修行者が分かった気になると
When a practitioner feels as if they already understand
2026-02-07
Practice of the Buddhist path should be undertaken with the attitude that one must come to understand it fully, yet one must never assume that one already understands it.
For when a practitioner comes to think they understand, they mistake a wrong path for the right one and, in the end, are unable to discover the true path.
Of course, an exceptionally perceptive practitioner, even if they have embodied some particular state reached at the end of a mistaken path — or even before fully embodying it — will recognize that this state is not Nirvana but merely a delusive condition that only temporarily appears as some particular attainment. Realizing this, they will abandon it, continue their further wandering practice, and eventually discover and walk the true path.
However, a practitioner who believes they already understand cannot break free from that particular state — or else they continue merely striving toward such a state — and in the end never come to embody Nirvana.
Regarding this, we can find the following principle in the early Buddhist scriptures of Shakyamuni Buddha.
781 Drawn by desire and bound by personal preference, how could a person ever go beyond their own bias? Such a one thinks and acts as though they are complete in themselves. They will speak according to whatever they think they know. (The Words of the Buddha, Sutta Nipāta, Chapter 4: Chapter of the Eights, 3: On Malice, translated by Hajime Nakamura, Iwanami-Bunko)
832 If there are people who cling to a particular (special) view, dispute with others, and say, “Only this is the truth,” then you should say to them: “Even if a dispute arises, there is no one here who will argue with you.”
833 In fact, they are people who have gone beyond opposition to rivals and do not set one view in conflict with various other biases. What, then, are you trying to gain from them? O Pasūra, what they clung to as "the supreme" simply does not exist here.
834 Now you have come, turning over in your mind the thought, “I myself will win the victory,” entertaining various biased views within your heart, and intending to dispute with the one who has swept away evil (the Buddha). But if that is all you bring, you will certainly not be able to accomplish it. (The Words of the Buddha, Sutta Nipāta, Chapter 4: Chapter of the Eights, 8: Pasūra, translated by Hajime Nakamura, Iwanami-Bunko)
A practitioner who comes to believe they already understand the path of awakening has in fact fallen into just such an error.
Then which path is the true path?
And how can the correctness of that path be verified?
It is the path that surely brings a person closer to Nirvana and leads them to it, and upon walking that path and actually arriving at Nirvana, enables that person to know with certainty that they have truly reached and abide in Nirvana (= the knowledge-and-vision of liberation). One may say that the true path is precisely the path grounded in direct experience.
A truly wise person hears the rightly taught principle and realizes it.
As one concrete example, the early Buddhist scriptures of Shakyamuni Buddha present the following principle.
82 (Omitted the beginning) — “Excellent, Master Gotama, excellent, Master Gotama! Just as one might set upright what has been overturned, or open up what has been covered, or show the way to one who has gone astray, or hold up a lamp in the darkness so that those with eyes may see forms — in just such a way has Master Gotama made the Truth clear in many ways. Therefore, I take refuge in Master Gotama, in the Truth, and in the community of monks. May I be allowed, Master Gotama, to go forth from the household life into homelessness under you, and receive the full ordination (the complete precepts).”
Then the Brahmin who was a ploughman, Bhāradvāja, went forth under the Blessed One and received the full ordination. Before long, dwelling alone, withdrawn, diligent, ardent, and resolute, that Brahmin Bhāradvāja, by his own direct knowledge, realized and attained in this very life the supreme goal of the holy life — for the sake of which those of good families rightly go forth from the household life into homelessness — and lived having realized it for himself with direct knowledge. He knew: “Birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more of this state of becoming.”
He realized this truth, and thus Bhāradvāja became one of the noble ones. (The Words of the Buddha – Sutta-nipāta, Chapter I: The Serpent, 4: The Ploughman Bhāradvāja, translated by Hajime Nakamura, Iwanami-Bunko)
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