What question came before the answer called awakening?
This is Arahant Live. It is Friday, September 18, 2026. We are already past the middle of September, and Chuseok is not far away. Let me greet Venerable Dao, who has arrived early. In the previous broadcast, I discussed why questioning is necessary for Buddhist awakening. Without questions, there is neither awakening nor liberation. That naturally leads to another question. What does Buddhism ask us to realize? If someone says they have awakened, what were they wondering about before that awakening?
Most people involved in Buddhism know the answer that the Buddha realized dependent origination, impermanence, and non-self. But have you considered what question those words answer? Memorizing those terms is different from understanding what was asked that led to that answer. Today I want to work backward from the answer to the question. What questions were being asked in ancient India, and how did Buddhism emerge among them?
This is not simply an invitation to learn some old history. To understand the wisdom Buddhism offers and the attitude toward life it asks us to develop, we need to understand its starting point. Without that center, we mistake awakening for a mystical experience or an exceptional state. So I will first distinguish states from wisdom, then turn to the questions within ancient India’s shramana tradition and the Upanishads.
Do not equate a peaceful experience with wisdom
Some people call awakening an experience and say all sorts of things about it. But experiencing a particular state does not automatically make it awakening. You can experience peace of mind, catharsis, and moments of profound stillness. While practicing Buddhism, you might have such an experience when something that troubled you is resolved. You might also have what is commonly called the experience of the four dhyanas. There can be a quiet moment in which thoughts do not shake you.
That is a mental effect and an experience resulting from some activity. Saying that having it makes you a Buddha shows no understanding of Buddhism at all. I have repeatedly said that both samatha and vipassana matter. Both becoming quiet and wisdom matter. That does not mean we can mix them together and call the quiet state itself wisdom.
You may have heard the expression “joint cultivation of concentration and wisdom” in a high school ethics class. Concentration here refers to meditative concentration, and wisdom to insight. I explain the former as a moment of quiet stopping. Where, then, does wisdom come from? From observation. Without observation, thought, and questioning, wisdom does not arise. That is our starting point today.
Look at the process: cultivating stopping and observation
I question the expression “joint cultivation of concentration and wisdom” because concentration and wisdom are results. If concentration is the quiet moment reached through something, and wisdom is what we gain by examining something, both are results of practice. Wisdom is not something you can simply pick up and polish. We need to look at how wisdom is acquired.
People also speak of entering nirvana after liberation. When nirvana, nibbana, is described as a state of having disappeared, I explain it as a quiet moment. If concentration and wisdom are results, what do we do to reach them? “Cultivating stopping and observation together” makes that process visible. Stopping means stopping, and observation means observing. Through stopping we become quiet; through observation wisdom arises.
How do we stop? Through absorption. Absorption is the basis of meditative concentration. When you immerse yourself in one point and concentrate on one thought, the mind does not wander elsewhere. You reach a quiet, unshaken moment. This is samatha, and we can speak of reaching samadhi through samatha.
Wisdom, meanwhile, comes from observation. Vipassana asks us to separate things, examine them individually, and distinguish them. I explain “vi” as separating or moving away, like “off” and “away,” and “passana” as seeing. Stand back and look; distinguish and see. Rather than clinging only to a quiet experience, examine what things are like and how they work.
From seeing to observation and comparison
Let us briefly consider language. I explained seeing through the root pasyati, connected with passana, and the nearby form spasyati. Considering Sanskrit and English words with similar roots can help us understand. In telescope, “tele” means far and “scope” means seeing: an instrument for seeing what is far away. A microscope sees what is small. I also connect this “scope” with spasyati in my explanation.
“Spec” is also close to the meaning of seeing. We get words such as “prospect.” Because Indo-European languages share etymological origins, Sanskrit or Pali often shows close relationships with English. Think of a spy, like the familiar 007. As someone who looks and examines, I connect the spy to the same root. A great many words emerge from the idea of seeing.
The purpose is not to make you memorize vocabulary. It is to see what vipassana asks you to do. How do you observe an ant? You distinguish it from other things and compare it. You compare, analyze, and observe. When Buddhism asks you to observe yourself, you examine your body, your mental condition, your actions, and your behavior. You also observe the world.
Wisdom comes from that observation. It is its result, not an object to take out and polish separately. That is why I say cultivating stopping and observation makes the process clearer than cultivating concentration and wisdom. When Buddhism is called a religion of awakening and wisdom, we must not leave out what we observe and what we realize.
Entering an age of questions while withholding historical certainty
I also say that I am not yet certain about who Gautama Siddhartha actually was, or whether the person we call the Buddha was a historical individual. I do not think everything has been settled historically. Still, let us proceed on the assumption that such a person existed. Buddhism has an underlying form transmitted through texts and traditions. What were people pursuing within that form?
Before “What did the Buddha realize?” comes “What was he wondering about?” I said there is no liberation without questions. Then what questions produced dependent origination, impermanence, and non-self? Understanding those questions reveals the main direction of what Buddhism calls awakening. That understanding will change many aspects of life, but first we must identify its central axis.
It is difficult to draw definite boundaries around ancient India. Today I want to consider the period associated with the Buddha’s lifetime and the time around it. Scholars differ, and I will use a broad range of roughly 600 to 400 BCE. My reservations about exact dates and historical existence remain. More needs to emerge from scientific examination of material remains.
What questions do you think people asked then? Birth, aging, illness, and death may come to mind. That is a very important question. But such concerns belonged neither exclusively to Buddhism nor exclusively to India. They are shared human questions. Rather than asking you merely to listen to me, I looked at several web resources with you today to see how those questions were expressed.
Buddhism is one branch of the shramana tradition
Buddhism can be understood as part of shramana philosophy and tradition. Consider the words bhikkhu and bhikkhuni. The Korean word bigu comes from bhikkhu. I explain it as a beggar, someone who begs for food and lives on alms, with the same meaning as the English “beggar.” Many people do not understand when I also describe these English and Sanskrit or Pali words as etymologically the same, but looking at how practitioners lived makes the meaning apparent.
A bhikkhu travels with one bowl and covers the body with one robe. Did the Buddha invent this tradition? Does it belong only to Buddhism? No. It is a shramana tradition. Where, then, did this tradition of wandering and begging come from? I think it most likely continued from a Brahmin tradition.
Brahmins were the priestly class. Once older, after having children, teaching students, and completing much of their work, they might decide to practice and wander while living on alms. I am saying that the way of life associated with shramana philosophy likely connects with that tradition. If you imagine Buddhism suddenly appearing as something independent of its time, you miss that connection.
Who could devote themselves to a question?
Some insist that shramana tradition had no connection with Brahmins. Then consider the social conditions. Who could devote themselves to seemingly impressive spiritual practice and philosophical inquiry while receiving food from others? The class responsible for the military and administration? Commoners who had to work? Slaves without freedom? People even described as untouchables?
In that society, the work of your family determined your class and role from birth. Slaves could not wander freely, and commoners had their work to do. Those responsible for military and administrative affairs could hardly abandon those duties to travel around practicing. The priestly class was positioned to do so. This is not merely about the ability to ask a question, but about the social position that allowed time to pursue it.
Of course, we cannot say only Brahmins did this. According to the transmitted story, Shakyamuni himself was a prince, not a Brahmin, yet he left home. We might therefore see this as a period when that order was changing. One possible interpretation is that priestly authority was weakening while royal and military power grew more important. If he really was royalty, he abandoned royal duties to do something associated with the priestly class. I think we must consider those changes together.
Brahmins did more than perform rituals. They were an intellectual class that memorized knowledge, trained students, and transmitted it to the next generation. Their work included not only gods and ceremonies but reading, writing, recording, reciting, and transmitting, as well as observing the heavens. In that sense, they were priests, civil officials, and intellectuals.
Other people might have the same questions but could not devote themselves to answering them because they had their assigned work. Those responsible for knowledge and answers, however, could hold onto those questions and think about them. Let us therefore examine what they asked. Here we encounter the two currents of the Upanishads and the shramanas.
From the Vedas to the Upanishads: sitting beside a teacher
Before discussing the Upanishads and shramanas, there are the Vedas. The Upanishads are also called Vedanta, meaning the end of the Vedas. Yet there is an important difference between the Vedas and Vedanta. I locate that difference in questioning: rather than stopping at following what has been transmitted, people begin asking what is actually true.
Let us unpack “Upanishad.” I explain “upa” as near, “ni” as down, and “shad” as sitting, like the English “sit.” Come near and sit down. Beside whom? Beside a teacher. The word therefore includes not merely horizontal exchange but a picture of information being transmitted from above to below.
Even so, an important change occurs. What the teacher says becomes important, rather than only what an old book says. Shramana philosophy is similar. There are multiple teachers saying different things, with different schools forming around them. The Upanishads also contain diverse traditions and answers. We should not imagine they contain just one position.
The material divides the formation of the older Upanishads roughly into 700–400 BCE, the middle period into 400–200 BCE, and the later period after that. There is no need to treat these as precisely established boundaries. What matters here is the current of questioning around the emergence of Buddhism.
Do not build a wall between shramanas and the Upanishads
People also say that Buddhism or shramana philosophy influenced the Upanishads. How could there have been no influence? I emphasize that these people did not inhabit entirely separate worlds. Within the same priestly and intellectual class, some pursued shramana philosophy, others thought within Upanishadic traditions, and some likely participated in both.
Recall the account of the Buddha studying with several teachers during his six years as a shramana before awakening. Some of those teachers may have been close to skeptical schools, and others influenced by the Upanishads. We should not divide shramanas and Upanishads into wholly separate categories and imagine that they did not influence one another.
This also connects with the later appearance of other traditions’ statements within Buddhism, and of Buddhist or god-denying positions within the Upanishads. Different names do not prevent ideas from traveling. To judge what became mixed, we need to see what answers each current offered to which questions.
What changes when even the gods are said to doubt?
While reading the material, I encountered an interesting passage. Even the gods had doubted a certain matter; it was too difficult to explain easily, so another wish should be chosen. I focused on the scene of asking a god about atman. Even a god presumed to know everything cannot readily answer.
We tend to assume a god is all-knowing and all-powerful. Yet here even the gods have doubted, and the issue is called difficult. That is fascinating. What atman is and where it originates were not matters settled simply by memorization. Something we accept as an obvious answer becomes a question.
Consider another passage. Those seeking the wisdom of Brahman ask one another: Is Brahman really the world’s origin? Where did we arise? Through whom do we remain alive? Where do we go at the end? Why do we experience joy and sorrow? These are the questions I want us to examine today.
They also consider whether time, nature, necessity, chance, primordial matter, the womb, or Purusha might be the origin of the world. After saying that even their combination is only part of the original atman, the material says that atman, too, is bound by joy and sorrow and therefore cannot be the cause of the world. Rather than ending the inquiry with a familiar name, they question that name again.
From praising gods to investigating human beings and the world
The material describes a major theme of the Upanishads as inquiry into human existence rather than gods. You will have heard the names of the Vedas, including the Rigveda. Much of the Vedas concerns praising and revering gods, the priest’s role in communicating with them, and how to perform sacrifices and ceremonies.
What does it mean to investigate human existence? It means wondering. Seeking and searching. Where did I come from? Where am I going? Why am I alive? Where do I go when I die? Do I really go anywhere? People speak of atman, but what is it? Is atman really the cause of the world?
Inquiry into humanity leads to inquiry into the world. What is this world, and how does it work? Is my death the end? Does something continue? What is the universe? These were questions in ancient India when Buddhism emerged. If awakening brings to mind only a mysterious state detached from them, we lose our direction.
Why ask again when the answer is already written down?
Reading these questions again, I find them shocking and rebellious. In a sense, they are anti-Vedic. Why? Because the Vedas already contain answers. They say a god created the world and explain how the universe arose and from whom. Of course, different layers and periods of the Vedas tell different stories; they are not uniform. We must also recognize that there are several answers.
Still, if you simply believe the answers written there, why ask again? If it already explains who created the world, how, and where humans came from, why not just believe and follow? Yet people ask, “Is Brahman really the origin?” They ask, “Where did we arise?” The very existence of these questions matters.
They investigate life and death, birth, aging, illness, humanity, and the world anew. If we place this period of the Upanishads roughly between 700 and 400 BCE, it overlaps the period associated with Buddhism’s beginning. Shramanas held the same questions. That is why I call ancient India around Buddhism’s emergence an age of questions.
If merely believing the Vedas were enough, such questions would be unnecessary. Instead of stopping because something was written somewhere or transmitted by someone, people began asking whether it was actually true. The moment you put a question mark after “a god created it,” “atman exists,” or “humans originated this way,” a challenge to authority begins.
Birth, aging, illness, and death were not exclusively Buddhist questions
You have often heard that the Buddha left home to seek escape from birth, aging, illness, and death. Whether that biography is historically factual or not, concern with those matters was not exclusive to Buddhism. Priests and thinkers of the time also asked about life and death, themselves and the world.
Whether answers were written in a book, on leaves, or transmitted through recitation, no questions would arise if people stopped at believing and following them. They asked because existing answers were insufficient. Buddhism emerged because it was such an age.
The answer that the world arises dependently, is impermanent, and is anatman or non-self did not appear out of nowhere. It came from questions about how the world works, who made it, how I arose, where I go after death, and why birth, aging, illness, and death occur and cannot be avoided. Buddhism is one branch among the answers.
Answers of existence and nonexistence: astika and nastika
Let us now divide these answers into two broad branches: astika and nastika. During the broadcast, I opened the English Wikipedia entry and used Korean translation to read it with you. The Korean entry is short, but the English one offers more varied explanations, so I also shared the link and suggested using the browser’s translation function.
Very simply, astika says such things exist, while nastika says they do not. I connect nastika’s negation with the English “no,” “not,” and “never.” Those who say something exists call those who deny it bad people, heretics, or impostors. We should therefore also ask whose perspective supplies the labels orthodox and heterodox.
They are sometimes explained generally as theism and atheism, but we need a broader view. What is affirmed or denied? One criterion is the epistemic authority of the Vedas. Do you accept what they say as correct? Another is atman. Do you accept an essential self, a true self, an individual “I” continuing through multiple lives and bodies, something unchanging like jiva, ego, or soul?
Then there is the question of accepting Ishvara, a god. Those who respect the Vedas and affirm their atman and gods will answer questions about where we came from and where we go by telling us to follow those teachings because god, rebirth, and atman exist. Nastika denies such things, and Buddhism is a representative branch.
Questioning god even in the name Avalokiteshvara
In explaining Ishvara, I also revisited the name of the bodhisattva Gwanjajae. In my explanation, Avalokite Ishvara means a god looking down. I explain “ava” as downward and connect “loki” with seeing, like the English “look.” Seeing and the world are discussed together. It is a god looking down upon the world from the sky.
I therefore interpret Gwanjajae Bodhisattva as another name for Ishvara and as a translation of Avalokite Ishvara. My point is that this concept of a god can be present even in names people accept without question because they occur within Buddhism. What matters is to ask what the name means, rather than stopping at familiar recitation.
Does such a god exist? Is there something truly me inside me called atman? Beyond its being written in the Vedas, will we affirm that it exists? Examining astika and nastika connects with these questions.
Distinguish schools without erasing their differences
The material lists Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa, and Vedanta as orthodox schools. The nastika side, called heterodox, includes Buddhism, Jainism, Charvaka, Ajivika, and Ajnana. There are different answers, including skepticism, fatalism, and materialism.
I group these currents of shramana philosophy as moving toward denying god and atman, but I also point out differences. Jainism speaks of jiva, something similar to atman. Rather than a separate absolutely unchanging god, I explain its position as becoming a god oneself when jiva becomes completely pure and clean. It distinguishes soul-like jiva from the rest, ajiva, and pursues one’s own purity.
In that respect Jainism differs from Buddhism. We cannot therefore assume that everyone under the name shramana philosophy gives the same answer. People who answered “What am I?” and “What is the world?” differently became different schools. To understand Buddhism’s answer, we need to see what it denies and what explanation it offers instead.
The answer that sees the world as maya
Let us examine another representative Upanishadic answer. The material explains maya and ignorance. Maya is illusion. In this account, death does not end a person or other being; birth and life recur, and the world resembles a stage on which actors perform.
An actor has an original identity, but immersion in a role makes them forget it. Similarly, people living in the world forget their original nature and become absorbed in their assigned roles. The account moves toward understanding one’s atman and becoming Brahman. The world is an illusion, a temporary theatrical stage rather than one’s real home.
Explaining maya as a world created by the human mind may sound close to Buddhism. Why? Because many such statements have entered Buddhism too. But I see this as the opposite direction. Saying there is an original something called mind that creates the world differs from saying that even mind arises dependently.
Why did such statements enter Buddhism? People from the same priestly and intellectual class practiced Buddhism and pursued the Upanishads, influencing one another. The Upanishads were influenced by Buddhism, Buddhism by the Upanishads, and their words became mixed. We should not assume that everything written within Buddhism points in the same Buddhist direction.
What is presupposed when we speak of ignorance and a true self?
The account of taking one’s world as eternal, becoming trapped in it, and not knowing one’s own essence leads to ignorance, avidya. I identify this as Upanishadic ignorance. I therefore strongly question whether the way ignorance or avidya is discussed in the twelve links of dependent origination is actually Buddhist. From my standpoint, it is closer to the Upanishadic perspective than Buddhism.
Underlying it is the acceptance of atman: the world is an illusion while I continue eternally and unchanged. Of course, not every Upanishadic school is identical. I also noted that some deny god and some deny atman. What we examined today was one representative current.
Its answer is that the world is maya, that an essential me unknown even to myself is atman or the true self, and that this self continues. I criticize that as a delusion. Buddhism and other shramana schools offer different answers to the same questions. Buddhism says there is no atman, no permanent I. That is non-self.
Then how should we view passages within Buddhism that give exactly the same answer as the Upanishads? Are they Buddhism or Upanishadic thought? Conversely, nastika influence may produce god-denying currents within the Upanishads. We must examine the answer itself rather than judge by names and labels.
My criticism of “everything is created by mind”
If the world is an illusion produced by my mind, interest in the world itself may diminish. Consider the expression “everything is created by mind.” What tradition does that sound like? I point out that it moves in the same direction as a major Upanishadic tradition. That is why I do not like the expression.
Of course, one can interpret it very generously. If it means that changing one’s attitude changes one’s thoughts and approach to the world, it can be digested as something good. The interpretation is better than the dream. But if you say the world is an illusion created by mind while I, its observer, exist separately, that is another matter. I criticize that as nonsense.
The direction I describe in Buddhism is the opposite. Even I am dependently formed. What I call my mind is not an independently existing substance. Why, then, observe? Why speak of vipassana and wisdom? Because we do not simply dismiss this world as illusion.
Self and mind are also phenomena arising through relationships
The world and I are phenomena arising in relation to one another. Arising through connections is dependent origination. My mind, too, arises through relationships between body and world. To remove body and world entirely and then say that mind, soul, or atman remains alone, eternal and unchanging, is to view the world strangely.
I too am merely a dependently arisen being. In this respect, I am no different from a cockroach, gnat, dog, cat, or monkey. I arose through relationships, and my mind arose through connections between body and world. The human mind cannot be placed in a special position outside the world.
So do not search for something like a true self. Mind and mental activity arise because of something, through particular relationships. Nothing can exist alone with nothing else and remain permanent forever. It is not permanent. It is impermanent. Life is not permanent, and neither am I.
Buddhism offers this answer to the questions of its time. Where do I come from and go? What am I, and how does the world work? I say Buddhism asks us to observe the world, rather than believe that some entity exists. Dependent origination, impermanence, and non-self are not labels to memorize but matters to observe and understand.
Contemplating bones means observing change
Why practice contemplation of bones? Why look at a corpse decomposing, its bones becoming exposed and scattered, and birds pecking at it? To observe what changes and how. Look at why it changes, how it changes, and because of what.
Examining that change brings understanding that change occurs dependently. This points in a different direction from believing a god exists or seeking a true self. Rather than separating and mystifying the way we live and the way the body changes after death, we examine them through relationships and conditions.
From questioning authority to personal and social liberation
Understanding ancient India’s questions also reveals how shramana philosophy began to sprout among them. Instead of memorizing and following what had previously been written, people asked whether Brahman really exists and whether atman really exists. Challenging authority and moving away from the Vedas began with questions.
Only when I doubt whether what I believe, know, and assume is actually so does the possibility of escaping delusion appear. Recall the passage about someone bound in a cave, covered by countless things and hardened, being caught in delusion. If we believe without question merely because Buddhist scriptures mention rebirth, karma, and memories of past lives, are we escaping that cave?
I criticize such beliefs as simply beliefs that existed in ancient India. Buddhism discusses dependently arisen phenomena, but clinging through past lives and rebirth to something by which I continue moves away from that direction. To understand Buddhist awakening, we must understand both the claims of the time and the questions addressed to them.
The Buddha’s personal liberation also relates to social liberation. He too would have lived bound in society’s cave and covered with countless thoughts. The Buddha of the tradition also tried starving himself and pursuing transcendence like Jain practitioners. But the underlying Buddhism I see eventually asks us to release even that wish to transcend. That too is a dream and an illusion.
Leaving behind both this shore and the other shore
Leave behind both ora and param. Leave behind this shore and the other shore. I often speak of shedding this world and the other world as a snake sheds its skin. Calling them this world and the other may sound like a journey to some transcendent place, but that is not what I mean.
Do not live too entangled in worldly things, and do not desire to become something perfect and transcendent beyond the world either. Shed the desires on this side and the desires on the other. I see this as close to Buddhism’s early underlying form.
Yet Buddhism today has become a religion of transcendence. That makes it difficult to understand what Buddhism asks us to realize. Before describing a quiet state or an eternal true self as Buddhism’s fulfillment, we should return to the questions from which it began and what it asks us to release.
The ancient questions remain today
In the previous broadcast, Venerable Dao asked why Buddhism is a religion of questions. I answered on the spot that escaping delusion requires questioning. Today I explored the background of that answer further. Understanding ancient India helps us understand why dependent origination, impermanence, and non-self emerged and why we are asked to realize them. Understanding how I and the world work frees us from misguided fantasies.
These questions have not disappeared in the twenty-first century. People still ask what they are and what happens when they die. But if we abandon questions and simply believe claims of heaven, eternal life, an afterlife, and rebirth, we become caught in belief again. I say Buddhism concerns today’s life and this moment because it has moved beyond those fantasies. It returns to how we will live today.
Those who have watched several of my videos may find this familiar. This time I brought various discussions together around one question: what questions existed in ancient India? I hope this helps you understand Buddhism’s beginning. Please share your questions or impressions. Thank you to Venerable Dao and everyone who joined us. Those coming to tomorrow’s gathering, travel safely; I look forward to seeing you in good health. Have a good Friday evening, and I will see you next Monday. May you awaken.
This article was edited by AI solely from the supplied video captions and description. No external sources were used.