Re: The Rise of Bodhiology

Dear Dhammadarsa Bhikkhu

How are you?

Thank you for your kind questioning of my identification of intention as action.

I identified intention as action in light of Ācariya Buddhaghosa’s definition of action in Aţţhasālinī.  Please kindly read the following Pāļi passage.

(( Kim panetam kammam nāmāti. Cetanā ceva ekacce ca cetanāsampayuttakā dhammā. Tattha cetanāya kammabhāve imāni suttāni –

‘What is this thing called ‘action’? This is the question. ‘Action’ is the very intention, or refers to some phenomena associated with intention. In that answer, these are the evidential discourses for the intention being action.’

“cetanāham bhikkhave kammam vadāmi; cetayitvā kammam karoti kāyena vācāya manasā” (Section 63 Anguttaranikāya  Chakkanipāta; Section 539 Kathāvatthu)

Dhammasaňgaņīaţţhakathā, Roman page 88 in Chaţţhasaṃgāyanā CD ROM Version 3 ))

With due respect and kind regards,

Suan Lu Zaw

http://bodhibeda.com

Dhammadarsa Bhikkhu wrote the following in BuddhistWellnessGroup:

Good luck with your book.

I'd like to suggest that one idea in your email is not accurate: the Buddha didn't EQUATE intention with action, but rather declared intention to be action, in ADDITION to word and deed. If he equated intention and action that would mean denying that word and deed are also action, which most people would find ludicrous and would cause them to lose faith, but he taught in other places that there are three kinds of action: mental (including intention), verbal and bodily.

Cetana-aham bhikkhave kammam vadaami.

Intention I monks action call.

Monks I call intention action (unlike others who only consider word and deed to be action).

Best wishes

Dhammadarsa Bhikkhu

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The Rise of Bodhiology

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Gotama the Buddha, has ready answers. In the words of the Buddha, the sentient beings have doings as their possessions, are the inheritors of their own doings, have doings as their maker, doings as their relatives and doings as their refuges.

In short, we are on our own. There is no God to save us. We are to fend for ourselves. The only savior available to us is our own doings. This is known as actionism (kammavādo) in Buddhism. The Buddha is called an actionist (kammavādī).

The Buddha described his religion as Sāsanā (The Taming System). After perfection of his own actions and awakening, the Buddha started his taming system. Everything the Buddha taught in his discourses (Suttāni) is to do with how to progress from crude actions to perfect actions, which guarantee awakening as the ultimate goal.

In the Buddha’s teachings, action means intentional doing. The Buddha even equated intention with action (cetanāham kammam vadāmi, ‘I declare intention as action’). Thus, our actions, be they physical, verbal or mental, are based on our minds headed by intention.

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