Right view is a way of knowing what it is that we experience. It is approached by a collaboration of labeling and interpretation. To know samma ditthi (right view) means to know that we exist in a maelstrom of phenomenon that include choices, and that their relationships and unfolding are manifestations of a calculus of conditioning along a river of time and suffering.
Autobiography
I read the Buddhist texts and wonder at their insight. For so long I had abandoned the possibility of a knowledge that could not be communicated purely in facts; facts that were the insight of reporting; reporting that was innocent of subjectivity or perspective (except incidentally). I had concluded that the scientific tradition (born in the West and subsuming all cultures with its material offerings) was the sole contender in the epistemic race.
Phenomenology and psychology are infants, and products of a parallel evolution, to the dharma of Buddhism. All three claim that the features of subjectivity may be described, and routes to their modification explored and documented. (A tentative fourth may be added in the shape of the psychedelic travelers). There is something irreducible within the first-person perspective that may be directed-to by analytical instruction, but not reduced-to.
Chancing upon a sign-post
I woke to find myself in a dark wood, and in my search for relief and its possibilities, chanced upon and embraced the practice of meditation. Familiarizing myself with meditation introduced me to an appreciation of Buddhist texts on meditation, and their complex familiarity with the hazards of the mind and the means for traversing its sufferings. The expertise of their teachings impressed upon me the possible benefits of their practice. And so I have found myself in another wood, studying the eightfold path.
The spiritual and historical datum of the eightfold path are expressed elsewhere better than I ever could. What remains to be described is my reality, and its incorporation of the path. I have begun my auto-didactic studies focusing on the first path: sammaditthi. I have read what those who know better have explained, and attempted to comprehend the constellation of concepts, and in my waking life, hear the music of their spheres.
Right view qua map and destination
Sammaditthi is a theoretical framework for interpreting reality. It is difficult to summarize, and its explication is approached in the traditional texts by multiple routes. It is perhaps a combination of considerations.
What is the nature of that which we live, or what is the nature of the experienced existence?
What does it mean to be living in this nature, or what does it mean to exist when we are experiencing this nature?
The first of these sets seeks to identify the components of life, and the second to identify the choices of life.
Sammaditthi is not just a paradigm to be invoked in explanation and identification, it is also an intuition to be sought. And although it is difficult to consider a goal (i.e. sammaditthi) which has not been achieved, this is not a true delimitation, since right view is both a path and destination. A destination is an achievement of displacement, and a path is an achievement of iteration (the fact of an asymptote does not deny the gradient of the curve). Thus sammaditthi is an application as much as it is an attainment.
The first part of sammaditthi is its theoretical comprehension. The second part of sammaditthi is its supramundane knowledge, which is said to be its intrinsic self-expression in the liberated being, and the result of a practiced awareness of its mundane knowledge (combined with the rest of the eightfold path). (It is also said to be an intuition of the four noble truths).
The theoretical framework
There are a number of obvious pillars in the structure of sammaditthi, although these ones may be neither sufficient nor necessary, and may instead be considered as suggestive adumbration, indicating the identity of complex architecture. Consider the contents of experience as products of aggregates; consider the mechanism of phenomenon as dependent origination; consider the salience of choice as ownership of action.
The substance of phenomenon
All that we see is phenomenon, projecting its impression against the cave wall of our mind. Some phenomenon are rupa, physical, tangible bodies of form; some are vedana, sensations derived from our sense organs; some are sañña, perceptions arising from the contact of sense organs with their objects; some are sankhara, mental properties (incl. imagination and volition) and some are viñña, sum contents of our consciousness. There is nothing in our experience that is not directly one of these khanda, aggregates.
When we see our experience as khandas, then we can see the common features of all phenomenon. Everything is annica (impermanent), everything is dukkha (unsatisfying), everything is anatta (soulless).
Every phenomenon appears as substantial, yet fades away in its own manner, physical things age and die, mental things dissipate. Every phenomenon appears as a seed promising satisfaction, yet it can never do so, because all that is pleasant will disappear, and the unpleasant is inherent in our yearning. Every phenomenon appears as a manifestation of a soul, most obviously our self, yet there is nothing permanent behind the veil of flux.
The mechanism of phenomenon
All the khandas that we see are conditioned by previous circumstances, allowing us to see that all experiences are conditioned and conditions. The explanation of paticca-samuppada (dependent origination) elaborates this principle, beginning with ignorance, and ending with rebirth, showing how the first leads to the last, and the last back to the first.
When we see that everything in our life holds to this principle, we can believe the necessity of outcome, and in doing so agree with kammassakata sammaditthi, a right ownership of our actions. Every experience is the phala (fruit) of previous kamma, although we may not know their identity; to own an experience is to own its inevitable chain of origination. Every kamma (qua volition) will result in a phala; to own an action is to own its inevitable chain of origination.
The root of suffering
All our kamma are volitions that act upon an existing substrate of previous kamma. And though the opportunities and predilections of the present moment are biased by the past, their value lies in the extent to which they move towards participating in pañña (wisdom) or gravitate into the well of avijja (ignorance). Avijja is the mula (root) of the kilesas (defilements), as lobha (greed), dosa (aversion), and moha (delusion). Our unwholesome actions are the result of avijja, which denies the signs of phenomenon (annica, dukkha, anatta), and collaborates with the senseless suffering of the cycle of pattica-samuppada within samsara.
When we see that our choices are our own (per kammassakata sammaditthi), and that their allegiance with avijja or pañña determines the nature of their outcome, then we can see every moment as an opportunity to move towards truth and towards an end to suffering (liberation or nibbana); or towards ignorance and towards further suffering.
The means to its intuition
To intuit sammaditthi requires a rewriting of false intuitions. Thus it is not enough to know the facts of sammaditthi in the manner of recitation, but to draw patterns in the water until further patterns are detected in their wake. It may be more helpful to think of this as “the path” to right view, and that the joining of this path (not its end but its process) is dependent on a repeated questioning of reality.
Towards this end there are a number of approaches labelled and elaborated in the traditional texts, including the 16 means in the ninth sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya by Sariputta. Here I describe two:
The nature of the wholesome and unwholesome actions
All actions can be defined as unwholesome (or wholesome) if they are blameworthy and cause suffering (or not). The unwholesome actions are those that participate in the mula stemming from avijja. A wholesome action is one that refrains from an unwholesome action. The unwholesome (and wholesome) actions are numbered as 10. Each action is understood in 5 ways.
- Every action can be understood as a mental state: is it directly volitional, or just associated with volition.
- Every action can be understood as a category: is it a course of kamma, and/or a root.
- Every action can be understood as a formation or being.
- Every action can be understood as relating to feeling: which feelings co-occur with the action; positive, neutral, negative.
- Every action can be understood as stemming from its roots: is it due to hatred, and/or delusion, and/or greed.
Each action can be studied in accordance with these parameters.
An exercise in right view of the wholesome and unwholesome actions
Become accustomed to self-awareness of action as volition. In this way I become accustomed to perceiving choice.
When an act is committed it is because there was a volition to commit it, if I become accustomed to perceiving choice then I will learn to be mindful of actions as choices.
Perceive whether an action is blameworthy and causes suffering. In this way I become accustomed to perceiving and measuring wholesomeness of volition.
When a choice is committed, then it was either blameworthy and causing of suffering or it was not. If I become accustomed to perceiving the blameworthiness and causality of suffering within choices then I will learn to be mindful of the nature of choices and their consequences. I may also learn that some unwholesome (or wholesome) actions are easier and thus see the blameworthiness of an action as a metric of likelihood and resistance of choice.
I may improve this by perceiving the actions against a template of the 10 kammic actions (per the wholesome and the unwholesome). In this way I improve my resolution of identification of volition.
When an unwholesome choice is committed, then it fits into one of the 10 kammic actions, and if I become accustomed to noticing these species then I will learn to see the genre of kammic actions, and see every action as either relating to body, speech, or mind kamma, and then which specific kamma. In this way I will see all action as potentially kammic action, and know their identity. So too for wholesome choices.
I may improve this by perceiving each kammic action against the template of 5 ways of understanding. In this way I expand the spectrum of my observation of volition.
When an unwholesome kammic action is committed, then it resulted from a mental state, and I may become accustomed to noticing whether the action occurred together with volition, or whether it was associated with volition (i.e. in the case of envy, ill-will, and wrong view).
When an unwholesome kammic action is committed, then it results from the avijja and mula by specific categories of directness, (e.g. envy, ill-will, and wrong view are both courses of kamma and mula, whereas the rest of courses of kamma but not mula), and I may become accustomed to understanding the relationship between a volition and avijja and courses of kamma and noticing these features of actions.
When an unwholesome kammic action is committed, then its object is either an internal formation or an external being. I may become accustomed to noticing the precise target of every volition, and knowing whether the target is a formation of mind or is known as an external being. I may become accustomed to knowing what and where my actions are drawn by.
When an unwholesome kammic action is committed, then it co-occurs with feelings which are either attractive, neutral, or intuitively rejected by the mind, and these may occur in different combinations within the same type of action. I may become accustomed to noticing the feelings that co-occur with action, and knowing actions in relation to them.
When an unwholesome kammic action is committed, then it is the fruit of some combination of its mula, as lobha, dosa, moha. I may become accustomed to being mindful of the root that is the source for each action, and know actions in relation to their roots. (For all of these, so too for wholesome actions).
Thus: When I commit an action, try and perceive whether it is of kammic significance. If it is, try and perceive whether it is wholesome or unwholesome, and take a measure of this nature. So too, try and know which kammic type of action it is, and how it related to volition, whether it was only a kammic course or also a mula, what feelings co-occured with it, and which mula was the source of its fruition.
The nature of the four nutriments
Everything that we put into our body and mind is a nutriment, in the sense that it sustains the ongoing existence of the category that it feeds. Just as physical food nourishes the material body, so too contact nourishes feeling, and so too with mental volition nourishing consciousness and consciousness nourishing name and form of rebirth.
Four similes are provided to help adjust our perception of the nutriments, and each one is designed to illustrate how, on one hand, the nutriments are essential for an existing being, and yet are causes of suffering, like an irrational addiction. These are the similes of the son’s flesh, the flayed cow, the charcoal pit, and the man struck with 300 spears.
An exercise in right view of the nutriments
Become accustomed to being mindful of food as composed of a gross aspect (its material attraction) and fine aspect (its attraction of form), and relating these to the role of food as sustaining the body and the mind’s consideration. In this way I may become accustomed to knowing the automated function of food in sustaining my body.
Also, become accustomed to being mindful of food as a thing that is needed for survival and yet that is a source of ugliness in accidental relationship to this need. In this way I may become accustomed to knowing the conditioned attraction that I have for food, and the powerful instinct of this attraction (especially considering the pain of samsara).
Become accustomed to being mindful of the role of contact in encouraging the value systems of the feelings. In this way I become accustomed to knowing that the feelings need nourishment for their incessant demands, and to knowing the role of each case of contact in this cycle.
Become accustomed to being mindful of my enactment of volition as sustaining consciousness. In this way I may become accustomed to knowing that consciousness is a not independent of sustenance, and that volition serve this purpose. I may also become accustomed to recognizing the role that each act of volition serves towards this cycle.
Become accustomed to being mindful of consciousness as a thing that perpetuates itself through the cycle of rebirth. (This is difficult without a solid foundation for the concept of rebirth in reality).
Abstracting the nature of the search for the nature
Right view asks of each thing: what is this, how does it appear, and how does it disappear, and (since it is a source of suffering it is also desirable to ask) how may it be made to disappear.
The advice given by Sariputta is to take some features of reality (especially those categories of reality that most easily relate to the causes and ends of suffering) and ask of them these questions. In this way one trains the mind in the same way that a painter studying colours may become more aware of the relationships of colours in the world beyond the palette and canvas. In this way instead of simply acting or consuming nutrient, one becomes witness to a phenomenology of volition, kamma, and mula, or as consummations of desires sustaining cycles of continuation.
The pattern is this: to know reality become mindful of phenomenon, then intiate that awareness into the phenomenon, introducing each particle and modality of consideration into the mindfulness as it arises, and in this way one penetrates ever deeper into that which had previously been only incidentally present to consciousness.
So too: the labeling of phenomenon allows an elaboration of phenomenon as recognized, and this growth of perception may be read as a wisdom of abstracting the contents of consciousness in order to closer witness their bare existence.
Comprehending the abstraction of right view as perspective
The first layer of sammaditthi is the conclusion reached by those who have previously achieved thorough practice of its ideals. The second layer is the attainment of thorough practice but is too difficult to imagine, and in any case, can only be imagined by analytical extrapolation.
Thus I limit my considerations to the first layer: what is a perspective that aims at a further perspective yet unachieved and (technically) unknown? What is right view (in its mundane form) that this is its nature?
Consider this. There is a perspective that believes that reality can be seen, and yet that it is not seen already. It believes that every perspective is merely an incidental monad claiming ownership of a kingdom to which it is merely a passing gaze. It believes that reality is ammenable to knowledge by the virtues of attention. It believes that if everything is watched then everything will be known for what it is. And it warns that this is not an automated process, and that the reality that it aims to uncover is composed of seductions and infections that leap to consume the eye of attention, and confuse the seeing with the seer and the seen.
The mundane right view is only ever a journey, never a destination. It is the perspective that there exists a highest, meta-perspective, one that is never subsumed and only subsumes that can give a true measure of all that is.
