MN 18 The Honeyball - Perceptions and Notions - Self Being Created-Madhupindika Sutta

Okay, so here we are, back to it with the Majjhima Nikaya. This is Majjhima Nikaya 18, Madhupindika Sutta, the honeyball. Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was living in the Sakyan country at Katalavatu, in Nigrodha's Park. Then when it was morning, the Blessed One dressed and, taking his bowl and outer robe, went into Kapalavatu for alms. When he had wandered for alms in Kapalavatu and had returned from his alms round, after his meal, he went to the great wood for the day's abiding and entered the great wood, and sat down at the root of a bilva sapling for the day's abiding.

Monastic, you know, that's really what they're doing. They're training for nibbana. So when you say the day's abiding, it means he went for his meditation sit. And more recently, on retreats, what I've been telling people is find a time that works for you. For some people that's sometime in the morning. For some people that's smack in the middle of the day. A chunk of time where you can just say, okay, this is my day's abiding. Maybe it's an hour, maybe it's two hours, maybe it's four hours, whatever it might be, because those are the good times when you can actually sit down, your mind is relatively quiet, and it's easier for you to dip right into the deeper end of the practice. And some people force themselves to keep sitting through day, and that's not necessarily helpful.

If you find that this isn't really working, then don't do it. Find the time that works for you and keep to it. Dandapani the Sakyan, while walking and wandering for exercise, also went to the Great Wood. And when he had entered the Great Wood, he went to the bilva sapling where the Blessed One was, and exchanged greetings with him. When this courteous and amiable talk was finished, he sat down at one side, leaning on his stick, and asked the Blessed One, what does the recluse assert? What does he proclaim? So, Dandapani, by some accounts, was the Buddha's father-in-law, and I don't think they had the best relationship. He was not somebody who was happy with his son-in-law venturing into the forest, having left his daughter and grandchild in the way that he did.

But that's one account. Another account is that Dandapani was someone who was a recluse, and he used to carry around a golden stick, like a golden walking stick. And he was young, so he was just known as that guy, Dandapani. Danda means stick. Now, he asked the Buddha, he says to him, what does the recluse assert, what does he proclaim? Sounds like a reasonable question, but apparently, as per the commentary, this was a question that was asked in a rude manner, and so the Buddha answers in this way. He says, friend, I assert and proclaim my teaching in such a way that one does not quarrel with anyone in the world, with its gods, its maras, and its brahmas, in this generation with its recluses and brahmins, its princes and its people, in such a way that the perceptions no more underlie that brahmin who abides detached from sensual pleasures, without perplexity, shorn of worry, free from craving for any kind of being.

This is an important proclamation that the Buddha is giving, so let's break it down. First, he says that he doesn't quarrel with anyone in the world, right? Nor neither the devas nor the maras nor the brahmas nor anyone in terms of ascetics or recluses or brahmins or princes and people. He does so in such a way. In other words, he teaches in such a way that it doesn't cause quarrelsomeness among people or amongst his group. And he does it in such a way that any perceptions, that is sanna, no more underlie that person who abides detached. So whenever he uses the word Brahman here, in this context, he's talking about the arahant, the one who is fully awakened.

Such a person abides detached from sensual pleasures. They've done away with sensual pleasures. With our perplexity, they no longer have any confusion as to what is wholesome and wholesome, they have right view. Shorn of worry, that means they have let go of restlessness and remorse. Free from any kind of craving for any kind of being, or free from craving for any kind of being. So this is craving for certain mental states, craving for outcomes, or existential craving. It's the bhavatam, the craving to become, the craving for jhana, or the craving for formless attainments.

When this was said, Dandapani the Sakyan shook his head, wagged his tongue, and raised his eyebrows until his forehead was puckered in three lines. Then he departed, leaning on his stick. So it sounds like he didn't like the Buddha's answer. Or maybe he was confused by it. Who knows? But it might be that he just didn't like his answer because it was such a good answer.

So here's how the Buddha responds. Now listen very carefully, because this is going to be expounded by Mahakaccana. This is a very subtle and nuanced teaching, the Honeyball Sutta. And you know, Bhante Vimalaramsi, whenever he would talk about this sutta, he would refer to Bhikkhu Nanananda. Bhikkhu Nanananda is, or was, a wonderful expounder of Dhamma. If you haven't read any of his books, I really urge you to. For example, there's a compilation of all of his lectures on nibbana. It's called Nibbana: The Mind Stilled, and I think it's something like 33 different lectures that he gave, and they're just amazing, very, very deep Dhamma. But amongst that he also has written other books, like The Magic of the Mind, which talks about vinnanam anidassanam, the non-reflective awareness. And this particular book that Bhante Vimalaramsi would talk about, which is called Concept and Reality, again it's a small book. There's such amazing understanding and depth about mental proliferation.

And this is what we're going to be talking about. So as far as I know, at Dhammasukha there are still boxes and boxes of this available, and they're giving it away. So if you want it, you should write it to them or tell them and get your copy. They have a lot. What we're talking about. He says, of the underlying tendency to conceit, of the underlying tendency to the desire for being, of the underlying tendency to ignorance. This is the end of resorting to rods and weapons of quarrels, brawls, disputes, recrimination, malicious words, and false speech.

Here, these evil, unwholesome states cease without remainder. So let's take this apart a little bit. This word or statement is perceptions and notions born of mental proliferation. In the Pali, what it says is sanna, papancha, sankha. So sanna means perception, right? Recognizing what it has experienced before. So it's rooted in memory and learning. You know it's the color red because you've seen it, it's the color red, and it is what it is. Your mind immediately sees that and says that's the color red. Or, you're listening to the sound of my voice, whether you are hearing it now or before, and you recognize it because you've heard it before. Ah, that's the sound of Delson's voice, right?

Recognizing, that's perception. Papancha. Papancha is actually this world. Papancha, in a different context, means samsara. So it's our experiences through the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, and the mind. That's papancha. That's mental proliferation, conceptual proliferation. And sankha has nothing to do with sankhara. It's actually sankha, which comes from the word sankhya, which means numeration or numbers, the value of something. So in this case it's the notions, so it's the evaluation of the mind. So sanna, papancha, sankha is the process of perceiving and evaluating the conceptual reality as a framework through which we, as the sense or notion of a self, exist. You know, the illusory self exists. And he says, if nothing is found there to delight in, welcome, and hold to, so in other words, in the experience of the experience, where there is only in the seeing there's only the seen. In the hearing, there's only the heard.

In the sensing, there's only the sense. In the cognizing, there's only the cognized. Then in that experience, in vedana, in feeling, when there is just an experience without an experiencer or a notion of an experience, and the mind is aware of that, then there's no way for any of the seven underlying tendencies to come up. It's the underlying tendencies that underlie vedana, or feeling. And there are seven of them. So, to lust or craving: that happens when there's a pleasant experience.

To aversion: that's when there's an unpleasant experience. To views: that's like having an opinion about something, or having a certain idea about something in terms of the experience. To doubt: being unsure of whether this is skillful or unskillful, wholesome or unwholesome. To conceit, where the mind compares this experience with a prior experience or with another person's experience. To the desire for being: I have this experience and I hope it continues, or I hope it doesn't stop, or I hope there's a better experience I can have. To ignorance: that's the lack of mindfulness, the inability to see the experience as just experience, to understand the experience with proper wisdom, thus that this is not me, not mine, not myself, that this is just plainly an experience that is arising due to causes and conditions. So these underlying tendencies come up whenever there is a sense of I am experiencing this. Whenever the notion of a permanent personal self arises in the experience, then there's a possibility for one of these seven underlying tendencies to arise, dependent upon that experience.

Now, the underlying tendency to lust can happen with pleasant sensations, and aversion with unpleasant sensations. But when it comes to the other five underlying tendencies of views, doubt, conceit, desire for being, and ignorance, they can happen with pleasant sensations, unpleasant sensations, or neutral sensations or feelings. So he says, this is the end of resorting to rods and weapons of quarrels, brawls, disputes, recrimination, malicious words, and false speech. Here, these evil, unwholesome states cease without remainder.

Now, why is that? Because as long as there is dualistic thinking, that is to say, I exist as this self, then there is a self that I need to protect or I need to defend, or I need to perform from, enact from. And when that happens, then I take things personally. So when I take the teaching, for example, personally, then I use that as some kind of a view to defend. And that can lead to violence, to war, right? Remain experiencing the experience without the experiencer, where the mind is experiencing everything fully but has wisdom. That means no ignorance is present.

There is pure mindfulness present in this moment, such that mindfulness is the gatekeeper. It's the security guard. It's the watchman that knows, ah, here is what's arising. And the mind can let go. The mind can 6R. That is what the Blessed One said. Having said this, the Sublime One rose from his seat and went into his dwelling.

Then soon after the Blessed One had gone, the bhikkhus considered, now, friends, the Blessed One has risen from his seat and gone into his dwelling after giving a summary in brief without expounding the detailed meaning. Then the bhikkhus went to the Venerable Maha Kachana and exchanged greetings with him, adding, let the Venerable Maha Kachana expound it to us.

The Venerable Maha Kachana replied, friends, it is as though a man needing heartwood, seeking heartwood, wandering in search of heartwood, thought that heartwood should be sought for among the branches and leaves of a great tree, standing possessed of heartwood, after he had passed over the root and the trunk. And so it is with you, Venerable Sirs. You think that I should be asked about the meaning of this after you pass the Blessed One by when you were face to face with the teacher.

For knowing the Blessed One knows, seeing he sees, he is vision, he is knowledge, he is the Dhamma, he is the Holy One. He is the sayer, the proclaimer, the elucidator of meaning and giver of the deathless, the Lord of the Dhamma, the Tathagata. As he told you, so you should have remembered it. So Mahakachana here is being humble, he's being modest.

If you look at the suttas that are attributed to Mahakachana in terms of his exposition of the Dhamma, it's so subtle and nuanced and it's so deep. You look at the suttas on the one fine night from, I think, Majjhima Nikaya 130 to 134 or five, maybe more. There's one in which he's expounding it. And it is so clear as to what he's saying.

But so he's saying, the Buddha himself, he's the one who gives vision. He's the one who gives knowledge. He proclaims the Dhamma. He's the one who opens up the path to the deathless, to Nibbana. You should have asked him when he was there, they say. They say, surely friend Kachana, knowing the Blessed One knows, seeing he sees, he is the Tathagata. That was the time when we should have asked the Blessed One the meaning. As he told us, so we should have remembered it. Yet the Venerable Maha Kachana is praised by the teacher and esteemed by his wise companions in the holy life. The Venerable Maha Kachana is capable of expounding the detailed meaning of this summary given in brief by the Blessed One without Then listen, friends, and attend closely to what I shall say.

Likewise, dependent on the ear and sounds, dependent on the nose and odors, dependent on the tongue and flavors, dependent on the body and tangibles, dependent on the mind and mind objects, mind consciousness arises. So here he's talking about when mind and mind objects come together, dependent on them, the mind consciousness arises. The meeting of the three is contact. With contact as condition, there is feeling.

So you have the sense base. That could be the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, or the mind. And you have the sense base object. That could be forms, sounds, odors, flavors, tangibles, mind objects. When they make contact, in other words, when a sense base and its object meet together, there arises the underlying or the dependent consciousness: eye consciousness, the ear consciousness, the nose consciousness, the tongue consciousness, the body consciousness, and the mind consciousness. The three of these together when they meet is contact.

So what we're talking about is contact arises when there is consciousness. And the flow of consciousness is dependent upon when you have a functional sense base and it makes contact with that object. When attention goes there, sometimes something grasps your attention all of a sudden, like booming thunder. You are not looking forward to it, you want to think about it, but now your attention has gone there, and in that booming thunder there was the ear meeting with the sound of thunder. And then there was the underlying ear consciousness.

And then there was the contact when these three come together. So that means that there was an attention there. Wherever attention moves, consciousness flows. And so it arises dependent upon where one's attention is. Now, with contact as condition, there is feeling. Now you have an experience of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, or thinking. And when that feeling arises, that experience arises, concurrent to that, there is the perception.

There is a process of recognizing what it is you're experiencing. Oh, that is thunder. Or this is the color red. Or this is the fragrance of rose. Or this is the taste of curry and rice. Or this is the feeling of wind in my hair. Or this is the thought that is arising. So the sensations, the experiences, the mental experiences, those are all passive in nature. You're not doing anything about them. But there's a perception tied to them that that is what this is. What do we mean by that?

Passive thoughts or passive experiences are thoughts or experiences which you can't do anything about, like the green of the grass, the blue of the sky, right? Whatever it is, there is an experience. Now, there is a self that says, I am experiencing this, and this is what I think about it. Now, when that arises, now there is no longer in the seeing, there's only the seen. Now, there is a seer behind the seen. Now, there's no longer in the hearing, there's only the heard. Now, there is a hear-her behind the heard. Now, there is no longer behind that in the sensing, there's only the sensed. A sensor who is sensing.

Now there's no longer in the cognizing, there's only the cognized. Now there's a cognizer behind the cognized. When there is an experiencer behind that, that is where one thinks about it actively, makes views about it or whatever it is, then proliferation arises in relation to, oh, I experienced this in the past and then there's a nostalgia about it or there's other connections that come up. Or I'm experiencing this now, what does that mean for me? Now what do I do? Or about the future, I hope this continues or there's anxiety about what will happen. All of that is samsara.

All of that is mental proliferation. Just because there is an identification with the experience. And it is a tiny movement of relaxing that tension of the experiencer, the one who needs to control actively what is being experienced, rather than just experiencing and allowing experience to flow and dissipate. So he continues, when there is the eye, a form, and eye consciousness, it is possible to point out the manifestation of contact.

So it's possible to pay attention. Ah, here is contact. When there's contact, it's possible to see, oh, here is the experience, the vedana, the feeling. When perception arises, you're able to see, ah, this is the perception of seeing red or recognizing it as red. When there's perception, it's possible to catch with mindfulness the mind coming up and saying, oh, this is who I am, or this is mine, or I like this. When that arises, it's also possible to see when the mind mentally proliferates, when it spills over into craving, clinging, and becoming.

At any point during this process, it's possible to recognize, to release, to relax, to re-smile, and to return. At any point, it's possible to recognize when the mind holds on to it and let that go. When there is no I, no form, and no I consciousness, it is impossible to point out the manifestation of contact. When there is no manifestation of contact, it is impossible. Oh, let me read that again. out the manifestation of contact. When there is no manifestation of contact, it is impossible to point out the manifestation of feeling. When there is no manifestation of feeling, it is impossible to point out the manifestation of perception. When there is no manifestation of perception, it is impossible to point out the manifestation of thinking.

When there is no manifestation of thinking, it is impossible to point out the manifestation of besetment by perception. Likewise, point out the manifestation of besetment by perceptions and notions born of mental proliferation. So there's a couple of ways of looking at this. Number one, when the sense base is not functional, then there's no meeting of that sense base with its corresponding object. And so no attention is being given there.

And so no consciousness dependent upon those two meetings comes up. Therefore, there's no contact. Therefore, there's no feeling. Therefore, one can't see any kind of perception either. Therefore, what can one think about? And therefore, what can one proliferate about? That's one way of looking at it. But the other way of looking at it is when we have cessation of perception and feeling altogether.

The experience of nirodha. When the mind enters into nirodha-samapatti, or sanna-vedayita-nirodha, the cessation of perception and feeling, then there is no subjective I present there. The I continues to be functional. The ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, the mind is functional. There is impingement of sense experience. Complete dissolution of the I, the subjective consciousness, then there is no underlying consciousness that arises dependent upon these different contact points.

And so the cessation of perception and feeling means no contact can arise that can be attended to because the subjective awareness has disappeared, has ceased. And so there can be no manifestation of contact. When there is no manifestation of contact, there can't be any manifestation of an experience, let alone an experiencer. And when there is none of those, there's no perception nor a perceiver.

And when none of those are present, then there is no thinking about that particular experience and therefore no proliferation. And that in itself is Nibbana. The word for Nibbana is also Nipapancha or Nishprapancha, the no proliferation. And this is present in cessation, which the mind dives deep into, touching the Nibbana dhatu. This is present for the mind that is fully awakened, that is able to see these things and have no sense of self in regard to them.

And just be present in that space of the knowing, which is a reflection of the Nibbana, not thinking about anything, not engaging the thinking mind, but being, so to speak, or allowing, so to speak, or letting, so to speak, the luminous mind to emerge, which is the true nature of mind. The underlying tendency to aversion. The underlying tendency to views. The underlying tendency to doubt, the underlying tendency to conceit, the underlying tendency to desire for being, the underlying tendency to ignorance. This is the end of resorting to rods and weapons of quarrels, brawls, disputes, recrimination, malicious words, and false speech. Here, these evil, unwholesome states cease without remainder, to be thus. Now, friends, if you wish, go to the Blessed One and ask him about the meaning of this.

As the Blessed One explains it to you, so you should remember it. Then the bhikkhus, having delighted and rejoiced in the Venerable Maha Kachana's words, rose from their seats and went to the Blessed One. After paying homage to him, they sat down at one side and told the Blessed One all that had taken place after he had left, adding, Sir, we went to the Venerable Mahakachana and asked him about the meaning. The Venerable Mahakachana expounded the meaning to us with these terms, statements, and phrases.

The Buddha says this, Mahakachana is wise because Mahakachana has great wisdom. If you had asked me the meaning of this, I would have explained it to you in the same way that Mahakachana has explained it. Such is the meaning of this, and so you should remember it. When this was said, the Venerable Ananda said to the Blessed One, Venerable Sir, just as if a man exhausted by hunger and weakness came upon a honey ball, wherever he would taste it, he would find a sweet, delectable flavor.

So too, Venerable Sir, any able-minded bhikkhu, wherever he might scrutinize with wisdom, the meaning of this discourse on the Dhamma would find satisfaction and confidence of mind. Venerable Sir, what is the name of this discourse on the Dhamma? As to that, Ananda, you may remember this discourse on the Dhamma as the honey ball discourse. That is what the Blessed One said. The Venerable Ananda was satisfied and delighted in the Blessed One's words.

May suffering ones be suffering free, and the fear struck fearless be. May the grieving shed all grief, and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, devas and nagas of mighty power share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation. Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu.