Sīla-Samādhi-Paññā
My teacher, Ajahn Da, has said that the Buddha taught one thing: sīla-samādhi-paññā. Sīla-samādhi-pañña is a compound word the components of which are generally translated as follows: Sīla meaning morality or right behavior of body, speech and mind, samādhi meaning right concentration, and pañña meaning wisdom or right understanding.
Sīla comes from the Pali word meaning “normality.” So, it is the behavior of the body and mind when it is in its normal state and not deranged by greed or anger. It is often equated with the following of ethical precepts, i.e. for lay practitioners, not to kill, steal, misuse sexuality, lie, or become intoxicated. This following of precepts is important to keep both the community of practitioners and society at large safe, as well as to keep practitioners themselves safe from the negative karmic consequences of harmful behavior. But the deeper practice of sīla is to return the mind to its normal or original state by abandoning the defilements of greed and aversion. When the mind is normal and free of greed and anger, the precepts are naturally kept. One does not engage in any of the behaviors proscribed by the precepts unless either greed or anger are present in the mind. For this reason, enlightened masters have said that rule-following is not the true and deeper practice of sīla, True sīla occurs through the uprooting of unethical behavior at its root in the mind. Huineng, the 6th Zen patriarch, said that sīla is simply your own mind when free from error, evil, jealousy, greed, hatred and hostility. Luangpor Teean, the founder of my lineage of vipassana practice, felt similarly and said that true sīla is going beyond rule-following. It is a mind that is straight-forwarded or normal and free from defilements. Other teachers have echoed this view.
Samādhi is often regarded as one-pointed concentration – the mind focused on a single object. But from the standpoint of vipassana practice, that single object is just this body and mind in the present moment. So, the true meaning of samādhi, or right concentration is the maintaining of mindful awareness of the body and mind in the here and now and doing so without grasping or clinging to anything arriving at any of the six sense doors. Thoughts may continuously arise at the sense door of the mind, but those thoughts are not engaged with, and so quickly pass away. There are many other teachers, including Zen and Tibetan masters, that share this understanding of samādhi which has nothing to do with sitting still or closing one’s eyes.
Pañña means wisdom. It is to be cognizant of, and in touch with, one’s true nature or Buddhamind. One’s true nature is the knowing emptiness that is the ground of everything. It is the reality that is beyond all dualities and notions of existence or nonexistence. From it, all things are arising together in every single moment and are reflecting its inherent emptiness. Because all things are arising together, there is no basis for hatred or greed as nothing is truly separate from anything else.
Now back to the compound phrase sīla-samādhi-pañña. The joining of these concepts into one reflects the fact that each of the components of this phrase interpenetrate and are inseparable from the others. One cannot have sīla without samādhi and pañña. One cannot have samādhi without sīla and pañña. And one cannot have pañña without sīla and samādhi. One’s mind cannot not be normal, or non-deranged and non-clinging, unless samādhi or the continuous establishment of sati or mindfulness, is also present. And this normality of mind and continuous mindfulness and full awareness is itself the expression of pañña or wisdom.
Furthermore, when sīla is perfected, samādhi and pañña also become perfected in that same moment. If any of the three components are absent, the other two will also be absent in that moment. The hyphenated phrase, sīla-samādhi-pañña, reflects this oneness. The three components of the phrase are simply different ways of looking at the same thing, and all the teachings of the Buddha can be reduced to this one thing: sīla-samādhi-pañña.
What’s more, this phrase makes it clear that the path and awakening are not separate and cannot be separated. Sīla-samādhi-pañña is itself the Path in that normality of mind and ethical behavior, continuity of mindfulness, and wisdom or right understanding, literally comprise the Buddha’s Eightfold Path to awakening and the ending of suffering. Normality of mind and ethical behavior, continuity of mindfulness, and wisdom or right understanding is also how the awakened mind manifests itself. When sīla-samādhi-pañña are absent, the mind is not awake. Sīla-samādhi-pañña is not just a means to an end, but it is awakening itself.
Therefore, the practice of sīla-samādhi-pañña should be continuous. There have been teachers who have had a deep realization, and then, thinking that they had reached the goal, dropped the practice of sīla-samādhi-pañña and gone on to do bad things – not knowing that the moment they dropped the practice of sīla-samādhi-pañña they were no longer awake, but once again fast asleep. There does come a point at which sīla-samādhi-pañña becomes natural, but again, whenever sīla-samādhi-pañña is not present, then neither is the wisdom of nibbana.
To practice sīla-samādhi-pañña is to harmonize ourselves with our true nature. We therefore have a duty to practice it at all times, not just during our formal meditation practice. This is a duty that we have to ourselves, not to anyone else. This is why I adhere to the moving vipassana practice of Luangpor Teean. By not tying samādhi to sitting still while closing the sense doors, it is easier to do one’s duty and engage in the practice of sīla-samādhi-pañña at any and all times.
Michael Bresnan