[Sheefeadalfuh]

This is a good source for whats about right view here...

Thanissaro's description of "mundane" right view vs. "superior' right view falls along the lines of the abhidhammic/commentarial tradition that claims that both views are necessary for liberation, starting (and usually, for almost everyone) with karma and reincarnation, and only moving to the "superior" right view later, sometimes reserving this "superior" right view only for arhants.

Their is a serious misrepresentation going on here in the translation and exposition of the Buddha's teachings concerning "right view". Thanissaro is obviously relying a great deal on the Maha Cattarisaka Sutta ( http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipit....117.than.html ), in which the Buddha describes the two forms of "right view", and indeed illustrates one of these views - the one that is unique to him -- as superior.

In this sutta, the Buddha delineates several speculative views that preceded him: some of which he describes as wrong view, whose opposites he described as "right view with asavas", and his own sort of "right view", which he described as "without asavas". But what does this "asavas" mean? Does this mean "mundane"? What does "mundane" mean in this context, and does it mean what the Buddha meant?

There are several translations for "asava", including "taints", "fermentations", "defilements", "pollutants", "effluents" (from effluvium, which means "sewage"), and "outflows". What does this mean, "right view with defilements", "right view with taints, pollutants, sewage"?

We tend to see three or four qualities defined as "asava": sensuality (attachment to "sense pleasures"), speculative view, becoming (clinging to notions of "me" and "mine"), and ignorance.

So this "right view with asavas" is a "right view" (in that belief in it leads one toward ethical behavior), but it is "asava" because it is based in speculative view, attachment to sensuality and illusions of status and ownership, and ignorance. This is what Thanissaro is calling "mundane right view" and pushing as a compulsory precursor to "superior right view".

How does the Buddha define "superior right view"? He calls it "noble right view that is without asava, liberative, a factor of the path" (sammaditthi ariyo anasava lokuttara maggaphala) . Why is it called "noble"? It is the highest view the purest view. It is untainted by greed, aversion, and ignorance; the roots of sensuality, status and ownership, ignorance, and speculative view. It transcends superstition, greed, aversion and speculative view; these things are not necessary to hold together the Buddha's "right view", and it is a factor of the Noble Eightfold Path, the path to liberation as the Buddha defined it.

How does the Buddha define "noble right view"? He defines it in terms of discernment, in terms of what we can see and know for ourselves. He further states that "the ending of the effluents is for one who knows and sees, not for one who does not know and does not see."

Seeing and knowing what, he asks? Seeing and knowing paticcasamuppada in the here and now. Seeing and knowing the effect of ignorance and self-grasping on our perception of the world, and the connection between that influence of ignorance and self-grasping and misery and suffering that we cause for ourselves and others.

This is not a superstition-based right view, not a speculation-based right view, it is a right view based in seeing and knowing the relationships between intention, action, and consequence. It is very much based in an ethics of reciprocity, an expended form of what we know of today as the "Golden Rule". This is what makes the Buddha's "right view" far superior to the superstitions that preceded him, which he called "right view with defilements".