In the Buddha's Words - Bhikkhu Bodhi [120]
The gradual training occurs in two versions: a longer version in the Dīgha Nikāya and a middle-length version in the Majjhima Nikāya. The principal differences are: (1) the longer version has a more detailed treatment of the observances that pertain to monastic etiquette and ascetic self-restraint; (2) the longer version includes eight types of higher knowledge while the middle-length version has three types. However, as these three types are the ones mentioned in the Buddha’s account of his own enlightenment (see Text II,3(2)), they are by far the most important. The main paradigm for the longer version of the gradual training is found at DN 2; the middle-length version is at MN 27 and MN 51, with variants at MN 38, MN 39, MN 53, MN 107, and MN 125. Here, Text VII,4 includes the whole of MN 27, which embeds the training in the simile of the elephant’s footprint that gives the sutta its name. Text VII,5, an excerpt from MN 39, repeats the higher stages of the training as described in MN 27, but includes the impressive similes not included in the latter version.
The sequence opens with the appearance of a Tathāgata in the world and his exposition of the Dhamma. Having heard this, the disciple acquires faith and follows the Teacher into homelessness. He then undertakes the rules of discipline that promote the purification of conduct and the right livelihood of an ascetic. The next three steps—contentment, restraint of the sense faculties, and mindfulness and clear comprehension—internalize the process of purification and thereby bridge the transition from moral discipline to concentration.
The section on the abandonment of the five hindrances deals with the preliminary training in concentration. The five hindrances—sensual desire, ill will, dullness and drowsiness, restlessness and remorse, and doubt—are the principal obstacles to meditative development, and thus they must be removed for the mind to become collected and unified. The stock passage on the gradual training treats the overcoming of the hindrances only schematically, but other texts in the Nikāyas provide more practical instructions, while the Pāli commentaries offer even more details. The similes in the version of MN 39—see Text VII,5—illustrate the joyful sense of freedom that one wins by overcoming the hindrances.
The next stage in the sequence describes the attainment of the jhānas, profound states of concentration in which the mind becomes fully absorbed in its object. The Buddha enumerates four jhānas, named simply after their numerical position in the series, each more refined and elevated than its predecessor. The jhānas are always described by the same formulas, which in several suttas are augmented by similes of great beauty; again, see Text VII,5. Although wisdom rather than concentration is the critical factor in the attainment of enlightenment, the Buddha invariably includes the jhānas in the gradual training for at least two reasons: first, because they contribute to the intrinsic perfection of the path; and second, because the deep concentration they induce serves as a basis for the arising of insight. The Buddha calls the jhānas the “footsteps of the Tathāgata” (MN 27.19–22) and shows them to be precursors of the bliss of Nibbāna that lies at the end of the training.
From the fourth jhāna three alternative lines of further development become possible. In a number of texts outside the stock passage on the gradual training the Buddha mentions four meditative states that continue the mental unification established by the jhānas. These states, described as “the liberations that are peaceful and formless,” are further refinements of concentration. Distinguished from the jhānas by their transcendence of the subtle mental image that serves as the object in the jhānas, they are named the base of the infinity of space, the base of the infinity