9. Methodological Characteristics of the Five Nikāyas

1. Stylistically

Interestingly, in the study of language and meaning in Buddhist Pāli Suttas, specially in the Majjhima Nikāya which exhaustively deal with all questions concerning mind, denotation, connotation, and so on its states as well as the spiritual training via cultivation of mind, all sophisticated questions have been stylistically displayed in a full of creative and vital language.

Two approaches seem to be displayed in all discourses in the Five Nikāyas: deductive and inductive. Depending on different contexts the Buddha gives the discourses starting either with a clear subject, doctrine as he says, “Bhikkhus, I shall teach you a discourse on the root of all things. Listen and attend closely to what I shall say” (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 1.2), and many other Suttas in Dīgha Nikāya, Aṅguttara Nikāya, Samyutta Nikāya, and so on having done so. Elsewhere, he starts with observation of present fact and arrives at generalizations with logically convincing arguments as well as lively similes (see Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 7, 22; 28, 29; etc.). In the Majjhima Nikāya, the portrait of the Buddha emerges as an excellent orator with full of capability of delivering sermons rapidly and logically. Many Brahmins, erudite philosophers or even vain disputants or wanderers come to him to debate with various opposite attitudes such as friendly and unfriendly, inquiring mind and haughty, and so on. However, with the splendid wisdom, the immense power of expression, the skill in teaching methods, the wit and gentle humour, the majestic sublimity, and the compassion, and so forth that none could match with, the Buddha brings out for them satisfaction and benefit through concise and lucid discourses (see Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 18, 41, 42, 54, 56, 72, 73; etc.). It can be said that the Buddha used a super language in propagating the doctrine and through which, the high level of his expressive ability is also regarded as equally endowing with his high capacity of thinking power. Moreover, in the analysis and clarification of the terms of philosophy or psychology, he reveals an erudite and professional skill in bringing out the exact meanings of words by applying technique as analogy, metaphor, simile, symbol, idioms and so on. This distinct style makes the Buddha’s teaching become very sweet, effective and attractive. Discourses in the Majjhima Nikāya such as Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 21; 29-34, for instance, exhibit all stylistic aspects either literal and nonliteral meaning, or metonymical and figurative language, or microstylistics. With the “Discourse on the Simile of the Cloth,” for instance, the Buddha explained the difference between an impure mind and a pure mind by giving the example of dirty cloth and clean cloth. “Only the clear cloth will absorb dye; so too only the pure mind will retain the Dhamma” (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 7), and he sometimes compares his teaching “as a raft, being for the purpose of crossing over the rive of saṃsāra, not for the purpose of grasping” (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 22). Generally speaking, the formats of discourses in the Five Nikāyas are greatly multiform and diversified. Many metaphors, many similes and a lot of rhetoric were used skillfully by the Buddha to explain the puzzle questions persuasively.

Suttas in the Five Nikāyas are sometimes referred to or identified by way of their interesting incidental contexts. The case of the Honeyball discourse is an example. The venerable Ānanda asks the Buddha about the name of the story by saying that “Venerable sir, just as if a man exhausted by hunger and weakness came upon a honeyball, wherever he would taste it he found a sweet delectable flavour; so too, venerable sir, any able-minded bhikkhu, wherever he might scrutinize with wisdom the meaning of this discourse on the Dhamma, would find satisfaction and confidence of mind. Venarable sir, what is the name of this discourse on the Dhamma?” (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 18.22). “As to that, Ānanda, you may remember this discourse on the Dhamma as ‘the Honeyball Discourse’” (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 18.22) the Blessed One answered. Of the discourses in the Five Nikāyas, there are several Suttas to centre upon debates, and through that to show up the Buddha’s wit and delicate sense of satire as well as his dialectical skills. And it is for his subtle humour that leavens the seriousness of their content as in Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number35; Sutta number 56).

Some other discourses show very dramatic features, particularly found in Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 86 in which the Bless One subdued the notorious bandit Angulimāla and transformed him into an Arahant:

“Formerly I could catch up even with a swift elephant and seize it; … but now, though I am running as fast as I can, I cannot catch up with this recluse who is walking at his normal pace!” He [bandit Angulimāla] stopped and called out to the Blessed One: “Stop, recluse! Stop, recluse!”

“I have stopped, Angulimāla, you stop too.”

Then the bandit Angulimāla thought: “These recluses, sons of the Sakyans, speak truth, assert truth; but though this recluse is till walking, he says: ‘I have stopped, Angulimāla, you stop too’. Suppose I question this recluse.”

Then the bandit Angulimāla addressed the Blessed One in stanzas thus:

“While you are walking, recluse, you tell me you have stopped;
But now, when I have stopped, you say I have not stopped.
I ask you now, O recluse, about the meaning:
How is it that you have stopped and I have not?”

“Angulimāla, I have stopped forever,
I abstain from violence towards living beings;
But you have no restraint towards things that live:
That is why I have stopped and you have not.”

“Oh, at long last this recluse, a venerated sage,
Has come to this great forest for my sake.
Having heard your stanza teaching me the Dhamma,
I will indeed renounce evil forever.”

So saying, the bandit took his sword and weapons
And flung them in a gaping chasm’s pit;
The bandit worshipped the Sublime One’s feet,
And then and there asked for the going forth.

The Enlightened One, the Sage of Great Compassion,
The Teacher of the world with [all] its gods,
Addressed him with these words, “Come, Bhikkhu.”
And that was how he came to be a bhikkhu.

(Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 86.5-6)

In the Majjhima Nikāya specially there are several verses to be very sweet and smooth or dynamic, forceful and grand which the Buddha sometime recited up to emphasis what he wants to express.

The most famous stanza transmitted orally through one generation to another is the Sutta of “A single Excellent Night”:

Let not a person revive the past
Or on the future build his hopes;
For the past has been left behind
And the future has not been reached.
Instead with insight let him see
Each presently arisen state;
Let him know that and be sure of it,
Invincibly, unshakeably.
Today the effort must be made;
Tomorrow Death may come, who knows?
No bargain with Mortality
Can keep him and his hordes away,
But one who dwells thus ardently,
Relentlessly, by day, by night–
It is he, the Peaceful Sage has said,
Who has had a single excellent night.

(Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 131.3)

A sage neither runs back to the past nor live in expectation of the future but contemplates each presently arisen state with insight into its impermanence. Only such the librated mind which is not vanquished or shaken by lust and other defilements is invincible and unshakeable.

Another famous stanza is to give bhikkhus from Kosambī who live in disputes and stab each other with verbal daggers as follows:

When many voices shout at once
None considers himself a fool;
Though the Saṅgha is being split
None thinks himself to be at fault.
They have forgotten thoughtful speech,
They talk obsessed by words alone.
Uncurbed their mouths, they bawl at will;
None knows what leads him so to act.
‘He abused me, he struck me,
He defeated me, he robbed me’
In those who harbour thoughts like these
Hatred will never be allayed,
For in this world hatred is never
Allayed by further acts of hate.
It is allayed by non-hatred:
That is the fixed and ageless law.
Those others do not recognize
That here we should restrain ourselves.
But those wise ones who realize this
At once end all their enmity.
Breakers of bones and murderers,
Those who steal cattle, horses, wealth,
Those who pillage the entire realm
When even these can act together
Why can you not do so too?
If one can find a worthy friend,
A virtuous, steadfast companion,
Then overcome all threats of danger
And walk with him content and mindfu1.
But if one finds no worthy friend,
No virtuous, steadfast companion,
Then as a king leaves his conquered realm,
Walk like a tusker in the woods alone.
Better it is to walk alone,
There is no companionship with fools.
Walk alone and do no evil,
At ease like a tusker in the woods.

(Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 128.6)

In sum, it can be pointed out clearly that a critical study the Five Nikāyas on the view of stylistics tends to bring out many interesting views. And it shows the more technical skill in using teaching language of the Buddha. Furthermore, the Five Nikāyas also presents various scientific methods which the Buddha applied in his discourses. For this purpose, the section would like to extend its scope to introduce and discuss some particular methods used by the Buddha in his propagation.

2. The Gradual Training

The Noble Eightfold Path, as we have seen in the previous sections, is the progress of a gradual training (anupubbasikkhā) through three stages of virtue (sīla), concentration (samādhi) and wisdom (paññā). The theory of the gradual training is found in the Five Nikāyas, specially in the Majjhima Nikāya in Sutta number 27, 38-39, 51, 53; and 107 in which they exhibited the main paradigms for this method.

The first step of the gradual training approach is that one hears and acquires the Buddha’s teaching, his/her faith in the Teacher and the Dhamma arises; he follows the Teacher into homelessness and the adoption of the lifestyle of a bhikkhu. Having gone forth, he undertakes and observes the rules of discipline in the monastic life that promotes the purification of conduct and livelihood. At this step, he is trains to abandon the unwholesome states and cultivate the wholesome state. After that, he trains in succession the next three steps; that are (i) contentment to the moderate material conditions of the recluse life, (ii) restraint of the sense faculties, and (iii) mindfulness and full awareness. Having done such tasks, he is said to possess the aggregate of noble virtue (see Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 27.12-6; 51.13-7).

From the background of the purification of virtue, he transits to the training of concentration. At this step, the prerequisite is the abandonment of the five hindrances; and then he in turn attains the jhānas from the first to the fourth (see Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 27.18-22; 51.20-3). From the fourth jhānas, there are three possible branching roads. The first line, the meditator can continue to develop the loftier and more refined meditative states of the four immaterial jhānas. The second line is the acquisition of supernormal knowledge which is often described in a group of six kinds of direct knowledge (chaḷābhiññā) including (i) the super normal powers; (ii) the divine ear; (iii) the ability to read the others’ minds; (iv) the recollection of past lives; (v) the divine eye; and (vi) knowledge of the cessation of the taints (āsava) (see Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 6, 73, 77; 108). In these six kinds of direct knowledge, the first five are all mundane, products of the extraordinarily powerful degree of mental concentration achieved in the fourth jhāna; there is only the last one is supramundane and properly belonging to the third line of development.

Although these attainments in the jhānas and the first five mundane types of the direct knowledge are lofty and serene, they all do not issue in enlightenment and liberation. However, they can restrain the defilements which uphold the saṃsāra but cannot eradicate them. In order to uproot the defilements at the most fundamental level and thereby reach the final goal of enlightenment and deliverance, the meditative process must be redirected along the third line of development. This process itself does not necessarily contain the former two. At the third line, the meditator contemplates ‘things as they actually are’, and by such a way he achieves increasingly deeper insights into the nature of existence and culminates in the final goal, the attainment of Arahantship^[1] (see Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli & Bhikkhu Bodhi 2009: 36-7).

In short, the way to freedom stated by the Buddha is a process of gradual training as being affirmed by the Buddha himself as in the Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 70.22 described: “Bhikkhus, I do not say that final knowledge is achieved all at once. On the contrary, final knowledge is archived by gradual training, by gradual practice, by gradual progress.”

3. The Approach of Adaptation

In order to convince the hearers on right ideals or refuse their wrong view, the Buddha sometimes used their terms to exhibit his principles. This method can be found in the Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number7.19-20 in which the Buddha uses the terms of the Brahmins’ tradition of bathing in secret rivers to arouse the attention of the Brahmin Sundarika, who is in the assembly and believed in purification by ritual bathing. In fact, the Buddha foresaw that after hearing his discourse, the Brahmin Sundarika would be inspired to receive the going forth under him and would attain arahanship (The Middle length Discourses of the Buddha, n. 97). With the Brahmin Sundarika’s question that whether the Buddha has gone to the Bāhukā River to bath or not, the Blessed One answered him with another question: “why, Brahmin, go to the Bāhukā River? What can the Bāhukā River do?” (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 7.19). The Buddha pointed out that all such imperfecttions of mind cannot be removed by any secret religious way, but eradication, complete uprooting them by ourselves through the noble path. It is unfounded belief that a defiled mind contains dark deeds can be wiped out to become pure by taking a bath in secret rivers; because secret rivers cannot purify an evil-doer who has done cruel and brutal deeds, unless he knows to bath himself in good wholesome states. One who is pure in heart and fair in act, everyday for him is evermore holy day bringing perfection to his virtue. So, it needs not to have a bath in any secret rivers, for any well will be his secret river (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 7.20).

And the Buddha addresses the Brahmin Sundarika by the following stanzas:

Bāhuka and Adhikakkā,
Gayā and Sundarikā too,
Payāga and Sarassatī,
And the stream Bahumatī

A fool may there forever bathe
Yet will not purify dark deeds.

What can the Sundarikā bring to pass?
What the Payāga? What the Bāhukā?
They cannot purify an evil-doer,
A man who has done cruel and brutal deeds.

One pure in heart has evermore
The Feast of Spring, the Holy Day;
One fair in act, one pure in heart
Brings his virtue to perfection.

It is here, Brahmin, that you should bathe,
To make yourself a refuge for all beings.
And if you speak no falsehood
Nor work harm for living beings,

Nor take what is offered not,
With faith and free from avarice,
What need for you to go to Gayā?
For any well will be your Gayā.

(Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 7.20)

This teaching method is often referred as ‘the new wine into the old bottle’ or the approach of adaptation.

4. The Illustrative Approach

Another important method applied in discourses of the Five Nikāyas is the illustrative approach. The Buddhist Suttas in general and the Majjhima Nikāya in particular are very rich in illustration. The Buddha, as we have seen in the previous section, is the skillful one and expert in using language.

He often stated after his simile given “I have given this simile in order to convey a meaning” (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 25.7). Each given simile depended on the hearer’s intellectual background so that he can grasp the problem easily and quickly. This method is applied to almost Suttas of the Collections.

5. The Analytical Approach

The Buddha in Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 99.4 says that “Student, I speaks about this after making an analysis, I do not speak out this one-sidedly. I do not praise wrong way of practice on the part either of a householder or one gone forth; for whether it be a householder or one gone forth, one who has entered on the wrong way of practice, by reason of his wrong way of practice, by reason of his wrong way of practice, is not accomplishing the true way, the Dhamma that is wholesome.” A large number of discourses in the Majjhima Nikāya and other four expose the analytical approach very logical and systematic. Not less cases disputants come to the Buddha to debate and argue unreasonably and indecorously. One of these, for instance, can be found in the Upāli Sutta ‘To Upāli’ (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 56).

Before accepting a discussion with Upāli, one of the Nigaṇtha’s disciples, the Buddha asks him to debate on the basis of truth (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 56.10). When Upāli exposes non-agreement in the question as well as nonagreement of utterances, the Buddha does not hesitate to criticize “Householder, householder, pay attention how you reply! What you said afterwards does not agree with what you said before, nor does what you said before agree with what you said afterwards. Yet you made this statement: ‘I will debate on the basis of truth, venerable sir, so let us have some conversation about this.’” (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 56.11). This is by virtue of the reason at first causing Upāli to claim that there is nothing what called kamma but the bodily rod for the performance of evil actions, when being asked about his doctrine of rebirth, he replied that it is due to “mind-bound” (see Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 56.11). Clearly, if his assertion was true then his last was false and vice versa. A similar case can be found in the Cūḷasaccaka Sutta (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 35) where Aggivessana, the Nigaṇṭha’s son let out his self-contradiction when he states that the five aggregates comprise the self, but he also admits that they are impermanent. The Buddha teaches that “‘Bhikkhu, material form is impermanent, feeling is impermanent, perception is impermanent, formations are impermanent, consciousness is impermanent. Bhikkhu, material form is not self, feeling is not self, perception is not self, formations are not self, consciousness is not self. All formations are impermanent; all things are not self.’ That is the way I discipline my desciples, and that is how my instruction is usually presented to my disciples” (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 35.9). Having been convinced by the Buddha with logical and reasonable arguments, the Nigaṇṭha’s son smiles, “a smile occurs to me, Master Gotama,” (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 35.10) and pays his respect to the Blessed One and admits that “Master Gotama, we were bold and impudent in thinking we could attack Master Gotama in debate. A man might attack a mad elephant and find safety, yet he could not attack Master Gotama and find safety. A man might attack blazing mass of fire and find safety, yet he could not attack Master Gotama and find safety. A man might attack terrible poisonous snake and find safety, yet he could not attack Master Gotama and find safety. We were bold and impudent in thinking we could attack Master Gotama in debate” (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 35.27).

The analytical approach is applied as one of the most important methodological characteristics found in the Five Nikāyas, specialy in the Majjhima Nikāya and used by the Buddha as advanced means in dialogue to those who incline towards dialectically debates.

6. The Experimental Approach

The Buddha always emphasizes that his teaching is to practice, to experience, and to penetrate, neither a verbal dogma or creed to be merely believed nor a dialectical theory to be disputed. The Middle Path which avoids the two extremes of luxurious life and self-mortification discovered by the Buddha is the product of his experiment process through both failure and success for seeking a true path (see Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number12.44).

In the Sangārava Sutta, he grants himself as one of the experimentalists.

There are some recluses and brahmins who are traditionalists, who on the basis of oral tradition claim [to teach] the fundamentals of the holy life after having reached the consummation and perfection of direct knowledge here and now; such are the brahmins of the Three Vedas. There are some recluses and brahmins who, entirely on the basis of mere faith, claim [to teach] the fundamentals of the holy life after having reached the consummation and perfection of direct knowledge here and now; such are the reasoners and investigators. There are some recluses and brahmins who, having directly known the Dhamma for themselves among things not heard before, claim [to teach] the fundamentals of the holy life after having reached the consummation and perfection of direct knowledge here and now.

I, Bhāradvāja, am one of those recluses and brahmins who, having directly known the Dhamma for themselves among things not heard before, claim [to teach] the fundamentals of the holy life after having reached the consummation and perfection of direct knowledge here and now. (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 100.7-8)

The enlightenment of the Buddha is presented by himself as the result of an indefatigable and untiring endeavour in training and developing his own natural faculties. This emergent point is described in detail in numbers of Suttas of Majjhima Nikāya such as Sutta number 12, 26; 36 and so on.

While teaching the Dhamma, he always asks his disciples and other hearers to experience and realize themselves on the true teachings which they received. He shows:

Let a wise man come, one who is honest and sincere, a man of rectitude. I instruct him, I teach him the Dhamma in such a way that by practicing as instructed he will soon know and see for himself: ‘Thus, indeed, there rightly comes to be liberation from the bond, that is from the bond of ignorance’. (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 80.16)

The Buddha has ever declared that although there are thousands among his disciples, bhikkhus and bhikkhunīs, who attain nibbāna–the ultimate goal, and thousands among his lay followers, men and women, who attain the third fruition of non-returners (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 73.7-12), there however many of his disciples and followers who do not attain the noble fruits (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 107.12). In order to answer the question of its cause and reason, the Blessed One gives a simile of two men who ask the way to Rājagaha, but one follows the direction of the local people and he could reach Rājagaha, whereas the other did not do so and he therefore could not reach there.

And then the Buddha expresses:

So too, brahmin, Nibbāna exists and the path leading to Nibbāna exists and I am present as the guide. Yet when my disciples have been thus advised and instructed by me, some of them attain Nibbāna, the ultimate goal, and some do not attain it. What can I do about that, brahmin? The Tathāgata is one who [only] shows the way. (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 107.14)

Similarly, this as being proclaimed by the Buddha can easily be found in many various sources of Buddhist Pāli Suttas, for example, in the Dhammapada:“you yourselves must strive; the Tathāgatas only point the way” (Dhammapada (= Khuddaka Nikāya (ii) a) The Penguin translation by J. Mascaro; b) Nārada Thera; c) K. Dhammananda; etc. 276).

7. The Silent Approach

The Buddha formulates his teaching in a way that directly addresses the critical problem at the heart of human existence–the suffering, and the way to beyond it. Apart from this, the problems which do not lead to enlightenment and liberation such as the beginning and the end of universe, metaphysical questions, and theological dogmas, and so on, the Buddha sets aside and rejects them and considers them as useless way to the target of deliverance from suffering.

There basically are ten questions which are always answered by the silence of the Buddha described in the Majjhima Nikāya as follows:

i. Is the world eternal? ii. Is it non-eternal?
iii. Is it finite [in space]? iv. Is it infinite?
v. Is the soul identical with the body?
vi. Is it different from the body?
vii. Does a Tathāgata exist after death?
viii. Does he not exist after death?
ix. Does he both exist and not exist after death?
x. Does he neither exist nor not exist after death?

(Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 63.2; 72.3-12)

These ten questions can be summarized in two main questions that are questions of metaphysics and the Ultimate Reality.

In sum, being a great enlightenment one and a true master, the Buddha communicates his messages of wisdom to human beings through various methodological approaches but they all intimately follow from their target: enlighten people on the most important questions of suffering and present them as a solution to realize it. The Buddha’s teaching is open for everyone. It is not only clear, simple, and non-complex, but also condensed and deep; it is a harmonious combination between ethical purity and logical firmness; and its only purpose is to solve down the human problems of suffering.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

In the MN, SNo. 27; 51, in following immediately after the fourth jhāna, the Buddha describes two kinds of the direct knowledge that are the recollection of past lives and the divine eyes, and then the knowledge of the destruction of the taints (see MN, SNo. 27.23-5; SNo. 51.246). The three together are collectively called the three true knowledges (tevijjā). According to BB’s explanation, although the first two are not essential to the realization of Arahantship, “the Buddha includes them because they reveal the truly vast and profound dimensions of suffering in the saṃsara and thereby prepare the mind for the penetration of the Four Noble Truths, in which that suffering is diagnosed and surmounted” (BÑ & BB 2009: 37).