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What the Heaps Offer, and the Way Out

SN 22.26, the Assāda Sutta — set 4, Not-Self and Dependent Arising

Reading time: about 4 min · 559 words

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Before you read

Here the Buddha looks back to the time before his awakening and tells you what he was asking.

He took each of the five clung-to heaps in turn (form, felt experience, recognition, putting-together activities and knowing) and asked three questions of it. What is its gratification: what real satisfaction does it offer? What is its danger: what is wrong with leaning on it? And what is the escape from it?

Notice the order. He does not start by calling the heaps worthless. Each one really does give satisfaction and gladness, and the text says so first. The danger is that each is impermanent and changing, and the escape is not getting rid of the heaps but letting go of the desire and passion for them.

The last part is the claim itself: he says he did not call himself awakened until he had seen all three sides of all five heaps as they really are.

Translation

The Setting

At Sāvatthī, the Buddha said:

"Bhikkhus, before my awakening, while I was still unawakened but intent on awakening, this thought arose in me:

The Question

'What is the gratification in form, what is the danger in it, and what is the escape from it? What is the gratification in felt experience, what is the danger in it, and what is the escape from it? What is the gratification in recognition, what is the danger in it, and what is the escape from it? What is the gratification in putting-together activities, what is the danger in them, and what is the escape from them? What is the gratification in knowing, what is the danger in it, and what is the escape from it?'

The Answer

"Then this thought arose in me:

'The satisfaction and gladness that arise dependent on form: this is the gratification in form. That form is impermanent, dissatisfactory, and subject to change: this is the danger in form. The removal of desire and passion for form, the abandoning of desire and passion for form: this is the escape from form.

The satisfaction and gladness that arise dependent on felt experience: this is the gratification in felt experience. That felt experience is impermanent, dissatisfactory, and subject to change: this is the danger in felt experience. The removal of desire and passion for felt experience, the abandoning of desire and passion for felt experience: this is the escape from felt experience.

The satisfaction and gladness that arise dependent on recognition: this is the gratification in recognition. That recognition is impermanent, dissatisfactory, and subject to change: this is the danger in recognition. The removal of desire and passion for recognition, the abandoning of desire and passion for recognition: this is the escape from recognition.

The satisfaction and gladness that arise dependent on putting-together activities: this is the gratification in putting-together activities. That putting-together activities are impermanent, dissatisfactory, and subject to change: this is the danger in putting-together activities. The removal of desire and passion for putting-together activities, the abandoning of desire and passion for putting-together activities: this is the escape from putting-together activities.

The satisfaction and gladness that arise dependent on knowing: this is the gratification in knowing. That knowing is impermanent, dissatisfactory, and subject to change: this is the danger in knowing. The removal of desire and passion for knowing, the abandoning of desire and passion for knowing: this is the escape from knowing.'

The Buddha's Declaration

"As long as I did not directly know, as they really are, the gratification in these five clung-to heaps as gratification, the danger in them as danger, and the escape from them as escape, I did not claim unsurpassed full awakening in the world with its devas, Māras, and Brahmās, in this generation with its samaṇas and brahmins, its rulers and its people.

But when I directly knew, as they really are, the gratification in these five clung-to heaps as gratification, the danger in them as danger, and the escape from them as escape, then I did claim unsurpassed full awakening in the world with its devas, Māras, and Brahmās, in this generation with its samaṇas and brahmins, its rulers and its people.

Knowledge and seeing arose in me:

'My release is unshakeable. This is the last birth. Now there is no more renewed becoming.'"

The fifth discourse is finished.

Words used in this translation (14)
awakening
Coming fully awake to how things are. Sometimes translated "enlightenment," a word this project avoids as needlessly mystical.
becoming
This project's rendering of "bhava" -- the settling of experience into a way of being that feels like somebody being something. Often translated "existence."
bhikkhus
Buddhist monks -- those who have left household life to practise full time. The Buddha's usual way of addressing the assembly, roughly "friends" in force.
birth
This project's rendering of "jāti": birth, coming into being. In the dependent-arising sequence, ageing and dying depend on it. In MN 141 the word appears once in its everyday sense instead, in a simile about a mother.
clung-to heaps
The five categories experience gets sorted into and then grasped as "me" or "mine" -- body, feeling, recognition, mental activity, and awareness. Not clinging to the categories themselves, but to the sense of ownership placed on top of them.
escape
This project's rendering of "nissaraṇa". It is the real way out of whatever the text is discussing, unlike the false escapes an untrained mind reaches for. In SN 36.6 the escape is from being stuck in a feeling; in Ud 8.3 it is from everything born, made, and conditioned.
felt experience
This project's rendering of "vedanā", often translated "feeling". It is the immediate pleasant, painful, or mixed tone of an experience, before any story we build on top of it.
form
This project's rendering of "rūpa" -- the physical, material aspect of experience, one of the five heaps.
gladness
This project's rendering of "muditā", often translated "sympathetic joy". It means being truly glad at someone else's good fortune. You cultivate it as a practice; you do not assume it comes naturally.
gratification
This project's rendering of "assāda": the real satisfaction something offers, which is why people hold on to it. The texts pair it with that thing's danger and the escape from it, so you see all three together.
knowing
This project's rendering of "viññāṇa" (often translated "consciousness") -- bare awareness of an object through one of the senses or the mind.
putting-together activities
This project's rendering of "saṅkhārā" (often translated "mental formations") -- the mind's constructing and assembling activity, one of the five heaps.
recognition
This project's rendering of "saññā" (often translated "perception") -- the mind's act of identifying and labeling what it encounters.
world
A word whose scope shifts with the teaching. It can mean the lived world we build through the senses and the mind, or the wider physical cosmos. The surrounding passage shows which sense it has.
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