On the Listening to Buddha’s Words with Reverence: The Very First Step of Buddhist Practice in Vasubandhu’s Vyākhyāyukti

Abstract

This paper focuses on the fifth chapter of the Vyākhyāyukti by Vasubandhu, a Buddhist thinker who was active in the fourth and fifth centuries in Northwestern India, and a commentary on that work, the Vyākhyāyuktiṭīkā by Guṇamati. In this chapter, Vasubandhu deals with the issue of how those who preach about the Buddha’s words should teach about them and how those who listen to those teachings should study them. Vasubandhu explains that ‘listening to the Buddha’s words with reverence’ is critical as the first step of Buddhist practice. The source for this position of Vasubandhu’s can be found in the Arthavistara-dharmaparyāya in the Dīrghāgama of the Sarvāstivāda. Vasubandhu argues that the first step of Buddhist practice is listening to the Buddha’s words with reverence based on the third of sixteen methods for listening to the Buddha’s words that are described in the fifth section of that scripture.Why is reverence necessary when listening to the Buddha’s words? Vasubandhu uses the famous metaphor of three kinds of vessels in answering this question. This metaphor respectively likens (1) a person who does not listen to the teachings, (2) a person who listens to the teachings but misunderstands them, and (3) a person who listens to the teachings but fails to remember them to (1) an upside-down vessel, (2) a dirty vessel, and (3) a vessel with a hole in it. That is to say, Vasubandhu is pointing to the fact that if a listener lacks respect for the preacher, they will (1) not try to listen carefully to the teachings, (2) misunderstand them, or (3) forget them.Vasubandhu also uses this metaphor in his Pratītyasamutpādavyākhyā, which was written after the Vyākhyāyukti. This metaphor also appears frequently in Tibetan Buddhist literature in the works of figures such as Bu ston rin chen grub and Tsong kha pa. The position that Vasubandhu took regarding the importance of listening to the Buddha’s words with reverence was extremely influential and came to be broadly held in the Buddhist traditions of both India and Tibet after the fifth century.