An Atheist Explores the Dhammapada Part Eight: Become a Robot (7 The Perfected One (Arahantavagga))

Dhammapada Part Seven: The Perfected One (Arahantavagga)

Become a Robot

“There is no more worldly existence for the wise one who, like the earth, resents nothing, who is firm as a high pillar and as pure as a deep pool free from mud.”

Welcome to the next instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Dhammapada).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Dhammapada, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post https://bit.ly/3IbwtwE

For the online Dhammapada that I use, see here https://bit.ly/3IgCiJr

And now:

Dhammapada Part Seven: The Perfected One

These verses discuss the “Perfected One”, the arahant, in terms that render them almost supernatural. The arahant has so abandoned worldly desires, worldly pleasures and attachment to both good and evil that they take on super-human levels of calm – “Calm is his thought, calm his speech, and calm his deed, who, truly knowing, is wholly freed, perfectly tranquil and wise”.

The verses refer to “the Void, the Unconditioned Freedom” as the object of the arahant’s thoughts, but here, at least, we don’t get any further explanation about what that might be. I suppose it’s another metaphor for detachment, but it also kind of reminds me of the Tao (although, as the Tao Te Ching explains, if you can describe the Tao, that’s not the Tao that you’re describing, conveniently). The arahant, has so abandoned the world that they have nowhere they call home, and “their track cannot be traced, like that of birds in the air.” They are “without blind faith, who knows the Uncreated, who has severed all links, destroyed all causes (for karma, good and evil), and thrown out all desires”. And according to the footnotes, that verse contains a series of puns in Pali, so that it can also be read as a kind of dark opposite – “who is faithless, ungrateful, a burglar, who destroys opportunities and eats vomit”. That’s pretty clever.

Finally, the arahant suffuses his surroundings with his holiness. Yes, “his”, although I’ve seen no evidence yet that the Buddhist canon thinks of women as less capable of spiritual development as men. Elsewhere in the Pali canon there are rules for bhikkuni, female monastics, and they’re not fundamentally different to the rules for the male monks, bhikku, that I’ve been able to tell.

But back to the places – “Inspiring, indeed, is that place where Arahants dwell, be it a village, a forest, a vale, or a hill”, places where “worldlings find no pleasure”.

It’s an odd sort of concept to me, that feeling nothing should be seen as the ultimate goal. This isn’t the same as controlling one’s feelings, of experiencing the emotions, but being mindful of them and choosing not to let them rule you. Removal of all attachment, pleasure and pain – that no longer seems human, and not in a good way.