Dhamma-vihārin Sutta (AN5.73) Living by the Dhamma

K.Wong

Purport:

Introduction

In this discourse  on Virtue of Aṅguttara Nikāya (AN5.107), Gotama Buddha promulgates that if a monk has actualized five spiritual accomplishments  of virtue or morality, concentration, wisdom or insight, emancipation, and  knowledge of emancipation, he is worthy of offerings, oblation, reverently saluted , and world’s unsurpassed field of merit.

Noble Eight Fold Path

The five attributes of morality, concentration, wisdom, emancipation and knowledge of emancipation mirror that the monk or laity of Gnosis is worthy of being venerated by the lay devotees. The first three attributes of worthiness are the eight training aggregates of the Noble Eight Fold Path (Maggasaṃyutta.SN45). When the Noble Eight Fold path is consummated, emancipation and knowledge of emancipation are the consequent highest fruits.

Morality comprises right speech, right actions and right livelihood of the Noble Eight Fold Path. Right efforts, right mindfulness and right concentration constitute the domain of concentration of the Path. Wisdom is syncretism of right view and right thought. Right view and right thoughts are the foremost agendas of religious philosophy. Right View and right thought are foremost contigent conditions for moral  development and its eventual perfection in any world’s religion. Emancipation is the offspring of wisdom of right view and right thought. Emancipation is the mental state of liberation from suffering and kammic bondage of saṃsāra. Knowledge of emancipation is the highest knowledge of the process reality of dependently co-arisen Unity or Non-duality. It is the highest knowledge of the Buddha. In Reality, it is also the highest knowledge of Brahman, Tao or God. Polemics on religious distinctions and resultant frictions are the products of knowing the half-truth of religion. It is the root-cause of  national, regional and global systemic risk and systemic crisis.

Process Reality

Knowledge of Unity or Non-duality is the right knowledge of the process Reality of the dynamic process becoming (Santāna dhamma). The dynamic process is the flow of unity of causes and conditions. The process reality of dynamic process becoming is the process thought of the Insubstantiality (Anattā) or Emptiness (‘Sūnyatā) of all phenomena in relation to Dependent Origination or Co-arising (Pațiccasamuppāda). Succinctly put, the entire cosmos is universal Unity of Existence in which discrete individuations do not exist. Notion of discrete individuation engenders the illusory self-centric ego which conceals the ultimate Truth of Buddhahood or Godhood. Buddhahood and Godhood connoting Insubstantiality (Anattā) are esoterically and theosophically identical. Anything that is other than self is Buddha or  God. Buddha or God is Unity of Existence of contigent conditions.

 Whoever has intuitively discerned the process reality of dynamic flow of the incessant life process intuitively apprehends the Four Noble Truths of the suffering, cause, cessation and path. Knowledge of emancipation includes the knowledge of the two-fold truth of conventional truth of multiplicity of all phenomena and the ultimate Truth of the dependently co-arisen Unity or Non-duality. The one with the knowledge of emancipation is a Gnostic who discerns the distinction between the knowledge of conventional truth of the multiplicity of the empirical world and the ultimate Truth of the Tathāgata.

All phenomena are merely appearances . They are illusory and unreal. Only the ultimate Truth of  dependently co-arisen Unity is real. Even though the conventional truth or reality is illusory and unreal, it can not be denied. It is relative truth. Albert Einstein emerged as  a world’s eminent scientist because of his discovery of the Theory of Relativity. The Theory of Relativity is the reality of relative truth. Knowledge of conventional truth or reality is useful for intercommunication in social intercourses. Knowledge of ultimate Truth of Unity or Non-duality is required to annihilate self-centric ego and to obliterate the grasping upon the five aggregates as this is I; this is Mine ; this belongs to me. Both the relative truth and ultimate Truth have their respective pragmatic values. In fact, religion reveals that they are  symbiotic and reciprocal. The Chinese Taoist philosopher describes this complementary reciprocal relationship of the world as Yin and Yang.   

Conclusion

The Middle Path is recommended by Gotama Buddha that the world should be perceived through a Middle View Philosophy of perceiving the multiplicity in the Unity and the Unity in the multiplicity. The multiplicity is the conventional truth; the Unity of the multiplicity is the ultimate Truth. Whoever discerns this Reality of bipolarity of the interpenetration between the conventional truth and the ultimate Truth has actualized the highest knowledge of soteriology in any world’s religion.

The sole purpose of gaining emancipation is to consummate one’s moral and wisdom development by unveiling the innate supremacy of the inner Heart of Man – Buddhahood. The Buddhahood is none other than the Insubstantiality of the five aggregates of form, feelings, perceptions, volitions and consciousness. Buddhahood is Insubstantiality. Buddhahood is Dependent Co-arisen Unity or Non-duality. It is the Truth discernment of the Unity of the five aggregates. The ultimate Reality of the world is the Unity of Existence or the Non-duality between the perceiver and the perceived. No cosmic Reality differs from the Essence of Unity of Existence or the Non-duality of non-discriminative wisdom. No major world’s religions teaches the ultimate Reality or Truth that differs from Unity of Existence which equals Non-duality ontologically.

The multiplicity of all phenomena  of the empirical world is the outwardly manifest reality. The Unity of multiplicity is the hidden unmanifest absolute Truth. The multiplicity is not opposed to Unity and the Unity is not opposed to multiplicity. In ultimate reality, they interpenetrate and co-exist. They are non-dual and systemic.  When one sees Unity, one must also see multiplicity and vice versa. The world is neither absolute existence nor absolute non-existence. This right view of neither absolute existence nor absolute non-existence is the definition of the process Reality of Dependent Co-arising presented by Gotama Buddha.  All phenomena of multiplicity are interconnected and interrelated by Unity of dynamic process becoming. They are all dependently co-arisen phenomena in an infinite cosmic Unity or cosmic Self in which its contigent beings or things are impermanent and mutable.

The impermanence and mutablility of the contigent beings or things in the universe condition the creative advance  of the world consummated by the natural law of dependently co-arisen Unity of Existence.   The Unity of existence or cosmic Self  sustains the entire cosmos of beings and things. Every being or thing is an integral part of this cosmic Unity or universal Self. In the Abhidhamma of the Theravāda tradition, the knowledge of the multiplicity is the work of Analysis which unravels the Truth of Insubstantiality (Anattā), the knowledge of Unity is the work of synthesis which unveils the Truth of Dependent Co-arising (Pațiccasamuppāda).