Stream Entry, part three
The five higher fetters
Can we change? This is probably not a question that keeps you awake at night, but it has intrigued me for many years. Krishnamurti pondered the question of change with a group of brilliant colleagues during a series of discussions which were published later in Can Humanity Change? True confession, I no longer recall what they concluded, except that they all seemed to agree that it is a fascinating question.
Nisargadatta, who taught above his small shop in Bombay, says, in I Am That, “what takes time is false.” The moment I read his words, they resonated with me intuitively, but the conceptual mind scratched its head.
The Buddha had something to say about change. If we are to believe his story, he radically changed one fateful evening. He saw the Real (“lead me from the unreal to the Real”), and from that profound vision, he saw that the Dharma is akalika - a Pali word meaning “not involving time.” He said this almost three thousand years before Nisargadatta said “what takes time is false.” But if the Dharma is akalika, and does not involve time, what are we to make of stream entry, which can involve as many as seven lifetimes?
This question fascinated Theravada monk, Nanavira, who used an expression in existential philosophy to describe change as “invariance through transformation.” It is certainly a paradoxical statement, isn’t it? But truth is always a fragile presence in the midst of paradox, and I submit that the doctrine of stream entry is, in fact, the Buddha’s vision of invariance through transformation. I am convinced that the Buddha’s vision offers us a way to imagine our lives outside the conceptually tight box in which our Western religions have put us. We have been programmed to believe that work on ourselves is limited to one single life span which, if you have ever had the pleasure of meeting a human being, is an absurdity.
One more observation, and here I speak from being battered by reality. To understand one part of the Dharma, one must open to all of it. This is in accord with what the Buddha said: Not only does the Dharma not involve time (akalika); it is immediately visible (sanditthika). When you see one aspect of the Dharma, one facet of the diamond, you see the entire thing. Zen masters, in describing their ancient teachers, put it this way, “when he opened his mouth you saw his guts.”
So our challenge, both for the reader and for the one who is writing this essay, comes from the fact that it is impossible to describe stream entry without opening a window onto the vastness of the Buddha-Dharma. For instance, we must understand the Buddha’s teaching of the three realms of existence, simply because it is impossible to understand stream entry without understanding the three realms. And, at the very least, we need to understand the pivotal role of upadana in the twelve nidanas if we are are to understand stream entry.
In Part two, we learned that, as the fourth and fifth fetters of anger and greed are significantly weakened, the sotapanna, has undergone a significant transformation. The sotapanna has become a once returner, a sakadagamin.
That said, let us begin our climb up the last five rungs of this ladder with the Pali word: upadana, or grasping. If you have ever tried to throw away sentimental treasures that have slowly taken over your house, garage or apartment, you can understand that attachment is a two-way street. Doesn’t it feel as if the treasured object is clinging to you as tenaciously as you are clinging to it? And, really, if an object actually resides in the mind (and where else could it be?), who is to say what is attached to what? Dare I add, that this is the actual meaning of the word “dharma” with a little “d.” A dharma is an object (image, thought, feeling) in the mind.
Upadana truly has a double meaning: Grasping does not simply grasp us, we also grasp it. And the problem is not solved by a bolt of lightening striking from heaven above, because we humans are more than a tree with roots. It is consciousness itself that “intends” the hand to grasp an object, and it is consciousness that must consciously choose to let go.
Nanavira says that the fundamental upadana, or grasping, is sakkya-ditthi, one of the first three fetters. It is a “belief in personality” or the Rock of Gibraltar as I called it. But sakkya-ditthi is not merely a passive belief, such as believing that planet earth is a sphere. It is a grasping, an active holding to that belief as the most dear thing in the world. This is what invites suffering. In the Bare Bones, I mention the story of B’rer Rabbit from the Uncle Remus books. B’rer Rabbit gets stuck when he hits tar baby for being rude. First one fist is stuck, then the other fist. Then his foot is stuck when he kicks tar baby, and then the other foot is stuck. So he butts tar baby with his head and his head is stuck. It’s a delightful story, but it is also a perfectly awful depiction of becoming fused with the tar baby of upadana. We become so fused that it is impossible to separate subject from object.
6) Rupa-raga
As mentioned above, in his vision of the Real, the Buddha saw three realms of existence. It’s helpful to conceptualize them as psychological realms. All humans live in the first realm which is called kamaloka. It is the world of desire, and it is the water in which we swim. This is why the desire realm feels ego syntonic. What is more natural to a fish than water?
As we learned, with the moment of stream entry a human has become a sotapanna. She or he may look, walk and talk like the rest of us, but, in fact, they are of the world, but no longer in the world, just like a lotus can bloom in the mud of a swamp. Here is the crucial difference. Even though a sotapanna is born in the kamaloka, as are all worldlings (putajanna, in Pali) they will not stay there, because change is an inexorable process for the sotapanna. With the sixth fetter, rupa-raga, the sotapanna has left the kamaloka for all time, and the sotapanna has become a sakadagamin. He or she is now a once-returner.
If the sakadagamin is no longer caught in desire for sensual objects, but if raga (desire) still remains, what is left for the sakadagamin to grasp? The Buddha gives us the answer. The sakadagamin, now released from desiring sensual objects, grasps rupa, the Pali word for “form,” and has entered what the Buddha called the rupaloka,” the second psychological realm. Clearly the once-returner is no longer in Kansas.
How do we understand the world that rises with the sixth fetter, the rupaloka, or form realm? First, it’s necessary to understand the many layers of meaning in the Pali word “rupa.” In the twelve nidanas, rupa means “body,” and it rises simultaneously with nama as the fourth nidana: namarupa or the mind-body combination. Even though rupa, as “form,” refers to this physical body, and namarupa refers to the mind-body, it takes on a much more subtle meaning in rupaloka. Here, form means something beyond physical, material shape.
Mirriam-Webster’s first definition of form describes it as “the shape and structure of something as distinguished from its material.” But including “shape” in a definition of form will not do, at least in the context of the Buddha’s teaching. Perhaps, a better definition would simply be, “the invisible structure of something as distinguished from its material.”
Actually, we have knowledge of the world of Form in our own DNA. Within a few hundred years of the Buddha’s teaching rupa-raga to his disciples in India, Plato was teaching his theory of Form to his students at the Academy in Athens. He believed that Forms exist beyond the pale reflections of tangible, physical objects. While those reflections are like shadows flickering on the walls of a cave, Forms are the true Light beyond the mental caves in which we live. They are the perfect Ideals.
Remarkably, the mind of a meditator, whether Zen, Tibetan, or Vipassana, can reach the “form world” through concentration. Every meditator who has reached even the lowest levels of samadhi, experiences the tangible, “outside” physical world as receding from consciousness. He or she can sit for an hour, or perhaps days, in the world of Form. This does not necessarily mean that a meditator experiencing the form realm, while in meditation, is a sotapanna, or sakadagamin. But if you remember the question I asked U Vivekanda, earlier in Part One, it could certainly be a clue.
There is a crucial difference between the Buddha’s theory of a form realm and Plato’s theory. The Buddha taught that one can become attached to this rarified world. Power is not a physical object, and even Michelangelo’s stunningly beautiful statues can only represent it concretely. Power, as Form, has no shape, or color but what political leader would not sacrifice everything to achieve it? Wonderful skill as an artist, poet, or musician is not a physical object. It has no shape or color. Great mastery as a scientist, philosopher, meditation master or psychologist has no physical shape or color. But do we doubt that these “forms” exist? Do we doubt that power, fame, mastery or skill are far more addictive to one who has been released from sensual grasping than beautiful partners, gorgeous mansions, or published volumes filled with great knowledge? This is what the Buddha saw. A sakadagamin who grasps rupa is as caught as was B’rer Rabbit, stuck in the tar baby of upadana.
Beyond the world of form, the more subtle realm of arupaloka remains.
7) Arupa-raga
Arupa is the Pali word for formless, and the third realm of existence is arupaloka, the formless realm. If raga still means “desire” (as it does in all ten fetters), are we to believe that the sotapanna can grasp something that has no form? How can one grasp a ghost?
In describing ruparaga, the sixth fetter, we said that the mind of a meditator, whether Zen, Tibetan, or Vipassana, can reach the “form world” through concentration. Remember that the Sanskrit word, samadhi, is synonymous with our English word, “concentration,” although it is surely a puny substitute for such a remarkable mind state. It follows that the highest meditation state one can reach is arupa or formless, but remember that we are still in the process of describing stream entry, and, for one who is at the seventh stage, arupa-raga, an incredibly subtle element of desire still lingers.
Again, what can one grasp in a state of emptiness?
The key that unlocks every fetter is found in the tenth fetter, which we are (praise be) finally approaching. But to answer the enigma of grasping a ghost, we need a little help from Zen. (Theravadins please close your eyes).
Every family has its squabbles, and the Buddha’s family is no exception. I’ve told the story a number of times but it will bear repeating. Once, when I was attending a Zen sesshin and had my first interview, the Roshi asked me about my meditation practice. I answered that it was Vipassana. By the way, he was a widely known and respected teacher. On hearing that my meditation practice was Vipassana, he explained to me that Vipassana and Theravada Buddhism are inferior to Zen. Well, there you go. Theravada is inferior to Zen Buddhism. As a child, I was told by well-meaning relatives, perhaps hoping to save my Methodist soul that Methodism is inferior to being a Southern Baptist. I had the same reaction: “Well, there you go.,”
Zen and the Mahayana tradition in general, regard an arahant (saint) as “unfinished” because he or she is still attached to the formless, arupa states of emptiness. In other words, they have never returned as blood and sweat humans who can understand and relate to ordinary worldlings in the marketplace.
A story about Ta Hui, best explains what I am attempting to describe. Ta Hui was a brilliant disciple of the great Ch’an master, Juan Wu, who immediately recognized in Ta Hui the ancient Zen lineage that had been transmitted from teacher to student for hundreds of years. Perhaps Ta Hui had already experienced the formless realm of arupakoka, and was undoubtedly a sakadagamin.
Juan Wu continued to work with his formidable disciple, because something subtle beyond words remained as a hindrance in Ta Hui. During one interview as Ta Hui was working on a koan, Juan Wu said, “such a pity. You know how to die, but you do not know how to come back to life.” This opened Ta Hui’s mind completely, or as we say “he saw the light.” Surely, if not before, Ta Hui became an anagamin, a non returner.
Far be it for me to choose which is “superior,” the Mahayana or the Theravada view, and anyone who has watched a Theravada monk respond to a question about Mahayana with indifference bordering on condensation, recognizes that the family squabble lives on. But the story about Ta Hui helps us understand that upadana can remain as an affliction through every stage from sotapanna to anagamin, until reaching the tenth fetter.
8) Asmimana
In Part One, we saw that sakkya-ditthi, defined as “personality belief,” is the linchpin of the first three fetters, and, as it is released, the first three fetter/manacles slip off the sotapanna’s ankle. We also saw that the grasp of upadana is so unbelievably tenacious that it reappears in fetter after fetter, but in increasingly more subtle forms. At the end of the seventh fetter, greed and hatred have disappeared from the mind of a sotapanna, never again to return. Most likely, the sakadagamin has transformed into a anagamin. So what fetter remains?
The Buddha said that to think, “I am superior to you” is conceit; to think, “I am inferior to you is conceit;” and to think, “you and I are equal “ is conceit. Whoa Nelly! This is his teaching of asmimana, which means “the pride, or conceit, of I Am.” Let us imagine that Ta Hui, now released from a false belief in personality, released from greed and hatred, released from attachment to the form realm as well as the formless realm, had only one more hindrance that kept him from complete awakening. It must have been the most subtle whisper of “I am.”
According to Nanavira, only one whose work is finished (an arahant in the Theravada tradition) can sit at a table, while eating food, without the slightest thought, “I am doing this.” This is why Nanavira says that “subjectivity is a parasite on experience.” What a remarkable assertion! According to Nanavira, with the release of the eighth fetter, asmimana, subjectivity, which is a parasite on experience, is no longer even possible in the mind of the anagamin, who is now able to confront the ninth fetter. Clinging to the thought I am, is in fact, clinging to a ghost.
9) Uddhacca
After trudging up nine flights of stairs, through part one and part two, and finally reaching the ninth floor, one would imagine something far more mind boggling than uddhacca. In steam entry, a sotapanna, has experienced the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm, which stretches my ability even to imagine. Finally, even the thought I am has become utterly impossible. Nanavira, in describing a sotapanna, says that, on entering the stream, a sotapanna “ is possessed of aparapaccaya nanam, a long Pali expression which means that the sotapanna’s knowledge no longer depends upon anyone else.
Who, then, is the sotapanna’s teacher? Stream entry becomes the Teacher for one who has had even the slightest glimpse of the Real. It becomes the guide, sometimes gentle, sometimes harsh. Stubbornness may delay the process, even for one or two lifetimes, but nothing can prevent the inexorable process of invariance through transformation. So what does the once returner, with knowledge no longer depending on anyone else discover, as she or he confronts the ninth fetter of uddhacca?
Restlessness!
I set my Insight timer for 45 minutes, and every once in a while, something becomes increasingly agitated as the 42nd or 43rd minute arrives. I have an overwhelming need to open my eyes to check the clock. I have found a similar pattern whether I sit for 45 minutes or an hour, or even for the two or three hour, longer sits that I did in Lumbini. No matter how long the sit, something gets restless near the end, Not always, but sometimes. When a meditation student is asked, “why did you stop after 20 minutes?” often, the answer is “I got bored.” But boredom is often a “cover” word to disguise what we are actually feeling. The feeling lying underneath boredom is restlessness, and vague, subtle anxiety.
When I was thirty six, I spent four months in Crete, and then I traveled to India to study yoga. Just before leaving Crete, I wrote a letter “to whom it may concern,” and, among other subjects, I talked about being a vegetarian. Perhaps a moment of levity will be useful here:
Every time i sit down to face some plump, tasty hen, i see it pecking around on its funny two feet. Standing first on one foot, then the next, always looking around and ready to squawk and flee for his life at the slightest noise. Chickens are paranoid, you know. i am not sure whether they have been written up yet or not, but if they haven’t, i bet they will be. All you have to do is watch them a while. i imagine that if my father and grandfather and great-grandfather (not to mention aunts, uncles, and cousins) had been chased all over the yard, and finally had their necks wrung, i would be paranoid too. So, no chicken for me, even southern fried. If hamburgers were shaped like a cow, i would be in big trouble.
Survival is hardwired in every animal brain from chickens to eagles, from a lazy looking frog seemingly sleeping on a rock in a pond, to the squirrels dashing up and down the trees in my neighborhood. Program one for every animal is to stay alive! An animal that is not restless will soon be someone’s dinner, so how could we humans not have this program deeply ingrained in the limbic brain?
Once the anagamin has passed beyond the eighth fetter of asmimana, the conceit of I am, she or he can see much more clearly. Prajna, insight, sees that the subtle feeling of restlessness is our human condition. It connects us to all the animals on this planet. With eyes that are now 20/20, a once returner can finally see what lies beneath restlessness.
10) Avijja
The Buddha said “he who sees the Dharma sees paticcasamuppada” (Dependent Origination, or the twelve nidanas) and, without a doubt, he would say exactly the same about stream entry. It is the Dharma, and it is sanditthika, immediately visible. Just as avijja is the first link of the twelve links, it is the last fetter of the transformative process of stream entry.
What is avijja? As I said earlier, the 10th fetter is the key to unlocking all the fetters and the answer to why grasping is so incredibly tenacious. Nanavira, says that avijja “functions automatically, but conceals this fact from itself. It is an automatically functioning blindness to its automatic functioning.” Even at the beginning of stream entry, there is greed and there is hatred, but, as the sotapanna moves inexorably toward the Real, the fetters become more subtle and less outrageous. It is third part of the “unholy three” that has lingered from fetter to fetter, and from stage to stage as the process of stream entry has continued. The three characteristics of existence are, of course, greed, hatred and delusion. Avijja is Delusion, a blindness that functions automatically and which conceals itself. It is the key element that keeps greed and hatred going. The Tibetans paint a rooster, pig and snake chasing each other’s tails, on mandalas. The rooster is greed, and the snake is hatred, but the pig of delusion is what is blind to itself as well as the rooster and the snake. So round and round they go.
If avijja is blindness itself, how on earth can blindness see? Ah! there’s the rub. I love what Nanavira says: “Avijja cannot be pulled out like a nail: it must be unscrewed.” We may be stretching a metaphor to its limits by imagining stream entry as a slow process of unscrewing avijja from its incredibly tight socket, but I believe this is precisely the way to imagine it. Turn by turn and stage by stage, avijja is unscrewed from the I Am socket.
If the sotapanna has knowledge that no longer depends on anyone else, and if the sotapanna, can now see that what lies beyond the ninth fetter of restlessness is the tenth fetter of delusion, she or he knows, without the slightest doubt, what the Buddha saw and taught for forty five years. Avijja is an infection more contagious than any pandemic. It is the root cause of grasping, and the itch that makes us scratch. The singular symptom of avijja is suffering.
When blindness has come to an end, the transformative process of stream entry is finished. The sotapanna can see forever, and say with the Buddha, “Done what had to be done.”
