Now, while he was in seclusion, Bark-clothed Bāhiya had this thought: “Among those who are arahants, or who have entered the way of the arahant, I am one of them.”
Since the time of the historical Buddha, the ‘arahant’ (some translate this as ‘saint’) has been held as an ideal person, bringing inspiration, faith and guidance to a significant portion of humankind. To the Buddha of the Nikāyas the arahant possesses the highest understanding of freedom. I’d like to look more closely at this:
“Instantly, in response to this concise instruction on the part of the flourishing one, Bāhiya’s mind was without support, freed from the mental-emotional biases.”
Firstly, I’d like to say that this level of freedom was not exclusive to the mendicants, or to men. The attainment (as portrayed in the Nikāyas) was available to lay-people and to women.
It appears that there were lay teachers at the time of the historical Buddha (according to Lawrence Khantipalo, in a personal communication in 2007); and according to Rune Johansson (The Psychology of Nirvana,1969), there were at least twenty-one lay arahants. And, the Poems of the Bhikkhunis attests to the power of women’s realisation experiences. However, there is not much evidence of the kind of arahant that lay practice produces.
In the Pāli Nikāyas, we frequently hear the ideal model presented as a celibate male, but given that the Nikāyas were created and preserved by male celibates, we have clearly received a limited image of the ‘arahant.’
So, what kind of consciousness does an arahant have? One notable feature of an arahant, presented in the Digha Nikāya is that she or he has perfect development of the self (atta-samma-panidhi). The Nikāya descriptions emphasise the arahant’s destruction, in herself, of greed, hatred, and delusion; her establishment in love, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity. She is an independent person, living in accordance with her own conscience. There is the implication, throughout, that the arahant (such as Bāhiya) has awakened as a result of discarding what is not true in their person.
It may be a helpful concept – that the ‘true person’ or ‘person of truth’ (sappurisadhamma) can be uncovered, because we are deeper than our culture; and the distortions of our luminous mind are seen to be ‘adventitious’ – that is, they are visitors. However, Buddhist practice doesn’t merely uncover some kind of pre-existing pristine humanity. It’s also the case that Buddhist practice itself cultures the kind of person that an arahant is.
In part, an ‘arahant’ is the kind of person cultivated in dependence upon Theravadan monasticism. A Dzogchen kind of awakened person is a different style of human being, cultivated in dependence upon the Nyingma and/or Bon cultures. Zen masters are again, present specific styles of awakened person. Just the same, the essence of freedom is the same for them all: freedom from the ‘mental-emotional biases’ (āsavas, often translated ‘intoxicants’) – i.e. freedom from sense-desires; from the craving to become; from speculations; and from ignorance.
An arahant is especially free from the personality-fiction, the fiction of a separate, non-interdependent selfhood. She dwells in peace, without dualistic, conceptual world-making (papañca: ‘manifold-making’) A synonym for nibbāna is ‘nippapañca’ – that is, ‘no manifold making.’ They have relatively quiet minds, then.
To be without fictions about oneself and the world is to no longer live in the skin-encapsulated ego (Alan Watts), isolated from others. It is to be, instead, free from the conceit of ‘I am.’ We can put this in a paradox: the arahant is more authentically herself, because she has seen that she is “nobody going nowhere.” (Khema, 1987) Which is a freedom, not a bondage (such as it is in a person who is ‘depersonalised.’)
The ‘view’ at the heart of the arahant is the freedom of non-identification (with phenomena), an absence of clinging to representations. The ordinary person lives by the unconscious process of identifying with their ‘constructions,’ whereas the Nikāya Buddha says:
“Monks, whatsoever in the world with its gods, Māras and Brahmas among the progeny consisting of recluses and brahmins, gods and men, …… – that have I fully understood; all that is known to the Tathāgata, but the Tathāgata has not taken his stand upon it.” (Kālakārāma Sutta, trans. Nanananda, Bhikkhu)
Not taking a stand on anything releases consciousness from being supported by the inherently unstable senses and intellect. The arahant knows what they know, supported by an ‘unsupported consciousness.’ The Nikāya Buddha:
And having no basis to land, consciousness is released. One recognizes, ‘Consciousness, thus unestablished, is released.’ Owing to its staying firm, the heart is contented. (Samyutta Nikāya 12.53, trans. Ajahn Amaro: Attending to the Deathless)