What does a Buddha think about?
This essay is an effort to better understand the lived experience of an Arahant (enlightened being). I specifically want to examine the thoughts that appear to their minds — and whether they are similar to those a worldly being might have. This study will take the form of a textual survey, in which I will analyze key suttas, and verses from the Theragātā. I will begin with a brief exposition of how Arahantship is attained, making specific reference to the five aggregates of grasping (pañca-upādānakkhandha).
A good place to begin is with a clarification of what the Buddha taught. “It is just the suffering and the cessation of suffering that I proclaim” (SN 22.86). This statement allows us to view Buddhist teachings as either expositions of the nature of suffering, or outlining the path to its cessation. A classical description of the final goal, Nirvāṇa, is the cessation of the three poisons: greed (lobha), aversion (dosa), and delusion (moha) (Karunadasa 2017, 120). These three qualities are viewed as primary causes of suffering (dukkha) —yet other equivalent formulations are given. In the Bhāra Sutta, an awakened being is said to be someone who has cast off the burden of the five aggregates of grasping (SN 22.22). In his first sermon, the Buddha proclaimed that these five aggregates, when grasped, are suffering (SN 56.11).
The structure of experience can be explained through these five aggregates (pañca-khandha). They are form (rūpa), feelings (vedanā), perceptions (saññā), mental formations (saṃkhāra) and consciousness (viññāṇa). Suffering arises when there is craving (taṇhā) and self-appropriation with respect to the khandhas. When this is done, they become the entire mass of suffering itself (SN 56.11). When a worldly person experiences pain, happiness, or sorrow — there is a deep seated belief that someone feels these emotions. Experiences happen to somebody. We designate emotions as my pain, my happiness. While emotions and sensations constantly change — we attribute them to an unchanging, and permanent sense of self. A key insight of the Buddha is that if we saw things as they actually were (yathābhūtam), we would not fall under the delusion that there is anything stable. Yathābhūtam means recognizing the three marks of experience: impermanence (anicca), not-self (anatta) and suffering (dukkha). Given that our problem, suffering, is said to be found entirely in the five aggregates of grasping, cessation also lies there. As such, an Arahant has penetrated to the core of each aggregate and come to the conclusion that: “This is not mine. This is not my self. This is not what I am” (SN 22.93). The khandas are impermanent, conditioned, and if clung to — full of misery. We find this encapsulated in the following verse by the Arahant Isidatta.
The five aggregates, having been comprehended, stand with their root cut through. The mass of suffering has been understood (Thag 1.120).
In summary, we see that the Arahant no longer falsely self-appropriates the khandas, and has rid themselves of the three poisons — awakening to reality as it truly is.
We now have an idea of what an Arahant has attained. Before moving to their specific thought content, let us examine the general structure of their minds. Two awakened beings write that: “passion for becoming has been killed by me” (Thag 2.30) and that, “He has no sorrows, one who is Such, calmed and every mindful” (Thag 1.68). Another verse describes that without a false notion of self, there is no more craving and aversion towards experiences and one is, “neither attached nor opposed” (Thag 17.2). These quotes provide us with corroborating accounts that the mind of an Arahant is peaceful and free from craving. Looking more closely at the actual linguistic content of thoughts, we find the following account. “He experiences likes and dislikes, pleasures and pains. Yet, when he experiences such feelings, he knows that they are impermanent and therefore they do not bind him” (Karunadasa 2017, 134). This is exemplified by looking into the mind of Ven. Sariputta in the Upatissa Sutta. While speaking, he exclaims that,
“ ‘the following thought arose to my awareness’. ‘Is there anything in the world whose change or alteration would cause the arrival of sorrow, lamentation within me?’”. He concludes that there is not, and the sutta finishes with Ven. Ananda saying it is because his, “obsession with conceit has been killed” (SN 21.2). Despite being rid of conceit, he still engages in self-referential thinking, something we all do regularly. Ven. Sariputta uses the word I, and is imagining a scenario where he is the subject.
Ven. Sariputta’s mental elaborations (papañca) on face value do not give us insight into his awakening. He is thinking thoughts that are likely to pass through the minds of worldly beings. This is further exemplified in the Potthapade Sutta, in which the Buddha thinks to himself: “While it’s still too early to go into Savatthi for alms, why don’t I go to the debating hall near the Tinduka tree” (DN 9). Simply swap the names of these locations for your favorite destinations — and it’s highly likely you’ve had a thought with almost identical structure. However, an explanation for this is given in the Buddha’s conversation with a Deva, in the Arahant Sutta. The Deva plainly asks whether an Arahant would use the word ‘I’ and appropriates things as ‘mine’. The Buddha responds that an Arahant might, but he would be free from conceit, and merely be using these words to conform with the conventions of everyday speech (SN 1.25). Thus, it appears that structurally, many of the same thoughts appear in the mindstreams of Arahants as do in those of worldly persons. The Arahant appears not to be in a state of conceptual blankness. However, there is a deep pre-linguistic change that has occurred within them. We see this by turning once more to the Theragātā.
Even with all the whistles & whistling,
the calls of the birds,
this, my mind, doesn’t waver,
for my delight is in
oneness (Thag 1.49).
This is in accordance with the Uddesa-vibhanga Sutta. The Buddha says ones consciousness should be neither externally scattered and diffused (distracted by the birds whistling), nor internally positioned (the internal landscape of sensations is always shifting, so this is not representative of the oneness spoken of) (MN 138). We notice an allusion to the fact that while the content of consciousness might be mundane, the Arahant has undergone an epistemic shift in perspective, and relates to thoughts in a different manner. It’s difficult to articulate the quality of their experience, but one might say the Arahant has a realistic understanding of the conditioned nature of objects, consciousness and sensory contact (de Silva 1987).
The lived experience of an Arahant is of a fundamentally different nature. However, as has been shown, it is plausible to conclude that the mindstream of an Arahant is oftentimes relatable to that of a worldly persons, insofar as they are consciousness of similar linguistic mental objects. Their thinking mind has not been obliterated by their awakening, and they can, and do, still think of the world in a self-referential manner.