The Importance of Becoming

The importance of becoming is evident from the role it plays in the four noble truths, particularly in the second: Suffering and stress are caused by any form of craving that leads to becoming. Thus the end of suffering must involve the end of becoming.

The central paradox of becoming is also evident in the second noble truth, where one of the three forms of craving leading to becoming is craving for non-becoming—the ending of what has come to be. This poses a practical challenge for any attempt to put an end to becoming.

Many writers have tried to resolve this paradox by defining non-becoming in such a way that the desire for Unbinding (nibbāna) would not fall into that category. However, the Buddha himself taught a strategic resolution to this paradox, in which the fourth noble truth—the path to the end of suffering—involves creating a type of becoming where the mind is so steady and alert that it can simply allow what has come into being to pass away of its own accord, thus avoiding the twin dangers of craving for becoming or for non-becoming.

My first inkling that the resolution of the paradox of becoming was strategic—and paradoxical itself—rather than simply linguistic came from reading the following passage in The Autobiography of Phra Ajaan Lee. In this passage, Ajaan Lee is teaching meditation to a senior scholarly monk in Bangkok.

“One day the Somdet said, … ‘There’s one thing I’m still doubtful about. To make the mind still and bring it down to its basic resting level (bhavaṅga): Isn’t this the essence of becoming and birth?’

That’s what concentration is, I told him, becoming and birth.

‘But the Dhamma we’re taught to practice is for the sake of doing away with becoming and birth. So what are we doing giving rise to more becoming and birth?’

If you don’t make the mind take on becoming, it won’t give rise to knowledge, because knowledge has to come from becoming if it’s going to do away with becoming.”

This reflection by Ajaan Geoff is from the book, The Paradox of Becoming, (pdf) pp. 6-7.