INTRODUCTION TO THE  STUDY OF BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY

SEMINAR THREE

TEXT III. The Fire Sermon[1]

Thus have I heard. The Lord was once living at Gayasisa in Gaya. There he addressed a thousand monks: “Monks, all is on fire. And what, monks, is the all that is burning?”

“Monks, the eye is burning, visual shapes[2] are burning, visual consciousness[3] is burning, visual contact[4] is burning. Also whatever sensation,[5] pleasant, painful or neither painful, nor pleasant, arises from such contact, that too is burning. But what is it burning with? It is ablaze with the fire of passion,[6] with the fire of hate,[7] with the fire of delusion.[8] In the same way as eye is burning, the ear is burning, the body[9] is burning. And so the mind[10] is burning, mental shapes[11] are burning, mental consciousness[12] is burning. These fires, however, are fed by the fuel provided by birth and ageing, by grief and sorrow, by despair and dissatisfaction.”

Seeing this, monks, the well-instructed noble[13] disciple gets wearied of and becomes disenchanted with the sense-organs, their objects, their contacts, their consciousnesses and with his physical and mental reactions to them, whether the last are pleasant, painful or neutral. And in his disenchantment he detaches himself from all of them and becomes dispassionate with regard to the sense-organs. Through dispassion he is liberated. Then he acquires the knowledge[14] of his deliverance, and realisation that the holy life has been lived, what should have been done is done. There is nothing left to be done in this life, and there is no more rebirth in the next one.”

While this exposition was being delivered, the minds of those thousand monks were liberated from all impurities.[15] The conflagration is burnt out, the fire extinguished.

SEMINAR III What is what in the metaphor of fire?

The content of the metaphor of fire here is simple and clearly structured. For, indeed, what can be simpler than the Buddha’s first, introductory sentence, “monks, all is on fire”? But the first question immediately following this sentence: “what is that is burning?” – poses a most intricate and puzzling ontological problem: what is the difference between “all” in the sentence and “the all that…” in the question? Or: is the question philosophically necessary?

First, proceeding from the vector of philosophizing taken up in the second sermon where anatta, the absence of atman is shown in the five aggregates of individual existence, “all” which is on fire here is concretized in or reduced to, the six organs of sense. In other words, the vector in both cases finds its resolution in the microcosm of mind with its sensory apparatuses. To state this is philosophically necessary because of “all” which is not the senses (including mind) we simply cannot say anything  – it remains an unknown quantity, a by definition indefinite “something” which defies all identifications.

The next question, “what is that fire?” – and the answer: “it is the fire of passion, the fire of hate, the fire of delusion” – changes the vector significantly and now we are finding ourselves face to face with purely mental factor as already opposed not only to all sensory apparatuses, but also to the particular mental modalities related to these sensory apparatuses, such as eye-consciousness and the mind as the sixth organ of sense. Thus mentality “as such” is established as the second (after the senses) dimension of the individual existence.

And, finally, the last question – “what is that fire’s fuel, what feeds it?” – returns us to the first sermon, to the First Noble Truth of suffering. It establishes a pseudo-ontological dimension, “pseudo”, because suffering, old age, illness, despair, dissatisfaction – they are not, but only arise due to arising of that which causes them. Or it may be said that it is life in all its phases that feeds the fire, the life determined by the universal factor of suffering. The life, let us add, by itself is neither bad, nor good – but definitely is bad on the strength of the arising of suffering. But why, then, do I call this dimension pseudo-ontological? – There is a quirk here, from which it would not be easy to disentangle ourselves. Because, from the point of view of suffering, life is an abstract eventuality which acquires its concrete perceivable features only if (and when) it has already become an object of consciousness that is conscious of life as of suffering. Life, therefore, is conscious suffering. But whose life? H. G. A. van Zeyst writes (E.B., I.1, p. 226): “Note that in the concluding lines (of the third sermon) there is no reference to any person, even in an impersonal way. It is not the noble disciple who destroys rebirth by living a righteous life; it is not a Perfected One who has completed his task, but “done is what was to be done” (P. katam karanîyam). The conflict has solved itself … the fire is extinguished.”

Thus, it is in the gap between as it were “negative ontology” of anatta, no-Self and as it were “phenomenology” of self-less mind or consciousness, that the van Zeyst’s “itself” or “by itself” (but never by himself) clears the way to a totally different philosophical position. But to understand this position fully we shall return to the beginning of our seminar and start anon with the organs of senses. The whole scheme of “conflagration” is threfold. (I) The visual psycho-physiological complex consisting of following components: a) the organ of vision, eye; b) objects of vision; c) contacts of vision with its objects; d) special visual consciousness or eye-consciousness (P. cakkhu-dhåtu, skr. caksur-dhåtu). (II) The visual complex is burning by the fire of three purely mental obscuring tendencies, passion, and delusion. (III) The fuel that perpetually feeds the fire is suffering in all its modifications, as ageing, as dying, as illness, as dissatisfaction and despair, as death and birth.

It is of paramount philosophical interest, that the direction of causality here may be seen, at the first sight at least, as (III) —> (II) —> (I). This, however, cannot be as simple as that and remains debatable till the question “what suffers?” has been answered. That is why the well-taught Noble Disciple becomes wearied with the sense-organs etc., that is with (I) in our scheme and becomes detached from it in the first place. For it goes without saying that he cannot start with (I). To be detached from suffering is a sheer impossibility because suffering is “always there” as the omnipresent fact, un fait accompli, and our philosophical position is to face it all the time post factum. While from the same philosophical position (determined in (I)), the whole psycho-physiological sensory complex (I) in our scheme is always present in the present time. So, by the detachment from (I) and by becoming dispassionate he as it were “causes” the fire which burns (I) to extinguish itself, not being himself present at any moment of the event of sensual perception. Then the scheme, in its reverse sequence, may be seen as –(I) —> –(II) —> –(III).

[1] Ådittipariyåya-sutta (Samyatta, XXV, 28 of the Sutta-pitaka in the Pali Canon). In the Buddhist tradition it is considered the third sermon delivered by the Buddha after his awakening to his human pupils. Pariyåya (Skr. paryåya) literally means “exposition” or “discourse”.

[2] That is, shapes (P. and Skr. rüpa) discerned (or formed?) by the eye. They are not the same as objects of eyesight.

[3] This is the specific eye-consciousness, not consciousness in general and not consciousness as the fifth aggregate of individual existence (see Text I, n. 25).

[4] That is, the contact (P. samphassa, Skr. samsparsa) of the eye with its object.

[5] Or “feeling” (see Text I, n. 25).

[6] See Text I, n. 29.

[7] “Hate” (P. dosa, Skr. dveßa), the main negative mental force.

[8] “Delusion” (P. and Skr. moha), understood as the natural tendency to be deluded. In this sense, it is also “dullness”, “sloth”, and “mental passivity”.

[9] The body (P. and Skr. kåya) is also the organ of touch.

[10] Mind here is the sixth organ of sense, being at the same time, subsumed under the aggregate of consciousness and very often synonymous with the last.

[11] Here it would be more correct to use “object” instead of “shape”. Mental objects are thoughts and ideas.

[12] In this place mind and consciousness are by no means synonymous.

[13] “Noble” here (unlike its meaning in Text I, n. 18) denotes a special quality of a special class of persons, aryans.

[14] In this connection, see in Text I, n. 36 about the three aspects of knowledge.

[15] More exactly, “mental influxes” or “mental outflows, discharges” (P. åsava, Skr. åßrava). They obscure, defile and distort mind. The four main types of influxes are: sensuality (P. and Skr. kåma), speculation (P. ditthi, Skr. drsti), lust of life (P. and Skr. bhåva), and ignorance (P. avijjå, Skr. avidyå). Freedom from all influxes is the chief condition of arhatship.