Buddha · බුද්ධ
The Mechanism of the Sasana
How a Buddha's teaching order is structured through great arahants, arahants, and the fourfold assembly to carry beings toward liberation
14 min read
Buddha · බුද්ධ
How a Buddha's teaching order is structured through great arahants, arahants, and the fourfold assembly to carry beings toward liberation
14 min read
An English adaptation, shorter than the original (14 min read). Switch to Sinhala for the teaching in full (11 min read).
A Buddha, fundamentally, brings a sasana into being for the liberation of beings. This sasana, created for the liberation of beings, can be understood to some extent through the way it is structured: the Buddha; then great arahants; the Sangha; Theravada arahants; and the fourfold assembly of monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen. This is one aspect through which its mechanism can be explained.
A being (satva) is someone who has joined self-view to feelings and sensations, living oscillating within feelings, sensations, and the stories built up by the mind. A layman or laywoman (upasaka, upasika), however, is someone who knows certain strategies for handling these matters. A person who knows such strategies is able to live their life skillfully whatever comes to them: sorrow, happiness, a problem, a difficulty, mental distress, or anything else.
Monks and nuns (bhikkhu, bhikkhuni) are those who follow a spiritual path. Within that path, they work toward liberation by experiencing their own path-truth, understanding Dhamma-principles, and striving to see them directly.
There is no universal formula suited to every being in the universe that can bring them to liberation. Every being is structured in a way unique to them. When a Buddha founds a sasana by cultivating wholesome qualities, beings who already have a certain configuration built up receive the sutra suited and unique to them. It is through cultivating the sutra suited to oneself that arahants come to arise within the Hinayana. Such arahants, for the most part, know and speak of only the sutra they themselves cultivated as the path. There are occasions where Hinayana arahants set aside, doubt, or subject to criticism the sutras relevant to another person's path of liberation. Only a Buddha can see precisely the path and the corresponding sutra relevant to each individual being. Great arahants and pacceka buddhas also have some vision regarding the varied paths and sutras unique to each being. The Mahayana is formed from Buddhas, pacceka buddhas, and great arahants. The Sangha comes into being when someone receives, from within the Mahayana, the sutra relevant to them. It is an extremely rare occurrence for a Hinayana arahant to be able to transmit, exactly, the sutra by which they themselves attained their path to a completely different person.
A Theravada arahant, according to the extent of their own qualities and capacities, has the potential to become a great arahant within the Mahayana. What occurs upon becoming part of the Mahayana is an expansion across philosophical fields of view, and a release from narrow ways of thinking. As long as one is not confined by fixed frameworks, this can become a reality.
Arahants who arise within the Hinayana often declare that only the matter they themselves realized, that they themselves experienced, is correct. Very often, such arahants do not see that other, varied methods may also exist. This is a matter connected with the Hinayana. The view of Hinayana arahants tends to be that only what they themselves realized and experienced is true. As examples: some Hinayana arahants hold the view that one can become an arahant only by cultivating the knowledge of arising and passing away (udayavaya-nana); another arahant may hold the view that one becomes an arahant only by eliminating consciousness; another may say one becomes an arahant only by eliminating self-view; and another may hold a belief that one can perform meritorious deeds, go to the heavenly realms, and complete Nirvana from there. These are all views that, in one way or another, have crept into the minds of Hinayana arahants.
Some Hinayana arahants have come to be by cultivating a single path or sutra. There are also arahants who arrive at the fruit by breaking the law of cause and effect. But such arahants may be unable to describe the manner in which they arrived at that fruit. As an example: can a person caught in the blast of a bomb describe the way in which the bomb exploded? This cannot be done. In the same way, once something that was felt and sensed as one's own has been destroyed, it can no longer remain as a feeling or a sensation. For this reason, those who associate with arahants who teach Hinayana Dhamma most often come to constitute the fourfold assembly. The occurrence of path-and-fruit attainers is extremely limited. Hinayana arahants have very limited ability to produce further arahants. This is because a Hinayana arahant's understanding is limited to only the path that they themselves grasped. As an example, imagine someone who knows how to sew only their own clothing: they are aware only of their own clothing, their own measurements. They do not have the ability to sew clothing for everyone who comes to them. Hinayana arahants are much the same. It is extremely rare to encounter someone whose configuration matches exactly the path known to such an arahant.
Many Mahayana great arahants possess special faculties accompanied by varied knowledge-visions. They are able to understand whatever Dhamma teaching is given. However much Dhamma teaching they listen to, they are people who can listen and retain it without becoming confined within any fixed framework. If someone from the Mahayana appears during an era when no Buddha has arisen, that person can be described as being like a Buddha. In an era without a Buddha, a service resembling that of a Buddha comes about through such Mahayana great arahants. This happens in the way that moonlight reaches a world without a sun.
The ability to discuss the Dhamma with a Buddha from beginning to end, and to arrive at understanding, is often present in great arahants. Gautama Buddha discussed profound matters of Dhamma with great arahants. Subjects such as mind, karma, the world, beings, and Buddhahood, all these profound subjects, were discussed with a handful of great arahants such as the Venerable Sariputta and the Venerable Kassapa. To others, only the path by which they themselves would be liberated was given. But the subject of Dhamma itself, and its essence or root, was discussed and clarified specifically with the great arahants; the capacity to understand these profound matters also belonged to them. Having understood all of this, the great arahants of the Mahayana go on to develop the capacity to understand this mechanism, this technical field, and to create opportunities for others to fulfil merit. It is for this reason that, in an era when a fully self-enlightened Buddha has not arisen, a great arahant is spoken of as being like a Buddha.
It is not the case that a being's liberation always comes about through a realization of Dhamma. Through sincerity and purity, escaping from samsara can be easy in an era when the mind is this powerful. This is because what many take to be realizations of Dhamma are, for the most part, merely stories that the mind constructs. There may be some understanding contained within this. But without seeing through a form of knowledge-vision, cessation does not occur. If a particular person happens to meet a Buddha, and, establishing mindfulness and wisdom, recognizes exactly that this is the Buddha, and pays homage, that alone can be enough for that person's liberation. The reason is that, in that very moment, the Buddha has the capacity to liberate that person by drawing on the five faculties present within them: faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. This occurs through omniscient knowledge. It is the Dhamma-principle called Buddha that operates here, through omniscient knowledge. Through that Dhamma-principle, an opportunity for liberation is created through the fulfilment of a cause. Here, an opening of spirituality occurs through an old cause already present within that person. This occurs through the presence of a cause, or a special merit, together with the spiritual opening that occurs on that person's part.
As an example: one day, a large crowd gathered to offer alms to Gautama Buddha. Among them were even kings and wealthy householders. Yet the Buddha accepted the alms offering from an elderly, poor mother instead. The reason was that the roti this mother had brought as an offering to the Buddha had been prepared using the last remaining scraps of rice flour set aside for her own household's food. In that moment, through the cause that had built up within that mother, a bodhicitta arose out of her sincerity and purity, and the fulfilment of cause took place.
The sasana is the Sangha. The Sangha comes into being through great arahants producing path-and-fruit attainers. It is much like a lineage being brought into existence. 'Sariputta and Moggallana' refer to two methodologies. Through these, two methods emerge by which a being may be freed within the Dhamma: the method of the truth-seeker (sacca gaveshi) and the method of the merit-seeker (kusala gaveshi). By 'Sariputta and Moggallana' is not meant these two individuals specifically, but rather a lineage. Here, 'lineage' refers to a science, a methodology. It is through this that the Sangha comes into being.
Dhamma-bearing, Vinaya-bearing, and knowledge-bearing great arahants, along with pacceka buddhas and chief attendants (agra upasthayaka, upasthayika), have a certain capacity to bear the weight belonging to a fully self-enlightened Buddha. In each occasion, whatever the scale, nature, or form of the Dhamma-principles, matters of discipline, and profound, previously unheard Dhamma-points manifesting through the Buddha, such great arahants, pacceka buddhas, and chief attendants have the skill to understand and to bear these things. Because of this, they are able to arrange a comfortable environment that helps the Buddha avoid difficulties that might otherwise arise.
For example: on one occasion, the Buddha scolded and sent away a group of people who were together with the Venerable Sariputta. But the Venerable Sariputta, having understood the nature that had arisen within the Buddha at that moment, possessed a mature understanding of the reason that nature had come about. Other people, however, had no such understanding. Because of this, the Venerable Sariputta was able to manage such situations appropriately. In any incident like this, it is the great arahants who have the ability to deal skilfully with what occurs. What they see, in that moment, is not the outward form the Buddha has taken, but the path the Buddha has shown through it. Outside observers, however, see only that the Buddha became angry. Great arahants both understand the path shown to them through that form the Buddha has taken, and also possess the ability to see the reason it arose in that way.
The fourfold assembly, monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen, comes into being through great arahants and arahants. Not everyone belonging to this fourfold assembly needs to see Nirvana. Some among them need only to remain understanding what is being discussed. The fourfold assembly does not, for the most part, come into being directly through the Buddha. Nor, for the most part, does direct communication occur between the Buddha and them. If it does occur, it is usually only in connection with their own path or with predictions concerning them.
Transacting with a Buddha becomes considerably easier through a wholesome karmic course. Such a wholesome karmic course is not always continuously present within the fourfold assembly or within the general public. On such occasions, this transaction is most often carried out through the chief attendant.
The main tasks accomplished through a fully self-enlightened Buddha can be considered as: teaching the Fourfold Noble Power (chaturarya-shakthi); turning the wheel of Dhamma appropriate to the age (dam-sak-pawathum); teaching the path-truths uniquely suited to each individual being; and founding the sasana.
The founding of the sasana can be explained through a piece of history. Although Gautama Buddha attained Buddhahood, the sasana did not appear externally at that same moment. The sasana appears only after the first great arahant has appeared. It is within that sasana that a fully self-enlightened Buddha also appears. After the ascetic Kondanna fulfilled the fruit of arahantship, the Buddha declared: 'Kondanna, the birth of the sasana has now begun.' Great arahants, arahants, and path-and-fruit attainers may exist among those present, along with people who have merely accumulated merit, performed meritorious deeds, and, through that, generated divine states of mind. This does not happen within a single moment, but across a vast span of time. In this way, following the appearance of the sasana, a fully self-enlightened Buddha comes into being, while only a fully self-enlightened Buddha is able to found a sasana.
Alongside this, there are also inner matters connected with the Mahayana, or specifically with great arahants. Great arahants and Buddhas have, within themselves, a point at which the five aggregates of clinging are destroyed, a point at which the law of cause and effect is destroyed, and a point at which the sasana appears within themselves. First, the sasana appears within the world of beings existing in their own interior. Only afterward are they able to create an external sasana. This same phenomenon occurs within a fully self-enlightened Buddha as well. Within a fully self-enlightened Buddha, because of a form of growth relative to beings, the world of beings arising internally first becomes Buddha. Such a person becomes Buddha to their own world, becomes complete in Buddhahood, and then goes, across the whole span of samsara, to each of the existences they themselves passed through, and makes each of those existences Buddha as well.
The Five Hundred and Fifty Jataka tales concern precisely this: going to each of his own past existences and making each of those existences Buddha. As an example: going to a monkey existence, and making that existence Buddha. This does not mean that he was, in literal fact, a monkey: it means that the existence itself was made Buddha. What made Gautama Buddha distinctive is precisely this: that he went to his own existences and made those existences Buddha. It is because he went to his existences and became Buddha within them that he came to be called Gautama Buddha. Within becoming Buddha, his Buddhahood grew stronger precisely through going to each existence and becoming Buddha there: he became Buddha within all of his states of existence as a being. It is only after becoming Buddha in this way, within the world of beings built up within himself, that becoming a fully self-enlightened Buddha in the external world takes place. So complete was that Buddhahood that he gained the capacity to speak of an absolute Dhamma, unconditioned, beyond consciousness, not to be seen within the mental world, in a way that could fall into and take root within the mental womb of ordinary people.
The Buddha brought the Dhamma into society free of language, free of consciousness, and free of memory, and established it there as an eternal truth (sanathana dharma). Through this, the world begins to see him as a Buddha, and this is not something that can ever be reversed. Within the collective consciousness of the people, the recognition 'a Buddha' comes into being, relative to the bringing of the Dhamma up into external society. In this way, a Buddha has the capacity to bring into being, within the density of matter, a Dhamma that lies beyond the five sense-fields. As an example: it is something like hydrogen and oxygen, existing at the level of energy, becoming water: becoming dense matter. In just this way, the Dhamma is brought, through a Buddha, from the level of energy into the density of matter. Once the Dhamma has been established within the density of matter in this way, the wisdom-faculties of people out in the external world begin to pick this up. That is an extremely powerful occurrence, and this is what is meant by the arising of the sasana. It is in this way that a sasana comes to arise in the external world through a Buddha. The root of Gautama Buddha's sasana is the assembly of Buddhas, pacceka buddhas, and great arahants who arose in order to sustain Gautama Buddha's sasana. Together with the appearance of the sasana, the Buddha remains connected, teaching the Fourfold Noble Power in order to build the sasana, with the root of the sasana that spreads outward from the great arahants.
A fully self-enlightened Buddha transacts closely with only a very small number of people. It was this small circle who transacted closely with him that carried the Dhamma out to society. Through them, the message called Buddha, something that does not exist within the four great elements, becomes materialized, and begins to be heard, to be felt, by the beings of the world. The teaching on touch and feeling given to the Venerable Culla Panthaka still exists today. Within Gautama Buddha's sasana, that message concerning Buddha, which came by way of Gautama Buddha, remains alive to this day through this very work of founding a sasana.
Adapted from “සාසනයේ යාන්ත්රණය”, read the original Sinhala article.
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