The Fragrance That Travels Against the Wind
2.4 The Fragrance That Travels Against the Wind
Sāvatthī, Jeta's Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika's Park. The Venerable Ānanda sat alone in a quiet place, a thought turning in his mind.
The thought had started from fragrance. The fragrances of the world—the fragrance of a root, the fragrance of a stem, the fragrance of a flower—can drift only with the wind; wherever the wind blows, there the scent scatters, and against the wind it cannot be smelled. Is there, then, a fragrance that can be smelled with the wind and smelled against the wind too?
He rose from his quiet place, came before the Buddha, and asked the thought out exactly as it stood:
World-Honored One! There are three kinds of fragrance that permeate with the wind and cannot go against it. What three? The fragrance of root, the fragrance of stem, the fragrance of flower. Or is there perhaps a fragrance that permeates with the wind, permeates against the wind, permeates both with and against the wind?
The Buddha answered: there is.
That Fragrance Is a Person
He said: that fragrance which goes against the wind is no kind of plant or tree:
There are sons and daughters of good family who, in whatever town or settlement, accomplished in the true Dharma, for the whole of their lives do not kill, do not steal, do not engage in sexual misconduct, do not speak falsely, do not partake of intoxicants. Of such sons and daughters of good family, in the eight directions, above and below, those devoted to the good never fail to praise them.
So the fragrance is a person—a person who keeps the five precepts pure for the whole of a life. Whatever city he lives in, whatever village, the good in the eight directions, above and below, never fail to praise him: in such-and-such a place there is such a son of good family, such a daughter of good family, pure in the keeping of the precepts. This good name needs no wind to carry it; it travels where the wind blows, and it travels where the wind blows against it.
At the end, the Buddha closed with a verse. Of all the verses in the Saṃyukta Āgama that speak solely of the precept, this is the most complete; it deserves copying out whole:
Not the fragrance of root, stem, or flower can travel against the wind to permeate; only the good man's and good woman's pure fragrance of precept-keeping fills every quarter, against the wind and with it, heard everywhere without exception. Tagara and sandalwood, utpala and jasmine— compared with all these fragrances, the fragrance of precepts is the highest; sandalwood and the other scents permeate but a small, bounded measure. Only the fragrance of precept-virtue streams upward, rising to the heavens; this fragrance of pure precepts is heedfulness and right attainment. Right knowledge, and liberation likewise— the path of Māra cannot enter there. This is named the path of peace, this is the path that is pure, turning straight toward the marvelous concentration, cutting all the bonds and fetters of Māra.
Sandalwood, aloeswood—however prized the fragrance, it drifts a stretch with the wind and is stopped where the wind turns. Only the person who keeps the precepts has a fragrance that fills all directions, with the wind and against it. Later generations came to call this discourse the Sīla-gandha-sūtra—the discourse on the fragrance of virtue.
What Lets a Fragrance Go Against the Wind
But a question must be put: what lets a fragrance go against the wind?
The world's fragrances travel by the wind because a scent is a physical thing, and without the wind it cannot move an inch. The fragrance of virtue does not travel by the wind, because it is not a scent at all—it is the impression that a person's long years of clean living leave in human hearts. The neighbors watch him take not one coin that is not rightly his; watch him refuse to tell a single lie; watch the wine go around the table while not a drop passes his lips—one year, ten years, decades. This impression needs no trumpeting from the man himself; it walks on its own in people's mouths: it walks along human feeling, and it walks against the wind's direction too.
So the "fragrance" in sīla-gandha is a borrowed word; its true name is virtue. Virtue does not wait upon the wind. The last chapter said that the five precepts and the eight-factor fast are kept out, line by line, by householders in the world—this chapter sees the fruit that the keeping bears in the world: a person standing in the crowd, carrying about him an air that sets others at ease. The previous volume spoke of the fragrance of giving; this volume speaks of the fragrance of virtue. In the Ekottara Āgama, the Buddha counted them out side by side: the fragrance of virtue, the fragrance of learning, the fragrance of giving—three fragrances that can go against the wind, and "the fragrance of virtue is the most excellent … heard in the ten directions."
At the End of the Fragrance, the Door of Concentration
And yet the weightiest thing in this verse is not "how far the fragrance can carry"; it is the way the verse ends.
Look back at the last four lines: "This is named the path of peace, this is the path that is pure, right-facing the marvelous concentration, cutting the bonds and fetters of Māra." Just where the praise of the fragrance reaches its full pitch, the brush suddenly turns—this is a road of peace, this road is pure, and it faces straight toward the marvelous concentration.
The fragrance, it turns out, is not the destination; it is scenery along the road. A person keeps the precepts until a clean air hangs about his whole body, and however far that clean air travels in the world, the road still runs on ahead—toward concentration. Part One ended on "when the precept is pure, concentration comes of itself"; this verse is the same sentence set in meter: at the end of the fragrance of virtue stands the gate of dhyāna. A person not yet seated in deep concentration, only living his days clean—what he does not know is that this cleanness is already paving his road, paving it toward concentration.
And this fragrance keeps climbing, tier upon tier. Later, the vinaya master Daoxuan cited a verse of the Avataṃsaka and counted the fragrance into three tiers: the fragrance of virtue, the fragrance of concentration, the fragrance of liberation. Above the fragrance of virtue is the fragrance of concentration; above the fragrance of concentration, the fragrance of liberation—whichever tier a person has cultivated to, that is the tier of fragrance his body gives off. The householder sets out from this lowest wisp, the fragrance of virtue, and the road runs all the way to the top.
Here Part Two has been walked to its end.
We have watched four ways the precept walks into daily life: it is three stretches of paving on the great road out of suffering—a person on that road lands every step on the precept (chapter one); it is five plots of field, each with its own boundary stones, enclosing the householder's complete daily round (chapter two); it can borrow one day and one night, letting the householder learn leaving home once, with the mind that says "by this factor I am the equal of the Arahants, no different" (chapter three); and the cleanness it keeps into being becomes a wisp of fragrance that goes against the wind—and the end of the fragrance points toward concentration (chapter four).
One sentence to close Part Two: the precept has walked into daily life, and every wisp of fragrance it sends out points the same way—toward concentration.
But reading to this point, a careful reader will have noticed one thing: these precepts lie scattered through discourse after discourse—five handed over in one exchange of question and answer, eight conferred on one fast day. They have not yet been knit into a rigorous body of articles; there is no precept-code recited fortnightly, no case law laid down item by item as offenses arose. From precepts scattered through the discourses to a precise and living Vinaya—between the two stands a gate.
Inside that gate are the first person to break a precept, the first precept the Buddha laid down with His own hand, and the great storms of a Saṅgha that split and came back together. We turn the page, and walk into the Vinaya.