Sutta Chanting - The benefits of living as buddhist monk or nun - Samaññaphala Sutta - Dīgha Nikāya
Channel: Dhamma Talks at Dhammagiri
Date: 2021-09-14

A Chanting of the Samaññaphala Sutta – “The Fruits of recluseship” (Dīgha Nikāya Nr. 2).

King Ajātasattu visits the Buddha and asks him a seemingly innocent question: 
All ordinary professions like cooks, barbers, accountants etc. enjoy some visible results and gains from their profession – but what about contemplatives (monks and nuns)? Is it possible to point out any results that someone may gain from ordaining as monk or nun?

The King’s question results in an awe-inspiring discourse, in which the Buddha explains the gradual training of a monk, from being inspired to ordain to gradually develop the heart and as result realizing higher and higher spiritual attainments up to the ultimate.

An English translation is available here:
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/DN/DN02.html

A short overview of the Chanting:

0:00 - The King’s Question: “Is it possible, venerable sir, to point out any other fruit of recluseship visible here and now, more excellent and sublime…?”

0:22 - A perfectly awakened Buddha arises in the world, someone hears his teaching and reflects if he should ordain and then leaves behind his wealth and relatives to go forth into homelessness.

02:54 - After ordaining he develops wholesome bodily and verbal action, purifies his livelihood and his virtue.

06:08 - Just like a King who defeated all his enemies doesn’t see danger from anywhere, so too the monk who is endowed with this conduct does not see danger anywhere with regard to his restraint in virtue and experiences the happiness of blamelessness.

06:53 - The monk guards his sense faculties. When he sees a form with the eyes he doesn’t grasp it’s signs and features and experiences unsullied happiness because of that.

09:28 - The monk develops mindfulness and clear comprehension in all body postures.

10:15 - The monk develops contentment with his requisites. Just like a bird flies only with his wings wherever he goes, so too the monk takes only his robe and bowl with him.

11:00 - Endowed with these qualities the monk resorts to a secluded place in the wilderness to abandon the five hindrances.

16:55 - The first jhāna. The monk pervades his body with rapture and happiness born of seclusion.

18:22 - The second jhāna. The monk pervades his body with rapture and happiness born of concentration, just as if a lake without inflows from outside would be completely pervaded and suffused with water by a spring welling up from the bottom of the lake.

20:22 - The third jhāna. The monk pervades his body with a more subtle happiness free from rapture, just like Lotus-plants growing in a lake which don’t rise above the water would be completely suffused and pervaded by the water in the lake.

22:10 - The forth jhāna. The monk pervades his body with the completely purified and bright mind, just like a person would be covered completely by a white cloth.
The heart which has been purified, freed from defilements, become malleable and impertuable can be directed to various kinds of higher knowledges:

23:30 - Gaining insight knowledge by seeing the material elements of the body and consciousness as separate.

26:00 - By his powerful, unified mind the monk has developed a mind-made body with supernatural faculties, which usually only Brahma deities have. He develops the ability to separate his mind-made body from his physical body.

28:08 - The unified mind that has transcended the entire sense realm can shape it like a potter a piece of clay and gains psychic power over matter. Space, location and the law of physics become mere conventions.

31:40 - The monk develops the ability to direct his supernatural sense faculties to other realms of existence (divine ear and eye) and to far away places.

33:22 - The monk develops the ability to read the mind and the qualities of the heart of other beings.

37:35 - The monk develops the ability to recollect previous lives, reaching back aeons of time, before our solar system and even our current universe existed.

41:54 - The monk sees the causality underlying the process of rebirth in Samsara. With the divine eye he can see how beings are reborn and pass away according to their Karma.

46:21 - The monk gains direct knowledge into the causality of the deepest layer of defilements that cause all suffering, further becoming and rebirth. As he gains this understanding he is able to cut them off completely and irreversibly. His heart becomes free from the taint of sensuality, the taint of becoming and the taint of ignorance and the knowledge arises in him:
“Destroyed is birth, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is nothing further beyond this.”

The Buddha ends his discourse with the words:

“This too, great king, is a visible fruit of recluseship more excellent and sublime than the previous ones. And, great king, there is no other fruit of recluseship higher or more sublime than this one.” 

50:42 - King Ajātasattu takes refuge.

#chanting #buddhistchanting #monk