‘Anussati’ – Recollection
Tahn Pamutto (excerpt, Uposatha November 20, 2025)
The recollection of the Buddha is said to be an antidote to suffering, dukkha. We don’t really have a technical manual on how this works. But when you reflect on the Buddha, it makes your suffering more tolerable.
This is not just because the Buddha was enlightened and equanimous in the face of whatever he went through in life. It isn’t just because he was well accomplished. If there was any kind of suffering, he had experienced it on his way to enlightenment and equanimity. But it also very encouraging to think that enlightenment is possible. And when we reflect on the Buddha, that’s what we’re reflecting on. We’re recollecting that enlightenment is possible. The Buddha did it. He was able to teach his disciples to do it. And that means we can do it. It’s possible for us. And when we’re suffering, that’s a really good message. That’s a really good thing to be able to recollect. The Buddha is the antidote to suffering.
The recollection of the Dhamma is given as the antidote to fear, bhaya. The Buddha gives a lot of Dhamma talks to Mahanama, and he encourages Mahanama when Mahanama is is worried and timid and afraid. “Don’t worry, Mahanama. You’ve learned much. You’ve heard the Dhamma. You’ve had faith for a long time. You’re not going to go to a bad place, no matter what happens to you.”
It’s entirely possible that Buddha had some foresight as to what would happen to Mahanama. But the thing was, when the end came, Mahanama was apparently quite able. He responded to it quite well. But that’s another whole story, that I encourage you to read. Mahanama didn’t have fear in the end. He just acted for the good of his people. But at the time he was getting these recollections, he still had plenty of fear. He was afraid of all sorts of things and overwhelmed with his responsibilities. But reflecting on the Dhamma is one thing that we can do to ground ourselves in confidence.
The recollection of the Sangha is given as the antidote to disease. How does that work, mechanically?Reflecting on being surrounded by other people who are practicing well, practicing directly, practicing with integrity… how does that free you from illness?
Isn’t the worst part of illness the thought that we’re alone in it? Having to deal with the weight of being ill, being indisposed. It’s hard to look after ourselves in normal healthy circumstances. When we’re sick it’s so much harder to look after ourselves. But if we have good people around us who are compassionate, who are interested in our welfare and who chip in and help take care of us when we’re sick, it makes it so much more tolerable. It is wonderful and humbling that when we can’t do everything for ourselves, others chip in.
That’s one function of Sangha. It’s that we are not yet enlightened. We can’t yet do everything for ourselves. But recollecting the Sangha is recollecting that we have other people to our left and to our right who are checking in on us, interested in our welfare, offering what help they can. They will help us along the way and fill in for where we’re not yet strong, not yet wise, not yet fully established. And that’s a wonderful thing. And it takes a little of the sting out of our delusions, the greed, hatred and delusion that we still have.
So you have the Buddha Dhamma Sangha: which one is the most important? How could you try to rate which is better, the Buddha, Dhamma or Sangha? That’s a hard question. There’s no right answer. One person says Buddha, one person says Sangha, and they’re both right. Those are both really good recollections. So let’s reframe it. Which of the three recollections comes first?
“The Buddha comes first, right? Because there wouldn’t be Dhamma, there wouldn’t be Sangha without the Buddha.” But if you ask the Buddha, the Buddha would say the Dhamma comes first. Because the Dhamma was there before the Buddha realized it. And if you ask which one survives the longest? Well, again, the Buddha would say the Dhamma, because the Dhamma will still be there long after everybody has forgotten. But now it becomes clear that the Dhamma is not merely the teachings of the Buddha. And so I think this way of recollecting the Dhamma can bear a lot of fruit. When we’re willing to expand the definition of the Dhamma and see it in the way of the Buddha’s thought, what is it that’s so amazing about the Dhamma is that the Dhamma is not merely teachings.
We have three different definitions in the Pali language for what Dhamma is, and one definition of Dhamma is thing or phenomena. So anything that exists, anything that’s real, is a dhamma.
The second definition is the nature or reality of something.
Say we have an apple and somebody asks, “What does the apple taste like?” You would say, “It’s very sweet. It’s very juicy. It’s very delicious.” But it’s funny; you would say that, but you don’t know. You haven’t eaten the apple. You’re just holding the apple. You know basically what apples taste like; you can say what the apple tastes like. “The taste of an apple is like this.”
But is that the reality of the situation? No, that’s just a description, right? But if you were to bite the apple, then it doesn’t matter what people have told you the apple tastes like. You know for yourself what the apple tastes like. You know the apple’s dhamma. You know its nature. “Oh, the taste of an apple is like this. This is the taste of an apple.” And in the future, if you encounter that flavor, you would say, “Oh, this is the flavor of apple. I am familiar with this reality, this nature, this Dhamma of apples.” Even if you couldn’t think of the name, you would know. “I know this. I’ve experienced this.”
And then the third definition of Dhamma was not limited just to the Buddha’s teachings. The third definition of Dhamma is a teaching which points at the first two definitions of dhamma.
So just a kind of teaching like “How To Cook Rice” is not Dhamma. Dhamma was specifically used for religious and philosophical and technical and cosmological teachings that tried to explain to people the Way Things Are. They are teachings that explain the nature of things, or point to things actually existing in the world. This third kind of Dhamma is the Dhamma that will be given by the Buddha.
But now, which one is the best? Which one is the most sublime definition of Dhamma?
Is it number three, the Buddha’s teachings? The first one is just basic phenomena. It sounds a little bland, right?
Yet phenomena is the highest form of Dhamma. There’s an interesting point to that.
I am holding a computer mouse. It is a dhamma. It exists. It has a dhamma in that it has a reality, the reality of computer mice, which is to click and to move pointers. Now, if I were to throw this computer mouse on the ground and it were to shatter into a bunch of pieces, would the computer mouse suffer? No.
Would I suffer over it? Yes. I would not be able to do anything more on this video. The Dhamma talk would go on, but I wouldn’t be able to close it or record it. I wouldn’t be able to do anything further. I would suffer because my computer mouse is gone.
And so when we look at which kind of Dhamma is the most important Dhamma for us to learn, it would be coming to know the actual structure of the world around us, coming to know what it is made of, coming to know what is real.
The second definition of Dhamma is the reality of things as we experience it. But this is not the highest reality, because the highest reality is the thing itself. This is what it is; it doesn’t need me experiencing it to have that reality. We want to come to know the highest reality; that reality which is free of suffering, just the way things are, free of interpretation, free of us.
The third definition of Dhamma is the teachings which point to truth. Their function is to help us come to know this highest truth. As the Buddha said, once we understand the teachings themselves, the book teachings are no longer necessary.
There’s this idea in the Mahayana of the finger pointing at the moon. It’s this image that’s given to explain this very concept. I’m currently in a city and there are tall buildings all around and I can’t see the horizon. I don’t know if it’s a full or new moon because I can’t see it. I don’t know where the moon would be.
If somebody were to say, “Look, there is the moon,” I still wouldn’t be seeing the moon, just by listening to their explanation.
But if somebody were to walk outside and point and I were to follow their finger, and look in that direction, I would see the moon for myself. And then I would know, “It is there, this is what its reality is like.”
At that point, they can put down their finger, because whether or not they are pointing, I can see the moon, and I now know the moon. And so their pointing finger is irrelevant.
And similarly, all of the teachings that the Buddha gives, and that his disciples give on and on through history, are all for the purpose of us realizing truth, seeing it for ourselves.
This is a wonderful quality of the Dhamma. When we reflect on Dhamma, we’re reflecting that there are teachings in the world which are meant to help us to see truths. And there are truths in the world which are true regardless of anybody teaching them. There are things that have always been true and always will be true. There are things that are true from every perspective, true at all times. And reflecting on this builds confidence in us.
And the wonderful thing is, we don’t have to know what the truths are to get the benefit from this recollection. Just recollecting that there are truths in the world is a fantastic way to clear up confusion and doubt and fear.
Because it’s bringing in a piece of information that we might otherwise be likely to forget: we live in an orderly world. We call this the orderliness of the Dhamma.
There are structures to the way the universe works, whether or not we know it. We’re often the victim of these structures. We’re just kind of getting pulled along by karma and physical forces. But there are structures nonetheless. And the more that we reflect that they exist, the more we feel, “Oh, okay, this is not random, this is not chaotic. This can be learned. This can be known. I can see this for myself.”
And that also reframes for us why the teachings are so important. They help us learn these things. The reflections that we’re given for the Dhamma, something we chant at least two or three times a day in any Buddhist monastery are “Svākkhāto bhagavatā dhammo sandiṭṭhiko akāliko ehipassiko opaneyyiko paccattaṁ veditabbo viññūhī.” The Dhamma is well explained, the Dhamma is directly visible, the Dhamma is timeless, the Dhamma encourages investigation, and it’s sequential, it leads onwards. The Dhamma is something which each wise person can realize for themselves.
When the Buddha gives these criteria, he’s giving us the criteria by which we can grade his Dhamma. The reason the Buddha’s Dhamma has been passed upon for so many generations is because of these very qualities that we see in it. It’s well explained, meaning it’s not in riddles. These are not theories, not guesses at how the world works. It is well explained, it’s well laid out, and it’s purposeful.
It has the purpose of freeing us from suffering. But it’s also directly visible. It’s not just a hypothesis about how the world works. The Buddha doesn’t describe something that you can’t put to the test and see for yourself.
There are some things that we might not be able to verify for ourselves, like the different heavenly realms and the existence of the devas. We might never develop the psychic powers to be able to confirm those things for ourselves, but we could confirm it for ourselves under certain circumstances. So the Buddha taught about them. And sometimes when he taught about them, he would ask people, “Do you believe in it?”
And they’d say, “No, I have never seen anything like that.”
The Buddha would say, “Good. You shouldn’t just believe what you’re told.”
If you can’t verify it for yourself, then set it aside. There will be plenty of things which the Buddha teaches which you can’t verify for yourself.
Yet the whole path can be verified.
You can do it and get the results for yourself.
The Dhamma is timeless. It applies today in the same way it applied 2,600 years ago It’s not dealing with things that are specific to a culture, place, and time. It’s dealing with human realities, physical realities. That’s what we’re most interested in.
The Dhamma is laid out that way because it has a goal: enlightenment. It can point out things along the way to that goal. The Dhamma encourages investigation and leads us onwards and it brings up all of these great questions that encourage us to peer into the nature of the world.
(Mahanama Sutta: To Mahanama AN 11.12, AN 11.13)