Dev Bhagavān
Foundation Series
The Foundations of Authentic Spiritual Life
Transcription Episode 2
Dev Priyānanda Svāmī Bhagavān
2—Being & Becoming
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Audio Link: archive.com
Being and becoming are such fundamental concepts that we often take them for granted. But actually, they’re deep subjects to which we can devote an enormous amount of study and development work.
After all, without being we wouldn’t exist. How could we do anything or have anything? First, we have to be. Descartes had it backwards: “Because I am, I think.” Because I exist, I can do. And because I do, then I can have things.
So being is fundamental. And when we want to change our being, then we’re talking about becoming. So, becoming is how we change our being.
For example, if we want to learn. Let’s say we want to learn to be a musician, or we want to become a pilot. There’s two ways to approach this: through peripheral methods and through essential methods.
Peripheral methods study the externals of a subject or state of being. For example, if we want to study leadership, we’ll read books by great leaders and about great leaders, and we’ll discuss examples of what they did in this situation, in that situation; and then we’ll try to emulate or imitate them.
But wait a minute. That’s imitation. That’s not authentic.
Authentic leadership comes from the essence of being a leader. And if we’re not being a leader now, how do we become a leader? If we’re not being a great musician now, how do we become a great musician or whatever it is we want to be?
Fortunately, the Buddha’s teaching has a great deal of information on being and becoming. And that’s what this video is all about.
So being and becoming are very important topics. After all, everything we do in life is about being or predicated on being. Everything that we do, think, know, or have requires being as its fundamental.
Without being, literally nothing else is possible. So, being and becoming are the foundation or the root of our existence.
How important is being in learning and life in general? Well, most people think that having is the most important thing in life. Having, then doing, thinking, knowing… and maybe being comes in there somewhere. But it’s pretty obscure and there’s a reason for that:
Our educational system has buried topics about being. Our entertainment and media system have buried these topics. You don’t see them come up anywhere, only in maybe graduate level—or postgraduate even—study of ontology, existentialism and philosophy, things like that. Then maybe the subject of being will come up.
But unless you do a special study, you generally don’t encounter it. Nevertheless, without being, without existing, nothing else is possible. So, the way it really is, is that being is the most important thing. And from being we derive knowing, thinking, doing, having and all the rest.
Well, think about it for a second. Let’s say you want to be a pilot. If I give you an airplane, does that make you a pilot? No, of course not: you’ll crash. You have to go through the process of becoming a pilot before you can fly that plane safely.
Well, let’s say I give you a musical instrument. Now, are you an expert musician? Of course not. You have to go through maybe 10–20 years of practice to become a really expert musician.
Being is the important thing, and then the doing and having of life comes from it. The way you could say it easily is that being begets doing, and doing begets having. Not the other way around.
Being is senior to everything else in life. If you want to change your being, you have to change your life.
And the other way around: if you want to change your life, if you’re not happy with it the way it is, it means you have to change your being, then everything else will follow automatically.
How do we change our being? This is called becoming. Becoming is the process of changing your being.
Now, the dictionary defines becoming as follows: verb, meaning begin to be, grow to be, turn into; (of a person) qualify or be accepted as; acquire the status of. And the example they give is: “She wanted to become a doctor.”
Well, if you want to become a doctor, first of all, look at the first definition: you have to become or begin to be a doctor. How do you begin to be a doctor? Well, you enroll in medical school. It takes a long time, a lot of effort, a lot of energy to become a doctor. Not only that: you have to grow—the second definition—to grow to be.
Huh? To become means to increase your being in a certain direction. To grow to be a doctor, to grow to be a musician requires effort and time, practice.
We talked about the process of becoming skillful. Skillful practice means you do something, and then you do a lot of it. And then you evaluate, or you investigate the quality of what you’ve done: is it acceptable? And if not, then you have to refine it further.
How do you know? How do you evaluate your practice to see whether it’s acceptable? Well, you have to have the being, you have to have the consciousness of that kind of person available to you.
For example: if you want to become an expert musician you practice, you practice some more, you listen to it and then you say, “Is that acceptable? If not, why not? What’s wrong with it? How can I improve it?”
This is the process of becoming.
The next definition says, “turn into”. In other words, let’s say my being now is that I’m not successful at whatever it is I want to do. So how do I become successful? Well, I have to turn into that kind of person. I have to turn into or adopt the being of the type of person who is successful in that endeavor.
And that means practice; that means becoming skillful. There’s no way around it. If you want to change your being, you have to go through a process, and that process is called becoming.
Another definition is: “to qualify or be accepted as.” In the example of a doctor, you have to go through internship and residency, and then you have to pass a board of examination of practicing physicians before you are accepted, before you’re considered qualified to be a doctor.
You can’t just put on a white coat and a stethoscope and now you’re Dr. Kildare or whatever. No, you have to be approved by people who are already doctors, who already have the being of a doctor.
Similarly, if you want to be, let’s say, an arahant, a fully realized Buddhist monk. Then you have to be accepted by those who are already arahants. There’s no other way, because they’re the only ones who know what that kind of being is. So, to be something you have to be accepted, and it’s not enough to be accepted by popular vote; you have to be accepted by the people who already have that kind of being.
And the final definition is: “to acquire the status of.” Well, status is something very easy to acquire. You know, you can simply print up a bunch of diplomas and hang them on your wall, and now you’re doctor so-and-so. But that doesn’t really give you the being of a doctor. And it certainly doesn’t give you the action or havingness of a doctor.
So, just to have the status of being a certain type of thing is not very convincing, it’s not very good. You want to have not only the status but the acceptance of other people with the same quality of being. Then you can say, “Oh, I am this, I am that.”
So how do we get there? What is the process of becoming? Well, the Buddha defines becoming as follows:
“Kamma (karma) is the field. Consciousness the seed. Craving the moisture. The consciousness of living beings is tuned to a refined property. Thus, there is the production of renewed becoming in the future. This is how there is becoming.” — Bhava Sutta (AN 3.76)
In other words, the dictionary tells you what becoming is. But the Buddha tells you how.
So how do you do becoming? He makes an analogy: kamma is the field. What is kamma? Kamma, or karma, is the result of your previous actions.
By the way, this is the proof of reincarnation: that nobody is born into the same situation. If there was no such thing as kamma, if there was no such thing as the results of past or previous-life activities, everybody would be born into the same condition—but they’re not. People are born in various different embodiments, different families, different conditions of life, different races, different strengths, different intelligence, all kinds of different qualities depending on their previous activities in the previous life.
So kamma, this kamma that you’re born with or that you acquire by your past activities, is the field. When you plant something in a field, it has to be the right kind of soil. No, you can’t grow cactus in a swamp, and you can’t grow cypress trees in the desert. OK? They won’t grow, they need the right kind of soil.
To grow rice, you have to have deep soil with lots of water. You can’t grow rice in a rocky field. You can’t grow vegetables in sand. They need a lot of humus, a lot of organic matter and so on.
You have to have the right kind of field. In other words, the set of possibilities or opportunities that is inherent in your kamma has to allow the type of being that you want to become—otherwise, you’re not going to make it.
Second, he says “Consciousness is the seed.” So, when we want to become something, when we want to become a certain type of being, we have to adopt the consciousness of that being.
Let’s say I want to become an expert musician. OK, so I practice, and I practice some more, and then I investigate: how is my playing? Is it good or bad? Is it good enough? And what determines that? The consciousness of an expert musician.
So, before I can become an expert musician, I have to have the consciousness of an expert musician so that I can evaluate my practice. Otherwise I might say, “Ah, that’s good enough.” But any expert musician who listens is gonna be like “Err…”
Or let’s say, the other example of an arahant. If someone wants to become or be recognized or accepted as an arahant, they have to evaluate their meditation from the point of view, from the consciousness of, someone who’s already an arahant, and adjust it accordingly.
So, consciousness is the seed, kamma is the field. And finally, craving the moisture. You have to have desire, you have to be passionate, you have to be willing to put out the effort required to attain that type of being.
There’s no way around it: you can’t artificially or inauthentically have that kind of being. Eventually you’ll be found out. It happens so many times. There’s so many big scandals.
Some religious leader was found to be operating a totally phony scam in Africa. He had this charity thing and like 98% of the money collected by the charity went in his pocket.
So, this person is a religious leader? No, I don’t think so.
Why? Because he doesn’t have the ethics, he doesn’t have the morality, he doesn’t have the authentic quality of a religious leader, he doesn’t really want to be a religious leader; he wants to be rich!
You see? So, the quality of the desire, the quality of the consciousness and the quality of the kamma, the field in which you plant the seed of your consciousness and water it with the moisture of your desire.
This is how you become whatever it is that you want to become.
We talked in general about the process of becoming. But is there a more specific process?
It turns out there is. The first and second Noble Truths of the Buddha is that there is suffering and that suffering has an origin. And what is that origin? Well, the process of becoming. So, the process of becoming is how we get into the situations that we find ourselves in in life. And the process of becoming begins from ignorance. It begins from thinking, “Oh boy, I’d really like to become like this or like that.”
“I’d really like to become”—let’s use the example—“a doctor.” So, you go through whatever it takes to become a doctor, and after many years you finally become a doctor; and guess what? It’s not so great. There’s suffering involved. Maybe you don’t want to be a doctor anymore; maybe you want to be a healthcare consultant or something like that.
I know a lot of doctors who have quit being a doctor because it’s just too much work for not enough reward. Being a doctor doesn’t mean you’re not going to suffer. Being a pilot or a musician or whatever it is you want to be, doesn’t mean you’re not going to suffer.
After the process of becoming is complete, and we find ourselves in suffering, the next part is the third and fourth Noble Truths: the cessation of suffering and the Noble Eightfold Path.
This is what’s often called in Buddhist circles the radiant circle. The radiant circle means starting from ignorance, going through the cycle of becoming and reaching the stage of suffering, then taking up the Noble Eightfold Path and achieving unbinding, Nibbāna or complete cessation of suffering.
Most people, when they get to the suffering part and they hit bottom, and they say, “No, wait a minute. I didn’t count on all this suffering. This is no good. I’ve got to do something.” What do they do? What most people do is they go right back around to ignorance, and they start becoming again.
“Oh, let me become something else now. Let me become a fireman or let me become a police chief,” or whatever. And they become and become and become. And every time they get down to the bottom of the cycle, they find themselves in suffering.
How to break this vicious cycle is given by the Buddha: the end of becoming, the Noble Eightfold Path. OK? And of course, we’re going to get to that eventually in our teachings.
But there’s so many people teaching about the Eightfold Path; there aren’t many people teaching about the process of becoming. And how do we get there?
The Eightfold Path is also a process of becoming. But it’s a process of becoming that leads to the end of becoming. Instead of cycling around again to ignorance, we reach unbinding, which is the end of becoming, the end of manifesting in the physical universe.
So, for applications like learning and leadership, we are especially interested in this part of the process on the left: the first and second Noble Truths. We can call this the Process of Becoming, and that’s going to be the topic of our next video. ```