We've now reached Sutra 18 in the Majjhima Nikaya, and this is called the Honey Cake Sutta. And I'd say it certainly is a honey cake for all students of Buddhist psychology: there are some important Buddhist psychological principles set out in this sutra.
The sutra has four scenes.
In the first one, the Buddha is returning from his alms round when he has an encounter with a man called Dandapani, who tries to pick a quarrel with him, and asks him in a rather haughty way what his teaching is. The Buddha says that his teaching is such that it puts an end to all quarrels.
In the second scene, the Buddha gets back to the Sangha, tells the other bhikshus what happened, and then he goes to his hut.
In the third scene, the bhikshus then go to Kaccayana to get further elucidation of what the Buddha has said. They want to know what is this teaching that ends all quarrels.
Then Kaccayana gives an elucidation of the teaching, and then says to them, -“now go and ask the Buddha if what I said is right”.
And then in the final scene, the bhikkhus go to the Buddha, and the Buddha affirms that he would have said just what Kaccayana had said and Ananda expresses the general satisfaction of everybody present by saying that hearing this teaching was like being a starving man who finds a honey cake. So the sutra came to be called the Honey Cake Sutra.
Okay, so what are the major points that come out from the teaching that's given? Well, firstly, this sutra demonstrates that the skandhas are a sequence of factors, each one dependent on the one before. The skandhas are not simply a list of separate items that aggregate to make a person, nor are they just neutral psychological processes, like perception, feeling, consciousness, and so on, the sort of things that they're often translated as. The skandhas form a sequence of troublesome factors, each dependent upon the one that came before. And in this sutra, this process starts from what it calls contact.
Contact, it says, occurs when a sense organ, a sense object, and the power of consciousness are all together. When these three things are present, then there is contact. This is contact, of course, with a rupa, which triggers vedana and then samjna.
But then it introduces the important concept of papancha, proliferation. The sequence, contact, vedana, samsara, leads to papancha. In other words, the fruit of experience spreads its influence through the psyche, through the citta.
And this is samskara. This is the creation of samskaras. It says in the sutra that papancha gives rise to underlying tendencies, dysfunctional intentions and it's on the basis of these that all quarrels arise.
And then finally, and probably in some ways, most importantly, Kaccayana explains that the real utility of this theory is that it's not just a theory, that you can actually observe it happening. You can observe contact, contacting. You can observe vedana happening. You can observe samjna happening, proliferation, proliferating. And it's the fact that you can observe them in yourself that makes spiritual development possible, that you can observe them in somebody else, makes therapy possible, and so on.
Now we should also say a little bit more about these underlying tendencies, because the sutra also gives us important information about these. And it says, well, as I've just mentioned, that they are created by papancha, by proliferation, resulting from contact-vedana-samjna. And these tendencies are listed in the sutra as the tendency to lust, aversion, opinionatedness, doubt, conceit, attachment to becoming, and avidya.
Initially this sounds like just a list of different factors, but when you look at it closely, there is something of a logical order in this list. They're not, again, not just separate items. You can distinguish that some of the items are on the greed side, some are on the hate side.
And there's then an ascending order, if you like, from the primitive instinct level of lust and aggression, through a more psychological manifestation of the same energies as opinionatedness on the one hand, and prejudice on the other. And then there's a third, you might say, ego level, where they come out as conceit and ambition. And all of this together constitutes avidya.
So this gives us an analysis of avidya into three levels:
The primitive, you could say, sort of biological level, the psychological level, and the ego level.
With the overall effect: avidya.
The primitive level: Lust, the primitive desire that gives rise to life. Life is then sustained by defensive separation.
The psychological level: the lust is attachment to one's own sense of self, one's opinions. And this is defended, again, by prejudice, rejection of other views. So this is the second level.
And then these same valences, if you like, appear at an ego level as conceit on the one hand, "I'm proud of what I am", and ambition, "I want to be more".
And all of this constitutes avidya, delusion or denial. And we can say these are all driven by the experience of desire, of wanting something, of grasping for something, as it says in the Noble Truths. And the sutra says, if nothing is found to revel in or hold on to, then that is the ceasing of these tendencies.
When these tendencies cease, there is then no ground for quarrels, disputes, recrimination, malice or slander. The bad states simply evaporate.
So a lot of good stuff in this in this sutra.
And it's a honey cake for Buddhist psychology students.
Thank you very much.
Namo Amida Bu.
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This chart show the six "underlying tendencies" that constitute avidya, that are created by papancha, the spreading or proliferation through the mind of the effects of samjña. The chart shows how the ego level of delusion is based upon a psychological level which is based upon the basic biological level of attraction and repulsion.