25 (Day) Notes | Sabbāsava Sutta (MN 2) | Sutta Study @ Buddhist Maha Vihara, Brickfields | Bhante Dr. G. Chandima

 

Unwise attention leads to a lack of sensory restraint.

1. What does saṁvarā mean?

2. What is saṁvarā in terms of sense faculties?

3. saṁvuta versus asaṁvuta?

4. What are the āsavās in regard to the eye?

5. What are the āsavās in regard to the sound?

6. What are the āsavās in regard to the nose?

7. What are the āsavās in regard to the tongue?

8. What are the āsavās in regard to the body?

9. What are the āsavās in regard to the mind?

10. Does saṁvarā mean "sensory deprivation"?

11. Six senses as an empty village (Āsīvisopama Sutta, SN 35. 238)

The Buddha used the simile of an empty village to represent the six internal sense bases and the simile of a village attacking bandits to represent the six exterior sense objects in the  Āsivisopama sutta of the Samyutta Nikaya. Because pleasant and unpleasant external sense objects attack and bombard the six internal sense bases, accumulating mental defilements through greed or aversion, resulting in dukkha and the continuance of samsara. 

12. Everything is burning (Ādittapariyāya Sutta, SN 35.28)

While addressing a group of one thousand newly ordained monks in the Samyutta Nikāya's Ādittapariyāya sutta, the Buddha emphasized the dukkha caused by the six internal sense bases by stating that all components of a sensory experience are burning.

"Monks, everything is on fire. And what exactly is on fire?

The eye is burning, as are the visual things, eye consciousness is burning, and eye contact is burning. Furthermore, the happy, uncomfortable, and neither unpleasant nor pleasant feelings that come as a result of eye contact are also burning. What are they blazing? They are engulfed in the flames of greed, hatred, and illusion. I say that they are consumed by the fires of birth, aging, and death, as well as by sadness, lamentation, anguish, sorrow, and despair."

13. The sensuous desire (chanda rāga), not the sense faculties, is the more dangerous. (Koṭṭhita Sutta, SN 35. 191)

Internal sense bases and sense objects do not, by themselves, cause mental defilement. One's desire and passion (chanda rāga) for them is what causes mental defilement and suffering. Venerable Sariputta stated in the Koṭṭhita sutta of the Samyutta Nikāya, using the simile of a white ox and a black ox joined together by a single collar, where neither the white ox nor the black ox is the bondage but the single collar, that the internal sense bases or the external sense objects are not bondages in and of themselves, but it is the desire and passion dependent upon them that is.

"Suppose that a black ox and a white ox were joined with a single collar or yoke. If someone were to say, 'The black ox is the fetter of the white ox, the white ox is the fetter of the black' — speaking this way, would he be speaking rightly?"

"No, my friend. The black ox is not the fetter of the white ox, nor is the white ox the fetter of the black. The single collar or yoke by which they are joined: That is the fetter there."

"In the same way, the eye is not the fetter of forms, nor are forms the fetter of the eye. Whatever desire & passion arises in dependence on the two of them: That is the fetter there. The ear is not the fetter of sounds... The nose is not the fetter of aromas... The tongue is not the fetter of flavors... The body is not the fetter of tactile sensations... The intellect is not the fetter of ideas, nor are ideas the fetter of the intellect. Whatever desire & passion arises in dependence on the two of them: That is the fetter there.

14. Grief will come to those who fail to guard their senses. (Gaṇakamoggallāna Sutta, MN 107)

The Buddha gave the following instruction on sense control in regards to the eye in the Gaṇakamoggallāna Sutta, which is repeated for the other five sense bases.

“Come monk, guard your senses. On seeing an object with the eye, do not reflect on its features or anything associated with it. If you leave your senses unguarded, evil unwholesome states of covetousness and grief might invade you. So, practise restraint, and guard the eye faculty. Undertake the restraint of the eye faculty.”

15. How do you develop sense restraint? 

"The monk rouses his will to avoid the arising of evil, unwholesome things not yet arisen ... to overcome them ... to develop wholesome things not yet arisen ... to maintain them, and not to let them disappear, but to bring them to growth, to maturity and to the full perfection of development. And he makes effort, stirs up his energy, exerts his mind and strives" (Padhāna Sutta, AN 4.13)

In terms of Sense Faculties (Padhāna Sutta, AN 4.14)

(1) "What now, o monks, is the effort to avoid? Perceiving a form, or a sound, or an odour, or a taste, or a bodily or mental impression, the monk neither adheres to the whole nor to its parts. And he strives to ward off that through which evil and unwholesome things might arise, such as greed and sorrow, if he remained with unguarded senses; and he watches over his senses, restrains his senses. This is called the effort to avoid.

(2) "What now is the effort to overcome? The monk does not retain any thought of sensual lust, or any other evil, unwholesome states that may have arisen; he abandons them, dispels them, destroys them, causes them to disappear. This is called the effort to overcome.

(3) "What now is the effort to develop? The monk develops the factors of enlightenment, bent on solitude, on detachment, on extinction, and ending in deliverance, namely: mindfulness (sati), investigation of the law (dhamma-vicaya), energy (viriya), rapture (pīti), tranquillity (passaddhi), concentraton (samādhi), equanimity (upekkhā). This is called the effort to develop.

(4) "What now is the effort to maintain? The monk keeps firmly in his mind a favourable object of concentration, such as the mental image of a skeleton, a corpse infested by worms, a corpse blueblack in colour, a festering corpse, a corpse riddled with holes, a corpse swollen up. This is called the effort to maintain" (A. IV, 14).