The notion of 'view' or 'opinion' (ditthi) as an obstacle to 'seeing things as the are' (
yathabutadassana) is a central concept in Buddhist thought....
[S]eeing things as they are is...soteriologically transformative..., usually stated in terms of craving and ignorance being overcome by calm and insight. Early Buddhist soteriology is both prescriptive and descriptive. What is of value is based upon seeing things in a certain way; it is based upon insight into the way things are. In the...Canon what we crave is inseparable from what we know.... Our understanding of how things are affects how we act. One of the reasons to adopt right-view and reject wrong-views is because right-view produces...wholesome...action. It produces the cessation of craving. The reason for this, the early texts suggest, is that is based upon a true description of reality. Through combining notions of 'is' and 'ought'
ditthi encompasses a number of factors: the cognitive and affective; the descriptive and prescriptive; fact and value.... Insight into the way things are has a transformative effect and...categories that we normally separate are intrinsically bound and inseparable factors on the Buddhist path. By not separating the 'is' from the 'ought', the early texts are making an important point. That is that ignorance and craving are inseparable in producing unwholesome action and in turning away from the way things really are.
Two theories may be proposed as to the nature of seeing things as they are.... The strong theory emphasises the 'ought', the weak theory emphasises the 'is' and the 'ought'. It is the weak theory I am arguing for.... [T]he 'is' cannot be divorced from 'ought' without undermining the purpose of Buddhist doctrine. The seeing of things as they are is a statement of fact and value....
In the Buddhist texts it is often suggested that the aim of the Buddhist path is 'seeing things as they are'.... In fact, the commentaries often gloss
samma-ditthi as
yathava-ditthika 'the view of things as they are'... (Mp I 27, 355, V 66). This idea is found in the
Mahasalayatanika-sutta {M III 287-90}). This
sutta is concerned with seeing the 'great sixfold base {
mahasalayatana} as it is. The view of such a person is right-view {
yathabhutassa ditthi,
sassa hoti samma-ditthi, M III 289} and the other path factors are 'right'.). Rupert Gethin has pointed out that
samma-ditthi is essentially knowledge of suffering, its arising, cessation (
The Buddhist Path to Awakening: A Study of the Bodhi-Pakkaya Dhamma, p. 190). This is the apprehending of the process of 'rise and fall' (
udayabbaya).... Sue Hamilton (in
Early Budhhism) has argued that seeing things as they are relates to the adaptation of experience, the way our cognition perceives the world, and entails an insight into the very nature of cognition. It is the truth of knowing that we are no longer bound to continuity {p. 55}; it is knowing 'how our experience operates' {pp. 122, 134}. Seeing things as they are is a soteriological truth, best explained as insight into the nature of knowledge. Hamilton argues that this understanding...is epistemological, and that the primary aim of the Buddhist path is not an ontological understanding of the self [
atta] and the world [
loka] {p. 138}:
The problem that needs solving...is an epistemological one, and following the Buddha's teachings leads to insight into the arising and nature of knowledge, and into the status of what one knows. But the process that leads to that insight, and the solving of the epistemological problem, does not itself affect Reality {p. 140}.
(pp. 1, 10-11, 40-41, 191)
