29. Ways of Regarding “Monks, those recluses and brahmans who regard the self in various ways do so in terms of the five groups of clinging, or some of them. Which five? “Here, monks, the uninstructed worldling… regards body as the self, the self as having body, body as being in the self, or the self as being in the body. [Similarly with ’feelings,’ ’perceptions,’ ’mental formations,’ ’consciousness’]. So this way of regarding arises: it occurs to him to think ’I am.’136 “Now when it has occurred to him to think ’I am,’ the five (sense-) faculties 137 come into play138—the faculties of eye, ear, nose, tongue and body. “Monks, there is mind,139 there are mind-objects,140 there is the element of ignorance.141 The uninstructed worldling, touched by the feeling142 born of contact with ignorance, thinks ’I am,’ ’I am this,’ ’things will be,’ ’things will not be,’ 143 ’things will be embodied,’144 ’things will be disembodied,’ ’things will be conscious,’ ’things will be unconscious,’ ’things will be neither conscious-nor-unconscious.’145 136
The too famous ’discovery’ of Descartes, Cogito, ergo sum (’I think, therefore I am’), comes precisely under this heading. Descartes identified himself with, in Buddhist terms, vicāra ’discursive thought,’ which belongs to the ’mental formations’ group (saṅkhārakkhandha). When Goethe (whom many would consider a greater thinker than Descartes) said ’Gefuhl ist alles’ (’Feeling is everything’), it might be thought that (at that moment) he was identifying himself with the ’feeling’ group (vedanākkhandha). But these are sensations, physical and mental, and what Goethe meant corresponds more probably to pīti (n. 87), which also belongs to the mental formations. 137 Indriya. The standard translation for this word is ’faculty’ which, though rather vague, is convenient. For the full list of the 22 Indriyas, see BD. These first five are associated with the five (bodily) senses also recognised in the West, to which Buddhism adds mind as the sixth. See also n. 138. 138 Avakkanti hoti: lit. ’there is a descent’ (into the womb), they are ’born.’ The meaning is that they exert their influence. The word indriya comes from ind[r]a ’lord’ (cf. the god Indra) and implies ’control’; hence they are sometimes referred to as the ’controlling faculties.’ 139 Atthi bhikkhave mano. Woodward badly mistranslates this as ’Mind is the result,’ which would render hoti ’comes to be,’ not atthi ’is, exists.’ To say that mind is the ’result’ of bodily factors is certainly not the Buddhist view and smacks of modern materialistic theories. Mind, even ignorant mind, is not derived from matter. Cf. Dhp 1–2: Manopubbaṅgamā dhammā ’Mind precedes all states.’ 140 Dhammā (plural). This is one of the regular meanings of this multivalent word. 141 Avijjā-dhātu, an unusual combination. Probably in the sense of the (ignorant) manodhātu ’mindelement,’ which “performs the function of advertence (āvajjana) towards the object of inception of a process of sensuous consciousness” (BD, s.v. dhātu). The reading vijjā-dhātu ’element of knowledge’ in Feer’s (PTS) text must, as Woodward recognises, be wrong. 142 Vedayitena: ’by what is felt.’ A variant reading is cetasikena ’by the mental factor.’ In the Abhidhamma the cetasikas are the (conventionally 50) ’mental formations’ comprising the saṅkhārakkhandha plus the khandhas of feeling (vedanā) and perception (saññā), thus making a total of 52. See BD. 143 According to SA, these are the Eternalist and Annihilationist views (nn. 58, 59) respectively; i.e., he believes that he will, or will not, survive after death as a continuing entity. 144 Rūpī: lit. ’having a body.’ This and the next term refer to the lower and higher jhānas (’absorptions’) associated respectively with the ’world of form’ (or ’fine-material world’: BD) (rūpaloka) and the ’formless world’ (or ’immaterial world’: BD) (arūpaloka), and to the types of rebirth dependent on the attainment of these. See n. 244. 145 Nevasaññīnāsaññī, associated with the state of ’neither-perception-nor-non-perception,’ the very subtle state of the fourth ’formless’ (or ’immaterial’) jhāna. This can still be attained by a ’worldling,’ as was done by Gotama’s second teacher, Uddaka Rāmaputta, before the Bodhisatta (n. 51) decided to ’go it alone.’ Uddaka had thus progressed as far as it is possible to go without ’breaking through’ to the path of enlightenment.
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