“All
decrepit is this body, diseases’ nest
and frail;
This foul
mass is broken up for life does end in
death.”
 | |
While residing at the
Jetavana Monastery the Buddha spoke this verse, with reference to Venerable Nun
Uttara. Arahat Theri, Uttara, in her former lives had reaped good karma. The paramis she had built up as a nun under
previous Buddhas stored enough requisites to end suffering by the perfection of
insight and total elimination of defilements in the Gautama Buddha’s era. She
was reborn at Savatthi into a Sakyan clansman’s family named Uttara. She began
to establish on the path, after hearing one of the Buddha’s discourses preached
by Theri Patachara, There she gave up lay-life and later entered the order
under Theri Patachara.
Nun Uttara was one hundred
and twenty years old, when one day returning from her alms-round she met a monk
and requested him to accept her offering of alms-food: She went without food
for that day. The same thing happened on the next two days, thus Nun Uttara was
without food for three succexessive days and she was feeling weak. On the fourth
day while she was on her alms-round, she met the Buddha on the road where it
was narrow. She paid obeisance to the Buddha with respect and stepped back.
While doing so, she accidently stepped on her own robe and fell on the ground,
injuring her head. The Buddha went up to her and said,” your body is getting
very old and firm, it is ready to crumble, it will soon perish,” At the end of
the discourse, Nun Uttara attained sotapatti fruition.
“Later she declared that
she had eradicated all mental stains, particularly eradication of thirst (tanha),
that she had cut down all cravings, concerning existence in the human or divine
and she had become cool and been quenched that a burning fever had been
eliminated by the extinction fire of mental stains: desire, aversion and illusion.”(‘Buddhist
Nuns’, Mohan Wijayatatna, p139)
Insight Knowledge of Impermanence leads to Stream- Entry, the
First stage of Deliverance.
“Life ends in death" - The central purpose of this stanza is to drive home the fact of impermanence of
life. Impermanence (anicca) is the first of the three characteristics of existence.
(Tilakkhana). It is from the fact of impermanence that in most texts,
the other two characteristics, suffering (dukka) and not-self
(anatta), are derived. Impermanence of things is the rising, passing
and changing of things, or the disappearance of things that have become arisen.
The meaning is that they are vanishing and dissolving from moment to moment.
Each
aggregate arises due to certain causes and when these causes end, the aggregate
also ceases. Impermanence is a basic feature of all conditioned phenomena, be
they material or mental, coarse or subtle, one’s own or external. All
formations are impermanent. The totality of existence in terms of the five aggregates,
the twelve sense bases. Only Nibbana which is unconditioned and
not a formation (asanka), is permanent.
The
Insight leading to the first stage of deliverance, stream entry,
is often expressed in terms of impermanence. Without deep insight into the impermanence
and unsubstatioality of all phenomena of existence there is no attainment of deliverance.
Therefore, comprehension of impermanence gained by direct meditative
experience, heads two lists of insight knowledge:
(a)Contemplation of impermanence
is the first of the eighteen chief kinds of insight.
(b)The contemplation
of arising and vanishing is the first of nine kinds of knowledge (Vipassana Gnana) which lead to
the purification by knowledge and vision of the path congress. Contemplation of
impermanence leads to the condition less deliverance. As herein the faculty of
confidence is out sanding. The one who
attains in that way, the path of stream-entry, is called a faith-devotee and at
the seven higher stages he/she is called faith-liberated.
Anicca:
Impermanence,
Regarding
the impermanence, though we may
see; leaves on a tree, some young, some
unfolding, some mature, while others are
sere and yellow, impermanence does
not strike home in our hearts. With aging,
hair decades, if not kept cleaned, smells and
infest by lice etc. Although our hair changes from black, to grey to white over the years, other parts of body declines too. We do not realise what is so obviously being preached by this change – impermanence.
There is a vast difference between occasionally acquiescing in the mind or admitting with the tongue the truth of impermanence and actually realising it constantly in the heart. The trouble is that while intellectually we may accept impermanence as valid truth, emotionally we do not admit it, especially in regard to me and mine. But whatever our unskilful emotions of greed may or may not admit, impermanence remains a truth and the sooner we come to realise through insight that that is a truth; the happier we shall be, because our mode of thought thus be nearer to reality.
see; leaves on a tree, some young, some
unfolding, some mature, while others are
sere and yellow, impermanence does
not strike home in our hearts. With aging,
hair decades, if not kept cleaned, smells and
infest by lice etc. Although our hair changes from black, to grey to white over the years, other parts of body declines too. We do not realise what is so obviously being preached by this change – impermanence.
There is a vast difference between occasionally acquiescing in the mind or admitting with the tongue the truth of impermanence and actually realising it constantly in the heart. The trouble is that while intellectually we may accept impermanence as valid truth, emotionally we do not admit it, especially in regard to me and mine. But whatever our unskilful emotions of greed may or may not admit, impermanence remains a truth and the sooner we come to realise through insight that that is a truth; the happier we shall be, because our mode of thought thus be nearer to reality.
The Elements - Datu
Let
us look here at the eighteen elements.
“The
sense faculties (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind)
Their
objects (sight, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, mental- objects)
And
the mind consciousness that arises when those two come together is the sixth in
each set, completing the eighteen.
The
Buddha analysed the totality of conditioned phenomena into ultimate constituents
in a number of ways for the benefit of listeners of varying proclivities. (“Inspiration from Enlightened Nuns”
- Susan Elbaum Jootla, The Wheel Publications, 1988).
Here
according to the Buddha’s advice Theri Uttara was vigilant to contemplate the fleeting
and the impermanent nature of her decaying sick body. She was able to see the
thirty two impurities in her own self and realised the true nature of life through insight knowledge. She attained higher absorptions, Jhanas, and further
Formless Jhanas thereby reaching, Atta-Samapatthi and eliminated all cankers
and attained perfect sainthood - Arahatship.
On reflecting on her attainment she uttered the exulted thus: ("PASALMS OF THE SISTERS" -MRS. RHYS DAVIDS),
”Seeing the constituent
elements as other, arisen casually, liable to dissolution, I eliminated all
taints. I have become cool, quenched.”
“Now this Sister, one day,
when under Paṭācārā she had established herself in an exercise,
went into her own dwelling, and seating herself cross-legged, thought: 'I will
not break up this sitting until I have emancipated my heart from all dependence
on the Āsavas.' Thus resolving, she incited her intellectual grasp and
gradually clarifying insight as she progressed along the Paths, she attained
Arahantship, together with the power of intuition and thorough grasp of the
Norm. Thus contemplating nineteen subjects in succession, with the consciousness that 'Now
have I done what herein I had to do,' she uttered in her happiness the verses
given above, and stretched her limbs. And when the dawn arose, and night
brightened into day, she sought the Therī's presence, and repeated her verses.”
For further readings; Visit this site:
"from the Enlightened Nuns" http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/davids/psalms/psalms.html
"from the Enlightened Nuns" http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/davids/psalms/psalms.html
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