Exploring the Path - Pāli Course

After the Buddha had decided to visit his five previous companions, he explained to them that he initially had to leave aside those two kinds of unprofitable but common practices. He understood that they were not leading towards liberation for one who really aspired to achieve full enlightenment.

One of these practices was the common spiritual practice of indulging in sensual pleasures (kāmasukhallikānuyogo) applied under the delusion that this would provide enduring gratification. Here the Buddha realised that the ‘satisfaction’ gained was gross and did not provide substantial contentment and was ‘low, common, belonging to an ordinary man, unworthy and not connected to the goal’.⁴

The practice of self-torment (attakilamathānuyogo) confounded the body as cause for dissatisfaction, ignoring that the actual source was the mind. Here as well the Buddha qualified such practices likewise as ‘painful, unworthy and not connected to the goal.’⁵

Both such practices didn’t lead to what the Buddha had aspired. Only then he realised that deliverance could be attained by what he henceforth called the ‘Middle Path’ (majjhimā paṭipadā) and this was the ariyo aṭṭhaṅgiko maggo.

The Buddha then continued to describe to the pañcavaggiyā bhikkhū, how he himself had proceeded in all necessary detail and how everyone else needs to proceed in order to achieve the same attainments as presented in this Dhammacakkappavattanasutta.

It is important to recognise that the grammatical usage underscores the emphasis that the Buddha puts on acquired self-realisation:

Starting from simple factual comprehension of each Noble Truth (simple present — idaṃ — this is…) through the zeal of realising it (gerund of necessity, future passive participle — pahātabbaṃ — this should be abandoned) to the completed accomplishment (past participle — pahīnaṃ — this is abandoned) he points out the necessary threefold acquisition till final realization of all the respective four Noble Truths each is reached:

• First Noble Truth: Idaṃ dukkhaṃ ariyasaccan’ti — pariññeyyan’ti me — pariññātan’ti;

• Second Noble Truth: Idaṃ dukkhasamudayan’ti — pahātabban’ti me — pahīnan’ti me;

• Third Noble Truth: Idaṃ dukkhanirodhaṃ ariyasaccan’ti — sacchikātabban’ti me — sacchikatan’ti me;

• Fourth Noble Truth: Idaṃ dukkhanirodhagāminī paṭipadā ariyasaccan’ti — bhāvetabban’ti me — bhāvitan’ti me.

In this manner each of the four Noble Truths needs to be first acknowledged and then to be executed up to fulfilment in the necessary three ways each, thus making them twelvefold:

‘tiparivaṭṭaṃ dvādasākāraṃ yathābhūtaṃ ñāṇadassanaṃ suvisuddhaṃ ahosi.’

The commentary designates these three successions:⁶

By the end of this exposition one of the pañcavaggiyā bhikkhū, Koṇḍañña attained the first level of truth-realization and became Sotāpanna. Thus the ‘set a-rolling’ of the auspicious wheel of the Dhamma was inaugurated!

Koṇḍañña was older than the Buddha and had been one of the soothsayers, King Suddhodana had sent for and who had foreseen that the baby would become a Buddha. King Suddhodana had been worried about this prediction that his son would later renounce the kingdom and so he did all he could to assure that Siddhattha would not encounter any mischief, misery or unhappiness. In spite of those precautions the famous three incidents old age, illness and death were encountered by the Bodhisatta as well as the happenstance of an ascetic. Here, after the birth of his son Rāhula¹¹ he resolved to renounce the householder’s world. Koṇḍañña had been convinced about the accuracy of his clairvoyance, had devoted his life to waiting for Siddhattha`s renunciation and immediately followed him with the four others.

Due to the following utterance that the Buddha expressed at the end of the Dhammacakkappavattanasutta Koṇḍañña was known henceforth by his second name, ‘the wise Koṇḍañña’:

Koṇḍañña became Arahant five days later after the preaching of the Anattalakkhanasutta.¹⁴ Thus having seen the Dhamma, obtained, realized and dived into the Dhamma by having left behind doubt and uncertainty, having attained full confidence in the teacher’s instruction Koṇḍañña asked to go forth under the guidance of the Buddha:

He was the first to receive higher ordination, to go forth and to be addressed under the formula ‘ehi bhikkhu’:²¹

This turning of the wheel of Dhamma represented such a rare and unique occurrence that all the beings in the spheres above the human world up to the Brahmaloka rejoiced as well:

The sutta continues how this delightful news of the inauguration of the turning of the wheel of the Dhamma, which could not have been now stopped rolling on by anyone in this world of Samaṇas, Brāhmiṇs, Devas, Māras and Brahmas now spread throughout the universe. Starting from the earthbound beings it reached up to the fields of higher beings dwelling in the world of form (brahmakāyikā deva)²⁵ beginning with the following words:

May the Dhammacakka continue rolling on into remote future for the benefit of many!