Telling the Path from What Is Not the Path (Chapter 20)

What this chapter covers: This chapter explains the fifth purification — purification by knowledge and vision of what is path and what is not path. It describes how the meditator develops “comprehension by groups” (seeing all formations as impermanent, painful, and not-self), sharpens insight through progressively finer observation of material and mental reality, identifies the eighteen principal insights, and attains the first tender knowledge of rise and fall. At that point, ten “imperfections of insight” can arise — powerful experiences like illumination, rapture, and bliss — that the meditator must recognize as not-path in order to continue.

Where This Purification Fits

The knowledge that arises when a meditator clearly distinguishes the true path from what is not the path is called purification by knowledge and vision of what is path and what is not path.

To reach this purification, the meditator must first practise what is called “comprehension by groups” (sammasana-nana) — the systematic insight that sees all formations as impermanent, painful, and not-self. This is the real beginning of insight proper.

Why start here? Because the dramatic experiences that need to be sorted into “path” and “not-path” — illumination, rapture, and so on — only arise in someone who has already begun insight. And comprehension by groups is where insight begins.

Three Kinds of Full Understanding

There are three stages of mundane full understanding:

Full understanding as the known (nata-parinna): Knowing the specific characteristics of each thing — for example, that matter has the characteristic of being disturbed, and feeling has the characteristic of being felt. This was accomplished in earlier purifications.
Full understanding as investigation (tirana-parinna): Seeing the general characteristics — impermanence, pain, not-self — in those same things. This begins now with comprehension by groups and extends up through knowledge of rise and fall.
Full understanding as abandoning (pahana-parinna): Actually letting go of the illusions of permanence, pleasure, and self. This begins later with the knowledge of dissolution and continues through the higher insight knowledges.

The meditator has already completed the first kind. The second and third still lie ahead. That is why he must now take up comprehension by groups.

Comprehension by Groups: Seeing the Three Characteristics Everywhere

The meditator takes any formation — matter, feeling, perception, mental formations, or consciousness — whether past, future, or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, inferior or superior, far or near, and defines it all in three ways:

Impermanent in the sense of destruction. Past matter was destroyed without reaching this life. Future matter will arise in a future life and be destroyed there too. Present matter is being destroyed right now. The same applies in all eleven categories.
Painful in the sense of terror. What is impermanent is terrifying. Even the gods are frightened when they see their own impermanence.
Not-self in the sense of having no core. There is no inner “self” that acts, experiences, or controls. What is impermanent is painful, and what is painful cannot be mastered — so how could it be a self? As the Buddha said: “If matter were self, it would not lead to affliction.”

The same method applies to feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness.

Strengthening Insight in Forty Ways

To deepen this comprehension, the meditator sees the five aggregates in forty additional ways. He sees each aggregate as:

Impermanent, painful, a disease, a tumour, a dart, a calamity, an affliction, alien, disintegrating, a plague, a disaster, a terror, a menace, fickle, perishable, unenduring, no protection, no shelter, no refuge, empty, vain, void, not-self, dangerous, subject to change, coreless, the root of calamity, murderous, due to be annihilated, subject to the poisons of defilement, formed by conditions, Mara’s bait, subject to birth, ageing, illness, death, sorrow, lamentation, despair, and defilement.

This works out to fifty kinds of contemplation of impermanence, twenty-five of not-self, and one hundred and twenty-five of pain — two hundred aspects in all. When a meditator comprehends the five aggregates in all these ways, his insight is thoroughly strengthened.

Nine Ways to Sharpen the Faculties

If insight does not succeed, the meditator sharpens his faculties in nine ways:

He sees only the destruction of formations that have arisen
He works carefully
He works persistently
He works in a way suited to his temperament
He takes hold of the sign of concentration
He balances the awakening factors
He sets aside concern for body and life
He overcomes pain by renunciation
He does not stop halfway

He should also avoid the seven unsuitable things (wrong company, wrong talk, and so on) and cultivate the seven suitable things. He should comprehend the material at one time and the immaterial at another.

How Matter Is Generated

When comprehending matter, the meditator sees how it arises from four causes: action (kamma), consciousness, nutriment, and temperature.

From action: At the very moment of rebirth, thirty instances of matter are generated — the groups related to the physical heart-basis, the body, and sex. Throughout life, action-born matter continues to arise at every moment of consciousness.

Background Note: The relationship between matter and consciousness is like this: one material moment lasts as long as sixteen moments of consciousness arise and cease. Consciousness changes swiftly; matter changes slowly. At a single material moment’s arising instant, the rebirth-linking consciousness appears. By the time that material moment finally ceases, sixteen consciousnesses have come and gone.

From consciousness: Eighty-nine kinds of consciousness can generate matter, though not all of them do. The strongest generation happens at the instant of arising — consciousness is too weak at its moments of presence and dissolution to produce new matter. Consciousness-born matter includes sound, bodily and verbal expression, the space element, and the qualities of lightness, softness, workability, growth, and continuity.

From nutriment: Physical food sustains the body by generating new material groups. Nutriment taken on one day can sustain the body for up to seven days. Divine nutriment can sustain for one or two months. A mother’s food generates matter in the child in the womb. Even nutriment applied externally to the skin generates matter.

From temperature: The fire element — both hot and cold — generates matter in the body and also sustains matter externally. Temperature-born matter can continue producing new material groups for a long time, even in things that are not alive.

The Material Septad: Seven Ways to See Matter

Another method comprehends matter through seven lenses:

1. Taking up and putting down. “Taking up” is birth; “putting down” is death. The meditator allots a full lifespan and sees that all formations within those limits are impermanent, painful, and not-self. No one has any power over them in their three phases — no one can prevent them from reaching presence, from ageing, or from dissolving.

2. Disappearance of what grows old in each stage. He divides the lifespan into progressively finer segments:

Three stages of life (first, middle, last — roughly thirty-three years each)
Ten decades: the tender decade, the sport decade, the beauty decade, the strength decade, the understanding decade, the decline decade, the stooping decade, the bent decade, the dotage decade, and the prone decade
Then twenty parts of five years, twenty-five of four, thirty-three of three, fifty of two, and one hundred of one year
Three seasons, then six seasons, then the dark and bright halves of the moon
Night and day, then six portions of the day
The movements of walking: moving forward, moving backward, looking toward, looking away, bending, stretching
Finally, a single footstep divided into six parts: lifting up, shifting forward, shifting sideways, lowering down, placing down, and fixing down

At each level, the matter of one period ceases without reaching the next. Formations keep breaking up, like sesame seeds crackling in a hot pan.

Background Note: Here is a simile for this progressive refinement. A man from the countryside who had never seen a lamp came to a city and asked about one. Someone said, “Where the flame goes when the oil is used up, no one knows.” Another said, “The flame in each third of the wick ceases without reaching the next part.” A third said, “Even that is crude — the flame in each strand ceases without reaching the next strand.” The meditator’s progression from seeing impermanence across a century, down to seeing it within a single footstep, follows the same pattern of ever-finer discernment.

3-6. Arising from nutriment, temperature, action, and consciousness. He then separates matter into these four categories and sees each one changing:

Nutriment-born matter becomes evident through hunger and satisfaction. When hungry, the body is parched and ugly. When fed, it is plump and fresh. Each state ceases without reaching the next.
Temperature-born matter becomes evident through heat and cold. Matter arising in heat is parched; in cold it is fresh.
Action-born matter becomes evident through the sense doors. Matter at the eye door ceases without reaching the ear door, and so on through all six doors.
Consciousness-born matter becomes evident through joy and grief. When joyful, the body is smooth and tender. When grieving, it is parched and ugly.

When consciousness-born matter is discerned this way, a profound truth becomes clear:

Life, person, pleasure, pain — just these alone Join in one conscious moment that flicks by. Gods, though they live for eighty-four thousand Eons, are not the same for two such moments. Ceased aggregates of those dead or alive Are all alike, gone never to return. No store of broken states, no future stock; Those born balance like seeds on needle points. Breakup of states is foredoomed at their birth; Those present decay, unmingled with those past. They come from nowhere, break up, nowhere go; Flash in and out, as lightning in the sky.

7. Natural matter. External inanimate matter — iron, copper, gold, silver, gems, soil, stone, grass, trees — also shows impermanence. An asoka tree shoot begins pale pink, turns dense red, then dull red, then the colour of a tender shoot, then a growing shoot, then pale green, then dark green. Eventually it becomes withered foliage and falls off. The matter at each colour-stage ceases without reaching the next.

The Immaterial Septad: Seven Ways to See the Mind

The meditator also comprehends the immaterial (mental) side through seven approaches:

1. By groups. He sees that the mental states arising during each act of comprehension — contact, feeling, perception, intention, consciousness — all disintegrate moment by moment.

2. By pairs. After comprehending matter as impermanent, painful, and not-self, he turns to the very consciousness with which he was comprehending and sees that consciousness, too, as impermanent, painful, and not-self.

3. By moments. He comprehends the first consciousness with a second, the second with a third, the third with a fourth, and the fourth with a fifth — each one seen as impermanent.

4. By series. He extends this chain to ten consciousnesses, each comprehended by the next. Both the material and immaterial meditation subjects become thoroughly familiar through this practice.

5-7. By removal of false view, by abolition of conceit, by ending of attachment. When the meditator has seen that there is no living being over and above matter and mind, the perception of a “being” is removed. When false view does not arise, conceit does not arise. When conceit does not arise, craving does not arise.

Background Note: There is no removal of false view in someone who thinks, “I see with insight, my insight.” There is removal of false view in someone who understands: “Only formations see formations with insight.” Seeing formations as not-self removes false view. Seeing them as impermanent abolishes conceit. Seeing them as painful ends attachment.

The Eighteen Principal Insights

Having become familiar with both material and immaterial meditation subjects, the meditator has partially penetrated the eighteen principal insights. These are:

Contemplation of impermanence abandons the perception of permanence
Contemplation of pain abandons the perception of pleasure
Contemplation of not-self abandons the perception of self
Contemplation of dispassion abandons delighting
Contemplation of fading away abandons greed
Contemplation of cessation abandons originating
Contemplation of relinquishment abandons grasping
Contemplation of destruction abandons the perception of compactness
Contemplation of fall abandons the accumulation of action
Contemplation of change abandons the perception of lastingness
Contemplation of the signless abandons the sign
Contemplation of the desireless abandons desire
Contemplation of voidness abandons misinterpretation as self
Higher understanding abandons misinterpretation due to grasping at a core
Correct knowledge and vision abandons misinterpretation due to confusion
Contemplation of danger abandons misinterpretation due to reliance
Contemplation of reflection abandons non-reflection
Contemplation of turning away abandons misinterpretation due to bondage

At this stage, the meditator has already penetrated the first three (impermanence, pain, not-self), which also cover numbers 11-13 (signless, desireless, void) since these are the same in meaning. Numbers 14 and 15 have also been penetrated. The remaining insights will be penetrated later.

Knowledge of Rise and Fall — the Beginning

Having purified his knowledge by abandoning the perceptions of permanence, pleasure, and self, the meditator moves from comprehension knowledge to the knowledge of rise and fall.

He sees the rise and fall of formations first in brief. For born matter, its generation is “rise” and its change is “fall.” The same for feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness.

He understands: “There is no heap or store of un-arisen mind-and-matter existing before it arises. When it arises, it does not come from any store. When it ceases, it does not go anywhere. Just as the sound of a lute — not having been, it is brought into being; and having been, it vanishes — so too all states, not having been, are brought into being, and having been, they vanish.”

He then sees rise and fall in detail, according to both condition and moment:

Rise according to condition: With the arising of ignorance, craving, action, and nutriment, there is the arising of matter. The same applies to feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness.
Fall according to condition: With the cessation of ignorance, craving, action, and nutriment, there is the cessation of matter.
Rise and fall according to moment: At the instant of arising there is the characteristic of generation; at the instant of dissolution there is the characteristic of change.

When he sees rise and fall in these two ways, many things become clear to him:

The Four Noble Truths become evident
Dependent origination in both forward and reverse order becomes evident
The annihilation view and the eternity view are both abandoned
The self view and the moral-inefficacy view are both abandoned
The characteristics of impermanence, pain, and not-self become thoroughly clear

Formations then appear to him as perpetually renewed — short-lived like dew-drops at sunrise, like bubbles on water, like a line drawn on water, like a mustard seed on a needle’s point, like a lightning flash. They appear without substance — like a conjuring trick, a mirage, a dream, the circle of a whirling firebrand, a phantom city, froth, or a plantain trunk.

At this point he has attained the tender, beginning stage of the knowledge of rise and fall. He is now known as a “beginner of insight.”

The Ten Imperfections of Insight

Now something critical happens. In this tender beginner of insight, ten imperfections of insight can arise. These do not arise in noble ones who have reached penetration of the truths, nor in lazy or immoral meditators. They arise only in someone who keeps to the right course, practises diligently, and has just begun genuine insight.

The ten imperfections are:

Illumination. A brilliant light arises from insight. It may illuminate only his seat, or his room, or the whole monastery, or even for leagues around. The meditator thinks, “Such light never arose in me before. Surely I have reached the path!” He mistakes what is not the path for the path. He drops his meditation subject and sits enjoying the light.

Background Note: Two elders were sitting in a double-walled room at Cittalapabbata on a moonless night covered by thick cloud. One said, “I can see the five-coloured flowers on the shrine terrace right now.” The other said, “That is nothing — I can see the fish and turtles in the ocean a league away.” This imperfection especially afflicts meditators who have acquired deep concentration. Because suppressed defilements do not show themselves, they think they are fully awakened — like the Elder Maha-Naga, who for sixty years believed he was an Arahant. When the Elder Dhammadinna visited him and tested him by conjuring a terrifying elephant, Maha-Naga sprang up to flee. “Is there any timidity in one whose defilements are destroyed?” Dhammadinna asked. Recognizing his error, Maha-Naga took instruction and attained true Arahantship with only three steps on the walking path.

Knowledge. Extraordinarily sharp, incisive knowledge arises — unerring and keen like a lightning flash.
Rapturous happiness. The five kinds of happiness arise — minor happiness, momentary happiness, showering happiness, uplifting happiness, and pervading happiness — flooding the whole body.
Tranquillity. Body and mind become tranquillized, light, soft, workable, sharp, and straight. There is no fatigue, heaviness, or stiffness. The meditator experiences superhuman delight:

A monk whose mind is quiet Retires to an empty place, And his right insight in the teaching Gives him superhuman delight. It is because he comprehends The rise and fall of aggregates That he finds happiness and joy And knows it to be deathless.

Bliss. Exceedingly refined pleasure floods the entire body.
Resolution. Strong, extreme faith arises — deep confidence in consciousness and its companions.
Exertion. Well-balanced energy arises — neither too lax nor too strained.
Assurance. Rock-solid mindfulness arises, immovable as a mountain. Whatever subject the meditator turns to appears clearly, as the next world does to one with the divine eye.
Equanimity. Neutrality towards formations arises strongly. Adverting works as sharply as a lightning flash, like a red-hot spear plunged into a basket of leaves.
Attachment. This is the subtlest and most dangerous imperfection. When insight is adorned with illumination, knowledge, happiness, and all the rest, a subtle, peaceful-looking attachment arises. It clings to that beautiful insight — and the meditator cannot even recognise it as a defilement.

How the Imperfections Mislead

For each of these ten, the meditator may think: “Such a thing never arose in me before. Surely I have reached the path, reached fruition!” He mistakes what is not the path for the path. When he does this, the course of his insight is interrupted. He drops his meditation subject and sits enjoying the experience.

These states are called “imperfections” because they become the basis for imperfection — not because the states themselves are unwholesome. Attachment, however, is both an imperfection and the basis for further imperfection.

Each imperfection can be seized in three wrong ways: through false view (“This illumination has arisen in me”), through conceit (“How wonderful this illumination is”), and through craving (relishing the experience). So the ten become thirty.

How a Skilled Meditator Responds

A skilled, discerning meditator examines each experience with understanding: “This illumination has arisen. But it is impermanent, formed, conditionally arisen, subject to destruction, subject to fading away, subject to cessation.”

Or he thinks: “If illumination were self, it would be right to take it as self. But being not-self, it is taken as self. Therefore it is not-self — no power can be exercised over it. It is impermanent — it will not exist after having come to be. It is painful — it is oppressed by rise and fall.”

Seeing this way, he does not waver. He sees each experience as: “This is not mine, this is not I, this is not my self.”

So when a man of understanding has Examined these ten things and is now skilled In agitation about higher states, He no more falls a prey to wavering.

Defining the Path

Having unravelled this thirtyfold skein of imperfections without falling prey to wavering, the meditator defines what is the path and what is not the path:

“The states consisting in illumination, knowledge, rapture, tranquillity, bliss, resolution, exertion, assurance, equanimity, and attachment are not the path. But insight knowledge that is free from imperfections and keeps to its course — that is the path.”

This knowledge — knowing the path from the not-path — is the purification by knowledge and vision of what is path and what is not path.

Three Truths Defined

At this point, the meditator has defined three of the Four Noble Truths through mundane knowledge alone:

The truth of suffering was defined when he delimited mind-and-matter in the purification of view
The truth of origination was defined when he discerned conditions in the purification by overcoming doubt
The truth of the path was defined when he identified the right path here, in the purification by knowledge and vision of what is path and what is not path

This is the twentieth chapter, “The Description of Purification by Knowledge and Vision of What Is the Path and What Is Not the Path,” in the section on the Development of Understanding in the Path of Purification, composed for the purpose of gladdening good people.