In a small child’s world, anything can happen. A child will wait for hours until a line of tiny dwarfs appear from behind a bookshelf. It is simply an innocent, childlike act. But if an adult were to do the same, they would be accused of being “mad.” That waiting runs counter to conventional dealings. The little child is still trying to grasp conventions with the mind. The adult has already fully adopted convention in the mind. Therefore, in the adult mind there are firm conclusions about what can and cannot happen.
One recognizes conventional dealings based on experiences gained through one’s senses and on external knowledge. Those without a concentrated mind have no serene experiences of the mind. They are confined to physical experiences made accessible by the senses: eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body. There, the mind is regarded merely as something that arises dependent on the physical. They trust only in experiences grounded in the coarse physical; they think there are no tranquil, mind-based experiences. They do have mind-based experiences of the physical in dreams. But dreams are confused. Therefore, they are not trustworthy.
A knowledge system is formed by the aggregation of many people’s experiences. Everyone is exposed to some knowledge system from childhood both educational and social. Modern school education often gives primacy to the physical and neglects the mind. The guidance received from modern mainstream society follows the same pattern. At times, only through religion and ancient sayings does one receive teaching that gives priority to the mind. Often a person draws on several knowledge systems and is attracted to one among them. That attractive knowledge system helps construct conventional dealings within his or her mind. Knowledge systems are diverse, and the personal experiences gained through the senses are also unique to each person. There is thus no uniformity among the conventional dealings built upon those external knowledge systems and personal experiences. Hence there is no common agreement about what can and cannot happen.
A person cannot construct conventional dealings after surveying all fields. However, building conventional dealings according to certain orientations is inappropriate. Such improperly oriented conventional dealings are ten in number; these are called wrong view (micchā-diṭṭhi). Because of them, both one’s present mental state and, as karmic result, future experiences become harsh; held long enough, they destroy the spiritual life.
Saying there is no special act such as giving, offering, or worship; that there are no future results according to wholesome and unwholesome karma; that there is no living in this world or the next; that there is no special person such as a mother or a father; that there are no beings who arise spontaneously (opapātika: spontaneously born); that there is no special group of honorable renunciants who, by their own wisdom, have directly known this world and the next and teach others. These are improperly oriented conventional dealings. Those who follow them do not trust the mind’s influence; they rely only on physical experiences obtained through the senses.
The senses make the physical form of the external world apparent. Yet it is truly the mind that recognizes physical form. For example: what becomes apparent to the eye is merely a pattern of colors. And that color pattern appears not to the physical organ of the eye itself, but to the mind associated with the eye. Even for the mind associated with the eye, the thickness of a colored object or its distance or nearness does not become directly apparent. These are purely mental constructions. Prior experiences contribute to these mental constructions. Relying on past experiences gained through the senses, the mind naturally imputes the remaining physical attributes onto the presented color pattern. In an instant, a solid object is fashioned there. A definite name is then attached to it. One submits to the conventional dealings concerning the physical world in just this way. What one recognizes there is a mental projection regarding the physical world. It is an inference about the physical world. Based solely on experiences through the senses, that inference can be repeatedly confirmed. A child struggles to recognize the surrounding world so as to imagine conventional dealings more concretely. What is imagined contains illusion. Yet even adults forget the illusion within imagination; they insist that the conventions formed by imagination are an objective reality. Even when experienced with the belief that “this is reality,” any experience a person has in daily life is in fact an aggregation of countless illusions.
Each person’s conventional dealings are personal. Yet there is a shared consensus about them among all. The entire human species generally grows up upon a common set of basic life-experiences. They build their conventional dealings by being stimulated by those basic experiences. Therefore, there is a place of sameness in all people’s conventional dealings. By placing the mind at that common ground, one can communicate one’s own personal conventions to another to some extent. Another who likewise places their mind at that common ground of convention will understand what is communicated.
In this, the recipient does not directly touch the communicator’s conventions; a language medium intervenes, whether spoken or written. Alternative media such as numbers, music, and images can also be included here. In spoken communication, the listener assigns some meaning from their own conventions merely to the medium called “words” spoken by the speaker. At first glance, the two parties’ identifications of the medium of words show a sameness; thus, an idea is communicated to the listener. Yet even regarding the very same word, each person’s identification is personal to them. Therefore, the idea is not communicated to the listener in its entirety.
In Dhamma communication, the medium is words. In its appearance, the Dhamma, too, is a conventional construct. In the Dhamma, the person-centered world is analyzed from many angles; therefore, the Dhamma is “by way of approach” (paryāya: method or mode). The Dhamma does not prescribe a single, uniform convention; it simply uses conventions according to the occasion. The listener savors the taste of the Dhamma through the aid of such conventions.
However, some grasp not the Dhamma itself, but only Dhamma-like conventions. They do not obtain the flavor of the Dhamma. What they take up is merely a Dhamma-convention comparable to the conventions they themselves have previously constructed from external knowledge systems and personal experiences. Any Dhamma-convention that does not align with those is ignorantly rejected as impossible; otherwise, it is accepted in honored cultural places under the name of literature. Many modern responses to the Jātaka tales exemplify this. Dialogues between humans and animals, and the interventions of gods and non-human beings are common in the Jātakas. Those steeped in modern conventions are perturbed by such hidden events. But those not clinging to their previously built conventions are able to relish the taste of the Dhamma through any kind of Dhamma-convention.
The Buddha’s word is the noblest use among conventions. Through it, the listener’s mind is lifted to a supramundane state; all conventions are transcended; spiritual wisdom awakens and directly sees ultimate reality (paramattha dhammatā). Those with ordinary sight see the world, including themselves, merely from the outside. Those endowed with spiritual wisdom see the world, including themselves, transparently.
When a concentrated mind is guided in the direction of the Dhamma, spiritual wisdom arises. This loosens the attachment to previously constructed conventions. Then a free and awakened mindfulness emerges like the lucid mindfulness of a small child. A child’s mind becomes “adult” by assigning various values to persons and things; those values arise by recognizing them as solid entities. But spiritual wisdom recognizes everything afresh: as merely mind-and-mental-factors (citta-cetasika) and primary materiality with the qualities of the elements (dhātu). Seen thus, nothing appears to have any special value. The illusions in conventions are seen. In this way, spiritual wisdom awakens to ultimate realities and becomes equanimous regarding conventions.
One day, while the Blessed Buddha was dwelling at Veluvana Monastery, he told the monks an old thinker’s story. (Cinta Sutta: Saṁyutta Nikāya, Great Chapter, Connected on Truths source may be misidentified; please verify.) In the past, a certain man was seated on the bank of a pond named Sumāgava, contemplating the world. Suddenly, he saw a crowd of serpents entering into the lotus stalks in the pond. Having seen something he thought impossible, he concluded he had gone mad.
Later he went to Rājagaha. Suspecting he was insane, he revealed to the townspeople the vision he had seen at the pond. Since he had seen what they considered impossible, the townspeople confirmed he must indeed be mad.
After telling the monks that old thinker’s story, the Blessed Buddha went on to recount a report from the deva world. In the past, there had been a war between the Suras and the Asuras. The Asuras were defeated. Deceiving the Suras, the defeated Asuras fled to the Asura world by hiding inside the lotus stalks of the Sumāgava pond. What the old thinker saw at the pond truly happened. But he concluded it was something nonexistent.
Therefore, the Blessed Buddha advised the monks to refrain from constructing person-centered, imaginative conventions about the world. His counsel was to arouse spiritual wisdom by relating everything to both saṁsāra and liberation from it. Then, freed from person-centered conventions about the world, mindfulness awakens to ultimate realities (paramattha dhammatā). From that, the spiritual faculty, calmed, attains the supramundane state.
A small child is mentally light because they do not yet recognize the pattern of conventions relevant to the environment. A child’s mental lightness is bound up with not-knowing. A disciple of the Buddha, however, sees clearly even the ultimate realities (paramattha dhammatā) with wisdom. Such a wise one, without clinging, simply uses a pattern of conventions according to the occasion. To conclude categorically that something can or cannot occur is to cling to a particular pattern of conventions.
A pattern of conventions is constructed by imagining according to some facet of the mind’s projection. From a chain of events arising at a certain place and moment, only one facet is projected to the mind through the senses. It is fruitless to go seeking new projected facets, shrouded as they are by the fog that has arisen. In the end, upon attaining the supramundane state, all projections must be relinquished.
Translated by
Dr Shermila Milroy
© Satipatthāna magazine