Knowledge and vision

The final result of the wisdom practices is “knowledge and vision of things as they are” (yathā-bhūta-ñāṇa-dassanā) one step away from full awakening. But what do we mean by “knowledge and vision of things as they are”? This question is asked less frequently than it deserves. Many may assume that it is ineffable, and that we’ll know it when we finally see it. Nonetheless, the early texts do provide substantial clarity about what to expect.

Consider the following exchange between the wanderer Kokanada of a non-Buddhist sect and the Buddha’s right-hand monk Ānanada,

K: “How is it, sir? Do you hold the view ‘The world is eternal; this alone is true, anything else is wrong’?”
Ā: “I don’t hold such a view, friend.”
K: “Then do you hold the view ‘The world is not eternal; this alone is true, anything else is wrong’?”
Ā: “I don’t hold such a view, friend.”

Kokanada then asks further questions in this vein, such as whether the world is finite or infinite, whether the soul and the body are the same or different, and whether or not the Tathāgata exists after death. Each of Kokanada’s questions evokes in the same reply,

Kokanada seems taken aback at Ānanda’s apparent obliviousness,

K: “Could it then be that you do not know and see?”

Ā: “It isn’t the case, friend, that I do not know and see. I know and see.”

K: “How, friend, should the meaning of this statement be understood?”

Ā: “‘The world is eternal; this alone is true, anything else is wrong,’ friend, this is a speculative view.”

… and so on for each of Kokanada’s questions.

Ā: “To the extent, friend, that there is a speculative view, a basis for views, a foundation for views, obsession with views, the origination of views, and the uprooting of views, I know and see this. When I know and see this, why should I say: ‘I do not know and see.’ I know, friend, I see.” (AN 10.96)

If there have ever been instances of two people talking right past one another, this is certainly one of them. Notice that Kokanada’s questions were all existential. He was probing for clarity about the Buddhist ontological stance on what was really true of the world “out there.” But we know that the Buddha famously left such questions unanswered. Ānanda’s responses to these questions, on the other hand, were explained epistemically (MN 63, MN 72). He was concerned with how the heck such existential views might get into one’s head, into the world “in here,” in the first place, as speculation then as obsession, and with how we might rid ourselves of such vexing notions.

The difference between these two perspectives was quite radical for the time. Traditionally the resolution of the human condition had been sought “out there,” through understanding to cosmological forces speculated to be at work “out there,” so that we might control or adapt to them. (We can think of our pursuit of happiness through material means and celebrity as an expression of this at a more immediate level.) For this reason, the answers to existential questions were crucial. For the Buddha, the resolution of the question was to be sought “in here,” in the human capacity or incapacity to apprehend the world properly. The human mind is the origin of our experience, even of our experience of the world “out there.” Therefore, experience and the cognitive architecture that produces experience are the primary themes that run throughout the early wisdom teachings.