Reflections on the seven qualities in the Madhyama Āgama
When I reflect on the life I have lived thus far I notice how much more certain I was about things when I was younger. At first, this seemed strange. I had less knowledge, experience and wisdom back then yet I was more confident about my views. Of course, I am now aware that this phenomenon is quite common. It is so common that the expression “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” (Martin n.d.) has become part of the vernacular. It has been identified as a type of cognitive bias known as the Dunning-Kruger effect (Cherry 2021) where lack of self-awareness and lesser cognitive ability can lead one to overestimate their capability. Sadly for our society at large as William Butler Yeats (1989) pointed out:
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity”.
Well, Socrates, perhaps the wisest in Athens, did have the conviction to not pretend to know what he did not know but that cost him his life as he did not want to live a life unexamined (Fokt & Chisholm 2019).
There certainly have been numerous events in my life where I overestimated my capabilities, bit off more than I can chew, and painfully came crashing down. For example, I thought that I could earn the big bucks as a corporate lawyer without sacrificing what I really wanted to do and without dedicating my life to the profession. Yes, I was able to cruise under the radar at the beginning but I wasn’t able to sustain the pretence particularly as I progressed to senior associate level. I am grateful that I still had the courage to leave the glitter of that profession to pursue and start again. I am a lot poorer in money now but feel blessed with more joy. Bonnitta Roy (2021) put it quite nicely: “Learning happens not so much because of the struggle to understand what you do not yet know, but because of the frustration of knowing something you do not yet understand”.
I wish I had encountered earlier in my life the Madhyama Āgama where it is written that someone has heard the Buddha discuss the seven qualities that if a monk should have them would allow him to attain joy and happiness, and end traces of undesirable qualities (Bingenheimer, Anālayo & Bucknell 2014, pp. 3–8).
At first, I didn’t quite get why the discourse followed a repetitive pattern: How does a monk know X? [answer Y]; If a monk does not know X [repeat and negate answer Y]; and If a monk knows X well [repeat and affirm answer Y]. However, remembering the lectures and readings on Buddhist Hermeneutics helped me come to grips with this.
A 21st-century human, I did not sit at the foot of the Buddha to hear the teaching specifically meant for me. Thus, I need the tools of hermeneutics to guide me in my quest to have the text be my teacher (ed. Lopez 1988, pp. 1–10). Though incomplete and considered romantic by Gadamer (ed. Lopez 1988, p. 65), I can purport that this repetitive pattern reflects the oral tradition by which these teachings of the Buddha were originally transmitted. The repetitive pattern would have helped in memory retention and accuracy of transmission from teacher to student in an oral tradition. As both a budding Buddhist scholar and practitioner I can attest that repeated reading of the questions and answers did help me retain the teachings.
The first of the seven wholesome qualities in the Madhyama Āgama is knowing the Dharma which I read as comprising knowing the text (discourses, stanzas, expositions, verses, heroic tales and birth stories) as well as awareness of context (inspired utterances, what has been said, answers to questions, marvels and explanations of meaning). I would qualify this discourse to perhaps be concerned with propositional knowing only as distinct from participatory, perspectival, or procedural knowing in John Vervaeke’s Metatheory of Cognition (Henriquez 2021).
I struggle a little bit with the apparent absoluteness in the second quality of knowing the meaning. That is if the expression “The meaning is this, the meaning is that” points to one normative meaning that applies to all. Perhaps it speaks to the distance between a text produced in a time and culture where universal meaning is more accepted and a 21st-century exegete immersed in a post-modernist zeitgeist grappling with, inter alia, standpoint epistemology (Anderson 2020) and data feminism (Klein 2021). Perhaps our time is more aware of diversity in perspectival knowing than in the past.
I resonate well with the third quality of knowing the proper time to develop arousing, settling, or equanimity. Recently I have been getting better at practising equanimity in the face of hearing opinions I disagree with or which I consider to be utter bullshit, particularly on social media. This practice of equanimity has improved my mental well-being. I have also been listening more to my inner introvert and saying no to certain social events without the usual pangs of regret and what-if thinking that used to haunt me whenever I said no to things in the past. This Madhyama Āgama discourse on proper time reminds me of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 in the Judeo-Christian Bible: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: …”.
I am intrigued by the use of the word ‘restraint’ in the fourth quality. I don’t usually relate restraint to discarding drowsiness and being more attentive. On the contrary, restraint is usually mentioned to me when I’m too excited and jumping out of my skin about something. Perhaps this could be one of those anomalies of translation or there could be more nuance to the use of the word ‘restraint’ I am not aware of.
Perhaps the fifth quality of knowing one’s self in terms of faith, virtues and attainment could be complemented with a corresponding examination of the not so noble aspects of one’s self. What we now call shadow work following Jung with some of the principles involved in the process discussed by Zen Master Doshin Roshi (2019).
Reading about the sixth quality of knowing assemblies made me think about the apparent flattening of the world happening now particularly in social media. That is, I’m noticing that a lot of heated debates, censorship, or de-platforming concern words taken out of context. Some words uttered to a specific audience and particular context may not be offensive but if taken out of that context could indeed be considered prima facie offensive. The unbounded nature of the internet makes bespoke contextual interpretation problematic. Culturally at least here in contemporary Australia there also seems to be an increasing value ascribed to acting in an authentic manner regardless of which group one is interacting with. Perhaps something new could grow out of this creative tension between individual authenticity and the wisdom in dynamically adapting the presentation of one’s self to different groups.
I see in the seventh and last quality of knowing persons according to their superiority an escalation from faith towards action; from listening to the Dharma to retaining to examining the meaning to progressing, following, conforming, and practising the Dharma; and all these toward benefitting one’s self, others, the world, gods and humans. I see in this discourse that just as there are levels of churning towards refinement in going from cow’s milk to cream of ghee there are many levels in refining one’s participation in the Buddhist project. However, in the end, it ends up in the sublime Bodhisattva level compassion for all beings. I acknowledge that in some of the communities I participate in many have a general aversion to hierarchy in whatever form it may take. To me, perhaps there’s a qualitative and ontologic difference between a hierarchy of virtuosity in mastering a skill contrasted with a power hierarchy of a class of humans lording over other classes of humans and living beings.
This exercise of reflecting on the discourse about the seven wholesome qualities in the Madhyama Āgama demonstrated to me that although the discourse was aimed at monastics who lived around two and a half thousand years ago, I could still have my own relationship with the text and extract principles and insights that transcend historical and cultural bindings that could help me in my daily life now both as scholar and practitioner of Buddhism. I also am aware that I’m just starting my journey in reading the fundamental texts in what is a very large cannon. I would imagine that the more texts I read in the future, the more connections I can make between different texts. These textual connections I make could further deepen my involvement in the Buddhist project. I could even add my own commentaries and text to this millennia-long dialogue of distilling the suchness of things. Perhaps what I contribute could in turn help beings in the future in the same way that the text written by those who came before me helps me today.
References
Anderson, E 2020, ‘Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, viewed 24 October 2021, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2020/entries/feminism-epistemology/
Bingenheimer, M, Anālayo B, & Bucknell, R 2014, The Madhayama Āgama, or Middle Length Discourses Taishō Volume 1 Number 26, Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai America, Inc., Berkeley.
Cherry, K 2021, ‘The Dunning-Kruger Effect’, verywell mind, viewed 23 October 2021, https://www.verywellmind.com/an-overview-of-the-dunning-kruger-effect-4160740
Fokt, S & Chisholm, N 2019, Socrates and the Examined Life: 3. I know that I know (almost) nothing, online video, Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, 31 January, viewed 23 October 2021,
Henriquez, G 2021, ‘John Vervaeke’s Brilliant 4P/3R Metatheory of Cognition’, Psychology Today, viewed 23 October 2021, https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/theory-knowledge/202101/john-vervaeke-s-brilliant-4p3r-metatheory-cognition
Klein, L 2021, ‘ Lauren Klein on Data Feminism (Part 1): Surfacing Invisible Labor’, Complexity, podcast, 23 October, viewed 24 October
Lopez, D (ed.) 1988, Buddhist Hermeneutics, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu.
Martin, G, n.d. ‘The meaning and origin of the expression: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing’, The Phrase Finder, viewed 23 October 2021, https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/a-little-knowledge-is-a-dangerous-thing.html
Roshi, D 2019, Facing the Shadow, Zen master Doshin Roshi, online video, Rebel Wisdom, 22 October, viewed 24 October 2021,
Roy, B 2021, Twitter post, October 16, viewed 23 October 2021,