The parable of Bhikkhu Sujato, the 9 mendicants and 9 attainments

 

The parable of Bhikkhu Sujato, the 9 mendicants and 9 attainments

Introduction

Bhikkhu = male mendicant, a monk

Bhikkhuni = female mendicant, a nun

Mendicant (can be male or female)

The term mendicant (from Latin: mendicans - "begging") refers to religious ascetics of various backgrounds who rely primarily (or exclusively) on begging and charity to survive...

In Theravada Buddhism, mendicants are known by the terms Bhikkhu (male) and Bhikkhuni (female)...

The translator Bhikkhu Sujato translates the pali term Bhikkhu (a male mendicant) as 'mendicant' (a beggar that can be male or female). Presumably, he does this to emphasize that the suttas, even though 99.9% of the time the Buddha is talking to male monks, are teaching universal Dharmas that apply equally to female nuns. While this translation is defensible from certain points of view, this does establish a precedent where B. Sujato tends to translate in a biased way to advance his various agendas, rather than keeping strictly to the role of translator, and leaving commentary and interpretation to commentaries. 

The parable

At Savatthi. The famous lay supporter of the Buddha, Anathapindika, invited a large group of monks and nuns to a meal on saturday. 

Among the invited, were 9 mendicants who recently realized perfection, who had attained the state of Arahant. 

The Buddha declared that of those 9 mendicants, 4 were nuns, 5 were monks, 4 of the mendicants with the same gender were liberated by wisdom only (their samadhi maxed out at 4th jhana), while the other 5 mendicants, also of the same gender, were liberated in mind and liberated in wisdom (they could competently do all 9 meditative attainments, not just the four jhanas). 

Also in attendance, were the mendicant Sujato and several of his disciples. 

His disciple Newt, asked Sujato, "Teacher, I would like permission to go ask one of the monks about the formless attainments from their personal experience in those attainments." 

Sujato replied, "Why do you assume only the monks could talk to you about the 9 attainments, and not the nuns? Are you a misogynist?" 

Newt replied, "No teacher. I'm just using math and logical deduction. Since the Buddha had declared that 4 of those 9 arahants were nuns, and the 4 mendicants who could only do four jhanas were nuns, then they must be the same group, and that the other group, the 5 monks, were the ones who could do the formless attainments." 

Sujato replied, "That's where your logic is wrong. It's just as likely it's 4 monks could only do four jhanas, and the remaining 5 mendicants, four nuns and one monk, could do all 9 attainments."

Newt protested, "But teacher, the Buddha also said that the 5 mendicants who could do formless attainments were also of the same gender, so it can't be four nuns and one monk, since they're of different gender."

Sujato had a look of angst on his face for a moment, then he switched back into his usual confident demeanor with this reprimand:

"Newt, you confused newbie, you have not been ordained long. You do not understand that the Buddha works in mysterious ways, and that you have to have deep faith in the Buddha and your senior teachers when they tell you the correct interpretation of their words. Otherwise you'll never get the real jhana. Real jhana is so profound, mysterious and ineffable, you can not take words at their face value, even though it looks like the Buddha is trying to be precise and use words according to well defined conventional meaning, and even though he seems to be using a context where one is suppose to use logic and common sense. He's just using the appearance of logic and common sense to test your faith! You must trust your experienced senior teachers! How could common sense and coarse common thinking ever touch the ineffable real jhana, where the body is not the body, the mind is not the mind, thought is not thought? It's impossible to describe with human language.

Newt, with a remorseful tone, said, "I'm sorry teacher. Please forgive me for my transgression. I promise not to question you again. By the way, teacher Sujato, do you prefer if we address you as 'Sir' or 'Madam'? It's not clear when you use the word mendicant whether you mean monk or nun, or when you use the pronoun 'his', whether you mean male or female."

Explanation of parable

DN 2 Here is B. Sujato's translation of third jhana, where he disposes the body of 'kāya' and hides it, with no regard for his own translation guidelines and ethics which state that he should use principle of least meaning and not impose biased and narrow interpretations when the simple literal translation suffices.

 

Furthermore, with the fading away of rapture, a mendicant enters and remains in the third absorption, where they meditate with equanimity, mindful and aware, personally experiencing the bliss of which the noble ones declare, ‘Equanimous and mindful, one meditates in bliss.’

Puna caparaṁ, mahārāja, bhikkhu pītiyā ca virāgā upekkhako ca viharati sato sampajāno, sukhañca kāyena paṭisaṁvedeti, yaṁ taṁ ariyā ācikkhanti: ‘upekkhako satimā sukhavihārī’ti, tatiyaṁ jhānaṁ upasampajja viharati.

For comparison, here is B. Bodhi's translation of the third jhana. To my knowledge, no other English translator does what Sujato does. Everyone translates as 'kaya' as 'body', consistently with how 'kaya' is carefully used and given a context in DN 2.  Even Visuddhimagga, which shares a similar view of jhana as B. Sujato, does not dare to translate 'kāya' as something other than 'body', relying on other commentarial literature to interpret 'body'. 

With the fading away as well of rapture, he dwells equanimous and, mindful and clearly comprehending, he experiences happiness with the body; he enters and dwells in the third jhāna 

The word 'kāya' (physical body) appears 52 times in DN 2.

What's notable about this sutta is the composers of this sutta were really going out of their way to give kāya and rupa an unambiguous, incontrovertible, unequivocal context that establishes without doubt that kāya and rupa in the meditation context of the four jhānas is referring to the anatomical body made up of 4 elements, created by mother and father and eating porridge.

The one place in DN 2 where kāya is not the anatomical body and is acceptable to be translated not 'body',  fittingly enough, is where the Buddha is describing a type of wrong view heretics have. For example, those heretics say killing the body of people (kāya) by slicing them with swords is merely separating various substances (kāya). 

In many articles I've written previously, I do deep dives and pali + english audits where I show in detail why and how this wrong translation of 'kāya' that B. Sujato does in third jhana drastically affects how meditation practice is understood.

So with that context in mind, here is a parable where I use the same translation method B. Sujato does in his translation of kāya in third jhana, and show the kind of ambiguity that results.