ' Reverend sir ! ' responded the brethren. And the Exalted One said :

The one and only path, Bhikkhus leading to the purification of beings, to passing far beyond grief and lamentation, to the dying-out of ill and misery, to the attainment of right method1, to the realization of Nirvana, is that of the Fourfold Setting up of Mindfulness.2

Which are the Four? Herein3, O bhikkhus, let a brother, as to the body, continue so to look upon the body that he remains ardent, self-possessed, and mindful, having overcome both the hankering and the dejection common in the world. And in the same way as to feelings, thoughts, and ideas, let him so look upon each, that he remains ardent, self-possessed, and mindful, having overcome both the hankering and the dejection common in the world.

1 Naya. Practical Buddhism is summed up (Majjhima I, 181, 197) as exertion in naya,^dhamma, and kusala (the Method, the Norm, and the Good). Naya is defined at Sa#zyutta V, 388 as what comes pretty much to our method in philosophy. Above (p. 167) it is rendered System. There, in a very old verse, the Buddha says that seeking after Good he had been a pilgrim through the realm of System and Law, outside of which no victory can be won.

2 See Introduction.

3 The commentarial tradition sees in this word id ha, the implication of 'belonging to this order or doctrine or school' (imasmirh sasane), and thus an antithesis to 'ito bahiddha/ outside this [order] — an expression which occurs immediately after the verse mentioned in the last note.

328 XXII. MAHA SATIPA7T#ANA SUTTANTA. D. ii. 291.

J