What this chapter covers: This final chapter explains what is gained by developing the full path of purification. The benefits include: removing defilements, tasting the noble fruit, attaining the cessation of all mental activity, and becoming worthy of the highest offerings. The chapter also provides a detailed account of fruition attainment and the attainment of cessation.
The development of understanding has many hundreds of benefits. It would be impossible to explain them all in detail. Briefly, they can be understood under four headings:
- A. Removal of the various defilements
- B. Experience of the taste of the noble fruit
- C. Ability to attain the attainment of cessation
- D. Achievement of worthiness to receive gifts
A. Removal of the Defilements
One benefit of developing ordinary (mundane) understanding is the removal of various defilements, starting with the false view of a permanent self. This begins with the first clear distinction between mind and body.
One benefit of developing supramundane understanding is the removal, at the path moment, of deeper defilements starting with the fetters.
With dreadful thump the thunderbolt Annihilates the rock. The fire whipped by the driving wind Annihilates the wood. The radiant orb of solar flame Annihilates the dark. Developed understanding, too, Annihilates inveterate Defilements’ netted overgrowth, The source of every woe. This blessing in this very life A man himself may know.
B. The Taste of the Noble Fruit
Not only does developed understanding remove defilements — it also provides the experience of the noble fruit. The fruitions of stream-entry, once-return, non-return, and full awakening are the true “fruits of the spiritual life.” Their taste is experienced in two ways: in the cognitive series of the path (already described in Chapter 22) and in fruition attainment.
Background Note: Some hold that the fruit is merely the abandoning of fetters and nothing more. But the texts refute this. The fruitions are real, distinct mental states with unbinding (nibbana) as their measureless object.
Fruition Attainment: Nine Questions
What is fruition attainment? It is absorption in the cessation that constitutes the noble fruition.
Who attains it? All noble ones attain their own respective fruition. No ordinary person can attain it — it is beyond their reach. Those who have reached a higher path do not attain a lower fruition, because each successive stage is more peaceful. Each one attains only the fruition appropriate to their own level.
Background Note: Some teachers claim that only non-returners and fully awakened ones attain fruition, because only they show achievement in concentration. But this is not a valid reason. Even ordinary people attain mundane concentration within their reach. The canonical texts explicitly describe fruition attainment for all four levels of noble persons, including stream-enterers and once-returners.
Why do they attain it? For the purpose of experiencing bliss here and now. Just as a king enjoys royal bliss and a god enjoys divine bliss, noble ones think, “We shall experience noble supramundane bliss.” After deciding on the duration, they attain fruition whenever they choose.
How does attainment come about? For two reasons: by not bringing to mind any object other than unbinding, and by bringing unbinding to mind. The noble disciple goes into solitary retreat and sees formations with insight according to rise and fall and the rest. When insight has progressed to conformity, change-of-lineage knowledge arises with formations as its object. Immediately after that, consciousness becomes absorbed in cessation with fruition attainment. Even in a trainee, it is fruition that arises here — not a new path — because the tendency is toward fruition attainment.
Some claim that when a stream-enterer embarks on insight intending fruition attainment, he automatically becomes a once-returner. By that logic, a once-returner would become a non-returner, a non-returner a fully awakened one, and a fully awakened one a solitary buddha, and a solitary buddha a fully enlightened buddha. This is clearly wrong. Only fruition — not a new path — arises in the trainee during fruition attainment. And if the path had the first absorption, the fruition will have the first absorption too, and so on for the other absorptions.
How is it made to last? In three ways: by not bringing to mind any signs, by bringing unbinding to mind, and by prior determination of the duration. The meditator determines beforehand, “I shall emerge at such a time,” and the attainment lasts until that time arrives.
How does emergence come about? In two ways: by bringing to mind any sign of the five aggregates (materiality, feeling, perception, formations, consciousness), and by not bringing unbinding to mind. In practice, he does not bring all five to mind at once. He emerges when his mind turns to whatever is the object of the life-continuum.
What is next to fruition? Either fruition itself or the life-continuum. And fruition itself can be:
- Next to the path (in the cognitive series of the path)
- Next to a previous fruition (one fruition following another)
- Next to change-of-lineage (the first fruition in a fruition attainment)
- Next to the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception (the fruition by which one emerges from the attainment of cessation)
All fruitions except those arising in the cognitive series of the path count as fruition attainment.
Asceticism’s fruit sublime, Which tranquilizes all distress, Its beauty from the Deathless draws, Its calm from lack of worldliness. Of a sweet purifying bliss It is the fountainhead besides, Whose honey-sweet ambrosia A deathless sustenance provides. Now, if a wise man cultivates His understanding, he shall know This peerless bliss, which is the taste The noble fruit provides; and so This is the reason why they call Experience here and now aright Of flavour of the noble fruit A blessing of fulfilled insight.
C. The Attainment of Cessation
The ability to attain the cessation of all perception and feeling (nirodha-samapatti) is another benefit of developing understanding.
What Is the Attainment of Cessation?
It is the non-occurrence of consciousness and all its mental companions due to their progressive cessation.
Who Attains It?
No ordinary persons, no stream-enterers, no once-returners, and no non-returners or fully awakened ones who are “bare-insight workers” can attain it. Only non-returners and fully awakened ones who have mastered all eight absorption attainments can do so.
This is because the attainment of cessation requires:
- Two powers: the serenity power and the insight power
- Tranquillization of three formations: In the second absorption, verbal formations (thinking and examining) are quieted. In the fourth absorption, bodily formations (breathing) are quieted. In cessation, mental formations (feeling and perception) are quieted.
- Sixteen kinds of knowledge-exercise: the eight insight contemplations (impermanence through turning away) plus the four paths and four fruitions
- Nine kinds of concentration-exercise: the four fine-material absorptions, the four formless attainments, and access concentration
- Five kinds of mastery: mastery in adverting, attaining, resolving the duration, emerging, and reviewing — for each absorption
These qualifications are not found together in anyone other than non-returners and fully awakened ones who have mastered all eight attainments.
Background Note: A non-returner can attain cessation based on fourteen kinds of knowledge-exercise (since he has reached only three paths and fruitions). But stream-enterers and once-returners cannot, because unabandoned sensory desire obstructs the perfection of their serenity power. They lack the power needed for an attainment that requires both powers fully developed.
Where Is It Attained?
Only in realms with all five aggregates (the sense-sphere and fine-material realms). In the formless realms — where the first absorption cannot arise — the necessary succession of attainments cannot be completed.
Why Do They Attain It?
Wearied by the arising and passing away of formations, they think, “Let us dwell in bliss by being without consciousness here and now, reaching the cessation that is like unbinding.”
How Does the Attainment Come About?
One who strives with serenity alone reaches the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception and stays there. One who strives with insight alone reaches fruition attainment and stays there. But one who strives with both — and performs the preparatory tasks — causes the cessation of consciousness belonging to the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception. That is how cessation is achieved.
In detail: the practitioner finishes his meal, washes, and sits down on a well-prepared seat in a secluded place. He attains the first absorption, and on emerging, sees its formations with insight as impermanent, painful, and not-self. The insight used here must be neither too sluggish nor too keen.
He then proceeds through each successive attainment — second, third, and fourth absorption, then the base of boundless space, boundless consciousness, and nothingness — emerging from each and seeing its formations with balanced insight.
After emerging from the base of nothingness, he performs four preparatory tasks:
1. Non-damage to others’ property. He resolves that any borrowed robes, bowls, bedding, or other requisites in his care will not be damaged by fire, water, wind, thieves, or vermin during the seven days. When he resolves this, they are protected.
Background Note: What happens if he does not resolve? The story of Elder Maha-Naga illustrates. He went to the village where his mother lived and received food. He sat in the assembly hall and entered cessation. The hall caught fire. The other monks fled. Villagers saw him sitting in the flames and cried, “What a lazy monk!” The fire burned the thatch, bamboo, and timbers around him. People brought water, extinguished the fire, cleared the ashes, made repairs, scattered flowers, and stood waiting. The elder emerged at his predetermined time. Seeing the crowd, he said, “I am discovered!” He rose into the air and flew to Piyangu Island.
His own personal property — inner and outer robes, the seat he sits on — needs no special resolution. The attainment itself protects these, as it did for the Venerable Sanjiva and the Venerable Sariputta.
2. The community’s waiting. He considers: “If the monastic community needs to carry out formal business while I am in cessation, I shall emerge before any monk comes to summon me.” One who sets this intention emerges at exactly the right time.
If he does not set this intention, the community may assemble and send a monk to fetch him. As soon as the messenger stands within hearing and says, “The community is waiting for you, friend,” he emerges. Such is the authority of the community’s summons.
3. The Teacher’s summons. He considers: “If the Buddha makes known a new rule or teaches based on a need that has arisen, I shall emerge before anyone comes to summon me.” The same principle applies.
4. The limit of life’s duration. He must determine whether his life will continue for at least seven days. The attainment of cessation cannot ward off death, because there is no dying during cessation. If his life would end within seven days, he must emerge first. This is the one preparatory task that must never be skipped.
After completing these four tasks, he attains the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception. After one or two turns of consciousness, he becomes without consciousness — he achieves cessation. The effort is directed to cessation, not merely to the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception. That is why no more than two consciousnesses occur before cessation.
If he enters the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception without having done the preparatory tasks, he cannot achieve cessation. He simply returns to the base of nothingness and settles there.
A simile illustrates this. A man travelling an unfamiliar road came to a water-filled ravine. Without arranging his clothes, he stepped in but quickly climbed back out, afraid of getting his belongings wet. But a man who knew the road tucked in his inner garment, took the other in his hand, and crossed easily. In the same way, without the preparatory work, the meditator turns back. With it, he crosses over to cessation.
How Long Does It Last?
As long as the predetermined duration, unless interrupted by the exhaustion of his lifespan, the community’s waiting, or the Teacher’s summons.
How Does Emergence Happen?
By means of the fruition of non-return (for a non-returner) or by means of the fruition of full awakening (for a fully awakened one).
Where Does the Mind Tend After Emerging?
It tends toward unbinding. As the Buddha said: “When a monk has emerged from the cessation of perception and feeling, his mind inclines to seclusion, leans to seclusion, tends to seclusion.”
What Is the Difference Between Cessation and Death?
In both cases, bodily, verbal, and mental formations have ceased and are quite still. But in death, life is exhausted, heat has subsided, and the sense faculties are broken up. In the attainment of cessation, life is unexhausted, heat has not subsided, and the faculties are quite whole.
Is the Attainment Formed or Unformed?
It cannot be classified as formed or unformed, mundane or supramundane. It has no intrinsic nature of its own. But since it is achieved by one who attains it, it is permissible to say it is “produced.”
This too is an attainment which A noble one may cultivate; The peace it gives is reckoned as Unbinding here and now. A wise man by developing The noble understanding can With it himself endow; So this ability is called A boon of understanding, too, The noble paths allow.
D. Worthiness to Receive Gifts
The supramundane development of understanding in these four ways makes a person fit for the gifts of the world with its gods, fit for its hospitality, fit for its offerings, fit for its respect — an incomparable field of merit.
In particular:
By the first path (stream-entry):
- With sluggish insight and gentle faculties, one is called “one who will be reborn seven times at most.” He makes an end of suffering within seven lifetimes in the happy realms.
- With medium insight and medium faculties, one is called “one who goes from noble family to noble family.” With two or three rebirths in noble families, he makes an end of suffering.
- With keen insight and sharp faculties, one is called “one who germinates only once.” With just one more rebirth in the human world, he makes an end of suffering.
By the second path (once-return):
- He returns to this world only once more and makes an end of suffering.
By the third path (non-return):
- Depending on his faculties, he completes his course in one of five ways after leaving this world:
- One who attains liberation early — reaches full awakening in the next existence before the middle of his lifespan
- One who attains liberation past the midpoint — reaches full awakening after the middle of his lifespan
- One who attains liberation without prompting — generates the highest path with little effort
- One who attains liberation with prompting — generates the highest path with greater effort
- One who goes upstream to the highest gods — passes upward through successively higher realms until reaching the highest divine world, and attains full awakening there
By the fourth path (full awakening):
- One becomes “liberated by faith,” “liberated by understanding,” “both-ways liberated,” “one with the triple clear vision,” “one with the six direct knowledges,” or “one of the great ones whose defilements are destroyed, who has reached the categories of discrimination.”
It was about one who has developed the fourth path that it was said at the very beginning of this work: “At the moment of the path he is disentangling the tangle. At the moment of fruition he has disentangled the tangle and is worthy of the highest offerings in the world with its gods.”
The noble understanding, when Developed, will these blessings win; Accordingly discerning men Rejoice exceedingly therein.
Conclusion of the Path of Purification
At this point, the development of understanding with its benefits — shown throughout the Path of Purification under its headings of virtue, concentration, and understanding — has been fully explained. This is the answer to the stanza that began the entire work:
“When a wise man, established well in virtue, Develops consciousness and understanding, Then as a practitioner ardent and sagacious, He succeeds in disentangling this tangle.”
And the author’s own verse:
“My task is now to set out the true sense, Divided into virtue and the rest, Of this same verse composed by the Great Sage. There are here in the Victor’s Dispensation Those who although desiring purity Have no right knowledge of the sure straight way — Comprising virtue and the other two, Right hard to find, that leads to purity — Who, though they strive, here gain no purity. To them I shall expound the comforting Path of Purification, pure in expositions, Relying on the teaching of the dwellers In the Great Monastery; let all those Good people who do desire purity Listen intently to my exposition.”
Now, at this point, that has all been expounded.
Now, that the exposition as set forth Is almost free from errors and from flaws After collating all the expositions Of all these meanings classed as virtue and so on Stated in the commentarial system Of the five collections — for this reason Let meditators pure in understanding Desiring purification duly show Reverence for this Path of Purification.
What store of merit has been gained by me Desiring establishment in this Good Teaching In doing this, accepting the suggestion Of the venerable Sanghapala, One born into the line of famous elders Dwelling within the Great Monastery, A true Vibhajjavadin, who is wise, And lives in pure simplicity, devoted To discipline’s observance, and to practice, Whose mind the virtuous qualities of patience, Mildness, loving-kindness, and so on, grace — By the power of that store of merit May every being prosper happily.
And now just as the Path of Purification, With eight and fifty recitation sections In the text, has herewith been completed Without impediment, so may all those Who in the world depend on what is good Glad-hearted soon succeed without delay.
Postscript
This Path of Purification was composed by the elder adorned with supreme and pure faith, wisdom, and energy — in whom are gathered a host of upright, gentle qualities due to the practice of virtue — who is capable of fathoming the views of his own and others’ traditions, possessed of keen understanding, strong in unerring knowledge of the Buddha’s teaching as divided into the three collections with their commentaries, a great teacher, gifted with sweet and noble speech, a speaker of what is fittingly said, a great poet, an ornament in the lineage of the elders who dwell in the Great Monastery — shining lights in the lineage of elders with unblemished awakening, embellished with the special qualities of the six direct knowledges and the categories of discrimination — who has abundant purified wit, who bears the name Buddhaghosa conferred by the venerable ones, and who should be called “of Morandacetaka.”
May it continue here to show The way to purity of virtue and the rest For those seeking the means To ferry them across the worlds, For just as long as in this world Shall last that name “Enlightened One,” By which, thus purified in mind, Is known the Greatest Sage, World Chief.
Verses Found Only in Sinhalese Texts
By the performance of such merit As has been gained by me through this And any other still in hand, So may I in my next becoming Behold the joys of Tavatimsa, Glad in the qualities of virtue And unattached to sense desires. By having reached the first fruition, And having in my last life seen Metteyya, Lord of Sages, Highest Of persons in the world, and Helper Delighting in all beings’ welfare, And heard that Holy One proclaim The Teaching of the Noble Teaching, May I grace the Victor’s Dispensation By realizing its highest fruit.
Verses Found Only in Burmese Texts
The exposition of the Path of Purification Has thus been made for gladdening good people; But this, by reckoning the Pali text, Has eight and fifty recitation sections.
This is the twenty-third chapter, “The Description of the Benefits of Understanding,” in the Path of Purification, composed for the purpose of gladdening good people.