[Mahasi] [Ledi [Other] [Pesala]
Venerable Mahāsi Sayādaw

A Discourse on Dependent Origination

Attachment to Views as the Cause of Rebirth

Select a linkImportance of the DoctrineFrom Ignorance, Mental Formations AriseFrom Formations, Consciousness ArisesFrom Consciousness, Mind and Matter ArisesFrom the Six Sense-Bases, Contact ArisesFrom Contact, Feeling ArisesFrom Feeling, Craving ArisesFrom Craving, Attachment ArisesFrom Attachment, Becoming ArisesFrom Becoming, Birth ArisesFrom Birth, Aging, Death, Grief, etc., AriseAttachment to Views as the Cause of RebirthThe Three Periods in the Cycle of ExistenceOther Aspects of Dependent OriginationConclusion

ITTHUPĀDĀNA means the attachment to the view that denies future life and kamma. So, the annihilationist view (ucchedaditthi), which asserts the annihilation of a being after death, is attachment to views. People who hold such views will have no reason to do good or to avoid wrong-doing. They will do nothing for their well-being in the afterlife and will seek to enjoy life as much as possible. As they have no scruples, most of their acts will be unwholesome kammas that create deathbed visions leading to the lower realms. This is evident in the story of the peta Nandaka.

Nandaka was a general in the time of King Pingala who ruled the country of Surattha (which lay to the north of the present province of Bombay). He held that giving alms and other good deeds are useless. After his death he became a hungry ghost in a banyan tree. However, when his daughter offered food to a monk and shared her merit with him, he received an unlimited supply of celestial food. He then realised the truth of the kammic law and repented of his wrong views. One day, he led King Pingala to his tree and entertained the king and his followers to a celestial feast. The king was greatly surprised, and in response to his inquiry, the ghost gave an account of his rebirth as a peta. He said it was due to his wrong views, immorality, and opposition to almsgiving. He then told of the sudden change in his fortunes after his daughter shared her merit with him. He also described the suffering that he would have to undergo after death, the torment in hell that he would share with others who held wrong views and vilified monks. So, attachment to wrong views leads to immoral acts and rebirth in the lower realms.

Kamma may also be motivated by eternalism, the belief that upholds the illusion of personality. Those who hold it believe in a permanent self that will bear the consequences of present deeds in a future life. So they devote themselves to what they regard as noble deeds, though some of those deeds may be ignoble. Either way, all deeds rooted in eternity belief lead to rebirth, and so to suffering.

Superstition and Unfavourable Rebirth

Another basis of kamma is superstition. There are many superstitions, for example, that seeing a man of low caste is a bad omen, that a beehive or an iguana in a house is a sure sign of poverty, etc. Under the influence of such beliefs, a person may do wrong, such as mistreating an outcaste or killing bees. This is borne out by the Cittasambhūta Jātaka. In that Jātaka the bodhisatta was a low caste man called Citta. Venerable Ānanda was then his cousin, named Sambhūta. They made their living by dancing with bamboos. One day, the daughter of a merchant and the daughter of a high-caste brahmin, who were both very superstitious, went for a picnic with their attendants. At the sight of the two dancers, which they considered a bad omen, they returned home. Their irate followers then beat the two men for denying them the pleasure of the picnic.

So the two dancers went to Taxila disguised as brahmins and devoted themselves to learning. Citta became the students’ leader by virtue of his intelligence. One day, their teacher sent them to a place where they had to recite the brahmanical parittas. When he burned his mouth by unmindfully drinking hot milk, Sambhūta uttered, “Khalu, Khalu” in his dialect and Citta absent-mindedly said, “niggala, niggala” (“spit it out”). These slips of the tongue led to their undoing, for their high caste brahmin students discovered their secret. So, they were beaten and expelled from the school. On the advice of their teacher they became hermits. After they died they passed on to the animal realm, first as two deer, then as two eagles. In his next existence, Citta became the son of the chief brahmin and remembered his three previous lives. He led the life of a hermit and attained jhāna with psychic powers. Sambhūta became a king, who remembered his low caste life and spent his time in the pursuit of sensuality.

By means of his psychic power, Citta knew his brother’s spiritual immaturity. After waiting for fifty years, he came to the king’s garden. The king recognized the hermit as his brother in a previous life and was prepared to share his royal pleasures with him. However, being aware of the kammic effects of wholesome and unwholesome deeds, the bodhisatta had pledged himself to a life of self-restraint, renunciation, and detachment. He reminded the king of their close associations in their previous lives as low-caste men, as deer, and as birds. His aim was to point out the erratic course of kamma and to urge the king to become a hermit for further spiritual progress. However, it was hard for Sambhūta to give up pleasure, so the bodhisatta returned to the Himalayas. The king finally became disenchanted and went to the Himalayas where he was welcomed by the hermit. As a hermit he devoted himself to spiritual exercises and attained jhāna and psychic powers.

Citta and Sambhūta were blameless, but their opponents made unwholesome kamma due to their superstitious prejudice. The story of Koka, the hunter also shows the evil consequences of superstition.

In the time of the Buddha, a hunter named Koka lived in a certain village. One day he set out with his dogs to hunt in the forest. On the way he met a monk, who was on his alms round. The hunter considered this encounter to be a bad omen. As luck would have it, he did not catch any prey the whole day. On his return he again met the monk. Now blind with fury, he set his dogs on the monk. The monk had to run and climb up a tree where he could only sit on a low branch. The hunter pricked the monk’s feet with an arrow, so that he had to lift his feet, one after the other. Eventually, his robe worked loose and slipped down, falling onto the hunter. Seeing him wrapped up in the robe, the dogs mistook him for the monk and attacked him. Thus he was killed by his own dogs. Realising that they had killed their master, the dogs ran away. The monk got down from the tree and reported the matter to the Buddha. Then, the Lord uttered the following verse.

“If a fool harms one who is pure and blameless, his ignoble deed recoils on him like dust thrown against the wind.” (Dhp. v 125)

Here, the hunter’s gruesome death and his rebirth in hell resulted from an ignoble deed rooted in superstition.

Some people get alarmed if an astrologer says that the position of the planets warns of misfortune. So they offer flowers and candles to the Buddha image, give alms to the monks, listen to discourses, and practise meditation. Some have the parittas recited to ward off danger that they associate with unpleasant dreams. Their meritorious deeds lead to favourable rebirths but, like the rebirths that stem from demeritorious deeds, they also lead to suffering.

Some ignorant people will do wrong to ward off misfortunes that they are in fear of. The Jātakas mention the animal sacrifice of some kings that involved the killing of four goats, four horses, four men, and so forth as propitiatory offerings to gods. Once, this kind of rite was planned by King Kosala in the time of the Buddha.

The king took a fancy to a married woman, so he sent her husband on an errand to a distant place. Should he fail to accomplish the task entrusted to him and return to the capital on the same day, he was to be punished. The man carried out the king’s order and returned before sunset. However, the city gate was closed, so being unable to enter the city, he spent the night at Jetavana Monastery. Overwhelmed with lust and evil desires, the king could not sleep. He heard the voices of four men who were suffering in hell for having committed adultery in their previous lives. It was perhaps by virtue of the Buddha’s psychic power that the king heard these voices from hell. The king so was alarmed that, in the morning, he sought the advice of his brahmin counsellor. The brahmin said that the voices warned of imminent misfortune. To ward it off, the king should sacrifice a hundred elephants, horses, etc. So the king made preparations for the sacrifice. How cruel human nature is, that one can sacrifice a thousand lives to save one’s own.

Human beings were also among the potential victims. Hearing their cries, Queen Mallikā asked the king to seek the Buddha’s advice. The Buddha told the king that the voices were those of four young men who, having seduced married women in the time of Kassapa Buddha, were now suffering in Lohakumbhi hell. They were now repentant and belatedly trying to express their desire to do good after their release from hell. The king was very frightened and vowed never to lust after another man’s wife. He told the Buddha how the previous night had seemed very long because he could not sleep. The man who had fetched what the king wanted, said that he had travelled a long journey the previous day.

Then, the Buddha uttered the verse:

“Long is the night to the sleepless, long is the journey to the weary, long is the cycle of existence for the foolish who do not know the sublime truth.” (Dhp. v 60)

After hearing this verse, many people attained stream-winning and other stages on the Noble Path. The king ordered the release of all the living beings that were to be sacrificed. If not for the Buddha’s teaching, he would have committed heavy unwholesome kamma, so this story also shows that superstition leads to demeritorious deeds.

Fanaticism or Religious Attachment

Wholesome or unwholesome kammas are also born of attachment to religion. People usually believe that theirs is the only true religion, that all others are wrong. So they try to spread their religion, convert other people by force or persecute non-believers. All these injustices have their origins in religious attachment. Kamma may also stem from attachment to political views or ideologies. Some people seek to impose their opinions on others by every means in their power. They propagate it in various ways and discredit, slander, or undermine the unity of those who do not agree with them. All these efforts and activities are becoming, which is due to fanaticism. In brief, all obsession with practices, and with beliefs other than the ego-belief, means attachment to views that leads to kamma.

Attachment to Rituals

Some people believe they can attain salvation through practices that have nothing to do with the Noble Eightfold Path. Such a belief is called sīlabbatupādāna. It is attachment to rituals to worship animals, to adopt an animal’s way of life, or to perform rites in the hope of attaining salvation. According to the Visuddhimagga, some people rely on these practices as the way to salvation and do kammic deeds that lead to rebirth in the human, celestial, fine-material, and immaterial realms. The Visuddhimagga refers only to kammas leading to the human, and other higher realms; it does not mention kammas leading to lower realms. However, it does not follow that attachment to rituals does not cause unwholesome kamma. The commentary does not mention this only because it is so obvious.

In the Kukkuravatika Sutta and elsewhere the Buddha says that one is reborn as an ox or a dog if one lives exactly like those animals in deed, word, and thought. If one accepts the wrong view but does not practise it fully, one is reborn in hell or the animal world. Of course, making animal sacrifices to gods leads to the lower realms. So do other misdeeds resulting from attachment to certain forms of worship, rites, and ceremonies. In short, every belief in the efficacy of rituals as an antidote to misfortune is attachment to rituals.

According to the commentaries on the Visuddhimagga it is also attachment to rituals to rely entirely on conventional morality and mundane jhāna as the way to liberation. The immaterial jhānas attained by Ālāra and Uddaka originated in this attachment and so do the common religious practices that are based on faith in God. All these attachments lead to rebirth and therefore to suffering.

Attachment to Belief in the Soul

Attavādupādānais attachment to belief in a soul. It is a strong conviction that a permanent self is the agent of every deed, speech, and thought. Few people are free from this attachment. The average person firmly believes in illusions such as, “I see”, “I hear” or “I did it”. These illusions are the basis of self-love and concern about one’s own well-being. The pervasiveness and power of self-love are illustrated by Queen Mallikā’s reply to King Kosala.

Mallikā was the daughter of a flower vendor. One day she met the Buddha and offered her food to him. After eating the food, the Lord told Venerable Ānanda that the young woman would become the queen of King Kosala. On that very day, King Kosala, who was defeated in battle, fled on horseback. Utterly exhausted and dejected, the king rested in a flower-garden where he was tenderly cared for by Mallikā. Enchanted by her, the king took her to the palace and made her his chief queen. The Buddha’s prophecy came true because of her recent wholesome kamma and her meritorious deed in the past existence. However, Mallikā was not as beautiful as the other queens. Moreover, as a woman from a poor family, she felt awkward among the courtiers. So to reassure her, the king one day asked her whom she loved most. The answer he expected was, “I love you the most.” He would then tell her that he, on his part, loved her more than anyone else. This expression of his love would, he thought, increase their intimacy and make her more at ease in the palace.

However, as an intelligent woman who had the courage of conviction, Mallikā replied frankly that there was no-one whom she loved more than herself. She asked the king whom he loved most. The king had to admit that he too loved himself more than anyone else. He reported this exchange to the Buddha. Then the Lord said, “No-one in this world loves anyone more than themselves. So everyone should have sympathy and avoid ill-treating others.”

In this saying of the Buddha, the word ‘self’ (attā) does not mean the attā of the ego-belief. It refers only to self in its conventional sense, i.e. the self that one speaks of to distinguish oneself from others. Ego-belief is also a source of self-love. The more powerful the belief is, the greater is the love of oneself. One loves one’s wife, husband or child only as a helpmate, companion or support. Marital or parental love is not fundamentally different from love of precious jewellery. So if anyone says that they love someone else more than themselves they should not be taken too seriously.

Because of this self-love based on ego-belief, people will resort to any means to secure their own well-being or that of their family. They do not hesitate to do wrong to serve their own interests. The belief in a permanent self can also lead to wholesome kamma. It motivates some people to practise charity, morality or meditation for their well-being in future lives. As a result they attain the celestial realms, but they still have to face aging, death, and other misfortunes.

Every effort to seek well-being in the present life or after death is rooted in ego-belief. Such kammic effort differs from that arising from sensual attachment only in its basis being obsession with personal identity instead of craving pleasure. Nevertheless, in those who are attached to ego-belief, egoism is closely linked to sensual desire. The Noble Ones, who are wholly free from ego-belief, are motivated only by sensual attachment when they do good. Thus the charity, morality, and meditation of Anāthapindika, Visākhā, Mahānāma, and others, stemmed from their desire for better lives in the human and celestial realms, or for attainment of higher stages on the Path.

The Story of the Householder Ugga

Non-returners do good presumably because of their desire for bliss in fine-material and immaterial realms, and for arahantship. It is, of course, the path of arahantship that can remove all craving. The desire for arahantship as the motivation for the non-returner to do good is evident in the story of Ugga. The Buddha spoke of the eight wonderful attributes possessed by Ugga, who was a householder in Vesālī. A monk asked Ugga about the Lord’s reference to his attributes, Ugga replied that he did not know what qualities the Lord had referred to, but said that he did have eight distinctive qualities as follows.

1) When he saw the Buddha for the first time, he concluded decisively that Gotama was the true, fully enlightened Buddha. 2) He attained insight into the Four Noble Truths to the stage of the non-returner when he heard the Buddha’s discourse. After that he observed the five precepts including abstinence from sexual intercourse. 3) Having four young wives, he told them about his sexual abstinence and permitted them to return to their parents’ homes or to marry the men of their own choice. At the request of his eldest wife, he gave her away to the man she loved and performed the wedding ceremony himself. 4) He had resolved to spend all his wealth on giving alms to wise men of high moral character. 5) He approached the bhikkhus respectfully. 6) He heard the bhikkhus’ discourses respectfully, and if the bhikkhus did not give a discourse, he gave one himself. 7) The devas came to him and said, “The doctrine of the Buddha is superb.” He replied that the Dhamma was superb whether or not they said so. He did not feel conceited because of his conversation with the devas. 8) He found himself free from the five fetters that lead to the lower, sensual realms.

One day, Ugga offered his favourite food and robes to the Buddha. The Lord commented on the nature of charity as follows: “One who offers something that he cherishes greatly gets something that he adores. One who offers alms to a Noble One of high moral character is doing an act of charity that it is hard for ordinary people to do. Therefore he gets what he wants most.” Some years later, Ugga died and passed on to the Suddhāvāsa Brahmā realm. Before long he came and paid respect to the Buddha. He said that he had attained arahantship, which was the object of his aspiration when he offered his favourite food to the Lord in his previous existence. The Buddha again commented on the kammic benefits of almsgiving. He said that the giver got what he cared for most if he offered his prized possessions, that he attained a rare object if he offered rare things, and that he attained an exalted stage if he offered exalted objects.

The moral of this story is that one may even attain arahantship, the highest goal of the spiritual life, as the result of giving away one’s most cherished possessions. Ugga’s almsgiving was motivated by the desire for arahantship, and it was sensual attachment that formed his motivation. Some may object to making sensual attachment synonymous with the desire for arahantship, and would rather call it wholesome desire (kusalachanda). However, they should then explain what kind of attachment it is that leads to meritorious acts of a stream-winner or once-returner such as charity or morality.

Insight Meditation and Attachment

The practice of insight, too, should be attributed to the sensual attachment of one who seeks final release from the cycle of existence. Ordinary people have to meditate to be free from all four attachments while stream-winners and once-returners have to overcome sensual attachment. So, insight practice implies the conquest of attachment. According to the Visuddhimagga and the Sammohavinodanī, ignorance is the indirect cause of meritorious acts since one must do good to remove ignorance. It is also said that insight meditation is a good deed in the sensual realm that one has to do for such liberation.

The question then arises whether insight practice can lead to rebirth. The commentaries on the Anguttaranikāya and Patthāna indicate such a possibility. The commentary on the Anguttaranikāya says that the first three right views lead to favourable rebirths. However, the last two right views, namely, the view born of fruition and the view resulting from insight practice, lead one out of samsāra. It says, however, on the authority of a learned elder, Venerable Cūlābhaya, that one is subject to seven rebirths before attaining arahantship. According to the Patthāna, contemplation of the conditions of existence (appamāna) leads to rebirth in the sensual realm, and the commentary defines appamāna-cetanā as maturity (gotrabhū cetanā). Therefore, assuming that insight meditation can produce rebirth before arahantship is won is reasonable.

However, meditation can ensure freedom from samsāra through insight into the impermanent, unsatisfactory, and not-self characteristics of all sense-objects, an insight that wards off sensual craving. The non-arising of craving means the non-arising of kamma and rebirth. Thus insight helps to offset kamma and its consequences by momentary abandoning of defilements (tadanga-pahāna). Moreover, through inference, one realises the three characteristics of other phenomena. Thus one wards off the defilements and their kammic potential by suppression (vikkhambhana-pahāna). The insight on the Noble Path follows, which roots out the defilements. The emergence of this insight may be likened to the signing of an official letter by the head of a government department. The act of the officer-in-charge gives the final touch to all the work done by the staff. We cannot ignore the major contribution of insight practice in the pursuit of enlightenment any more than we can ignore the work of the office staff in producing the letter. Similarly, it is the preliminary use of a saw that makes it possible to fell a tree with a final blow of an axe. As the sub-commentary on the Visuddhimagga says, “Transcendent insight on the Path uproots only the defilements that one has striven to overcome through mundane insight.” Non-meditators labour under the illusion of happiness and selfhood. This illusion leads to craving, becoming, rebirth and all the suffering inherent in life.