Venerable Anuruddha

Prince Anuruddha was a Sakyan, a son of King Amitodana and a younger brother of Prince Mahānāma. He grew up so carefully cherished that scarcity had almost never entered his life.

One day the prince and his friends were playing a ball game, agreeing that whoever lost had to provide sweets for the others. Anuruddha lost the first round, and his servant went to ask his mother for sweets. He lost a second time, and the servant went again. A third time sweets were still sent. Then he lost a fourth time and sent the same man back as before.

This time his mother told the servant to go back and say, "There are no sweets." But an ordinary refusal reached the ears of someone who had never met the phrase. Prince Anuruddha understood "no-sweets" to be the name of a new kind of sweet.

The commentarial biography records the prince's reply briefly:

"Then bring me the no-sweets."

His mother understood at once that her son did not know the word "none." So she had a tray washed clean, left it empty, covered it with a second tray, and sent it with not a single sweet inside.

But as the servant carried the tray through the gateway, the biography compiled from the commentaries relates that the deity guarding the gate recalled a past life of the prince. He had once been a poor man named Annabhāra, who with his wife had given the Paccekabuddha Upariṭṭha the very food they had kept for themselves, and had made the aspiration that in any future birth he might never hear the words "there is none." The deity feared that if the prince were now allowed to learn those words, a more powerful deity might punish her. So she filled the tray with celestial sweets.

When the cover was lifted, Anuruddha and his friends ate sweets of a flavour they had never tasted before.

His mother's lesson produced the opposite of its intention. The prince became still more convinced that "no-sweets" were the finest sweets of all. When he next went to her, he complained, as the biography records:

"Mother, why have you only begun to love me today? On other days you never made me no-sweets to eat. From now on I will eat nothing but no-sweets. You need not make any other kind."

His mother realised that something wondrous had happened. From then on, whenever her son asked for "no-sweets," she would send an empty covered tray, and every time it was filled with celestial sweets. So the word "none" still had not reached Prince Anuruddha.

Once three princes fell to discussing where the rice they ate every day came from. Prince Kimbila had seen people take rice out of a granary and answered, "It comes from the granary." Prince Bhaddiya had seen people ladle rice out of a pot and answered, "It comes from the pot." Anuruddha answered, "It comes from the bowl" — because whenever he looked, the rice was already in the bowl, ready to eat.

All three answers came from what each of them had seen. But Anuruddha's sight began and ended at the bowl in front of him. Behind that bowl was a whole story he had never known — ploughing, sowing, tending the crop, and harvesting.

Those things reached him on the day Prince Mahānāma proposed that they decide which of them should go forth.

While the Buddha was staying at the Anupiya Mango Grove, Prince Mahānāma told his younger brother that no one from their family had yet gone forth to follow the Teacher, and that one of the two brothers ought to be chosen. Anuruddha listened to what the life of one gone forth involves — a shaven head, ochre robes, sleeping on the ground, and going for alms — and answered honestly that he could not bear such hardship, and asked his elder brother to go forth in his place.

So Mahānāma explained what his brother would have to take on if he chose the household life: ploughing, sowing, bringing water, tending the crop, harvesting, threshing and storing the grain. And when one round was complete, a new season would arrive.

The commentaries record that Anuruddha asked when the work would ever be finished, and when one might enjoy one's wealth without having to labour. On learning that the work has no end, the prince who had thought rice comes from the bowl chose the life of one gone forth instead.

His mother would not consent. Three times Anuruddha asked to go forth and three times he was refused. So he stopped eating and declared that he would rather die than not go forth. In the end his mother saw that allowing him to go forth was better than losing her son — but she set a condition: Prince Bhaddiya must go forth as well.

Bhaddiya was not merely a friend; he was a ruling khattiya with a kingdom to govern. The commentarial biography relates that Anuruddha went to him and said:

My going forth depends on you. If you go forth, then I can go forth.

Bhaddiya asked for seven years. Anuruddha thought that too long, and bargained him down to six years, five, and so on, until only seven days remained. At last his friend gave up the throne. One of them was walking away from a kingdom; the other from a life that had never known the words "there is none."

Six Sakyans — Bhaddiya, Anuruddha, Ānanda, Bhagu, Kimbila and Devadatta — set out together with Upāli, the barber who served them. Once past the border the princes took off their ornaments and gave them to Upāli to take home. But Upāli feared that if he went back alone he might be suspected of killing the princes for their wealth; and if men who had lived in a palace could give it all up, so could he. So he followed them back to ask for the going forth as well.

When they reached the Buddha, the commentarial biography relates that Prince Anuruddha asked that Upāli be given the going forth first, stating his reason quite plainly:

"Venerable sir, we are khattiyas with fierce khattiya pride. Please give the going forth first to Upāli, the attendant who served us all, so that we may pay respect to him, bow to him and salute him according to the custom of the Buddha's disciples, and so root out khattiya pride from our characters."

The Buddha gave the going forth to Upāli first, and then to the six Sakyans. From then on the former princes had to rise for and bow to their former servant according to seniority. Their going forth thus began by leaving khattiya pride behind them.

After his ordination Anuruddha took up a meditation subject and practised in earnest. Within that rains retreat the divine eye arose in him. He could survey what is distant and subtle beyond human sight, as far as a thousand world-systems. His energy did not slacken, his mindfulness did not fail, his body was calm, and his mind was concentrated.

But one thing did not happen: his mind was still not liberated from the taints.

So Anuruddha went to Sāriputta and told him exactly how things stood:

"With the divine eye, purified and surpassing the human, I survey a thousand world-systems. My energy is aroused and unflagging, my mindfulness is established and unconfused, my body is tranquil and undisturbed, my mind is concentrated and unified. And yet my mind is not liberated from the taints through non-clinging. How is this?"

The problem did not lie a thousand worlds away. It lay in the word "my," which kept recurring in what he had just said.

Sāriputta listened to the end and then separated out three things hidden in his friend's words:

"When you think, 'With the divine eye I survey a thousand world-systems,' that is your conceit. When you think, 'My energy is aroused and unflagging… my mind is concentrated and unified,' that is your restlessness. And when you think, 'Yet my mind is not liberated from the taints,' that is your worry."

Then Sāriputta advised him:

"Let Venerable Anuruddha abandon these three states, pay no attention to these three states, and direct his mind to the deathless element."

Anuruddha could see a thousand worlds with the divine eye. Sāriputta pointed out the conceit, restlessness and worry arising in the one who was doing the seeing.

Anuruddha withdrew to practise the duties of a recluse in the Eastern Bamboo Park in the Ceti country. In that solitude he reflected on the Dhamma, and seven thoughts arose in him:

• This Dhamma is for one of few wishes, not for one of many wishes.
• It is for one who is content, not for one who is discontent.
• It is for one who is secluded, not for one who delights in company.
• It is for one who is energetic, not for one who is lazy.
• It is for one whose mindfulness is established, not for one who is muddled in mindfulness.
• It is for one whose mind is concentrated, not for one whose mind is unconcentrated.
• It is for one who is wise, not for one who is dull.

Those seven were clear, but an eighth had not yet appeared. The Buddha, knowing his mind, came to the forest.

The Buddha completed Anuruddha's reflection with an eighth thought:

This Dhamma is for one who delights in non-proliferation, not for one who delights in proliferation.

"Proliferation" here does not mean being slow at anything. It means papañca — thought that branches out endlessly through craving, conceit and views, spinning one thing into the next without end.

The Buddha then taught the practice of the noble lineage. Anuruddha received the teaching and went back into solitude to develop insight.

Anuruddha developed insight along the lines of that teaching until he attained arahantship, together with the supernormal knowledges and the analytical knowledges, the taints entirely destroyed.

Afterwards the Buddha placed him in the position of foremost:

"Anuruddha is foremost among my monk disciples who possess the divine eye."

The divine eye that had arisen before arahantship was now the knowledge of an arahant in whom conceit was extinct.

Once Anuruddha was staying with Nandiya and Kimbila in the Eastern Bamboo Park. When the Buddha came, he asked whether the three of them were living in concord, without dispute, looking on one another with kindly eyes. Anuruddha answered:

"We are indeed living in concord, in harmony, without dispute, blending like milk and water, looking on one another with kindly eyes, venerable sir."

Asked how they managed it, he answered that each of them considered it a gain for himself to be living with such companions in the holy life, and so maintained acts of loving-kindness by body, speech and mind toward the others, both in their presence and behind their backs.

"Our bodies are different, venerable sir, but our minds, it seems, are one."

That concord was not only in what he said; it could be seen in the daily routine of the three.

Their harmony did not stop at words. Whoever came back from the alms round first would set out the seats, prepare water for washing the feet, put out the vessels and arrange the food. Whoever came back later would eat what was left, or if there was none, would put away the seats and wash the vessels. Whoever saw that a water jar was empty would fill it; and if it was too heavy for one, he would call another with a hand signal.

Every five days the three would meet and discuss the Dhamma through the night. No one waited to be told or reminded. When they saw work, they did it; when it was beyond one man, they signalled for help.

So the phrase "like milk and water" came out of small things repeated every day — noticing, acting, and helping one another with hardly a word spoken.

The Dhammapada commentary relates another episode that makes this mutual help still clearer. One day Anuruddha's robe was worn out, and he went looking for cloth on rubbish heaps. A deity named Jālinī saw him and knew that if she offered him celestial cloth directly he would not accept it. So she hid three pieces in a rubbish heap with only a corner showing. Anuruddha found that corner, drew the cloth out, examined it, and accepted it as rag-cloth.

On the day the robe was to be sewn, the Buddha came with five hundred monks. Mahā Kassapa sat and sewed at one end, Sāriputta in the middle, Ānanda at the other end, and the Sangha helped spin the thread — while the Buddha himself threaded the needle and Mahā Moggallāna fetched whatever was still needed. Anuruddha's robe was thus completed by the hands of the community, no differently from the small tasks in the Eastern Bamboo Park, where whoever saw the work first set to it first.

Even as an arahant, Anuruddha's body still fell ill. A discourse in the Anuruddha Saṃyutta records that once, when he was gravely ill, the monks saw that he bore the bodily pain without being agitated, and asked on what his mind was established.

Anuruddha answered that his mind was well established in the four establishments of mindfulness — contemplating body, feeling, mind and phenomena as they actually are. Painful feeling still arose in the body, but a mind established in those four was not overwhelmed by it.

Beneath the twin sāla trees in the Sāla Grove at Kusinārā, Anuruddha sat among the disciples keeping watch over the Teacher for the last time. When the Buddha had given his final exhortation, his voice fell silent.

"Monks, I now say this to you: conditioned things are of a nature to decay. Accomplish your task with heedfulness."

After that the Buddha entered the first jhāna; emerging from it he entered the second, from the second the third, and from the third the fourth — deeper by stages through the four form-jhānas.

But the sequence was not finished. He emerged from the fourth jhāna and entered the base of infinite space, the base of infinite consciousness, the base of nothingness, and the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, before entering the cessation of perception and feeling.

When his in-and-out breathing was no longer apparent, the commentary relates that some devas and humans thought the Teacher had already passed away, and cried out. Even Ānanda could not be sure whether he was still living, and so turned to Anuruddha:

"Venerable Anuruddha, has the Blessed One attained final Nibbāna?"
"No, friend Ānanda, the Blessed One has not attained final Nibbāna. He has entered the cessation of perception and feeling."

That answer did not come from guessing at his condition. The commentary explains that Anuruddha had followed the Teacher into each attainment in turn, as far as the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception. When the Buddha passed beyond that, Anuruddha knew that he was entering the cessation of perception and feeling — and knew as well that final passing does not occur within that attainment.

Afterwards the Buddha emerged from the cessation of perception and feeling and descended back through the sequence — from neither-perception-nor-non-perception to nothingness, infinite consciousness, infinite space, the fourth jhāna, the third, the second and the first. Emerging from the first, he ascended once more through the second and third to the fourth.

Through that whole fine-grained sequence, the discourse records the answers of Anuruddha alone. The knowledge that could see as far as a thousand worlds was, on that night beneath the sāla trees, at work on what lay directly before it — knowing at every step which attainment the Teacher was dwelling in.

When the Buddha emerged from the fourth jhāna and attained final Nibbāna, Anuruddha spoke these verses:

"There was no more in-breath and out-breath for the steadfast one of settled mind, for the Sage who, imperturbable and intent on peace, made an end. With mind unshaken he endured the feeling; the liberation of his mind was like the going out of a lamp."

Some monks and some devas wept and lamented. Anuruddha reminded them: had the Buddha not already said that there must be parting from all that is dear and agreeable, and that whatever has arisen and is conditioned is by nature subject to breaking up?

Through the rest of that night Anuruddha and Ānanda talked of the Dhamma. In the morning Anuruddha sent Ānanda into Kusinārā to carry the news to the Mallas.

The commentaries relate that Anuruddha lived to a great age and attained final Nibbāna at the village of Veḷuva in the Vajji country. Across his life, seeing changed its meaning three times.

As a prince he saw only the rice already in his bowl, and so did not know how long the labour was that brought it there. With the divine eye he saw as far as a thousand worlds — and still Sāriputta had to point out the conceit, restlessness and worry hidden inside the word "I." When he attained arahantship, that same eye became the knowledge of one in whom self-importance was finished.

After that, his capacity shows itself in actual events: living in concord with his companions, bearing painful feeling with mindfulness established, and following the sequence of attainments on the night the Teacher passed away.

So Anuruddha's story travels from a single bowl of rice out to a thousand worlds, and then returns to what is nearest of all: seeing the body, seeing the mind, and seeing what is happening exactly as it is.