The Nine Stages of Mental Abiding

4.2 The Nine Stages of Mental Abiding

Most students of the Buddha's way have seen a certain picture: a practitioner, rope and goad in hand, pursues an elephant; the elephant, jet-black at the start, grows whiter along nine turns of a spiraling mountain road, and at the summit stands white through and through. This "chart of the nine abidings" has traveled far and wide with the Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path (Lamrim Chenmo); many people first meet "the nine stages of mental abiding" through it, and take it, naturally enough, for a progress chart of meditation.

The picture is not the source. Trace it upstream, to the Yogācārabhūmi translated in the Tang by Xuanzang, and you will see this nine-rung ladder in its original form—and its original tone of voice is very unlike a progress chart. The treatise asks, "What is calm abiding?" and answers itself, "It is the nine stages of mental abiding"; then nine stations, written one by one to a single mould: "What is such-and-such abiding? It is … therefore it is named such-and-such abiding." This is definition; it is glossing the thing called "calm" name by name, square by square, and the subject throughout is the treatise, not a practitioner seated on a cushion. The nine abidings are first of all a system of weights and measures—taking the matter of "how the mind goes from scattered to settled" and surveying it into nine marks on a scale.

Nine Marks on the Scale

The nine names, in order: inner placing, continuous placing, repeated placing, close placing, taming, pacifying, thorough pacifying, single-pointing, settled equipoise.

Walk down them. Inner placing: the mind that has been climbing after things outside is gathered back and tied to the object. Continuous placing: the newly gathered mind turns from coarse to fine and abides in continuity. Repeated placing: should the mind slip away for a moment, one notices at once and gathers it back. Close placing: by attention upon attention the mind draws ever closer to the object and no longer scatters outward. Taming: toward the marks of form, sound, scent, taste, and touch, toward the marks of greed, hatred, and delusion, one knows their danger and subdues the mind. Pacifying: the various bad reflections and the subtler afflictions—seeing their danger, one brings the mind to rest. Thorough pacifying: should mindfulness lapse, the lapse is removed the instant it arises. Eighth, single-pointing. Ninth, settled equipoise.

The sharpest line scored on this ladder falls between the eighth and the ninth. The treatise defines the eighth abiding as the concentration that "has exertion, has effort" and yet continues without break or gap—still working, but no longer interrupted. The ninth, settled equipoise, is "without exertion and without effort": it runs of itself—no more working; the concentration turns on its own.

See that scored line clearly, and the principle of the whole ruler comes plain: what the nine abidings measure is the weight, the lightness, the presence or absence of effort. The treatise adds the curve: in the first two abidings, only by straining does the mind run at all; through the middle five it runs, but still with breaks; at the eighth, without break, yet still at a cost; at the ninth, at no cost at all. From straining, to laboring, to effortless—a curve descending all the way down. The more settled the mind, the less force it needs; at the top, even "applying force" is itself set down. The line Part Two drew—the channel forms when the water has arrived—here receives a ruler with marks on it.

The treatise then lists the six powers that accomplish the nine abidings—hearing, reflection, recollection, clear comprehension, effort, familiarization—and matches them one by one: the powers of hearing and reflection accomplish the first two abidings; recollection accomplishes the third and fourth; clear comprehension the fifth and sixth; effort the seventh and eighth; and by the power of familiarization the ninth is brought to completion. Six powers, nine marks on the scale, four grades in the texture of effort—to dismantle, name, and measure the process of "a mind settling down" to this degree is workmanship that belongs to the Yogācāra school alone. Prajñā gave concentration its nature; the Yogācāra gives it a model: the same mountain, and the two schools bring two rulers. And in passing: when the Pāli tradition measures the four jhānas, the marks are scored on the object—what the state facing the mind presents, which jhāna-factors arise and which are relinquished; when the Yogācāra measures the nine abidings, the marks are scored on the mind's force—how hard the cognizing mind is working. One ruler measures the object, the other the mind.

Insight, Grounded upon Calm

The nine abidings are territory on the side of "calm." And insight? The treatise has not left insight outside the door, but the seat it assigns insight is unmistakable:

Grounded upon inner calm abiding, one is able, among all dharmas, to investigate correctly, to investigate thoroughly, to examine comprehensively, and to analyze comprehensively.

The four kinds of insight (vipaśyanā) arise only "grounded upon" the calm within—insight stands on the shoulders of calm. And when do calm and insight truly close together and turn in equal measure? The treatise bolts that moment fast to the far side of the ninth abiding: only when settled equipoise is complete, and with the perfected samādhi as ground one cultivates higher discernment in the contemplation of dharmas, does insight turn "gathered in, made supple by calm abiding"—the yoking of calm and insight is a matter for after the ladder is topped. The pair of tracks Part One laid down here receives its engineering drawing: the two tracks will indeed bear one yoke together; but the yoke is set where the track of calm reaches its summit.

The Dedication Changes, and the Whole Definition Changes

This ladder of nine abidings comes out of the Śrāvakabhūmi—it was originally the disciples' coursework, not Mahāyāna at all. What turns it Mahāyāna is two things that the same treatise's Bodhisattvabhūmi does to this concentration.

The first: the treatise establishes "difficult concentration." A bodhisattva already able to abide in the most excellent concentrations, who might have long enjoyed that highest bliss of dhyāna, instead—

freely and of their own wish relinquish that supreme bliss of the concentrations, and out of pity for beings … deliberately and after reflection choose to be reborn back in the desire-realm.

"Deliberately and after reflection choose to be reborn back in the desire-realm"—actively, with everything thought through, electing to come back to the desire-realm. This clause is the previous chapter's "not reborn by dhyāna," said in the other lineage's words: Kumārajīva's bureau says "not reborn by dhyāna"; Xuanzang's bureau says "deliberately choosing to be reborn back in the desire-realm"—two vocabularies, one same motion against the pull.

The second is more thorough still: the treatise establishes "the concentration that benefits beings," writing the welfare of others straight into concentration's definition. Grounded upon concentration, the bodhisattva draws forth benefit and welfare for beings, acts as their helper and companion, and for those who suffer removes the suffering—the content of the concentration just is benefiting beings in dependence on it. Concentration is no longer only an inward gathering; its very definition has grown an outward-facing side.

And so it comes clear: the ladder has not changed; not one of the nine marks has moved. What changed is the dedication. The dedication turns from one's own bliss of dhyāna and personal stillness toward the benefit of beings, toward unsurpassed bodhi—the same ladder, and its meaning becomes Mahāyāna through and through. The technique is inherited; what turns is the aspiration.

The marks are set; the dedication has turned. But one question still hangs: the ladder is built—and once a person has gone up, what then? Is one now to dwell on the topmost rung and never come down?

The next chapter, the bodhisattva's stance upon the ladder: the concentration that does not abide.