Purification by Knowledge and Vision

What this chapter covers: This is the culmination of the entire path. It explains the four noble paths — stream-entry, once-return, non-return, and full awakening (arahantship) — and their fruitions. It shows how each path pierces through defilements, what mental qualities are fulfilled, and how the four noble truths are penetrated in a single moment.

The Threshold: Change-of-Lineage

The knowledge called “change-of-lineage” (gotrabhu) comes next in the sequence. It sits right on the boundary. It belongs neither to the previous purification nor to this one. It is intermediate and unassignable. Still, it counts as insight because it falls in line with insight.

Purification by knowledge and vision (nana-dassana-visuddhi) itself consists of the knowledge associated with four paths:

1. The path of stream-entry (sotapatti-magga)
2. The path of once-return (sakadagami-magga)
3. The path of non-return (anagami-magga)
4. The path of full awakening (arahatta-magga)

The First Path: Stream-Entry

Someone who wants to achieve the first path has nothing further to do. Everything needed has already been done by developing the insight that ends in conformity knowledge.

As soon as conformity knowledge has arisen and the thick darkness hiding the truths has been dispelled, his mind no longer settles on any formation at all. It does not cling, cleave, or clutch. It retreats and recoils, like water from a lotus leaf. Every sign and every occurrence now appears as an obstruction.

Then, when conformity knowledge’s repetition has ended, change-of-lineage knowledge arises. This knowledge takes as its object the signless, the unconditioned — cessation, unbinding (nibbana). It passes out of the lineage of the ordinary person and enters the lineage of the noble ones. It is the first glimpse of unbinding as an object. It is the culminating peak of insight. It is irrevocable.

The Simile of Leaping Across the Stream

Imagine a man who wants to leap across a broad stream. He runs fast, grabs a rope hanging from a tree on the near bank, and leaps with his whole body leaning toward the far shore. When he arrives above the opposite bank, he lets go, lands staggering, and then steadies himself.

In the same way, the meditator runs fast through the contemplations of rise and fall. With the first conformity consciousness he leaps without letting go. With the second he leans toward unbinding. With the third he is right next to it. Then, with change-of-lineage consciousness, he lands on the unconditioned — unbinding, the opposite shore. He staggers at first, for lack of previous practice. After that, path knowledge steadies him.

What Conformity and Change-of-Lineage Each Do

Conformity knowledge can dispel the darkness that conceals the truths, but it cannot take unbinding as its object. Change-of-lineage knowledge can take unbinding as its object, but it cannot dispel that darkness. Each has its own role.

Here is a simile. A man went out at night to check the position of the stars, but clouds hid the moon. Three successive winds blew away the thick, medium, and fine clouds. Then the man saw the moon clearly and checked the stars.

The three kinds of conformity consciousness are like the three winds. Change-of-lineage knowledge is like the man with eyes. Unbinding is like the moon. Just as the winds can only blow away clouds but cannot see the moon, conformity can only clear away darkness but cannot see unbinding. Just as the man can see the moon but cannot blow away clouds, change-of-lineage can see unbinding but cannot clear the darkness.

The Simile of the Archer

Change-of-lineage knowledge gives a signal to the path, like a man giving a sign with a stick to an archer standing on a revolving platform. Without pausing after the signal, path knowledge follows in uninterrupted continuity. As it arises, it pierces and explodes the mass of greed, the mass of hatred, and the mass of delusion — never pierced before.

What the First Path Accomplishes

The first path does not only pierce through greed, hatred, and delusion. It also:

• Dries up the ocean of suffering accumulated through the beginningless round of rebirths
• Closes all doors to the lower realms
• Provides actual experience of the seven noble treasures: faith, virtue, conscience, moral shame, learning, generosity, and understanding
• Abandons the eightfold wrong path
• Allays all enmity and fear
• Leads to the state of being the Buddha’s true spiritual heir

The First Fruition: The Stream-Enterer

Immediately after path knowledge, either two or three fruition consciousnesses arise as its result. This is why the Buddha spoke of “concentration with immediate result.” A single series of mental impulses has a maximum of seven impulse consciousnesses. So depending on whether there were two or three conformity consciousnesses, there are three or two fruition consciousnesses.

At this point, this person becomes a stream-enterer (sotapanna) — the second noble person. However negligent he may be, he is bound to end all suffering within seven lifetimes at most, travelling only among human and heavenly realms.

The Five Kinds of Reviewing

After fruition, his mind returns to the life-continuum. Then he reviews what has happened in five ways:

1. Reviewing the path: “This is the path I have come by.”
2. Reviewing the fruition: “This is the blessing I have obtained.”
3. Reviewing the defilements abandoned: “These defilements have been abandoned in me.”
4. Reviewing the defilements remaining: “These defilements still remain in me.”
5. Reviewing unbinding: “This is the reality I have penetrated.”

Every stream-enterer, once-returner, and non-returner has these five kinds of reviewing. But the fully awakened one has no remaining defilements to review, so has only four. The maximum total across all four stages is nineteen.

Background Note: Not every noble person automatically reviews what has been abandoned and what remains. For example, the noble disciple Mahanama once asked the Buddha, “What state is still unabandoned in me, that at times states of greed invade my mind?” This shows that reviewing of defilements does not always happen spontaneously.

The Second Path: Once-Return

After reviewing, either in the same session or on another occasion, the stream-enterer takes on the task of weakening both greed for sensory pleasures and ill-will. He applies the faculties, powers, and awakening factors. He works over the same field of formations — materiality, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness — seeing them as impermanent, painful, and not-self.

When conformity and change-of-lineage knowledge have arisen at the end of equanimity about formations, the path of once-return arises next to change-of-lineage.

The Second Fruition: The Once-Returner

Fruition follows immediately, just as before. This person becomes a once-returner (sakadagami) — the fourth noble person. He will return to this world only once more before making an end of suffering.

The Third Path: Non-Return

The once-returner takes on the task of completely abandoning greed for sensory pleasures and ill-will. He works over the same field of formations with the same insight.

When conformity and change-of-lineage have arisen, the path of non-return arises next to change-of-lineage.

The Third Fruition: The Non-Returner

Fruition follows immediately. This person becomes a non-returner (anagami) — the sixth noble person. After death, he reappears in a higher realm and attains complete liberation there, never returning to this world.

The Fourth Path: Full Awakening

The non-returner takes on the task of completely abandoning greed for subtle existence (both fine-material and immaterial), conceit, agitation, and ignorance. He works over the same field of formations.

When conformity and change-of-lineage have arisen, the path of full awakening arises next to change-of-lineage.

The Fourth Fruition: The Fully Awakened One

Fruition follows immediately. This person becomes a fully awakened one (arahant) — the eighth noble person. He is one of the great ones with all defilements destroyed. He bears his last body. He has laid down the burden, reached his goal, and destroyed the fetter of becoming. He is rightly liberated with final knowledge, worthy of the highest offering of the world with its gods.

The Qualities Fulfilled at the Path Moment

To appreciate the full value of this purification, seven things should be understood:

1. Fulfilment of the qualities that share in awakening
2. Emergence
3. The coupling of the powers
4. What defilements are abandoned
5. How they are abandoned
6. The four functions performed when the truths are penetrated
7. The individual essence of each function

The Thirty-Seven Qualities Sharing in Awakening

The qualities that share in awakening (bodhipakkhiya-dhamma) are thirty-seven in total:

• Four foundations of mindfulness (satipatthana): body, feeling, mind, and mental objects — contemplated as foul, painful, impermanent, and not-self
• Four right efforts (sammappadhana): preventing unarisen unwholesome states, abandoning arisen ones, arousing unarisen wholesome states, and maintaining arisen ones
• Four bases for success (iddhipada): zeal, energy, purity of mind, and investigation
• Five faculties (indriya): faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and understanding — called “faculties” because each overcomes its opposite (faithlessness, laziness, negligence, distraction, confusion)
• Five powers (bala): the same five, called “powers” because they cannot be shaken by their opposites
• Seven factors of awakening (bojjhanga): mindfulness, investigation, energy, joy, tranquillity, concentration, and equanimity
• The Noble Eightfold Path (atthangika-magga): right view, right thinking, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration

During ordinary insight practice, these qualities appear spread across many moments of consciousness. But at the moment of path knowledge, all thirty-seven come together in a single consciousness. At the moment of fruition, thirty-three are present (the four right efforts being excluded).

Though there are thirty-seven when distributed among the groups, the underlying factors are only fourteen. For example, mindfulness appears in eight different roles (four foundations of mindfulness, plus as a faculty, power, awakening factor, and path factor). Energy appears in nine roles. Faith appears in two. Concentration in four. Understanding in five.

States sharing in awakening Are fourteen, undistributed; They total thirty-seven states Among the groups distributed. While each performs the proper task That to its special lot falls due, They all come into being when The Noble Eightfold Path comes true.

Emergence

Ordinary insight does not produce emergence from either the internal occurrence of defilements or the external sign of formations, because it does not cut off originating and still has formations as its object.

Change-of-lineage knowledge produces emergence from the sign of formations (because it takes unbinding as its object) but not from the occurrence of defilements (because it does not cut off originating).

Path knowledge produces emergence from both. It emerges from the sign because it has the signless as its object, and from occurrence because it cuts off originating.

At each of the four path moments, each factor of the Noble Eightfold Path emerges from its wrong counterpart:

• Stream-entry path: Right view emerges from wrong view, and from the defilements that follow wrong view. Right concentration emerges from wrong concentration, and so on for all eight factors.
• Once-return path: Each factor emerges from the gross fetters of sensory desire and resentment, and from the gross underlying tendencies to these.
• Non-return path: Each factor emerges from the residual fetters of sensory desire and resentment, and their residual tendencies.
• Path of full awakening: Each factor emerges from greed for subtle existence, conceit, agitation, ignorance, and the underlying tendencies to conceit, becoming, and ignorance.

Coupling of the Powers

When developing ordinary concentration, the serenity power is stronger. When developing insight contemplations, the insight power is stronger. But at the noble path moment, serenity and insight occur perfectly coupled — neither one exceeds the other. They have a single nature in the sense of emergence, united and balanced.

What Defilements Each Path Abandons

The states abandoned by the four paths are classified in many ways: as fetters, defilements, wrongnesses, worldly states, kinds of stinginess, perversions, ties, bad conduct, mental outflows, floods, bonds, hindrances, misapprehensions, clingings, underlying tendencies, stains, unwholesome courses of action, and unwholesome thought-arisings.

The ten fetters (samyojana) are called that because they chain beings to suffering. The five higher fetters — greed for subtle material existence, greed for immaterial existence, conceit, agitation, and ignorance — bind beings to higher forms of existence. The five lower fetters — false view of a permanent self, doubt, attachment to rules and rituals, sensory desire, and resentment — bind beings to lower forms.

The ten defilements (kilesa) are: greed, hatred, delusion, conceit, wrong view, doubt, mental rigidity, agitation, lack of conscience, and lack of moral shame.

The wrongnesses are the eight wrong path factors (wrong view, wrong thinking, wrong speech, wrong action, wrong livelihood, wrong effort, wrong mindfulness, wrong concentration), plus wrong knowledge and wrong liberation — ten in all.

The worldly states (lokadhamma) are the eight: gain and loss, fame and disgrace, pleasure and pain, praise and blame.

The five kinds of stinginess (macchariya) are stinginess about dwellings, supporters, gains, teachings, and praise.

The three perversions (vipallasa) are perversions of perception, of mind, and of view — seeing what is impermanent, painful, not-self, and unattractive as permanent, pleasant, self, and beautiful.

The four ties (gantha) are covetousness, ill-will, attachment to rules and rituals, and dogmatic insistence that “only this is the truth.”

The four bad ways (agati) are doing what should not be done out of desire, hatred, delusion, or fear.

The outflows (asava) are greed for sensory experience, greed for existence, wrong view, and ignorance. They “flow out” through unguarded sense doors like water from a cracked pot, and they produce the suffering of the endless round.

The floods (ogha) are the same four, so called because they sweep beings into the ocean of existence and are hard to cross. The bonds (yoga) are also the same four, because they do not allow disengagement from suffering.

The five hindrances (nivarana) are sensory desire, ill-will, dullness-and-drowsiness, agitation-and-worry, and doubt — obstructing and concealing reality from consciousness.

The four clingings (upadana) are clinging to sensory pleasure, clinging to views, clinging to rules and rituals, and clinging to a doctrine of self.

The seven underlying tendencies (anusaya) are the deep-rooted predispositions to sensory desire, resentment, conceit, wrong views, doubt, craving for existence, and ignorance. They are called “underlying” because of their deep-rooted, inveterate nature — they lie dormant as the cause for greed, hatred, and the rest to arise again and again.

The three stains (mala) are greed, hatred, and delusion — like oil, soot, and mud, they are dirty themselves and dirty everything they touch.

The ten unwholesome courses of action (akusala-kammapatha) are: killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, divisive speech, harsh speech, idle chatter, covetousness, ill-will, and wrong view.

The twelve unwholesome thought-arisings are the eight rooted in greed, two rooted in hatred, and two rooted in delusion.

Here is how the four paths divide the work of abandoning:

The first path (stream-entry) eliminates:

• False view of a permanent self, doubt, and attachment to rules and rituals, plus sensory desire and resentment strong enough to lead to the lower realms
• Among the defilements: wrong view and doubt
• Wrong view, false speech, wrong action, and wrong livelihood
• All five kinds of stinginess
• All the perversions of view; the perversions of perception and mind that find permanence in the impermanent and self in the not-self
• The ties of attachment to rules and rituals, and dogmatic insistence on “the truth”
• The outflow of wrong view (and the corresponding flood and bond)
• The hindrance of doubt
• Misapprehension (wrong view)
• Clinging to views, rules and rituals, and a doctrine of self
• The underlying tendencies to wrong view and doubt
• Killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and wrong view among the unwholesome courses of action
• The four thought-arisings associated with wrong view, and the one associated with doubt
• All bad ways of conduct

The second path (once-return) eliminates:

• The remaining gross sensory desire and gross resentment

The third path (non-return) eliminates:

• All remaining sensory desire and resentment, even subtle forms
• Hatred among the defilements
• Wrong thinking, divisive speech, and harsh speech
• Resentment among the worldly states
• The perversions of perception and mind that find beauty in the unattractive
• The tie of ill-will
• The outflow of sensory desire (and its flood and bond)
• The hindrances of sensory desire, ill-will, and worry
• The underlying tendencies to sensory desire and resentment
• The stain of hatred
• Divisive speech, harsh speech, and ill-will among the courses of action
• The two thought-arisings associated with resentment

The fourth path (full awakening) eliminates:

• Greed for subtle existence, conceit, agitation, and ignorance
• All remaining defilements: greed, delusion, conceit, mental rigidity, agitation, lack of conscience, lack of moral shame
• Idle chatter, wrong effort, wrong mindfulness, wrong concentration, wrong knowledge, wrong liberation
• Approval among the worldly states
• The perversions of perception and mind that find pleasure in the painful
• The remaining tie (covetousness)
• The outflows of existence and ignorance (and their floods and bonds)
• The hindrances of dullness-and-drowsiness and agitation
• Sense-desire clinging
• The underlying tendencies to conceit, existence-craving, and ignorance
• The stains of greed and delusion
• Idle chatter and covetousness among the courses of action
• All remaining unwholesome thought-arisings

How Abandoning Actually Works

A natural question arises: does path knowledge abandon defilements that are past, future, or present?

If past or future, the effort seems pointless — those defilements do not exist. If present, it seems equally problematic — defilements would exist simultaneously with the path.

The answer is given through a simile. Imagine a young tree that has not yet borne fruit. A man cuts its root. The unborn fruits of that tree will never be born. They will never come into being.

In the same way, arising is a cause and condition for the generation of defilements. Seeing danger in defilements, consciousness enters into non-arising. With that, the defilements that would have been generated remain unborn and will never come to be born. With the cessation of the cause, there is the cessation of suffering.

So path knowledge does not abandon past, future, or present defilements. It abandons defilements that “have soil to grow in” — defilements that are latent, unabolished, with the potential to arise.

The Soil and What Grows in It

The “soil” means the five aggregates in the three planes of existence — the field that insight examines. “What has soil” means the defilements capable of arising with respect to those aggregates. As long as unprofitable tendencies remain unabolished in a given plane, they are called “arisen by having soil to grow in.”

This is understood subjectively, with respect to one’s own continuity, not objectively. Defilements could arise in anyone toward any object — as happened when the rich man Soreyya developed lust toward the Elder Maha Kaccana, or when the student Nanda developed it toward the nun Uppalavanna. If the mere existence of objects were the “soil,” no one could ever abandon the root of becoming.

When a stream-enterer has abandoned a particular defilement through a particular path, his aggregates are no longer “soil” for that defilement. But in an ordinary person, none of the root defilements are abandoned. So whatever he does is always either wholesome or unwholesome, and the round of rebirths keeps turning with defilements and actions as its engine.

The Simile of the Great Tree

These defilements pervade all five aggregates without distinction — like the essence of humus and water spreading through an entire tree, from root to trunk to branches to fruit.

But suppose a man who was disgusted by that tree’s flowers and fruits punctured it on all four sides with a poison thorn called the “frog thorn.” The tree would become barren, unable to continue its line.

In the same way, the person who feels dispassion for the occurrence of the aggregates develops the four paths. These are like applying poison to the tree on all four sides. The continuity of his aggregates can no longer produce a future existence. All kinds of action become merely functional. The poison of the four paths has completely exterminated the defilements that are the root of the round. Without clinging, he inevitably attains complete extinction with the cessation of his last consciousness — like a fire with no more fuel.

Eight Ways Defilements Are “Arisen”

There are eight ways something can be called “arisen”:

1. Actually occurring — possessing the three moments of arising, presence, and dissolution
2. Been and gone — what has occurred and ceased
3. By opportunity — past actions that reach presence by inhibiting other ripening actions and making an opportunity for their own result
4. By having soil — unprofitable tendencies still unabolished in a given plane
5. As happening — the same as “actually occurring”
6. By apprehension of an object — defilement that did not arise when an object was first encountered but arose later because the object had been registered (like the Elder Maha-Tissa, who saw someone while on alms-round, and defilement arose later)
7. Through non-suppression — defilement not suppressed by either serenity or insight, ready to arise if conditions combine
8. Through non-abolition — defilement suppressed by concentration or insight but not yet cut off by path knowledge (like the elder who had attained all eight absorptions, but whose defilements arose when he heard a woman singing while flying through the air)

Types 6, 7, and 8 are all included within type 4 (“by having soil”).

Types 1, 2, 3, and 5 cannot be abandoned by any path — they cannot be eliminated. But types 4, 6, 7, and 8 can all be abandoned, because when a given knowledge arises, it nullifies these modes of being “arisen.”

The Four Functions in a Single Moment

At the time of penetrating the four noble truths, each path knowledge performs four functions simultaneously in a single moment:

1. Full understanding (parinna) of suffering
2. Abandoning (pahana) of the origin of suffering
3. Realizing (sacchikiriya) of cessation
4. Developing (bhavana) of the path

The Simile of the Lamp

Just as a lamp simultaneously burns the wick, dispels darkness, makes light appear, and uses up the oil, path knowledge penetrates all four truths at once. It fully understands suffering (burns the wick), abandons the origin (dispels darkness), develops the path factors (makes light appear), and realizes cessation (uses up the oil).

The Simile of the Sun

Just as the rising sun simultaneously illuminates visible objects, dispels darkness, makes light visible, and drives away cold, path knowledge fully understands suffering, abandons origin, develops the path, and realizes cessation.

The Simile of the Boat

Just as a boat simultaneously leaves the near shore, cleaves the stream, carries its cargo, and approaches the far shore, path knowledge fully understands suffering (leaves the near shore), abandons origin (cleaves the stream), develops the path (carries the cargo), and realizes cessation (reaches the far shore).

Sixteen Aspects of the Four Truths

When path knowledge occurs with these four functions, it penetrates the four truths in sixteen aspects:

Suffering has four aspects of trueness:

• Oppressing
• Being conditioned
• Burning (tormenting)
• Changing

Origin has four aspects:

• Accumulating
• Being the source
• Binding
• Impeding

Cessation has four aspects:

• Escape
• Seclusion
• Being unconditioned
• Deathlessness

The path has four aspects:

• Being the outlet
• Being the cause
• Seeing
• Dominance

These sixteen aspects are all included as one, penetrated by a single knowledge. For each truth, one aspect is evident as its specific characteristic, while the other three become clear through seeing the remaining three truths. For example, suffering’s nature of “being conditioned” becomes clear through seeing origin (which is what conditions it). Its nature of “burning” becomes clear through seeing the path (which cools the burning). Its nature of “changing” becomes clear through seeing cessation (which does not change).

The Four Functions Described Separately

Full Understanding

Full understanding is threefold:

1. Full understanding as the known — directly knowing mentality-materiality with its conditions
2. Full understanding as investigating — investigating formations as impermanent, painful, and not-self, from comprehension by groups through to conformity
3. Full understanding as abandoning — giving up, from the contemplation of dissolution through to path knowledge

All three can be understood as functions of path knowledge. Whatever a person abandons was certainly first known and investigated.

Abandoning

Abandoning is also threefold:

1. Abandoning by suppression — like pressing water-weed down with a pot. This is what concentration does to the hindrances. The hindrances are suppressed, but not permanently removed.

2. Abandoning by substitution of opposites — like dispelling darkness with a light. Each factor of insight is the direct opposite of a particular defilement:

   • Delimiting mentality-materiality abandons the false view of a permanent self
   • Discerning conditions abandons the “no-cause” view and doubt
   • Comprehension by groups abandons the sense of “I” and “mine”
   • Defining path and not-path abandons mistaking what is not the path for the path
   • Seeing arising abandons the annihilation view
   • Seeing falling away abandons the eternity view
   • Appearance as terror abandons the sense of safety in what is terrifying
   • Seeing danger abandons the sense of enjoyment
   • Dispassion abandons delight
   • Desire for deliverance abandons complacency
   • Reflection abandons non-reflection
   • Equanimity about formations abandons failure to look on with equanimity
   • Conformity abandons apprehension contrary to truth

   And through the eighteen principal insights, each contemplation abandons its specific opposite — impermanence abandons the perception of permanence, pain abandons the perception of pleasure, not-self abandons the perception of self, and so on through all eighteen.

3. Abandoning by cutting off — the noble path knowledge abandons defilements in such a way that they never occur again, like a tree struck by a thunderbolt. This is the abandoning that matters here.

When a man has gained an empire by defeating the opposing kings, everything done before that is also credited to the king. In the same way, all three kinds of abandoning can be understood as functions of path knowledge.

Realizing

Realizing is twofold:

1. Mundane realizing — the direct personal experience of absorption states and other attainments, touching them with the contact of knowledge
2. Supramundane realizing — the seeing of unbinding at the first path moment (realizing as seeing) and at the subsequent path moments (realizing as developing)

Developing

Developing is also twofold:

1. Mundane developing — cultivating ordinary virtue, concentration, and understanding
2. Supramundane developing — cultivating supramundane virtue, concentration, and understanding at the path moment. Each path knowledge arouses these qualities as their co-arising condition. Only supramundane developing is the function of path knowledge here.

This is the twenty-second chapter, “The Description of Purification by Knowledge and Vision,” in the section on the Development of Understanding in the Path of Purification, composed for the purpose of gladdening good people.