Self And Meditation In Indian Buddhism

Author(s): Johannes Bronkhorst
Publisher: Johannes Bronkhorst

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Self and meditation in Indian Buddhism / 149
have heard this sermon and obtained this insight reach immediate liberation:
Thus spoke the Lord; delighted, the group of five monks rejoiced in what the Lord had said. Moreover while this discourse was being uttered (imasmin ca pana veyyakaranasmim bhaffamane), the minds of the group of five monks were freed from the intoxicants without grasping. At that time there were six perfected ones (arhat) in the world.
proclaimed was apparently enough for
The mere fact of hearing this wisdom the five monks to reach instant liberation.
I hope it becomes clear that, and why, the idea of knowledge of the true nature of the self as a precondition for liberation exerted an attraction already on the early Buddhists, among them the composer, or redactor, of this part of the Buddha's first sermon. However, at this early period knowledge of the self could not be accepted as liberating insight in Buddhism. We may assume that the rejection by the Buddha of this particular solution was still in the minds of his followers. As a result they introduced this solution through a backdoor: they introduced knowledge of non-self rather than knowledge of self as liberating insight
The idea of an inactive self continued to exert an attraction on the Buddhists. It finds expression in the so-called tathagatagarbha doctrine of Mahāyāna Buddhism. The similarity between the tathāgatagarbha of certain Buddhists and the self of certain non-Buddhists was so striking that one Buddhist text comments upon it. The following passage occurs in the Lankavatara Satra. The Bodhisattva Mahāmati addresses the following question to the Buddha:7)
7) Lankav(V) 2. 137, p. 33 1. 10 ff. The word karta at the end of Mahamati's
question has been corrected into akarta 'non-active': only this reading makes