Don Farber
DEVOTEE PROSTRATING AT BOUDHANATH STUPA, NEPAL
BOTH THE Pāli and Sanskrit traditions contain explanations of progressive steps taken along the path to arhatship and buddhahood. Knowing these enables us to practice in a systematic way and to accurately assess our progress.
By cultivating the four establishments of mindfulness, the seven awakening factors, and the noble eightfold path, we cultivate wisdom, the direct antidote freeing us from cyclic existence. The suttas (MN 24) and the Visuddhimagga set out the structure of the path in terms of seven purifications (satta visuddhi).
Buddhaghosa gives the analogy of a tree growing. The soil in which wisdom grows is wisdom’s field of examination: the five aggregates, twelve sources, eighteen elements, twenty-two faculties, four truths, and dependent arising. Just as roots of the tree make it stable, the first two purifications—the purification of ethical conduct and the purification of mind—form the foundation for wisdom. Just as branches, leaves, flowers, and fruit grow from the trunk of a tree, the excellent qualities of the ariyas grow from wisdom, and so the five subsequent purifications are included in the higher training of wisdom (Vism 18–22).
The seven purifications are practiced in order, each one depending on the preceding ones. The first six are mundane, the last is supramundane.
1. Purification of ethical conduct (sīla visuddhi) is the higher training of ethical conduct. There are four ways to accomplish it. (1) The ethical conduct of restraint is taking and living in precepts, which prevents physical and verbal nonvirtues. (2) The ethical conduct of restraining the senses involves practicing mindfulness and introspective awareness to avoid attachment to attractive objects and aversion toward unattractive ones. (3) The ethical conduct of pure livelihood is to receive the four requisites in an honest and nonharmful way. (4) The ethical conduct of proper use of requisites is to use the requisites after reflecting on their purpose, shedding attachment, and dedicating for the donors’ welfare.
2. Purification of mind (citta visuddhi) is the higher training of concentration, accomplished by subduing the five hindrances by means of access and full-absorption concentration.
Practitioners may cultivate insight in two ways. Following the vehicle of serenity, some attain access concentration or a higher state of absorption and use it as the basis for generating insight. Here the meditator emerges from the absorption, analyzes the factors of that absorption in terms of the five aggregates, understands their conditions, examines their nature, and sees they are marked by the three characteristics. The purification of mind for this person is whatever degree of concentration he or she develops from access on up.
Others, following the vehicle of pure insight, cultivate momentary concentration (see chapter 9) on the ever-changing physical and mental events. This is comparable to access concentration and is the purification of mind for these practitioners.
3. Purification of view (diṭṭhi visuddhi), also known as the analytical knowledge of mind and matter, begins the process of cultivating wisdom by discerning the characteristics, functions, manifestations, and immediately preceding causes of the five aggregates. Through this, meditators discern that what is called the person is a collection of interdependent mental and physical factors. This purifies the wrong view of a unitary, permanent self.
4. Purification by overcoming doubt (kaṅkhāvitaraṇa visuddhi) discerns the conditions of the mind and matter in the past, present, and future, thus eliminating doubts concerning them. By meditating on dependent arising, meditators view the present collection of aggregates as dependently arisen, conditioned phenomena, thus understanding their body-mind complex does not arise due to a transcendent creator, is not a manifestation of a primal or permanent cosmic substance, and did not appear causelessly.
5. Purification by knowledge and vision of what is and is not the path (maggāmagga ñāṇadassana visuddhi) and the following purification involve cultivating ten insight knowledges. Having discerned the mind and matter of the three realms and their conditions, meditators prepare to cultivate the first knowledge by contemplating the three realms in terms of the five aggregates. That is, all matter whatsoever is included in the form aggregate, all feelings are consolidated in the feeling aggregate, and so on.
To cultivate the knowledge of comprehension (1), meditators apply the three characteristics to the five aggregates. Beginning with a longer time—“The body of this lifetime is impermanent”—they meditate on increasingly shorter periods of time—“The feelings of this year are unsatisfactory”—until they see that in each split second, the aggregates are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and not a self.
The initial phase of the knowledge of arising and passing away (2a) is developed by contemplating that the arising and ceasing of conditioned things is due to the presence or absence of their respective conditions. This contemplation is not done conceptually but by observing the very moment in which arising and passing away occur. In each nanosecond everything arises and passes away, giving way to the next moment that is equally transient.
As meditation deepens, ten imperfections of insight arise: (a) meditators see an aura of light radiating from their bodies; (b–d) they experience rapture, pliancy, and bliss in a way they never have before; (e) their resolution becomes stronger; (f) they exert themselves in practice; (g) their knowledge matures; (h) their mindful awareness becomes stable; (i) their equanimity becomes immovable; and (j) there is subtle enjoyment, clinging, and attachment to these experiences. This last factor is why they are called “imperfections”: the mind relates to the first nine in an incorrect way. While these intriguing experiences that are natural byproducts of insight may give meditators the impression that their meditation is going well and they are developing special qualities—even the supramundane path and fruit—this is not the case. Not seeing the error in their discernment, they may stop insight meditation.
Purification by knowledge and vision of what is and is not the path is the ability to discern that these ten imperfections, no matter how fascinating they may be, are not the path to liberation and that insight into the three characteristics is the correct path to liberation. This purification is instrumental in keeping meditators on the right track so they will actualize their spiritual goal.
6. Purification by knowledge and vision of the way (paṭipadā ñāṇadassana visuddhi) involves generating the remaining nine insight knowledges with regard to the three characteristics. These become clearer and more stable due to the absence of the ten imperfections of insight during the mature phase of the knowledge of arising and passing away (2b).
To cultivate knowledge of dissolution (3), meditators focus only on things’ ceasing. This reveals impermanence more deeply because they see that the conditioned things of saṃsāra are in a process of constant disintegration. There is nothing stable or trustworthy in them; they are wholly unsatisfactory; because they are only ceasing, how can a self exist in them?
With knowledge of fearfulness (4), they see these constantly disintegrating things of saṃsāra as fearful in that being attached to them binds one to dukkha. With knowledge of danger (5), they know with certainty that the fearful things of saṃsāra have the nature of dukkha and lack any core of a real self, and that safety exists only in the unconditioned, which is free from the unpredictability of impermanent things. With knowledge of disenchantment (6), meditators become disenchanted and disillusioned with saṃsāric phenomena. They clearly see the disadvantages of clinging to existence in the three realms.
With knowledge of desire for liberation (7), the momentum of turning away from saṃsāra and turning toward nibbāna increases, and meditators’ motivation to be free from the world of conditioned existence grows stronger. With knowledge of reflective contemplation (8), they repeatedly review and examine conditioned things in light of the three characteristics in an expansive way. With knowledge of equanimity toward formations (9), they leave aside both attraction and aversion toward conditioned things and abide in equanimity. This mental state is a great relief that comes from the cultivation of proper wisdom regarding the five aggregates.
Knowledge of conformity (10) arises in the desire-realm consciousness that precedes the consciousness of the change of lineage (gotrabhū) that leads to the supramundane path. This knowledge conforms to the truth of the previous insight knowledges and of the supramundane path to follow.
7. Purification by knowledge and vision (ñāṇadassana visuddhi), according to Buddhaghosa, is knowledge of the four supramundane paths and thus is the only supramundane purification. Some moments of transition from purification by knowledge and vision of the way precede the breakthrough to the supramundane path as the mind “changes lineage” from being a mundane mind perceiving conditioned phenomena to a supramundane mind knowing nibbāna. The culmination of insight that occurs just before the first moment of the supramundane path focuses on the three characteristics. It is called insight leading to emergence because it leads to the supramundane path that emerges from conditioned phenomena by taking nibbāna, the unconditioned, as its object, and that emerges from mundane consciousness by eliminating some of the defilements.
This last moment of insight, called change of lineage consciousness, marks the transition from an ordinary being to an ariya. While it resembles the path by focusing on nibbāna, it is unlike the path because it cannot dispel the defilements that obscure seeing the four truths. The path consciousness that arises subsequent to the change of lineage consciousness performs four functions of: fully understanding dukkha; abandoning the origin of dukkha; realizing nibbāna; and cultivating the noble eightfold path.
Each path consciousness of stream-enterer and so forth performs these four functions, and when the corresponding level of defilements has been reduced or eradicated, that path consciousness is followed by the fruition consciousness.22 After the fruition consciousness, a reviewing knowledge (paccavekkhaṇañāṇa) arises. It looks back and reflects on the path, fruit, and nibbāna, and often on the defilements that have been abandoned and those that remain. There is a tremendous sense of satisfaction, relief, and joy at this time, and meditators continue to practice until they reach the fruit of arahantship. In this way the knowledge of the four supramundane paths is accomplished, and the final goal, nibbāna, is attained.
Sentient beings’ minds are obscured by two levels of obscurations, which are gradually eradicated as we progress along the path. Afflictive obscurations mainly hinder the attainment of liberation. They include the afflictions, their seeds—potentials producing another moment of the affliction—and polluted karma causing rebirth in saṃsāra. Afflictive obscurations have been eliminated by arhats, by bodhisattvas on the eighth ground and above, and by buddhas.
Cognitive obscurations are more subtle and difficult to remove. Mainly impeding omniscience, they prevent beings from directly perceiving both conventionalities and their emptiness simultaneously. They consist firstly of latencies (vāsanā) of the afflictions that remain on the mindstream even after the afflictions and their seeds have been eliminated, and secondly of the aspect of the mind that continues to mistakenly see inherent existence. Only buddhas have completely eradicated these. The Pāli tradition also refers to cognitive obscurations (ñeyyāvaraṇa) impeding full knowledge, which a buddha has abandoned.
Other cognitive obscurations are dysfunctional tendencies (duṭṭhulla, dauṣṭulya), latencies on the mindstreams of arhats that manifest in peculiar physical, verbal, and mental behavior. The Pāli commentary to the Udāna speaks of latencies (vāsanā) built up by defilements that produce similar dysfunctional actions in the future. These exist in the mindstreams of ordinary beings and arahants.
A consciousness that is a spiritual realization is called a path (magga, marga) because it leads out of saṃsāra and to awakening. A consciousness that is a spiritual realization is called a ground (bhūmi) because it is the foundation for the growth of good qualities and release from obscurations. The explanations of the paths of the Śrāvaka, Pratyekabuddha, and Bodhisattva vehicles are described here according to the Madhyamaka system.
Each of the three vehicles has five paths. The common features of the five paths in all three vehicles are described below; differences will be explained afterward.
1. The path of accumulation (sambhāramārga) is a clear realization of the doctrine—the words of the scriptures. It is called “accumulation” because at this stage practitioners accumulate great learning of the doctrine and begin accumulating the merit and wisdom leading to the goal of their chosen vehicle. Śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas enter the path of accumulation of their vehicles when they have, day and night, the determination to be free from saṃsāra. Bodhisattvas enter their path of accumulation when they have genuine bodhicitta in addition to the determination to be free from saṃsāra.
2. The path of preparation (prayogamārga) is a clear realization of the meaning of the truth—emptiness, the ultimate nature. This path is a union of serenity and insight on emptiness. This realization is inferential: emptiness is known conceptually via a conceptual appearance. On this path practitioners prepare for direct perception of emptiness.
3. The path of seeing (darśanamārga) is a clear realization of the truth itself—emptiness. As āryas, these practitioners realize emptiness directly and nonconceptually, without any sense of subject and object. The mind and emptiness are fused like water poured into water. The path of seeing has three phases. (1) The exalted wisdom of meditative equipoise (samāhitajñāna) directly realizes emptiness and has no dualistic appearance whatsoever. It has three types: (a) The uninterrupted path (ānantaryamārga) abandons the acquired afflictions. (b) The liberated path (vimuktimārga) directly follows the uninterrupted path and is a wisdom that has definitely abandoned the acquired afflictions forever. (c) The exalted wisdoms of meditative equipoise that are neither occur when practitioners meditate on emptiness at other times. (2) The exalted wisdoms of subsequent attainment (pṛṣṭhalabdhajñāna) occur when practitioners arise from meditative equipoise, practice illusion-like meditation, and accumulate merit in order to attain higher paths. (3) The exalted wisdoms that are neither meditative equipoise nor subsequent attainment are nonmanifest exalted wisdoms.
4. The path of meditation (bhāvanāmārga) begins when practitioners have accumulated enough merit and their wisdom is powerful enough to begin eradicating the innate afflictions. The word for “meditation” has the same verbal root as that for “familiarize,” and this path is so called because practitioners mainly familiarize themselves with the emptiness directly realized by the path of seeing.
The path of meditation has exalted wisdoms of meditative equipoise, exalted wisdoms of subsequent attainment, and exalted wisdoms that are neither of those. Here the uninterrupted paths counteract progressively subtle levels of obscurations, and liberated paths have definitely abandoned them.
5. The path of no-more-learning (aśaikṣamārga) of each vehicle is the highest goal of that vehicle. For śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, this wisdom has eradicated all afflictive obscurations and the person has attained arhatship; for bodhisattvas it has also eradicated cognitive obscurations and actualized buddhahood.
Spread over the bodhisattva paths of seeing and meditation are ten bodhisattva grounds. These ten are ultimate bodhicitta—unpolluted wisdom directly realizing the emptiness of inherent existence. This wisdom is conceptually divided into its earlier and later moments, forming these ten grounds. However, not every instance of a ground is ultimate bodhicitta; ārya bodhisattvas also meditate on conventional bodhicitta and engage in practices to create merit.
The ten grounds are differentiated by four features: (1) Each successive ground has a greater number of twelve sets of good qualities. These twelve qualities include seeing buddhas, receiving their inspiration, going to pure lands, having long lives, ripening sentient beings, and emanating bodies. (2) Each successive ground has greater power to eradicate obscurations and advance to a higher path. (3) Each ground has its own surpassing perfection that refines bodhisattvas’ body, speech, and mind. (4) On each successive ground, bodhisattvas are able to take higher rebirths in which they have more power to benefit sentient beings.
Bodhisattvas finish eliminating afflictive obscurations at the beginning of the eighth ground. They finish eliminating cognitive obscurations at the end of the tenth ground and become buddhas in the very next moment.
Śrāvakas meditate principally on the four truths and attain their awakening in three lifetimes according to the Sanskrit tradition and within seven lifetimes according to the Pāli tradition. Pratyekabuddhas meditate principally on dependent arising and accumulate merit for at least a hundred eons to attain their awakening. Bodhisattvas practicing Sūtrayāna accumulate merit for three countless great eons to attain buddhahood.
Stream-enterers are on the path of seeing; once-returners, nonreturners, and approachers to arhat are on the path of meditation. Arhats are on the path of no-more-learning. As liberated beings, they are no more bound in cyclic existence and will no longer take rebirth under the control of afflictions and polluted karma.
While the Pāli tradition does not use the schema of the five paths, it does use the names of four of the five paths to refer to similar stages of practitioners’ development. In the late commentaries, collections (sambhāra) refers to requisites a practitioner must assemble to attain liberation. In the Abhidhamma, seeing (dassana) indicates the path of a stream-enterer, and meditation (bhāvanā) refers to the paths of once-returner, nonreturner, and arahant that gain familiarity with the view attained at stream-entry. No training (asekha) refers to arahantship or buddhahood and is the last ground. Buddhahood is called a ground and not a path because it marks the end of cultivation.
According to Mādhyamikas, āryas of all three vehicles directly and nonconceptually realize the same selflessness of persons and phenomena: their emptiness of inherent existence. Bodhisattvas attain a buddha’s awakening due to special factors they cultivated on the path: the bodhicitta motivation, the vast collection of merit created over many eons, their training in the six perfections, their use of many reasonings to realize emptiness in order to teach them to others, and their abandoning of both the afflictive and cognitive obscurations.
In general, nirvāṇa or liberation (vimokkha, vimokṣa) is a state or quality of mind. It is not an external place or something reserved for a select few. Nirvāṇa is attainable by each and every sentient being.
The emptiness of mind—its natural purity or naturally abiding buddha nature—is the basis. On this basis, we undergo a process of purification by applying antidotes to eradicate the adventitious obscurations until the mind is totally free from afflictive obscurations. The purified state of the emptiness of the mind that is free from afflictive obscurations is true nirvāṇa. By realizing the ultimate nature of mind that itself is free from all afflictive obscurations, we attain nirvāṇa. Thus the understanding of emptiness eliminates the obscurations, and emptiness is also the resultant state present when all defilements have been cleansed from the mind.
In general, there are four types of nirvāṇa, although not all of them are actual nirvāṇa:
(1) Natural nirvāṇa is the ultimate nature of a mind that is primordially pure and empty of inherent existence. It is the basis allowing for the attainment of actual nirvāṇa. As the nature of the mind, it is a quality of the mind, so attaining actual nirvāṇa does not involve gaining a quality from outside. Rather it involves recognizing a quality of the mind that is already present.
In a more general sense, natural nirvāṇa is emptiness. Everything around us—as well as the four truths, the paths, and the resultant attainments—is empty of inherent existence, and in this way we can say it possesses natural nirvāṇa. However, only sentient beings can attain the nirvāṇa free from obscurations because that nirvāṇa is the emptiness of the mind.
In the terms (2) nirvāṇa with remainder and (3) nirvāṇa without remainder, “remainder” refers to the ordinary aggregates, which are true duḥkha because they arise due to ignorance and polluted karma. When śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas eradicate all afflictive obscurations, they attain nirvāṇa with remainder and become arhats. When they later shed their body at death, there is nirvāṇa without remainder because the polluted aggregates have ceased.
Some Buddhists say at the time of nirvāṇa without remainder, the continuum of consciousness of the person ceases although the nirvāṇa without remainder exists. However, other Buddhists assert that all sentient beings will eventually attain buddhahood and the continuum of consciousness exists even after arhats pass away. At that time, arhats have a mental body and reside in a pure land, where they remain in meditative equipoise on emptiness. At the appropriate time, the Buddha arouses them from their meditative equipoise and causes them to enter the bodhisattva path and attain a buddha’s awakening.
Mādhyamikas assert a second meaning of nirvāṇa with and without remainder. Here “remainder” refers to the appearance of inherent existence and the dualistic appearance of subject and object. Nirvāṇa without remainder is a true cessation occurring during āryas’ meditative equipoise on emptiness when the mind is free from these two mistaken appearances. Upon arising from meditative equipoise on emptiness, āryas again experience the false appearance of inherent existence, even though they see things as like illusions in that they appear inherently existent although they are not. This is called nirvāṇa with remainder because dualistic appearances are present.
In the first presentation, nirvāṇa with remainder occurs first, followed by nirvāṇa without remainder. In the second presentation, the order is reversed.
Nāgārjuna says that what the Pāli tradition calls extinction or cessation, the Sanskrit tradition calls nirvāṇa (RA 386):
The non-arisal taught in the Mahāyāna
and the extinction [taught] for other [Buddhists]
are [both] emptiness. Therefore, one should admit
that extinction and non-arisal are ultimately the same.
Extinction in the Pāli tradition refers to nibbāna without remainder, the nibbāna of an arahant who has abandoned the polluted aggregates at death. Nāgārjuna extends the meaning of extinction to include the nonappearance (non-arisal) of inherently existent phenomena because in the Sanskrit tradition “remainder” also refers to the appearance of inherent existence.
(4) Nonabiding nirvāṇa is the nirvāṇa of a buddha who does not abide in either saṃsāra or the personal nirvāṇa of a śrāvaka arhat. All Buddhists see saṃsāra as undesirable. Wishing to actualize a buddha’s awakening to benefit sentient beings most effectively, bodhisattvas see the personal nirvāṇa of an arhat as limited. They seek a buddha’s nirvāṇa, the purified aspect of the ultimate nature of a mind that is forever free of both afflictive and cognitive obscurations.
Nibbāna refers to the elimination of clinging to the five appropriated aggregates (sakkāya). It is the state of cessation in which both dukkha and its origins have been eradicated. Nibbāna is also spoken of as the object of meditation, the reality that is directly seen by ariyas’ supramundane wisdom.
When speaking of “nibbāna as the cessation of dukkha and its origins,” the Buddha described his awakening (MN 26:19):
I considered: “This Dhamma that I have attained is profound, hard to see and hard to understand, peaceful and sublime, unattainable by mere reasoning, subtle, to be experienced by the wise.… It is hard for such a population to see this truth, namely, specific conditionality, dependent arising. And it is hard to see this truth, namely, the stilling of all formations, the relinquishing of all attachments, the destruction of craving, dispassion, cessation, nibbāna.”
The Pāli commentary says “this Dhamma” refers to the four truths. “Specific conditionality, dependent arising” refers to true origins, and “stilling of all formations, the relinquishing of all attachments, the destruction of craving, dispassion, cessation, nibbāna” refers to true cessation. The reference to true origin implies true dukkha, and the reference to true cessation implies true path. Thus in nibbāna all four truths have been realized. Here nibbāna is the extinguishment of all attachment and craving (true origins) and leads to the extinguishment of the aggregates (true dukkha) at death. Similarly, Sāriputta said nibbāna is “the destruction of sensual desire, the destruction of hatred, the destruction of confusion” (SN 38:1). This meaning of nibbāna focuses on the cessation of true origins.
Many suttas present nibbāna as the “object of a supramundane path.” The Buddha said there are three unconditioned marks of nibbāna: no arising, vanishing, or changing is discerned (AN 3:47). Unlike conditioned phenomena that arise and pass away, nibbāna—the unconditioned—is free from such fluctuation. It does not arise or vanish due to causes and conditions, nor does it change into something else. Nibbāna is true, in contrast to the world, which is deceptive. Nibbāna is a distinct phenomenon that has nothing to do with matter or the deepest samādhis of saṃsāra. Nibbāna is illustrated via negation—no coming, no going, not made, and so forth—without anything being posited in their stead (Ud 8:1). The Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha explains nibbāna as the object of only a supramundane path—the supreme, ultimate mind cognizing the supreme, ultimate object (CMA p. 258).
The suttas and Abhidhamma say nibbāna has three aspects: Nibbāna is emptiness (suññatā, śūnyatā) because it is empty of ignorance, anger, and attachment and empty of the conditioned. It is signless (animitta) because it is free from the signs of ignorance, anger, and attachment and the signs of conditioned things. Nibbāna is wishless (appaṇihita, apraṇihita) because it is free of hankering for ignorance, anger, and attachment and is not wished for by craving (CMA p. 260).
The Sanskrit tradition speaks of these three attributes as three perspectives of selflessness. Emptiness refers to the lack of inherent existence of the entity of an object, signlessness to the lack of inherent existence of its cause, and wishlessness to the lack of inherent existence of its result.
Buddhaghosa refutes a number of misconceptions about nibbāna. Nibbāna is not nonexistent. It exists because it is apprehended by the supramundane path. The fact that ordinary beings’ limited minds cannot perceive it does not render it nonexistent. If nibbāna were nonexistent, practicing the path would be futile.
Nibbāna is not simply the absence of defilements and the ceasing of existence. It is called the “destruction of craving” because realizing it brings about the destruction of craving. If nibbāna were the destruction of craving, it would not be the unconditioned because the destruction of craving is a conditioned event. While the destruction of craving is produced by causes, nibbāna is uncaused and has no beginning or end (Vism 16:71).
While nibbāna is realized by cultivating wisdom over time, it does not come into being through the act of being realized. Nibbāna always exists as the unconditioned element; it is the unborn, unoriginated, unchanging, deathless. Because nibbāna exists, the eradication of defilements is possible (Ud 8:3). The ariya path realizes the unconditioned, and this realization cuts off the defilements.
Pāli commentators show the compatibility of the two senses of nibbāna in the suttas: (1) as the goal, it is a blissful state free from dukkha and its origins that can be experienced in this life and, (2) as the object of meditation, it is the unconditioned, the unborn that always exists and is seen by the supramundane path and fruit. It is called the “destruction of attachment, anger, and confusion” because the realization of the unconditioned element has the effect of cutting away and finally eliminating these three.
Nibbāna is the unconditioned, in contrast to saṃsāra, which is conditioned. Nibbāna is completely separate from the saṃsāric world governed by dependent arising. Nibbāna, which is reality, is also distinct from selflessness, which is a characteristic of saṃsāric phenomena.
For Mādhyamikas, all phenomena of both saṃsāra and nirvāṇa lack inherent existence and thus are selfless and empty. While nirvāṇa is often used to refer to the cessation of true duḥkha and true origins, its real meaning is the emptiness of the purified mind.
