清淨道論 義疏通講 · 冊22Visuddhimagga · Exposition Throughout · Vol. 22

Change-of-lineage knowledge is like a person letting go of the rope in midair while leaping a great ditch—it has seen nibbāna but is not yet the path; the path follows immediately, like a blindfolded archer who, without losing the stick’s signal, shoots through a hundred boards and pierces the aggregates of greed, hate, and delusion; fruition consciousnesses then arise, followed by the backward look—“I have indeed come by this path”

The Big Picture — The Opening of Purification by Knowledge and Vision: Change-of-Lineage, Path, Fruition, and Reviewing Within a Single Cognitive Process

After the three conformity consciousnesses at the end of Chapter 21, this chapter opens with change-of-lineage knowledge. It occupies the position of adverting to the path, belongs neither to purification by knowledge and vision of the way nor to purification by knowledge and vision, and is not classed under either while standing between them; yet, because it falls within the stream of insight, it is still called insight. The knowledge in the four paths alone is purification by knowledge and vision. First-path knowledge requires nothing further to be done—what had to be done was completed in the insight ending in conformity. The three conformity consciousnesses make the gross, medium, and fine darkness concealing the truths disappear; the mind does not plunge into, stand upon, adhere to, or cling to any formation, like water on a lotus leaf, and everything having the sign and occurrence as object manifests as an impediment. It therefore takes the signless, non-occurrence, the unformed, cessation, and nibbāna as object, crosses beyond the ordinary person’s lineage into the lineage of the noble ones, and makes its first turning, first inclination, and first directing of attention toward nibbāna, serving as condition for the path in six modes—change-of-lineage knowledge arises (§1). Three similes follow: crossing a ditch (conformity grasps the rope and leaps; the body inclines, tends, and leans toward the far bank; above the bank the rope is released; the person lands swaying—change-of-lineage has reached the far bank but is not yet steady, while the path gains firm footing) (§2); the moon and clouds (three winds disperse the gross, medium, and fine clouds—the three instances of conformity remove the darkness concealing the truths; the person with sight sees the moon—change-of-lineage sees nibbāna; the winds cannot see the moon and the person cannot disperse the clouds, each having what it can and cannot do) (§3); and the archer (blindfolded on a revolving mechanism, the archer receives another person’s stick signal and, without losing it, shoots through a hundred boards—the path, without losing change-of-lineage’s signal, pierces the three aggregates of greed, hate, and delusion), followed by the path’s nine benefits (§4). The close gives two or three fruition consciousnesses (rejecting accounts of one or four), the stream-enterer as the second noble person who returns at most seven times, five reviews (path, fruition, abandoned defilements, remaining defilements, and nibbāna), nineteen reviews across the four noble persons, and Mahānāma’s question (§5). [What is seen] Here the measuring rule of subtraction across the entire arc is fulfilled: path knowledge takes nibbāna as object and cuts the fetters—what each preceding chapter dismantled (person, first cause, counterfeit, and grasping at formations) is pierced and split apart by the path in this instant. Yet subtraction does not end in nothingness. After path and fruition, reviewing knowledge looks back upon what was abandoned, what remains, and the nibbāna realized—“This is the Dhamma I have penetrated by way of the object.” This is the same statement as in Chapter 17: not annihilation, but stilling.

§01 The Scope of Purification by Knowledge and Vision and the Arising of Change-of-Lineage Knowledge → Vernacular §1

From this point comes change-of-lineage knowledge. It occupies the position of adverting to the path, belongs neither to purification by knowledge and vision of the way nor to purification by knowledge and vision, and is not classed under either while standing between them; because it falls within the stream of insight, it is still called insight. The knowledge in the four paths is purification by knowledge and vision. One who wishes to accomplish first-path knowledge has nothing further to do—everything was done when insight ending in conformity arose. The three conformity consciousnesses, each according to its strength, make the gross darkness concealing the truths disappear; the mind neither plunges into nor stands upon, resolves upon, adheres to, clings to, or becomes bound to any formation. Like water on a lotus leaf, it draws back, contracts, and recoils; everything having the sign or occurrence as object manifests as an impediment. At the end of conformity’s repetition, it takes the signless, non-occurrence, the unformed, cessation, and nibbāna as object; crosses beyond the ordinary person’s lineage, designation, and plane into the lineage, designation, and plane of the noble ones; makes its first turning, first inclination, and first directing of attention toward nibbāna as object; serves as condition for the path through proximity, contiguity, repetition, decisive support, absence, and disappearance; reaches the summit, becomes insight’s summit, and does not return—change-of-lineage knowledge arises. The canonical text says that the understanding of emergence outwardly and of turning away is change-of-lineage knowledge: it is change-of-lineage because it surmounts the range from arising up to distress and the sign of formations outwardly, and because it plunges into the range from non-arising up to non-distress, cessation, and nibbāna (Vernacular §1). [How to read] Change-of-lineage knowledge has three features: position (on the threshold, counted on neither side), object (taking nibbāna as object for the first time), and function (surmounting the ordinary person’s lineage and serving as condition for the path in six modes). “First turning, first inclination, first directing of attention”—three “firsts”: for the first time, the mind turns toward nibbāna. [What is seen] “One who wishes to accomplish first-path knowledge has nothing further to do”—this is the most reassuring sentence in the entire arc. The path is not something to be “made”; everything to be done was completed in the preceding twenty-one chapters, and here the result follows naturally.

§02 The Simile of Crossing a Ditch—The Difference in Object Between Conformity and Change-of-Lineage Within One Cognitive Process → Vernacular §2

Conformity and change-of-lineage occur with one adverting in one cognitive process, but upon different objects. A person wishing to leap a great ditch and stand on the far bank runs swiftly, grasps a rope or pole hanging from a branch on the near bank, leaps, inclines, tends, and leans toward the far bank, releases the rope above it, lands swaying, and slowly gains firm footing. Likewise, wishing to stand in nibbāna—the far bank of the kinds of existence, birth, destination, station, and abode—the meditator runs swiftly through contemplation of arising and passing away and the rest, grasps with the adverting of conformity the rope of materiality hanging from the tree branch of the individual existence or a pole consisting of feeling or another aggregate, and takes it as impermanent, suffering, or not-self without releasing it. With the first conformity consciousness the meditator leaps; with the second the mind inclines, tends, and leans toward nibbāna; with the third the meditator comes close to the nibbāna now to be attained. With its cessation, the formations-object is released and change-of-lineage consciousness falls upon the unformed nibbāna that is the far bank. Because repetition has not been obtained on the single object, however, it is not yet firmly established, like the person who is swaying; firm establishment comes afterward with path knowledge (Vernacular §2). [How to read] The simile makes “two objects within one cognitive process” visible: the rope (formations) hangs from the near bank; grasping it, the person leaps, inclines toward the far bank, and reaches a point above it—these three steps are the three conformity consciousnesses; letting go and landing is change-of-lineage; gaining firm footing is the path. [What is seen] “Without releasing it”—all three conformity consciousnesses still hold formations (impermanence, suffering, and not-self); the strength of formations swings the mind toward nibbāna. Change-of-lineage alone lets go. This sentence matters for practice: before entry upon the path, one cannot release the three characteristics too soon; an early release drops one into the ditch.

§03 The Division of Work Between Conformity and Change-of-Lineage—The Simile of the Moon and Clouds → Vernacular §3

Conformity can dispel the defilement-darkness concealing the truths but cannot take nibbāna as object; change-of-lineage can take only nibbāna as object but cannot dispel that darkness. The simile is of a person with sight who goes out at night to determine the conjunction of the stars, looks upward, and cannot see the moon because it is covered by clouds. A first wind disperses gross clouds, a second medium clouds, and a third fine clouds; in the cloudless sky the person sees the moon and determines the conjunction of the stars. The three clouds are the gross, medium, and fine darkness concealing the truths; the three winds are the three conformity consciousnesses; the person with sight is change-of-lineage knowledge; and the moon is nibbāna. The winds can only disperse clouds and cannot see the moon—conformity only dispels darkness and does not see nibbāna. The person can only see the moon and cannot disperse clouds—change-of-lineage only sees nibbāna and does not remove darkness. Hence it is called adverting to the path: without itself being adverting, it occupies adverting’s position, gives the path a signal as though saying, “Arise in this way,” and ceases. The path, without losing that signal, follows in immediate continuity and arises piercing and splitting apart the aggregates of greed, hate, and delusion that have never before been pierced (Vernacular §3). [How to read] Keep the division of labor clear: conformity is the wind that scatters clouds (it removes darkness but does not see the moon); change-of-lineage is the person with sight (who sees the moon but does not scatter clouds); the path is the archer in the next section (which pierces). Each does one thing, and none is dispensable. [What is seen] “The person with sight thinks, ‘I shall determine the conjunction of the stars.’” The person looks up not merely to see the moon, but to determine the stars’ positions; likewise, change-of-lineage sees nibbāna in order to signal the path. This small detail shows that change-of-lineage knowledge is “in service”: it is the most fleeting and least self-claiming of consciousnesses.

§04 The Archer Simile and the Nine Benefits of the Path → Vernacular §4

An archer sets up one hundred boards at a distance of eight usabhas, covers his face with cloth, readies bow and arrow, and stands on a revolving mechanism. Another person turns it and gives a stick signal when the boards face the archer. Without losing the signal, the archer releases the arrow and pierces the hundred boards. The stick’s signal is change-of-lineage knowledge; the archer is path knowledge; piercing the hundred boards without losing the signal is path knowledge, without losing the signal given by change-of-lineage, taking nibbāna as object and piercing and splitting apart the aggregates of greed, hate, and delusion. The path not only pierces the aggregates of greed and the rest; it dries up the ocean of suffering in the beginningless round, closes every door to bad destinations, brings the seven noble treasures into one’s presence, abandons the eightfold wrong path, stills enmity and fear, gives one the status of a true-born child at the breast of the Rightly and Fully Enlightened One, and leads to hundreds of other benefits. Knowledge associated with this path of stream-entry is knowledge in the path of stream-entry. [Here ends the account of first-path knowledge] (Vernacular §4). [How to read] The archer is blindfolded—the path does not “look” at nibbāna’s appearance; it shoots by change-of-lineage’s signal. One arrow goes through a hundred boards—one moment cuts through three aggregates. Read the nine benefits in order: drying the ocean of suffering, closing the doors to bad destinations, making the seven noble treasures present, abandoning the eightfold wrong path, stilling enmity and fear, becoming the Buddha’s true-born child at the breast … [What is seen] “Brings one to the status of a true-born child at the breast of the Rightly and Fully Enlightened One”—the stream-enterer is the Buddha’s own child. This sentence answers the wise person “established in virtue” at the opening of Chapter 1 from afar: from a person established in virtue to the Buddha’s true-born child, the road of twenty-two chapters joins here.

§05 The Number of Fruition Consciousnesses and the Stream-Enterer’s Five Reviews and the Nineteen Reviews → Vernacular §5

Immediately after path knowledge come two or three fruition consciousnesses, since supramundane wholesome result is immediate—“that concentration is immediate” and “one slowly attains the immediate [condition] leading to the destruction of the influxes”; the accounts of one, two, three, or four should not be accepted. Because change-of-lineage arises at the end of conformity’s repetition, there must be at least two conformity consciousnesses: one consciousness cannot obtain repetition condition, and a cognitive process with one adverting has at most seven consciousnesses. With two instances of conformity, the third is change-of-lineage, the fourth path, and three are fruition; with three instances of conformity, the fourth is change-of-lineage, the fifth path, and two are fruition. The account of four instances of conformity, with change-of-lineage fifth, path sixth, and one fruition consciousness, is rejected because absorption occurs only in the fourth or fifth consciousness and, after that, no longer occurs owing to the nearness of the life-continuum. At this point the person becomes a stream-enterer, the second noble person, and, even if exceedingly negligent, makes an end of suffering within at most seven returns among devas and humans. At fruition’s end the mind descends into the life-continuum; interrupting it, mind-door adverting arises to review the path, followed by seven impulsions reviewing the path. It descends into the life-continuum again, and in sequence reviews fruition and the rest—the path (“I have indeed come by this path”), fruition (“This is the benefit I have obtained”), abandoned defilements (“These are what I abandoned”), remaining defilements (“These are what the three higher paths must abandon”), and nibbāna (“This is the Dhamma I have penetrated by way of the object”). These are the stream-enterer’s five reviews; once-returners and non-returners have the same, while arahants have no review of remaining defilements—nineteen in all. This is only the highest limit, for trainees may or may not review abandoned and remaining defilements. Mahānāma therefore asked the Blessed One, “What state remains unabandoned within me, such that states of greed sometimes obsess my mind?” (Vernacular §5). [How to read] The arithmetic of the cognitive process is seven consciousnesses in one process: two or three conformity + one change-of-lineage + one path + three or two fruition—the sum is seven. The Commentator uses this arithmetic to reject both “four conformity and one fruition” and “four fruition.” The five reviews are the backward look after path and fruition: the road traveled, what was gained, what was abandoned, what remains, and what was realized. [What is seen] “Even if exceedingly negligent, a stream-enterer returns at most seven times”—this is the formal version of “the foot has landed on the right ground” (19-01, lesser stream-enterer): from here there is no falling back. Mahānāma’s question provides a remarkably honest corroboration: a trainee does not necessarily know which defilements remain—reviewing knowledge is not omniscience, but a backward look that may or may not occur. The Commentator places this at the chapter’s opening to remove the reader’s imagining that “once attainment occurs, everything is known.”

For the General Reader

The three similes together portray the instant of entering the path. Leaping a great ditch—holding the rope of formations (impermanence, suffering, and not-self) and swinging toward nibbāna’s bank: the three conformity consciousnesses are grasping the rope and leaping, inclining across, and arriving above the far bank; change-of-lineage knowledge lets go and lands but is not yet steady; the path gains firm footing. The moon and clouds—conformity is the wind that scatters clouds, change-of-lineage the person who sees the moon; each does one thing. The blindfolded archer—the path, without losing change-of-lineage’s signal, shoots one arrow through a hundred boards and pierces the aggregates of greed, hate, and delusion. Then comes the backward look: I came by this path; I attained this fruit; I abandoned these; these remain; I penetrated that Dhamma. This fulfills subtraction, yet it does not end in nothingness—it ends in stilling that has been realized. One further reassurance: even if exceedingly negligent, a stream-enterer returns at most seven times; once the foot has landed, it does not fall back.

To read this unit in full: Vernacular §§1–5 give the complete paragraph-by-paragraph rendering of the scope of purification by knowledge and vision and change-of-lineage knowledge, the ditch-crossing simile, the moon-and-clouds simile, the archer simile and the path’s nine benefits, the number of fruition consciousnesses, and the five and nineteen reviews.

The Three Higher Paths Have No New Road—“Whether on That Very Seat or at Another Time,” the Same Mass of Formations Is Again Kneaded and Turned with Knowledge as Impermanent, Suffering, and Not-Self; at the End of Equanimity about Formations Come Conformity, Change-of-Lineage, and the Path, with Abandonment Deeper Each Time; by the Eighth Noble Person, the Burden Has Been Laid Down and One’s Own Good Attained

The Big Picture — Traveling the Same Road Four Times: From Stream-Entry to Arahantship

After the first path, the author writes three nearly identical passages. Having reviewed, the noble disciple who is a stream-enterer undertakes the practice to attenuate sensual desire and ill will and attain the second plane; brings together the faculties, powers, and awakening factors; with knowledge kneads and turns the same mass of formations as impermanent, suffering, and not-self and enters the course of insight; and, after conformity and change-of-lineage with a single adverting at the end of equanimity about formations, the path of once-returning arises (§1). The once-returner—the fourth noble person, who returns to this world once and makes an end of suffering—practices to abandon sensual desire and ill will without remainder and attain the third plane, after which the path of non-returning arises (§2). The non-returner—the sixth noble person, who is spontaneously reborn and attains final nibbāna there without returning—practices to abandon without remainder desire for form, desire for the formless, conceit, restlessness, and ignorance and attain the fourth plane, after which the path of arahantship arises (§3). The arahant is the eighth noble person: one whose influxes are greatly destroyed, bearer of the final body, one who has laid down the burden, one who has attained his own true good, one whose fetters of becoming are exhausted, one liberated through right knowledge, and the foremost person worthy of offerings in the world of devas and human beings; the knowledge in the four paths is purification by knowledge and vision (§4). 〔What Is Seen〕 This unit is short, yet proves the most important sentence in the structure of the whole arc: there is no second road. The three higher paths use exactly the same method as the first path (“in the manner already stated” occurs six times); only the depth of the fetters abandoned differs. Travel the road of the preceding twenty-one chapters once and one attains stream-entry; travel it four times and one attains arahantship.

§01 Knowledge of the Second Path—Attaining the Path of Once-Returning by Attenuating Sensual Desire and Ill Will → Vernacular §1

Having reviewed, the noble disciple who is a stream-enterer undertakes the practice, either on that very seat or at another time, to attenuate sensual desire and ill will and attain the second plane: he brings together the faculties, powers, and awakening factors; with knowledge kneads and turns the same mass of formations, distinguished as form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness, as impermanent, suffering, and not-self; and enters the course of insight. In the manner already stated, after conformity and change-of-lineage have arisen with one adverting at the end of equanimity about formations, the path of once-returning arises immediately after change-of-lineage—this is knowledge of the path of once-returning. 〔The second knowledge is finished.〕 (Vernacular §1). 〔Reading〕 “Whether on that very seat or at another time”: the interval between one path and the next may be a single sitting or many years; the author imposes no schedule. “Attenuate”: the second path does not abandon sensual desire and ill will; it makes them attenuated. Their abandonment comes with the third path. 〔What Is Seen〕 “With knowledge kneads and turns that same mass of formations”: kneading (sammasati) and turning—the same stone is ground once more. Progress on the course of insight does not replace the subject; it works the same subject more deeply.

§02 Knowledge of the Third Path—The Once-Returner’s Position and the Complete Abandonment of Sensual Desire and Ill Will → Vernacular §2

Fruition consciousnesses are as before. At this point one becomes a once-returner, the fourth noble person, who comes to this world only once and makes an end of suffering; reviewing is as before. The noble disciple who is a once-returner practices to abandon sensual desire and ill will without remainder and attain the third plane; by the same method the path of non-returning arises—this is knowledge of the path of non-returning. 〔The third knowledge is finished.〕 (Vernacular §2). 〔Reading〕 “Fourth noble person”: among the four pairs and eight persons, the even positions are those in fruition—stream-enterer second, once-returner fourth, non-returner sixth, arahant eighth—while the odd positions are those on the paths. 〔What Is Seen〕 The once-returner “comes to this world only once,” while the non-returner “does not return”: the name is the definition. The author’s account is most compressed here because the road has already been fully stated.

§03 Knowledge of the Fourth Path—The Non-Returner’s Position and the Complete Abandonment of the Five Higher Fetters → Vernacular §3

Fruition consciousnesses are as before. At this point one becomes a non-returner, the sixth noble person, who is spontaneously reborn, attains final nibbāna there, and does not return; in terms of rebirth-linking, one does not come to this world again. Reviewing is as before. The noble disciple who is a non-returner practices to abandon without remainder desire for form, desire for the formless, conceit, restlessness, and ignorance and attain the fourth plane; by the same method the path of arahantship arises—this is knowledge of the path of arahantship. 〔The fourth knowledge is finished.〕 (Vernacular §3). 〔Reading〕 The five higher fetters are named here: desire for form, desire for the formless, conceit, restlessness, and ignorance. The ten fetters are set out in detail in this chapter’s unit “The Abandonment of What Is to Be Abandoned.” 〔What Is Seen〕 Notice how concretely the aim “undertakes the practice to …” is stated for each path: attenuating sensual desire and ill will at the second plane, abandoning them without remainder at the third, and abandoning the five higher fetters without remainder at the fourth. Each portion of the course of insight has a verifiable answer to “what was abandoned?”, not merely “the state became higher.” This is precisely the use of the ten fetters as a progress chart for the course of insight.

§04 The Arahant’s Position and the Summary of the Four Knowledges → Vernacular §4

Fruition consciousnesses are as before. At this point one becomes an arahant, the eighth noble person: one whose influxes are greatly destroyed, bearer of the final body, one who has laid down the burden, one who has attained his own true good, one whose fetters of becoming are exhausted, one liberated through right knowledge, and the foremost person worthy of offerings in the world of devas and human beings. The earlier statement that “the knowledge in the four paths is called purification by knowledge and vision” refers to the four knowledges attained in this sequence (Vernacular §4). 〔Reading〕 Each of the arahant’s seven designations expresses a kind of “completion”: the influxes are destroyed; the body is the last; the burden is laid down; one’s own task has been accomplished; the fetters are exhausted; one knows one is liberated; and one is worthy of offerings. 〔What Is Seen〕 “One who has laid down the burden”: the final verb in the entire arc’s road of continual letting go. From the goose king who takes no pleasure in the pit in 21-05, through the divorced wife and the direction-crow in 21-07, to “the burden laid down” here, the same letting-go reaches completion. The endpoint of subtraction here takes human shape: not a person emptied out, but one who has set down the burden and finished the work.

Correspondence—with the Chinese Buddhist Sequence of Cultivation and Realization 〔This Edition’s Critical Reading; Differences Only, without Detail〕

This edition’s existing critical reading notes only the differences here. In the Theravāda system, this arc is a particular ladder of insight knowledges (name-and-form → conditions → rise and fall → … → equanimity about formations → conformity → the four paths and four fruitions), culminating in abandoning the ten fetters and realizing arahantship. Chinese Mahāyāna generally employs frameworks of bodhisattva stages (such as the five stages in Yogācāra and the six identities in Tiantai), culminating in the bodhisattva path and buddhahood, while what is abandoned is also divided into the two obstructions of affliction and cognition. The ladders differ, their endpoints differ, and their classifications of what is abandoned differ. 〔This paragraph preserves and assigns the existing critical reading; it does not derive from this unit’s base text. Interpretation of Chinese Buddhist stages awaits those yet to come.〕

For the General Reader

Remember one sentence: there is no second road. After stream-entry, the once-returner, non-returner, and arahant use exactly the same method as at the first path: once again, with knowledge they knead and turn the same mass of formations as impermanent, suffering, and not-self; at the end of equanimity about formations come conformity, change-of-lineage, and the path. Only the depth of abandonment differs: the second path attenuates sensual desire and ill will, the third abandons them completely, and the fourth abandons desire for form, desire for the formless, conceit, restlessness, and ignorance. “Whether on that very seat or at another time”: the author imposes no schedule. The person at the endpoint has seven names, one of which is “one who has laid down the burden”: not a person emptied out, but one who has set down the burden and finished the work.

To read this unit in full: Vernacular §§1–4 give the complete paragraph-by-paragraph translation of knowledge of the second path; knowledge of the third path and the once-returner’s position; knowledge of the fourth path and the non-returner’s position; and the arahant’s position and the summary of the four knowledges.

In the Prior Part, the Thirty-Seven Requisites of Awakening Are Obtained One by One in Different Minds, but at the Path Moment They Are All Obtained Together in a Single Mind—and When Counted without Overlap, There Are Only Fourteen Phenomena: One Mindfulness Counts in Eight Places and One Energy in Nine; the First Aspect of the Path’s “Power” Is This Completeness

The Big Picture — The First Power of Purification by Knowledge and Vision: Completeness of the Requisites of Awakening

After explaining knowledge of the four paths, the author begins to show its “power” by setting out four matters in a summary verse: completeness of the requisites of awakening; the correspondence of emergence with the powers; which phenomena are abandoned by what, together with their abandonment; and the functions beginning with full understanding at the time of direct realization (§1). This unit explains the first. It first defines “requisites of awakening”: the thirty-seven phenomena stand in a portion of the noble path called awakening—in the position of assisting it (§1). Next it explains the names and numbers of each class: the four establishments of mindfulness (mindfulness takes body, feeling, mind, and phenomena in the modes of unattractiveness, suffering, impermanence, and not-self, and performs the function of abandoning perceptions of beauty, pleasure, permanence, and self) and the four right efforts (energy has four functions concerning wholesome and unwholesome phenomena, arisen and unarisen: non-arising, abandonment, arising, and maintenance) (§2); the four bases of power (desire, mind, energy, and investigation; primarily supramundane, while the mundane are concentrations attained with desire and the rest as predominance) (§3); the five faculties and five powers (they overcome lack of faith, idleness, negligence, distraction, and delusion as faculties and are not overcome by them as powers), the seven awakening factors, and the eight path factors (§4). The final section is the heart: during mundane insight in the prior part, the requisites of awakening “are obtained in different minds” (apprehending the body in fourteen ways … the first right effort … the basis of power consisting in desire … right speech), while at the path moment they “are obtained in a single mind”; at the fruition moment, the thirty-three apart from the four right efforts are obtained. When counted without overlap, they are only fourteen phenomena: nine each occupy one place, faith two, concentration four, wisdom five, mindfulness eight, and energy nine (§5). 〔What Is Seen〕 This unit answers a question practitioners often have: there are so many among the thirty-seven aids to the path—how can I cultivate them all? The author’s answer is: they are not thirty-seven tasks but the names of fourteen phenomena in different posts. The same mindfulness is called an establishment of mindfulness in one post, the mindfulness faculty in another, the power of mindfulness in another, the mindfulness awakening factor in another, and right mindfulness in another. At the moment the path arises, all fourteen arrive at once. What was cultivated in scattered form through the preceding twenty-one chapters is gathered into a single mind at the path moment.

§01 The Two Summary Verses on Four Matters and the Meaning of the Thirty-Seven Phenomena → Vernacular §1

To know the power of purification by knowledge and vision consisting in the four knowledges, one should know according to individual nature the completeness of the requisites of awakening, the correspondence of emergence with the powers, which phenomena are abandoned by what and their abandonment, and the functions beginning with full understanding spoken of at the time of direct realization. Completeness of the requisites of awakening means their complete state: the four establishments of mindfulness, four right efforts, four bases of power, five faculties, five powers, seven awakening factors, and the noble eightfold path are thirty-seven phenomena. They are called requisites of awakening because they stand in a portion of the noble path called awakening in the sense of awakening; to stand in a portion is to stand in a position of assistance (Vernacular §1). 〔Reading〕 First remember the sequence of the four matters: they are the table of contents for the next four units of this chapter, 22-03 through 22-06. The explanation of the name “requisites of awakening” is plain: they are not awakening itself; they stand beside awakening to help it—the position of assistance. 〔What Is Seen〕 “The noble path called awakening in the sense of awakening”: awakening here is the noble path, and the thirty-seven phenomena are its retinue. This definition prevents “requisites of awakening” from being treated as thirty-seven independent goals of cultivation.

§02 The Meaning and Number of the Four Establishments of Mindfulness and Four Right Efforts → Vernacular §2

It is establishment because it occurs by plunging and leaping into an object; mindfulness itself is establishment, and therefore it is an establishment of mindfulness. It is fourfold because, with respect to body, feeling, mind, and phenomena, it apprehends the modes of unattractiveness, suffering, impermanence, and not-self and performs the function of abandoning perceptions of beauty, pleasure, permanence, and self—hence the four establishments of mindfulness. It is effort because one exerts by means of it: excellent effort, right exertion, or effort that is free from the ugliness of defilements, accomplishes welfare and happiness, and brings forth excellence. It is a designation for energy. Because it performs the functions of abandoning arisen unwholesome phenomena and preventing unarisen ones from arising, and of arousing unarisen wholesome phenomena and maintaining arisen ones, it is fourfold—hence the four right efforts (Vernacular §2). 〔Reading〕 The “four” establishments of mindfulness are not merely four objects: each establishment answers one distortion—body answers perception of beauty, feeling perception of pleasure, mind perception of permanence, and phenomena perception of self. The four establishments of mindfulness are four antidotes to the four distortions. The four right efforts place energy in the four cells of a grid: wholesome or unwholesome × arisen or unarisen. 〔What Is Seen〕 “Mindfulness itself is establishment”: the “establishment” (paṭṭhāna) in this chapter is the same word as the title Paṭṭhāna in Chapter 17, but they belong to different categories, as the L2 note distinguishes. Here mindfulness is defined as “occurring by plunging and leaping into an object”: it is not standing aside and watching; it leaps in.

§03 The Meaning of the Four Bases of Power and Their Mundane and Supramundane Distinction → Vernacular §3

It is power in the sense of success; it is the basis of power because it precedes the associated power and serves as the prior-part cause of the resultant power. It is fourfold according to desire and the rest: the bases of power consisting in desire, mind, energy, and investigation. These are only supramundane; the mundane are phenomena obtained through the predominance of desire and the rest, as in the statement that concentration and unification of mind attained with desire predominant are called concentration due to desire (Vernacular §3). 〔Reading〕 A basis of power is “a foot for success”: four things that let success stand—desire (wanting), mind, energy, and investigation (wisdom). The author says that the four bases of power listed in scripture are supramundane, while a mundane basis of power is “concentration attained with desire and the rest as predominance.” 〔What Is Seen〕 “Desire” here is wholesome desire. It contrasts with the yearning at the end of the ten corruptions of insight in 20-07: both are wanting, but one is craving for a state and the other a force directed toward success; what differs is their direction.

§04 The Meaning of the Five Faculties, Five Powers, Seven Awakening Factors, and Eight Path Factors → Vernacular §4

They are faculties because, in the predominant sense of overcoming, they overcome lack of faith, idleness, negligence, distraction, and delusion; they are powers because, in the sense of unshakability, they are not overcome by lack of faith and the rest. Both are fivefold according to faith and the rest. The seven phenomena beginning with mindfulness are the seven awakening factors because they are factors of the being who awakens; the eight beginning with right view are the eight path factors in the sense of leading out (Vernacular §4). 〔Reading〕 Faculties and powers are two sides of the same five phenomena—faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom: when they overpower the opposition, they are faculties; when the opposition cannot overpower them, they are powers. The names of the awakening factors and eight path factors are each explained in one sentence. 〔What Is Seen〕 “Eight path factors in the sense of leading out”: the path factors are defined by “leading out.” This is from the same root as niyyāna, “leading out,” in 22-06. From the dismantling of the person in Chapter 18 to this point, the path is the road that “leads out.”

§05 When They Are Obtained—Obtained in Different Minds in the Prior Part and in One Mind at the Path Moment; Fourteen Distinct Phenomena → Vernacular §5

While mundane insight is occurring in the prior part, one apprehending the body in fourteen ways has contemplation of the body as an establishment of mindfulness; one apprehending feeling in nine ways, contemplation of feeling; mind in sixteen ways, contemplation of mind; and phenomena in five ways, contemplation of phenomena. Seeing an unwholesome phenomenon arisen in another and thinking, “If I do not practice as that person did, it will not arise in me,” one exerts for its non-arising: the first right effort. Seeing an unwholesome phenomenon already occurring in oneself, one exerts to abandon it: the second. Exerting to arouse a previously unarisen jhāna or insight: the third. Repeatedly arousing what has arisen so it does not decline: the fourth. Arousing the wholesome with desire placed in the yoke: the basis of power consisting in desire. Abstaining from wrong speech: right speech. Thus they are obtained in different minds. When the four knowledges arise, they are obtained in one mind. At fruition, the thirty-three apart from the four right efforts are obtained. Of what is obtained in one mind, the one mindfulness taking nibbāna as its object is called four establishments of mindfulness because it performs the functions of abandoning perceptions of beauty and the rest in relation to body and the rest; the one energy is called four right efforts because it performs the functions beginning with preventing the unarisen from arising; there is no decrease or increase among the rest. Verse: nine phenomena are each in one place—desire, mind, rapture, tranquillity, equanimity, intention, speech, action, livelihood; faith in two (faculty and power); concentration in four (faculty, power, awakening factor, path factor); wisdom in five (those four plus basis of power); mindfulness in eight (four establishments, faculty, power, awakening factor, path factor); energy in nine (four right efforts, basis of power, faculty, power, awakening factor, path factor)—six groups. The requisites of awakening are only fourteen distinct phenomena, sevenfold by class and thirty-seven by division; each performs its own function and, stated according to its nature, all arise when the noble path arises (Vernacular §5). 〔Reading〕 This section has two levels. The temporal level: in the prior part, “at this time an establishment of mindfulness, at another time a right effort,” they are obtained in scattered form one by one; at the path moment they are all obtained in one mind. The numerical level: reduced to their basis, the thirty-seven are fourteen phenomena—nine in one place each (desire, mind, rapture, tranquillity, equanimity, intention, speech, action, livelihood), faith in two, concentration in four, wisdom in five, mindfulness in eight, and energy in nine. 〔What Is Seen〕 “The one mindfulness having nibbāna as its object … is called the four establishments of mindfulness”: there is only one mindfulness at the path moment, but it performs the functions of all four establishments at once by abandoning the four distorted perceptions. The same applies to the four right efforts. This is the most striking sentence in the whole unit: the plurality belongs to functions; in substance, there is only one. “At the fruition moment, apart from the four right efforts”: at fruition the work of abandoning and developing is not undertaken, so the four right efforts are not obtained and thirty-three phenomena are present. The subtraction is delicate: even the requisites of awakening are four fewer at fruition.

For the General Reader

The thirty-seven aids to the path are not thirty-seven tasks, but the names of fourteen phenomena serving in different posts. One mindfulness is called an establishment of mindfulness in that class, the mindfulness faculty among the five faculties, the power of mindfulness among the five powers, the mindfulness awakening factor among the awakening factors, and right mindfulness in the eightfold path: one mindfulness counts in eight places, one energy in nine. Through the preceding twenty-one chapters they are cultivated in scattered form—one sitting is an establishment of mindfulness, another a right effort. At the moment the path arises, all fourteen arrive together in one mind: “the one mindfulness having nibbāna as object” performs the functions of all four establishments of mindfulness at once. This is completeness of the requisites of awakening, the first aspect of the path’s power. The plurality belongs to functions; in substance, there is only one.

To read this unit in full: Vernacular §§1–5 give the complete paragraph-by-paragraph translation of the summary of four matters and the meaning of the requisites of awakening; the four establishments of mindfulness and four right efforts; the four bases of power; the five faculties, five powers, seven awakening factors, and eight path factors; and their being obtained in different minds in the prior part and in one mind at the path moment, together with the fourteen distinct phenomena.

“Emergence” Has Two Exits—From the Sign and from Occurrence: Mundane Insight Has Left Neither, Change-of-Lineage Knowledge Has Left One, and the Four Paths Have Left Both; at the Path Moment, Tranquillity and Insight for the First Time “Become of One Flavor in the Sense of Emergence,” Neither Surpassing the Other

The Big Picture — The Path’s Second Power: What It Emerges from and on Which Powers It Relies

The second of the four matters is the correspondence of emergence with the powers. Emergence has two sides: emerging from the sign, when the object is no longer a conditioned sign; and emerging from occurrence, when origin, the cause of occurrence, has been cut off. Mundane insight has a sign as object and has not cut off origin, so it emerges from neither. Change-of-lineage knowledge has nibbāna as object and therefore emerges from the sign, but has not cut off origin and therefore does not emerge from occurrence: emergence from one side. The four paths have the signless as object and cut off origin: emergence from both sides (§1). The author cites a long passage: at the moment of each of the four paths, all eight factors of the noble path “emerge from” their wrong counterparts and the corresponding fetters and latent tendencies. The stream-entry path emerges from wrong view and the rest; the once-returning path from the gross fetters and latent tendencies of sensual desire and aversion; the non-returning path from those accompanied by what is subtle; and the path of arahantship from desire for form, desire for the formless, conceit, restlessness, and ignorance, together with the latent tendencies to conceit, craving for becoming, and ignorance. All “emerge from the defilements and aggregates that follow them, and externally from all signs” (§2). The correspondence with the powers: the power of tranquillity predominates during the eight mundane attainments, while the power of insight predominates during contemplation of impermanence and the rest. At the moment of the noble path, the two powers occur yoked together, neither surpassing the other: “tranquillity and insight become of one flavor in the sense of emergence” (§3). 〔What Is Seen〕 This unit measures the three consciousnesses in 22-01—mundane insight, change-of-lineage, and path—once again by two criteria: has it emerged from the sign, and has it emerged from occurrence? The scale is clean: 0, 1, 2. “Tranquillity and insight yoked together” appears here, not in the chapters on concentration. Their genuine unification is not in jhāna but at the path moment. Through the preceding twenty-one chapters, tranquillity and insight predominate in turn; here they “become of one flavor.”

§01 Three Positions of Emergence—Mundane Insight, Change-of-Lineage, and the Four Paths → Vernacular §1

Emergence and correspondence with the powers are two matters. Mundane insight has a sign as object and has not cut off origin, the cause of occurrence, so it emerges neither from the sign nor from occurrence. Change-of-lineage knowledge has not cut off origin and therefore does not emerge from occurrence, but because it has nibbāna as object, it emerges from the sign: emergence from one side (“wisdom in turning away by emergence externally is change-of-lineage knowledge”; “it turns away from arising and plunges into non-arising, and therefore it is change-of-lineage”). The four knowledges have the signless as object and therefore emerge from the sign, and cut off origin and therefore emerge from occurrence: emergence from both sides (Vernacular §1). 〔Reading〕 Keep the two exits distinct: “sign” belongs to the side of the object—are you still looking at something conditioned?—while “occurrence” belongs to the side of continuity—has origin, the cause of occurrence, been cut off? Mundane insight has left neither, change-of-lineage has left on the object side, and the path has left on both sides. 〔What Is Seen〕 This is another way to state the moon-and-clouds simile in 22-01: change-of-lineage “sees the moon,” meaning that it emerges from the sign; it “does not scatter the clouds,” meaning that it does not emerge from occurrence. The same event is restated in the language of emergence.

§02 The Cited Passage—At the Moment of Each of the Four Paths, Every Factor of the Noble Eightfold Path Emerges from Its Wrong Counterpart and from Fetters and Latent Tendencies → Vernacular §2

Wisdom in turning away by emergence from both sides is knowledge of the path. At the moment of the stream-entry path, right view in the sense of seeing emerges from wrong view, from the defilements and aggregates that follow it, and externally from all signs; right intention in the sense of placing emerges from wrong intention; right speech in the sense of embracing, right action in the sense of originating, right livelihood in the sense of cleansing, right effort in the sense of exerting, right mindfulness in the sense of establishing, and right concentration in the sense of non-distraction emerges from wrong concentration. At the moment of the path of once-returning, it emerges from the gross fetters of sensual desire and aversion and their gross latent tendencies. At the moment of the path of non-returning, it emerges from the fetters and latent tendencies of sensual desire and aversion accompanied by what is subtle. At the moment of the path of arahantship, it emerges from desire for form, desire for the formless, conceit, restlessness, and ignorance and from the latent tendencies to conceit, craving for becoming, and ignorance. In every case it emerges from the accompanying defilements and aggregates and externally from all signs (Vernacular §2). 〔Reading〕 Each factor of the noble eightfold path is paired with one “meaning”: seeing, placing, embracing, originating, cleansing, exerting, establishing, and non-distraction. This is the briefest table of definitions for the noble eightfold path. Then each of the four paths is paired with the fetters and latent tendencies from which it emerges: the first path emerges from what is wrong, the second from what is gross, the third from what is subtle, and the fourth from the higher fetters. This corresponds item by item to “undertakes the practice to …” in 22-02. 〔What Is Seen〕 “Emerges from latent tendency”: it emerges not only from actively occurring fetters but also from latent tendencies lying hidden. The path cuts the root, not merely the branch. This is why emergence must include the side of “occurrence”: if one has not emerged from latent tendencies, occurrence will arise again.

§03 The Correspondence of the Two Powers of Tranquillity and Insight—Yoked Together at the Noble-Path Moment → Vernacular §3

While the eight mundane attainments are being developed, the power of tranquillity is predominant; while contemplation of impermanence and the rest are being developed, the power of insight is predominant. At the moment of the noble path, the two occur yoked together, neither surpassing the other. Thus all four knowledges have the correspondence of the two powers: “For one emerging from the defilements and aggregates associated with restlessness, concentration as unification of mind and non-distraction has cessation as its range; for one emerging from the defilements and aggregates associated with ignorance, insight in the sense of contemplation has cessation as its range; tranquillity and insight become of one flavor in the sense of emergence, become yoked together, and neither surpasses the other—therefore one develops tranquillity and insight yoked together in the sense of emergence” (Vernacular §3). 〔Reading〕 Tranquillity counters restlessness, while insight counters ignorance: each power has its opponent. At the path moment, both “have cessation as their range”—one object and one function—and thus “become of one flavor.” 〔What Is Seen〕 “Neither surpasses the other”: it is not slightly more tranquillity or slightly more insight; they are equal. Throughout the preceding chapters, tranquillity and insight alternate in predominance—tranquillity in Chapters 3 through 13, insight in Chapters 14 through 21. At the path moment, they balance for the first time. This sentence adds another meaning to the arc’s continual letting go: release until there is balance—not only an even attitude toward formations, but equality between the two powers of tranquillity and insight.

For the General Reader

Remember two marks on a scale and one sentence. The scale: “emergence” has two exits—from the sign, no longer looking at conditioned things, and from occurrence, no longer coming to birth again. Mundane insight has left neither, change-of-lineage knowledge has left one, and the path has left both: 0, 1, 2. The sentence: tranquillity and insight are genuinely united not in jhāna but at the path moment. Through the preceding chapters they alternate in predominance; here they “become of one flavor in the sense of emergence, neither surpassing the other.” The path cuts the root rather than the branch: it emerges even from latent tendencies lying hidden, and therefore occurrence does not arise again.

To read this unit in full: Vernacular §§1–3 give the complete paragraph-by-paragraph translation of the three positions of emergence; the long citation in which the eight path factors at each of the four path moments emerge from their wrong counterparts, fetters, and latent tendencies; and the two powers of tranquillity and insight yoked together at the noble-path moment.

Eighteen Lists of Defilement, Four Blades of Knowledge, and a Table of “What Abandons What”—Then a Sharp Question: Are Past, Future, or Present Defilements Abandoned? None of the Three; the Answer Is “Ground-Obtained”: Like Cutting a Young Tree That Has Not Yet Fruited at the Root, So Its Unborn Fruit Simply Does Not Arise

The Big Picture — The Path’s Third Power: What Is to Be Abandoned and Its Abandonment; the Measure Extending through the Entire Arc Closes Here

The third of the four matters is what phenomena are to be abandoned by what, together with their abandonment. The author first establishes eighteen groups: fetters, defilements, wrongnesses, worldly conditions, stinginesses, distortions, bonds, wrong courses, influxes, floods, yokes, hindrances, misapprehension, clingings, latent tendencies, stains, unwholesome courses of action, and unwholesome consciousness-arisen states, explaining each name and number (§§1–2). He then assigns their items among the four knowledges: what is abandoned by the first, third, and fourth knowledges (§3). Next comes a pointed difficulty. Are past, future, or present defilements abandoned? Past defilements no longer exist and future ones do not yet exist, so abandoning them would be fruitless; present defilements exist simultaneously with effort, so path development would become defiled. None of the three works. After the canonical text poses and answers the question, it gives the young-tree simile: cut a young tree that has not yet fruited at the root, and its unborn fruit simply remains unborn and does not arise. Seeing danger in arising, the mind plunges into non-arising, and defilements that would have arisen with accumulation as condition do not arise (§4). What is abandoned is “ground-obtained arisen,” the fourth among four kinds of what has arisen—present, been-and-gone, opportunity-made, and ground-obtained. “Ground” is the five aggregates in the three planes, while “ground-obtained” is the group of defilements capable of arising in them, established by basis and not by object (§5). The great-tree and frog-thorn poison similes follow: defilements lie latent without distinction in all five aggregates as the essences of earth and water pervade roots, trunk, branches, and leaves; the four paths are like poison thorns driven in from four directions, rendering the tree incapable of further growth (§6). Finally come another four kinds of what has arisen—actively occurring, object-seized, unsuppressed, and unuprooted—and the determination of which can be abandoned (§7). 〔What Is Seen〕 This unit reaches back to the book’s first chapter. Among fetters, the first knowledge abandons identity view, doubt, and grasping at precepts and observances. When Chapter 1 treated virtue, this edition warned that forging virtue into a medal of “I am purer than others” is an everyday form of grasping at precepts and observances. The line was planted at the lowest layer of the book: grasping at precepts and observances is only suppressed there; it is truly abandoned only here, at the moment of seeing the path. The measure stretched from Chapter 1 to this point closes. The young-tree simile answers what “abandonment” means: it is not killing a defilement already arisen but preventing what is unarisen from arising. Subtraction’s final form is not deletion but no further growth.

§01 General Statement of the Eighteen Groups to Be Abandoned and the Meaning of the First Eight → Vernacular §1

The four knowledges perform, as appropriate, the abandonment of fetters, defilements, wrongnesses, worldly conditions, stinginesses, distortions, bonds, wrong courses, influxes, floods, yokes, hindrances, misapprehension, clingings, latent tendencies, stains, unwholesome courses of action, and unwholesome consciousness-arisen states. Fetters: ten beginning with desire for form, which bind aggregates to aggregates, kamma to result, or beings to suffering. The five higher fetters—desire for form, desire for the formless, conceit, restlessness, and ignorance—bind aggregates born in the higher realms; the five lower fetters—identity view, doubt, grasping at precepts and observances, sensual desire, and aversion—bind them in the lower. Defilements: greed, aversion, delusion, conceit, view, doubt, sloth, restlessness, shamelessness, and fearlessness of wrongdoing, ten that are themselves defiled and defile associated phenomena. Wrongnesses: wrong view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration, eight, or ten with wrong liberation and wrong knowledge. Worldly conditions: gain, loss, fame, disrepute, pleasure, pain, blame, and praise, eight; what is actually intended here is attraction that takes gain and the rest as basis and aversion that takes loss and the rest as basis. Stinginesses: concerning dwelling, family, gain, Dhamma, and praise (Vernacular §1). 〔Reading〕 Begin with the ten fetters: the five lower fetters—identity view, doubt, grasping at precepts and observances, sensual desire, aversion—bind beings to the sense realm; the five higher fetters—desire for form, desire for the formless, conceit, restlessness, ignorance—bind them to the fine-material and immaterial realms. “Higher” and “lower” refer to the planes. 〔What Is Seen〕 The group of “worldly conditions” is revealing. Gain and loss, blame and praise, pain and pleasure are not themselves defilements; the author expressly says that what is meant here is attraction or aversion toward them. What is to be abandoned is never the world, but one’s reaction to the world.

§02 The Meaning of the Remaining Ten of the Eighteen Groups → Vernacular §2

Distortions: the three distortions of perception, mind, and view that take the impermanent, suffering, not-self, and unattractive as permanent, pleasant, self, and beautiful. Bonds: four that bind the mental and material bodies—the bodily bonds of covetousness, aversion, grasping at precepts and observances, and insistence that “this alone is truth.” Wrong course: doing what should not be done and not doing what should be done through desire, aversion, delusion, or fear. Influxes: sensual desire, craving for becoming, wrong view, and ignorance—flowing up to change-of-lineage and the peak of becoming, flowing through unguarded doors like water through a broken vessel, continually leaking, or flowing out into the suffering of saṃsāra. These same phenomena are floods because they drag one through the ocean of becoming and are hard to cross, and yokes because they allow no separation from object or suffering. Hindrances: the five beginning with sensual desire that obstruct, hinder, and cover the mind. Misapprehension: wrong view passing beyond a phenomenon’s own nature and touching the unreal. Clingings: the four beginning with clinging to sensuality. Latent tendencies: sensual desire, aversion, conceit, view, doubt, craving for becoming, and ignorance, seven phenomena that have reached strength and lie latent as causes for repeated arising. Stains: greed, aversion, and delusion, like oily soot that is itself impure and makes other things impure. Unwholesome courses of action: killing, taking what is not given, sexual misconduct, false speech, divisive speech, harsh speech, idle chatter, covetousness, aversion, and wrong view. Unwholesome consciousness-arisen states: eight rooted in greed, two in aversion, and two in delusion, twelve (Vernacular §2). 〔Reading〕 Viewed together, most of the eighteen groups are the same few phenomena—greed, aversion, delusion, view, doubt, conceit—named under different frameworks. Just as the thirty-seven requisites of awakening in 22-03 reduce to fourteen phenomena, the eighteen groups of defilement reduce to a few roots. 〔What Is Seen〕 The definition of “latent tendency” is crucial: “having reached strength … truly lying latent as a cause for repeated arising.” It is not an actively occurring defilement but the cause by which defilement returns. When 22-04 says the path “emerges from latent tendency,” this is what it cuts.

§03 Item-by-Item Assignment of What the Four Knowledges Abandon → Vernacular §3

Fetters: identity view, doubt, grasping at precepts and observances, and sensual desire and aversion leading to bad destinations are abandoned by the first knowledge; the remaining gross sensual desire and aversion by the second, the subtle by the third; and the five beginning with desire for form by the fourth. Where “only” is absent and an item is said to be abandoned by a higher knowledge, preceding knowledges have already destroyed its nature of leading to bad destinations. Defilements: view and doubt by the first, aversion by the third, greed, delusion, conceit, sloth, restlessness, shamelessness, and fearlessness of wrongdoing by the fourth. Wrongnesses: wrong view, false speech, wrong action, and wrong livelihood by the first; wrong intention, divisive speech, and harsh speech by the third (“speech” here means volition); idle chatter, wrong effort, wrong mindfulness, wrong concentration, wrong liberation, and wrong knowledge by the fourth. Worldly conditions: aversion by the third, attraction by the fourth; one account assigns attraction to fame and praise to the fourth. Stinginess only by the first. Distortions: the three distortions concerning permanence and self, and the distortions of view concerning pleasure and beauty, by the first; distortions of perception and mind concerning beauty by the third, and concerning pleasure by the fourth. Bonds: grasping at precepts and observances and insistence that “this alone is truth” by the first, aversion by the third, covetousness by the fourth. Wrong course only by the first. Influxes: views by the first, sensual desire by the third, the other two by the fourth; floods and yokes likewise. Hindrances: doubt by the first; sensual desire, aversion, and remorse by the third; sloth and torpor and restlessness by the fourth. Misapprehension only by the first. Clingings: clinging to sensuality—including desire for form and the formless—by the fourth, the rest by the first. Latent tendencies: view and doubt by the first, sensual desire and aversion by the third, conceit, craving for becoming, and ignorance by the fourth. Stains: aversion by the third, the rest by the fourth. Unwholesome courses of action: killing, taking what is not given, sexual misconduct, false speech, and wrong view by the first; divisive speech, harsh speech, and aversion by the third; idle chatter and covetousness by the fourth. Unwholesome consciousness-arisen states: the four associated with view and one with doubt by the first, the two associated with aversion by the third, the rest by the fourth (Vernacular §3). 〔Reading〕 The table has a pattern: the family of view and doubt—wrong view, the influx of views, the latent tendency to view, the hindrance of doubt, misapprehension, stinginess, wrong course—is almost entirely assigned to the first knowledge; the aversion family to the third; and the greed, delusion, and conceit family to the fourth. The first path abandons “seeing wrongly,” the third “aversion,” and the fourth “liking and not understanding.” 〔What Is Seen〕 “Where ‘only’ is absent, a preceding knowledge has already destroyed its character of leading to bad destinations before the higher knowledge abandons it” is an essential rule. Many defilements are not abandoned all at once: the first path first removes “the part that could lead to a bad destination,” and a higher path later exhausts the remainder. The four paths do not perform four independent abandonments; they shave the same group of defilements four times. The first knowledge abandons identity view, doubt, and grasping at precepts and observances—the three fetters. The seed planted in Chapter 1 is gathered here: grasping at precepts and observances is truly abandoned at this moment.

§04 The Difficulty Concerning Abandoning Past, Present, and Future Phenomena and Its Resolution → Vernacular §4

If past or future defilements are abandoned, effort is fruitless because what is to be abandoned does not exist. If present defilements are abandoned, effort is still fruitless because what is to be abandoned and the effort coexist; path development becomes defiled, or the defilements become dissociated, though there is no present defilement dissociated from consciousness. The canonical text first says “abandons past, future, and present defilements,” then rejects each: past would mean exhausting the exhausted and abandoning what does not exist; future would mean abandoning the unborn; present would mean that a lustful person abandons greed and the black and white occur yoked together, defiling the path. It asks whether there is therefore no path development, realization of fruition, abandonment of defilements, or realization of phenomena; concedes that these do exist; and answers with the simile of a young tree that has not borne fruit. Cut it at the root, and its unborn fruit remains unborn and does not arise. In the same way, knowing arising to be the cause and condition of the production of defilements, one sees danger in arising and the mind plunges into non-arising. Defilements that would have arisen with accumulation as condition do not arise; with cessation of the cause comes cessation of suffering. The same applies to occurrence, sign, and accumulation. Thus there is path development, realization of fruition, abandonment of defilements, and realization of phenomena (Vernacular §4). 〔Reading〕 This is the sharpest passage in the unit. All three tenses are denied, and the young-tree simile supplies a fourth answer: abandonment does not operate on something that already exists; it cuts the cause by which something would arise. “The defilements that would have arisen with accumulation as condition remain unborn and do not arise”: “would have arisen” is the key. 〔What Is Seen〕 The logic of “final nibbāna without clinging” is already visible here: the fire is not beaten out; no more fuel is supplied. This passage, the lute-sound simile in 20-06—coming to be from not having been—and “non-arising is security” in 21-04 are three points on one line: from beginning to end, the course of insight addresses arising, not being.

§05 Four Kinds of What Has Arisen and the Distinction between Ground and Ground-Obtained → Vernacular §5

What is shown is the abandonment of ground-obtained defilements. “Arisen” is fourfold: present-arisen, possessing arising, presence, and dissolution; been-and-gone arisen, comprising wholesome and unwholesome phenomena that ceased after experiencing an object and other conditioned phenomena that ceased having reached the three occasions beginning with arising; opportunity-made arisen, comprising past kamma that has blocked another result and made an opportunity for its own, together with the result that must arise in that opportunity; and ground-obtained arisen, unwholesome phenomena not uprooted in their grounds. Ground is the five aggregates in the three planes serving as objects of insight. Ground-obtained is the group of defilements capable of arising in those aggregates. It is established by basis, not object. If by object, defilements could arise regarding past and future aggregates and even the aggregates of those whose influxes are destroyed—as Soreyya, Nanda, and others developed defilements toward the aggregates of Mahākaccāna and Uppalavaṇṇā—and then no one could ever abandon the root of becoming. Wherever aggregates not fully understood by insight arise, the defilements that are roots of the round lie latent in them; they are ground-obtained in the sense of being unabandoned (Vernacular §5). 〔Reading〕 The four kinds of “arisen” separate four senses of “already exists”: what is occurring now, what has already passed, what kamma has already scheduled, and what lies latent in these five aggregates and can arise at any time. Only the fourth is abandoned by the path. The distinction “by basis, not object” is exact: another person may look at an arahant’s body and develop defilement, but that defilement is in the other person’s continuity, not in the arahant’s aggregates. 〔What Is Seen〕 “If that were also called ground-obtained, no one could abandon the root of becoming” protects the very possibility of abandonment: what is to be abandoned must be in one’s own continuity, or the task could never end.

§06 Aggregates as the Basis of Defilements—The Great-Tree Simile and Poison-Thorn Simile → Vernacular §6

When a person’s defilements lie latent unabandoned in particular aggregates, those aggregates—not another person’s—are their basis. Defilements latent in past aggregates have past aggregates as basis; the same applies to future aggregates and to the sense, fine-material, and immaterial spheres. When a path has abandoned the root-of-the-round defilements in a noble person’s aggregates, those aggregates no longer count as ground for those defilements. For an ordinary person, all roots of the round remain unabandoned; whatever is done becomes wholesome or unwholesome kamma, and the round turns with kamma and defilements as conditions. The root of the round does not lie only in form or only in consciousness, but without distinction in all five aggregates. It is like a great tree dependent on the essences of earth and water, growing through roots, trunk, branches, leaves, flowers, and fruits and continuing its lineage by seed: the essence is not only in the root or fruit but pervades every part. A person disgusted with the flowers and fruits drives poisonous frog thorns into the tree from four directions, so the tree, its essences exhausted, cannot grow or continue. Likewise, a good person disgusted with the occurrence of aggregates develops the four paths in his continuity. Touched by the fourfold path-poison and having exhausted the defilements that are roots of the round, the continuum of aggregates has bodily action and every other action merely functional; it produces no renewed existence and no continuity in another existence. With the cessation of the final consciousness, it attains final nibbāna without clinging like a fire without fuel (Vernacular §6). 〔Reading〕 The great-tree simile says where defilement is: like the essence of earth throughout the tree, it does not live in any single root. The poison-thorn simile says how it is abandoned: the tree is not cut down; poison is driven in from four directions—the four paths—so the tree itself stops growing. The tree remains—the arahant still has a body—but it bears no further fruit: no renewed existence. 〔What Is Seen〕 “Every kind of action, bodily action and the rest, becomes merely functional”: the arahant still speaks and acts, but those acts are functional and do not become kamma. “With only the cessation of the final consciousness, like a fire without fuel”: the most concrete image in the whole arc for “subtraction ends in cessation.” The fire is not beaten out; the fuel is exhausted.

§07 Four Other Kinds of What Has Arisen and Those That Can Be Abandoned → Vernacular §7

Another fourfold “arisen”: actively arisen, the same as present-arisen; object-seized arisen, when an object has entered the visual range and the defilement, though not arisen in the prior part, must arise in the subsequent part—as when the Elder Mahātissa saw a form of the opposite sex while walking for alms in Kalyāṇi; unsuppressed arisen, when a group of defilements has not been suppressed by either tranquillity or insight and, though not yet mounted on the continuity of mind, has no cause preventing its arising; and unuprooted arisen, when it has been suppressed by tranquillity or insight but not uprooted by the noble path and has not transcended the nature of arising—as when an elder who had attained the eight attainments was traveling through the air and heard the beautiful singing of a woman gathering flowers. The last three are included under ground-obtained. Among all the kinds of arisen stated above, present, been-and-gone, opportunity-made, and actively arisen are not abandoned by the path and are not to be abandoned by any knowledge. Ground-obtained, object-seized, unsuppressed, and unuprooted are all to be abandoned, because mundane and supramundane knowledges destroy their status of having arisen (Vernacular §7). 〔Reading〕 The two stories make latent defilement visible: seeing a form of the opposite sex while on alms round, or hearing a woman singing while flying through the air. Even an elder who has attained the eight attainments can be pulled down by a song, because the defilement is merely “suppressed,” not “uprooted.” 〔What Is Seen〕 This is the doctrinal footnote to the story of the sixty-year elder in 20-07: attainments suppress but cannot uproot; only the path uproots. The unit’s final sentence distinguishes what is and is not to be abandoned. What is presently occurring, already past, or scheduled by kamma is not the path’s target. The path addresses the cause that would arise, returning to the young-tree simile of §4.

For the General Reader

Take away a pattern in the table and one tree. The pattern: the first path abandons “seeing wrongly”—the family of view, doubt, and grasping at precepts and observances; the third abandons “aversion”—the aversion family; the fourth abandons “liking and not understanding”—the greed, delusion, and conceit family. Many defilements are not abandoned all at once: the first path removes the part that could lead to a bad destination. The tree: defilements resemble the essence of earth pervading the whole tree, not living in a single root; the paths resemble poison thorns driven in from four directions, not cutting down the tree but making it stop bearing fruit—the body remains, renewed existence is gone. At the end, like a fire without fuel: not beaten out, simply out of fuel. One line also closes a circuit. Chapter 1 warned not to forge virtue into a medal of “I am purer than others”—grasping at precepts and observances. There it was only suppressed; at this moment of seeing the path, it is truly abandoned. The measure extending from Chapter 1 to this point closes.

To read this unit in full: Vernacular §§1–7 give the complete paragraph-by-paragraph translation of the meanings of the first eight and final ten among the eighteen groups; their item-by-item assignment among the four knowledges; the difficulty concerning abandoning past, present, and future phenomena and the young-tree simile; the four kinds of what has arisen and the distinction between ground and ground-obtained; the great-tree and poison-thorn similes; and the four other kinds of what has arisen together with those that can be abandoned.

A single lamp simultaneously burns its wick, dispels darkness, manifests light, and consumes oil in one moment—path knowledge simultaneously fully understands suffering, abandons origination, develops the path, and realizes cessation; the four truths have sixteen meanings, yet they are “included in one, a unity, and penetrated by one knowledge”

The Big Picture — the Fourth Work of the Path’s Power: Four Functions at the Time of Direct Comprehension

The last of the four matters is the four functions beginning with full understanding at the time of direct realization. The author uses three similes for “four tasks in one moment”: the lamp—burning its wick, dispelling darkness, manifesting light, and consuming oil (§1); the sun—illuminating forms, dispelling darkness, manifesting light, and stilling the cold (§2); and the ship—leaving the near shore, cutting the current, carrying cargo, and reaching the far shore (§3). The four tasks in each simile correspond one by one to path knowledge’s fully understanding suffering, abandoning origination, developing the path, and realizing cessation. A canonical passage then gives four meanings for each truth: suffering—oppression, being formed, burning, and change; origination—accumulation, being a source, binding, and obstruction; cessation—escape, seclusion, being unformed, and the deathless; the path—leading out, being a cause, seeing, and predominance. These sixteen aspects of true meaning make “the four truths included in one; what is included in one is a unity; what is a unity is penetrated by one knowledge” (§4). The final passage answers a question: suffering and the rest have still other meanings such as disease and tumor, so why state only four? Because these four “become manifest by seeing the other truths”: each truth’s first meaning becomes manifest by its own characteristic, while the other three become manifest by seeing the other three truths—the twelve correspondences (§5). The account of direct realization at different times has already been answered in the Kathāvatthu. 〔What Is Seen〕 This unit concerns the “simultaneity” of the path moment: the four functions are not four steps but four faces of one moment—like a lamp’s light, all four occur together. The twelve correspondences in §5 are the most philosophically intricate passage in the whole arc: suffering’s meaning of “burning” becomes clear only when the path is seen, as Nanda understood Sundarī’s unattractiveness only after seeing celestial nymphs; cessation’s meaning of “being unformed” becomes clear only when the path is seen, because the path, though newly seen, remains formed, making the unformed all the more evident. The four truths are not four independently established things; each illuminates the others. This is why one who sees suffering also sees origination, cessation, and the path.

§01 Establishing the Four Functions and the Lamp Simile → Vernacular §1

At the time of direct realization of the truths, each of the four knowledges has the four functions of full understanding, abandoning, realization, and development in a single moment. The teachers of old say: as a lamp performs four tasks in one moment, neither earlier nor later—burning the wick, dispelling darkness, manifesting light, and consuming oil—path knowledge directly realizes the four truths in one moment, neither earlier nor later: it directly realizes suffering through full understanding, origination through abandoning, the path through development, and cessation through realization; taking cessation as object, it reaches, sees, and penetrates the four truths. “One who sees suffering also sees its origination, its cessation, and the way leading to its cessation”; “the knowledge of one endowed with the path is knowledge of suffering and also knowledge of origination, cessation, and the path.” Burning the wick is fully understanding suffering; dispelling darkness is abandoning origination; manifesting light is developing the path of right intention and the rest through the condition of conascence and so forth; consuming oil is realizing cessation as the exhaustion of defilements (Vernacular §1). 〔Reading〕 First hold firmly the correspondence between the “four functions” and “four truths”: full understanding—suffering; abandoning—origination; realization—cessation; development—the path. All four tasks in the lamp simile occur in the same moment; “neither earlier nor later” is repeated. 〔What Is Seen〕 “Taking cessation as object, it reaches, sees, and penetrates the four truths”: path knowledge has only one object, cessation, yet penetrates all four truths. The object is one; the functions are four. This has the same structure as “one in essence, many in function” in 22-03: there the requisites of awakening are eightfold within one consciousness; here one knowledge performs four tasks.

§02 The Sun Simile → Vernacular §2

When the sun rises, it performs four tasks neither earlier nor later: illuminating forms, dispelling darkness, manifesting light, and stilling the cold. Illuminating forms is fully understanding suffering; dispelling darkness is abandoning origination; manifesting light is developing the path; stilling the cold is realizing cessation as the stilling of defilements (Vernacular §2). 〔Reading〕 The new point in the sun simile is “stilling the cold”: cessation here is the “stilling of cold”—the cold of defilements is brought to rest by sunlight. 〔What Is Seen〕 In the lamp and sun similes “dispelling darkness” corresponds to “abandoning origination” (the ship simile has “cutting the current” in that position). Darkness is the truth of origination—not understanding why suffering arises—and dispelling darkness is abandoning origination: ignorance is the root of origination.

§03 The Ship Simile → Vernacular §3

A ship performs four tasks in one moment, neither earlier nor later: leaving the near shore, cutting the current, carrying cargo, and reaching the far shore. Leaving the near shore is fully understanding suffering; cutting the current is abandoning origination; carrying cargo is developing the path; reaching the far shore is realizing cessation as the far shore (Vernacular §3). 〔Reading〕 The ship simile has the most movement: leave the near shore (suffering), cut the current (origination), carry cargo (the path), reach the far shore (cessation). It is the waterborne version of the ditch-crossing simile in 22-01: there a person grasps a rope and swings across; here a ship completes all four tasks in a single moment. 〔What Is Seen〕 “Carrying cargo” corresponds to developing the path. The path is what the ship carries and also what the ship is doing; among the three similes, only the ship gives “developing the path” the sense of having content—cargo—suggesting that the path is something one “takes along.”

§04 The True Meaning in Sixteen Aspects and the Single Inclusion and Single Penetration of the Four Truths → Vernacular §4

The knowledge occurring in a single moment through four functions has one penetration through the true meaning in sixteen aspects: oppression, being formed, burning, and change are the true meanings of suffering; accumulation, being a source, binding, and obstruction are those of origination; escape, seclusion, being unformed, and the deathless are those of cessation; leading out, being a cause, seeing, and predominance are those of the path. Through these sixteen true meanings, the four truths are included in one; what is included in one is a unity; what is a unity is penetrated by one knowledge—thus the four truths are one penetration (Vernacular §4). 〔Reading〕 The sixteen meanings form a four-by-four arrangement. The first is each truth’s individual characteristic—oppression, accumulation, escape, and leading out—and the remaining three become manifest in relation to the other truths, as the next section explains. “True meaning” means a meaning that is real and not false. All sixteen are true, and so they are one. 〔What Is Seen〕 “Whatever is included in one is a unity; whatever is a unity is penetrated by one knowledge”: this is a three-step inference from “sixteen truths” to “one knowledge,” the logical basis for “directly comprehending four truths in a single moment.”

§05 Why Only Four Meanings Are Established—the Twelve Correspondences of One’s Own and Three Others → Vernacular §5

Question: suffering and the rest also have meanings such as disease and tumor, so why state only four? Answer: these four become manifest by seeing the other truths. Knowledge of truth is stated with each individual truth as object, and also as accomplishing functions regarding the remaining truths while taking one truth as object. Suffering has oppression as its characteristic by its own nature; seeing origination reveals its meaning of being formed, since origination accumulates, forms, and heaps it up; seeing the path reveals its meaning of burning, since the path removes burning and is exceedingly cool—as Nanda knew Sundarī’s unattractiveness after seeing celestial nymphs; seeing unchanging cessation reveals its meaning of change. Origination has accumulation as its characteristic by its own nature; seeing suffering reveals its meaning of being a source, as illness caused by unsuitable food shows that food is its source; seeing cessation as disconnection reveals its meaning of binding; seeing the path as leading out reveals its meaning of obstruction. Cessation has escape as its characteristic; seeing origination as nonseclusion reveals its meaning of seclusion; seeing the path reveals its meaning of being unformed, for the path has never before been seen in beginningless saṃsāra yet remains formed because it has conditions, making the unformed nature of the unconditioned exceedingly clear; seeing suffering reveals its meaning of the deathless, for suffering is poison and nibbāna the deathless. The path has leading out as its characteristic; seeing origination reveals its meaning of being a cause by distinguishing what is and is not the cause for attaining nibbāna; seeing cessation reveals its meaning of seeing, as one who sees extremely subtle forms knows the clarity of one’s eye; seeing suffering reveals its meaning of predominance, as one knows a sovereign’s greatness by seeing many sick, miserable, and poor people. Thus one meaning becomes manifest through each truth’s own characteristic and the other three through seeing the other truths; at the path moment, all are penetrated by the single knowledge that performs four functions regarding suffering and the rest. The answer to those who maintain direct realization at different times has already been stated in the Kathāvatthu (Vernacular §5). 〔Reading〕 The twelve correspondences can be drawn as a table: each truth’s own characteristic speaks for itself; its other three meanings appear by “looking in the mirror” of the other truths. Seeing origination shows that suffering is “formed”; seeing the path shows that suffering is “burning,” because the path is so cool; seeing cessation shows that suffering “changes,” because cessation does not change. The three similes are drawn from ordinary life: Nanda sees celestial nymphs and only then finds Sundarī unattractive; eating unsuitable food and becoming ill shows that the food was the illness’s source; seeing an extremely subtle object shows that one’s eyesight is clear. 〔What Is Seen〕 “This path has never been seen before, yet because it has conditions it is still formed; thus the unformed nature of the unconditioned phenomenon becomes exceedingly clear”: this is the deepest sentence in the unit. Even the path is formed. Precisely because the path too is formed, nibbāna’s unformed nature cannot be confused with anything else. This preserves the entire arc’s point that “the endpoint of subtraction is not any state”: even the path is not the endpoint.

For the General Reader

Remember a lamp: in the single moment it is lit, it simultaneously burns the wick, dispels darkness, manifests light, and consumes oil. Path knowledge, in one moment, simultaneously fully understands suffering, abandons origination, develops the path, and realizes cessation, “neither earlier nor later.” The four truths are not four separate events but four faces of one event: one who sees suffering also sees origination, cessation, and the path. Remember one further principle: the four truths illuminate one another. Seeing origination shows that suffering is made; seeing the path shows how burning suffering is, as Nanda saw celestial nymphs and then found Sundarī unattractive; seeing cessation shows that suffering changes. One further sentence deserves slow attention: even the path is formed. Precisely because the path too is formed, the unformed nature of nibbāna cannot be mistaken for anything else. Even the path is not the endpoint.

To read this unit in full: Vernacular §§1–5 give the complete paragraph-by-paragraph translation of the establishment of the four functions and the lamp simile, the sun simile, the ship simile, the true meaning in sixteen aspects and single penetration, and the twelve correspondences through which the four meanings become manifest by seeing the other truths.

Three kinds of full understanding, three kinds of abandoning, three kinds of realization, and two kinds of development—the final unit gathers the whole work into one sentence: “When someone has slain the rival king and gained the kingdom, everything done before that is spoken of as done by the king”; then it returns to the verse from Chapter 1: “A wise person established in virtue develops mind and wisdom”

The Big Picture — the Final Stroke of the Development of Wisdom: How the Four Functions Are Divided, and Why the Whole Work Was Written in This Way

The preceding unit explained the four functions at the path moment—full understanding, abandoning, realization, and development. This unit further divides each function. Full understanding is threefold: full understanding as knowing, the direct knowing of conditioned name-and-form; full understanding as investigation, extending from comprehension by groups to conformity; and full understanding as abandoning, extending from contemplation of dissolution to path knowledge. The last is intended here, but the first two are also for its sake, so all three are functions of path knowledge (§1). Abandoning is threefold: abandonment by suppression, mundane concentration’s suppression of the hindrances like plunging a pot into duckweed-covered water (§2); abandonment by substitution, insight’s abandonment through an opposite like a lamp dispelling darkness—thirteen cases from the definition of name-and-form onward, together with the eighteen great insights, each abandoning one phenomenon (§§3–4); and abandonment by cutting off, noble path knowledge’s preventing further occurrence like a tree struck by a thunderbolt-wheel. The last is intended, but the first two are also for its sake, so all three are functions of path knowledge: “When someone has slain the rival king and gained the kingdom, everything done before that is spoken of as done by the king” (§5). There are three kinds of realization—mundane realization, realization by seeing, and realization by development—and two kinds of development, mundane and supramundane; the supramundane is intended. The author then returns to the whole work’s outline verse, “A wise person established in virtue develops mind and wisdom,” says that development through the two root purifications and the five purifications forming the body has now been explained, and declares that the question “How should it be developed?” has been answered, closing the chapter (§6). 〔What Is Seen〕 This unit is the final stroke of the whole work and also its self-explanation. The three kinds of abandoning are the work’s three great movements: suppression through virtue and concentration (Chapters 1–13), substitution through insight (Chapters 14–21), and cutting off through the path (this chapter). The author says the first two are “precisely for its sake”: like everything done before a king’s accession later being counted as the king’s. The road through twenty-two chapters is claimed in one sentence. Three things can be carried away from this arc today: even the best meditation experience is not the endpoint; a stage that “feels bad” is a road, not a regression; the direction is releasing, not forcing. The grasping at precepts and observances planted in Chapter 1 is abandoned at the very moment the path is seen. The endpoint of subtraction is not emptiness but cessation.

§01 The Verse of Division and the Three Kinds of Full Understanding → Vernacular §1

The verse says that full understanding is threefold, abandoning and realization likewise, and development twofold—their determination should be known. Full understanding as knowing (“the understanding of direct knowledge is knowledge in the sense of what is known”; “all should be directly known … the eye should be directly known”) has as its domain the direct knowing of conditioned name-and-form. Full understanding as investigation (“the understanding of full understanding is knowledge in the sense of investigation”; “all should be fully understood”) has as its domain the investigation of formations as impermanent, suffering, and not-self from comprehension by groups through conformity. Full understanding as abandoning (“the understanding of abandoning is knowledge in the sense of relinquishing”; “through contemplation of impermanence one abandons the perception of permanence”) has as its domain contemplation of dissolution through path knowledge and is what is intended here. Yet full understanding as knowing and as investigation are also for its sake, and what is abandoned must already have been known and investigated; hence all three are functions of path knowledge (Vernacular §1). 〔Reading〕 The “domains” of the three kinds of full understanding are precisely the arc’s three stretches: Chapters 18–19 (knowing), Chapter 20 through the first part of Chapter 21 (investigating), and 21-02 through Chapter 22 (abandoning). This unit marks the milestones of the entire road once more through the three kinds of full understanding; read it alongside the map in 20-01 §2. 〔What Is Seen〕 “The phenomena to be abandoned must already have been known and investigated”: before abandoning, one must first know and investigate. This is why the arc spends two chapters distinguishing name-and-form and conditions, two more applying the three characteristics, and only then abandons. Sequence is not formality; it is logic.

§02 Abandonment by Suppression → Vernacular §2

Abandoning is threefold: abandonment by suppression, abandonment by substitution, and abandonment by cutting off. Mundane concentration’s suppression of opposing phenomena such as the hindrances, like plunging a pot into duckweed-covered water and pushing the duckweed aside, is abandonment by suppression. The canonical text mentions only that “one developing the first jhāna has abandonment of the hindrances by suppression” because it is evident: the hindrances do not suddenly cover the mind in the phases before and after jhāna, while applied thought and the rest are suppressed only at the absorption moment (Vernacular §2). 〔Reading〕 Suppression means pushing the duckweed aside. The water remains the same water, and the duckweed remains; only a patch has temporarily opened. This is both the achievement and the limit of the eleven chapters on concentration, Chapters 3 through 13. 〔What Is Seen〕 “The hindrances do not suddenly overwhelm the mind in the preliminary or subsequent phase of jhāna”: this sentence states the real efficacy of suppression. It does not suppress only for the single instant of absorption; clarity continues for a time before and after. The author’s stance toward concentration is consistently fair: it is useful, and it has a limit.

§03 Abandonment by Substitution—the Thirteen Kinds and the Eighteen Great Insights → Vernacular §3

When a factor of knowledge that forms part of insight abandons what is to be abandoned by its opposite, like a lamp lit at night dispelling darkness, this is abandonment by substitution. Definition of name-and-form abandons identity view; discernment of conditions abandons views of no cause and unequal cause together with doubt; comprehension by groups abandons the collective grasping of “I” and “mine”; determining path and not-path abandons the perception of path in what is not the path; seeing arising abandons the view of annihilation; seeing cessation abandons the view of eternity; appearance as terror abandons the perception of safety in the dangerous; seeing danger abandons the perception of gratification; contemplation of disenchantment abandons the perception of delight; desire for deliverance abandons not wanting deliverance; reflection abandons non-reflection; equanimity abandons nonequanimity; conformity abandons grasping contrary to the truths. The eighteen great insights likewise operate in pairs: contemplation of impermanence abandons the perception of permanence; suffering, the perception of pleasure; not-self, the perception of self; disenchantment, delight; dispassion, lust; cessation, origination; relinquishment, grasping; destruction, the perception of compactness; dissolution, accumulation; change, the perception of lastingness; the signless, the sign; the desireless, desire; emptiness, insistence; higher-wisdom insight into phenomena, insistence on grasping a core; knowledge and vision according to reality, insistence born of delusion; contemplation of danger, insistence born of attachment; contemplation of reflection, non-reflection; and contemplation of turning away, insistence on bondage. This too is abandonment by substitution (Vernacular §3). 〔Reading〕 The thirteen kinds of abandonment by substitution are the arc’s table of contents read backward: 18-01, definition of name-and-form, abandons identity view; 19-01, discernment of conditions, abandons views of no cause and doubt; 20-01, comprehension by groups, abandons collective grasping of “I” and “mine”; 20-07, path and not-path, abandons taking not-path as path; 20-06, seeing arising and cessation, abandons the views of annihilation and eternity; 21-03, appearance as terror, abandons the perception of safety; 21-04, danger, abandons gratification; 21-05, disenchantment and desire for deliverance, abandon delight and not wanting deliverance; 21-06, reflection, abandons non-reflection; 21-07, equanimity, abandons nonequanimity; and 21-08, conformity, abandons grasping contrary to the truths. Every unit corresponds to something it abandons. 〔What Is Seen〕 Abandonment by substitution is like lighting a lamp at night: where the lamp shines, there is no darkness; when the lamp goes out, darkness returns. This is why it is “substitution”—in that particular respect, while insight knowledge is present, that distortion does not arise. Its difference from abandonment by cutting off, where a thunderstruck tree never grows again, is the distinction the entire arc most needs to keep clear.

§04 Individual Explanation of the Eighteen Great Insights → Vernacular §4

How the first seven contemplations abandon the perception of permanence and the rest was already explained under contemplation of dissolution. Contemplation of destruction analyzes compactness and sees impermanence in the sense of destruction, thereby abandoning the perception of compactness. Contemplation of dissolution is “through inference from the object, the establishing of both as one, resolution upon cessation”: it sees the dissolution of formations by direct experience and inference, resolves upon cessation, and abandons accumulation, since on seeing things as subject to dissolution the mind no longer inclines to accumulate for their sake. Contemplation of change passes beyond each delimitation through the seven methods for materiality and the rest and sees altered occurrence, or sees the change of what has arisen through aging and death, abandoning the perception of lastingness. Contemplation of the signless is contemplation of impermanence and abandons the sign of permanence; contemplation of the desireless is contemplation of suffering and abandons desire and aspiration for pleasure; contemplation of emptiness is contemplation of not-self and abandons insistence that a self exists. Higher-wisdom insight into phenomena “reflects upon the object, contemplates its dissolution, and sees the appearance of emptiness”: it knows an object such as materiality, sees both it and the consciousness taking it as object dissolve, and knows that “formations alone break up; this is the death of formations; nothing else exists,” thereby abandoning insistence on grasping a core through seeing the absence of an enduring core and self-core. Knowledge and vision according to reality apprehends conditioned name-and-form and abandons deluded insistence such as “Did I exist in the past?” or “The world arose from a creator god.” Contemplation of danger, arising through appearance as terror, sees danger in all becoming and abandons insistence born of attachment because nothing to cling to is seen. Contemplation of reflection is knowledge that fashions a means of deliverance and abandons non-reflection. Contemplation of turning away is equanimity about formations and conformity: the mind retracts, retreats, and recoils from all formations like a drop of water on a slightly tilted lotus leaf, thereby abandoning insistence on bondage, the occurrence of defilements. The canonical text says in brief that one developing concentration partaking of penetration has abandonment of views by substitution (Vernacular §4). 〔Reading〕 The latter eleven of the eighteen great insights are individually defined here. Three equations matter most: contemplation of the signless = contemplation of impermanence; contemplation of the desireless = contemplation of suffering; contemplation of emptiness = contemplation of not-self, as already cited in 20-05 §6. “Contemplation of turning away = equanimity about formations and conformity” links the last of the eighteen with 21-07 and 21-08. 〔What Is Seen〕 “Contemplation of dissolution … abandons accumulation: when one sees that what one would otherwise accumulate for is subject to dissolution, the mind no longer inclines toward accumulation.” Here “contemplation of dissolution” is the ninth of the eighteen great insights, vaya, whose established rendering in 01-09 differs in Pāli from “contemplation of dissolution,” bhaṅga, in 21-02 even though both Chinese terms use the same character meaning “break up”. This edition distinguishes them contextually while preserving the established phrase in the eighteenfold list. The point explains why seeing dissolution means no longer making more: not through prohibition, but because the mind ceases to incline. It is the gentlest form of “subtraction” in the whole arc.

§05 Abandonment by Cutting Off → Vernacular §5

When noble path knowledge causes phenomena such as fetters never to occur again, like a tree struck by a thunderbolt-wheel, that is abandonment by cutting off: “One developing the supramundane path leading to destruction has abandonment by cutting off.” Only abandonment by cutting off is intended here. Yet because preliminary abandonment by suppression and substitution are also for its sake, all three are functions of path knowledge, just as everything done before someone slays a rival king and gains the kingdom is later spoken of as done by the king (Vernacular §5). 〔Reading〕 Place the three similes for abandoning side by side: a pot plunged into duckweed-covered water—suppression, a temporary opening; a lamp lit at night—substitution, no darkness while the lamp shines; a thunderstruck tree—cutting off, no further growth. These are the three outcomes of the whole work’s three great movements. 〔What Is Seen〕 “When someone has slain the rival king and gained the kingdom, everything done before that is spoken of as done by the king”: this sentence is the work’s claim upon its own structure. The virtue of Chapter 1, the concentration beginning in Chapter 3, and the insight beginning in Chapter 14 are all, afterward, counted as the path’s work. It is also a reassurance: every step of suppression and substitution along the path will count.

§06 Three Kinds of Realization, Two Kinds of Development, and the Chapter Close → Vernacular §6

Realization comprises mundane realization—“I am an attainer of the first jhāna, a master of it; the first jhāna has been realized by me,” touching it directly with the touch of knowledge after attainment; “the understanding of realization is knowledge in the sense of touching”; “whatever is realized is touched.” Even phenomena that do not arise in one’s own continuity but are known by knowledge independent of another count as realized: “all should be realized … one who sees nibbāna, which enters into the deathless, realizes it.” Supramundane realization divides according to seeing and development: seeing nibbāna at the first path moment is realization by seeing; at the remaining path moments it is realization by development. These two are intended: realization of nibbāna by seeing and development is the function of this knowledge. Development is mundane—the arising of mundane virtue, concentration, and wisdom and the perfuming of the continuity by them—or supramundane. The supramundane is intended, because the four knowledges bring supramundane virtue and the rest into being and perfume the continuity by being conditions for them through conascence and the rest. The verse closes again: “The functions beginning with full understanding that were stated to occur at the time of direct realization should all be known according to their individual nature.” Then the author returns to the outline verse: “A wise person established in virtue develops mind and wisdom.” The statement that, after fulfilling the two root purifications, wisdom is developed by fulfilling the five purifications forming the body has now been explained; the question “How should it be developed?” has been answered. The chapter closes (Vernacular §6). 〔Reading〕 Realization is divided into “seeing” and “development”: the first path sees nibbāna for the first time, and the latter three paths see it again through development. Development is divided into mundane and supramundane, with the supramundane intended because the path brings supramundane virtue, concentration, and wisdom into being and perfumes the continuity with them. The author then gathers the entire “development of wisdom” into the opening verse of Chapter 1: “A wise person established in virtue develops mind and wisdom.” Virtue is the ground on which one stands, and mind—concentration—and wisdom are what is developed. “How should it be developed?” These twenty-two chapters are the answer. 〔What Is Seen〕 “Having fulfilled the two purifications that are the root, it should be developed by one fulfilling the five purifications that are the body”: the structure of the seven purifications is spoken once more in the final sentence—two as root, five as body. The five chapters of this arc, Chapters 18 through 22, are that “body.” The whole work begins with “a wise person established in virtue” and ends with “one who has laid down the burden” in 22-02. Its question is “How should it be developed?” and its answer is a road that can be walked. The endpoint of subtraction is not emptiness but cessation; every step on that road is afterward counted as done by the king.

For the General Reader

Remember three pictures for the three kinds of abandoning. A pot plunged into duckweed-covered water: concentration temporarily pushes the duckweed aside—suppression. A lamp lit at night: wherever insight knowledge is present, that distortion does not arise; when the lamp goes out it returns—substitution. A tree struck by lightning: the path makes defilement stop growing—cutting off. The author says that when someone slays the rival king and gains the kingdom, everything done earlier is afterward counted as done by the king. Every step of suppression and substitution on the path will count. Three things can be carried away from this arc today: even your best meditation experience is not the endpoint—the ten corruptions of insight teach precisely this, for illumination, joy, and even the equanimity of deep concentration become obstructions if clung to; see through them, do not cling, and continue. A stage that “feels bad” is a road, not a regression—terror, danger, and disenchantment may briefly make everything seem bleak; insight is stripping away an illusion, not going wrong, and it is best to have guidance through this stretch. The direction is releasing, not forcing—the climax of the whole insight path is equanimity about formations, leveling the grasping itself; its endpoint is cessation, not nihilism. In one sentence: this arc is the final application of the whole work’s measure—dismantle the person, cut off doubt, recognize the subtlest counterfeit, release into equanimity, and abandon every fetter. The grasping at precepts and observances planted in Chapter 1 is abandoned at this moment of seeing the path. The endpoint of subtraction is not emptiness but cessation. The work begins with “a wise person established in virtue” and here finishes answering “How should it be developed?”

To read this unit in full: Vernacular §§1–6 give the complete paragraph-by-paragraph translation of the verse of division and the three kinds of full understanding, abandonment by suppression, the thirteen kinds of abandonment by substitution and the eighteen great insights, the individual explanations of the eighteen great insights, abandonment by cutting off, the three kinds of realization, the two kinds of development, and the final summary verse of the chapter.