The Buddha’s wisdom teachings

1. Knowledge and vision of things as they are

The culmination of wisdom practice is the attainment of knowledge and vision of things as they are (yathā-bhutā-ñāṇa-dassanā). From the get-go it should be made clear that this is not insight into objective reality, that is, of what would still be true in the world “out there” even if we were not there to be aware of it. It is rather insight into subjective reality, in particular, of how our own cognitive mechanisms come to experience things as true “out there.” In short, knowledge and vision are epistemic insight, rather than ontological or objective insight. In fact, knowledge and vision end the hubris that we can reliably say anything ontologically substantial about the world “out there.” We learn to experience that world as empty. This is a hugely important point, if one is to understand the early wisdom teachings.

We generally begin Buddhist practice foolishly entangled (as in the opening verse above) in layers of faulty presumptions: fixed personal views, conventional ways of conceptualizing the world, clever ways of justifying our own actions as well-intentioned, all the way down to what we think exists from its own side, independently of what we think. The Buddha, ever skeptical, questions it all. For instance, most of us are convinced that we contact “reality” directly. We show up and there it is: physical reality all around us, and it would be there even if we didn’t show up. There is “me,” able to perceive that world from my own side, but also able to be physically present as an agent in that world. That “me” is right at the center of the Buddha’s critique of a substantial reality.

For the Buddha, the important question is “How do we come to presume what we are convinced is true?” The Buddha describes the key to acquiring wisdom in a concise simile in the Phena Sutta:

“Suppose, bhikkhus, that a magician or a magician’s appren­tice would display a magical illusion at a crossroads. A man with good sight would inspect it, ponder it, and carefully investigate it, and it would appear to him to be empty, hollow, insubstantial. For what substance could there be in a magical illusion? So too, bhikkhus, whatever kind of consciousness there is, whether past, future, or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, inferior or superior, far or near: a bhikkhu inspects it, ponders it, and carefully investigates it, and it would appear to him to be empty, hollow, insubstantial. For what substance could there be in consciousness?”

The Buddha likens consciousness to a “magical illusion.” A magical illusion presents a convincing “reality” to an audience. Consciousness likewise presents a convincing reality to the common worldling. However, a skeptical viewer of the magic show might slip behind stage, gain an alternative perspective, and see how the magician conjures up this “reality” with the aid of various props and slight of hand. They would experience the situation otherwise. The practitioner intent on wisdom gains a contemplative perspective on consciousness, and sees how consciousness conjures up a convincing “reality” with the aid of various cognitive factors that play a conditioning role in consciousness. Pondering and investigating consciousness itself is how we gain wisdom. The “reality” that we think is “out there” turns out to be, from its own side, empty, for it is never independent of the mental phenomenon of consciousness needed to observe it. We learn to experience the the world otherwise, once we see that the mind is making it up. In fact,for the Buddha, “the world” is entirely the world as we experience it, not some independent reality “out there.”

“In this fathom-long living body, along with its percep­tions and thoughts, lies the world, the arising of the world, and the cessation of the world.” (AN 4.45)

Wisdom is to see how we make things up. We gain wisdom by direct observation the cognitive mechanisms as they fabricate the reality we experience as true, then cause us problems as we attempt to live and act in that reality. Unfortunately, this principle is not widely recognized among teachers and scholars. It is unfortunate, because without understanding this key principle, the Buddha’s wisdom teachings are unlikely to make sense. With an understanding of this principle comes the full realization that we are free to experience the world otherwise, in a less problematic, more skillful way.

2. Teachings and their observables

The Buddha gives us a large set of individual teachings, many akin to thought experiments, that are subject to Dhamma investigation, through which open up options to experience the world otherwise, less presumptively.. Examples of such teachings are impermanence, non-self, the aggregates, the sense spheres, and dependent co-arising. Such teachings are not abstract, sweeping, philosophical proclamations. Quite the contrary, they are quite observable, and therefore verifiable in our own subjective experience if we look carefully. This direct empirical quality is characteristic of Dhamma.

The Dhamma is well expounded by the Illustrious One, di­rectly visible, immediate, inviting one to come and see, applicable, to be personally experienced by the wise. (AN 11.11)

Dhamma investigation depends critically on our ability break a particular teaching down into its observables in our experiential world. These are the various factors mentioned in its descriptions in the early texts.

Let’s take the five aggregates as an example. The five aggregates are form, impression, perception, fabrication, and consciousness. An aggregate (khanda) is a group or heap of elements of some kind. These elements are the observables, categorized into five groups. Each group reflects some form of awareness. Let’s look at the elements of the perception group as an example. A perception element is an event whereby something arises spontaneously in experience as recognizable and typically nameable, maybe a bluebird, or the face of a friend. The observable is not the bird or the face, but rather the perceptual event itself (which refers to the bird or face as a component part). In this way, we gain insight a particular inner working of human cognition, generally involved in constructing a world “out there” piece by piece. In addition to noticing such small awareness events, we notice how they condition each other. The perception of the face of a friend will bring up a wealth of thoughts; there are fabrications. Conditional relations among observables are commonly among the observables in the descriptions of the teachings. Notice the epistemic perspective here in constructing an “objective” reality.

Dependent coarising is the most comprehensive early wisdom teaching in early Buddhism. The Buddha tells us that to understand this particular teaching is to understand the Dhamma. Dependent coarising traces—through a complex network of conditionality—the fabrication of a world of experience that keeps us locked in samsāric suffering, and at the same time identifies the opportunities for escape. It shows how that world is fabricated in moments of consciousness aided by a consortium of cognitive processes to produce a conviction of an external reality “out there” as the object of the self’s consciousness and agency. It then explains how this grand delusion underlies the unskillful intentions manifest in craving that drive our unethical behavior in the world, as well as the congealment of this dynamics into a formidable personal identity that is able to outlive us.

Dependent coarising includes a large number of conditionally entangled factors, but is organized by highlighting (generally) twelve primary factors, and a linear chain of conditional relations that bind these together, to wit,

ignorance → fabrications → consciousness → name and form→ sixfold sphere → contact → impression → craving → appropriation → be­coming →birth → this mass of suffering.

This teaching is for the most part subject to Dhamma investigation. By highlighting this particular chain of conditional relations running through a very complex dynamics, it also identifies critical points at which that dynamics can be disrupted through the practice of the noble eightfold path. Unfortunately parts of this teaching are widely misunderstood by teachers and scholars.

3. Contemplative practice

We should notice initially that we do not succeed in wisdom without being established in ethics. The citation at the top of this page tells us that. The reason seems to be that our unskillful behavior reinforces the misapprehensions with which it is associated. For instance, one who behaves habitually in a self-centered manner, will have difficulty experiencing a world devoid of self.

The overall process of wisdom practice is described as the five stages of liberation. We begin by studying and pondering the Buddha’s individual wisdom teachings, some of which are described in the last section. In other words, each of these is approached initially in its conceptual form, much as we might study a topics in a university class. But then in the subsequent stages we continue this practice through verification of its details in actual experience. This is the contemplative practice of Dhamma investigation (dhamma-vicaya), which serves to develop, cultivate, and internalize the teaching, to the extent that it becomes a way we experience the world automatically, at an intuitive, non-conceptual level.

Dhamma investigation is conducted typically on the cushion. The seven awakening factors describe the process of subjecting a Dhamma teaching to investigation, after which a series of affective states bring the mind into composure and into the fourth jhāna. Composure (samādhi) is the meditative state taught by the Buddha in progressively deeper stages, called (even in English) the four jhānas.

The Buddha’s meditation teachings

In this way wisdom practice works together with composure, without which it is not possible to fulfill its purpose. The Dhammapada tells us,

“There is no jhāna for one with no wisdom, no wisdom for one without jhāna. But one with both jhāna and wisdom, he’s on the verge of nib­bāna.”

This is why this process is described as in terms of “awakening factors.” Dhamma investigation in the context of the other awakening factors produces knowledge and vision of things as the are.

Dhamma investigation depends on our ability to recognize the various factors mentioned in the individual wisdom teachings as observables in our experiential world. For instance, one of the five aggregates is perception. In Dhamma investigation. We should be able to observe individual instances of perception as they arise and fall in our own experience. At this level we see directly the inner workings of human cognition, noting as well how a perception can lead to the fabrication of additional forms of awareness: instances of impression, fabrication, and so on. The stillness and focus of composure acts much like a magnifying glass in this process. In this way we learn to apprehend our presumptive patterns of thinking, and to experience the world otherwise, directly and non-conceptually. We see its impermanence, the absence of a self, the pervasiveness of suffering, and undermine the tendency to presume things as substantial, and orbiting around “me.”

The detailed method for engaging in Dhamma investigation is most commonly referred to with a Pali term that is poorly translated into English as “the foundations of mindfulness.” This method has evolved into modern vipassanā or “insight meditation.” Satipaṭṭhāna literally translates as ‘recollection-attentiveness’ in reference to bringing Dhamma teachings to mind while attending to its observable counterparts in the practitioner’s experience. The well-studied Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta is a tutorial that brings specific Dhamma teachings, organized into four realms of observable experience, under investigation.