Visuddhimagga (the pah of purification)

by Ñāṇamoli Bhikkhu | 1956 | 388,207 words | ISBN-10: 9552400236 | ISBN-13: 9789552400236

This page describes Strengthening of Comprehension in Forty Ways of the section Purification by Knowledge and Vision of the Path and the Not-path of Part 3 Understanding (Paññā) of the English translation of the Visuddhimagga (‘the path of purification’) which represents a detailled Buddhist meditation manual, covering all the essential teachings of Buddha as taught in the Pali Tipitaka. It was compiled Buddhaghosa around the 5th Century.

18. Now, when the Blessed One was expounding conformity knowledge, he [asked the question]: “By means of what forty aspects does he acquire liking that is in conformity? By means of what forty aspects does he enter into the certainty of rightness?” (P‘8).[1] In the answer to it comprehension of impermanence, etc., is set forth by him analytically in the way beginning: “[Seeing] the five aggregates as impermanent, as painful, as a disease, a boil, a dart, a calamity, an affliction, as alien, as disintegrating, as a plague, a disaster, a terror, a menace, as fickle, perishable, unenduring, as no protection, no shelter, no refuge, as empty, vain, void, not-self, as a danger, as subject to change, as having no core, as the root of calamity, as murderous, as due to be annihilated, as subject to cankers, as formed, as Māra’s bait, as subject to birth, subject to ageing, subject to illness, subject to death, subject to sorrow, subject to lamentation, subject to despair, subject to defilement. Seeing the five aggregates as impermanent, he acquires liking that is in conformity. And seeing that the cessation of the five aggregates is the permanent Nibbāna, he enters into the certainty of rightness” (Paṭis II 238). So in order to strengthen that same comprehension of impermanence, pain, and not-self in the five aggregates, this [meditator] also comprehends these five aggregates by means of that [kind of comprehension].

19. How does he do it? He does it by means of comprehension as impermanent, etc., stated specifically as follows: He comprehends each aggregate as impermanent because of non-endlessness, and because of possession of a beginning and an end; as painful because of oppression by rise and fall, and because of being the basis for pain; as a disease because of having to be maintained by conditions, and because of being the root of disease; as a boil because of being consequent upon impalement by suffering, because of oozing with the filth of defilements, and because of being swollen by arising, ripened by ageing, and burst by dissolution; as a dart because of producing oppression, because of penetrating inside, and because of being hard to extract; as a calamity because of having to be condemned, because of bringing loss, and [612] because of being the basis for calamity; as an affliction because of restricting freedom, and because of being the foundation for affliction; as alien because of inability to have mastery exercised over them, and because of intractability; as disintegrating because of crumbling through sickness, ageing and death; as a plague because of bringing various kinds of ruin; as a disaster because of bringing unforeseen and plentiful adversity, and because of being the basis for all kinds of terror, and because of being the opposite of the supreme comfort called the stilling of all suffering; as a menace because of being bound up with many kinds of adversity, because of being menaced[2] by ills, and because of unfitness, as a menace, to be entertained; as fickle because of fickle insecurity due to sickness, ageing and death, and to the worldly states of gain, etc.;[3] as perishable because of having the nature of perishing both by violence and naturally; as unenduring because of collapsing on every occasion[4] and because of lack of solidity; as no protection because of not protecting, and because of affording no safety; as no shelter because of unfitness to give shelter,[5] and because of not performing the function of a shelter for the unsheltered;[6] as no refuge because of failure to disperse fear[7] in those who depend on them;as empty because of their emptiness of the lastingness, beauty, pleasure and self that are conceived about them; as vain because of their emptiness, or because of their triviality; for what is trivial is called “vain” in the world; as void because devoid of the state of being an owner, abider, doer, experiencer, director; as not-self because of itself having no owner, etc.; as danger because of the suffering in the process of becoming, and because of the danger in suffering or, alternatively, as danger (ādīnava) because of resemblance to misery (ādīna)[8] since “danger” (ādīnava) means that it is towards misery (ādīna) that it moves (vāti), goes, advances, this being a term for a wretched man, and the aggregates are wretched too; as subject to change because of having the nature of change in two ways, that is, through ageing and through death; as having no core because of feebleness, and because of decaying soon like sapwood; as the root of calamity because of being the cause of calamity; as murderous because of breaking faith like an enemy posing as a friend; as due to be annihilated because their becoming disappears, and because their non-becoming comes about; as subject to cankers because of being the proximate cause for cankers; as formed because of being formed by causes and conditions; as Māra’s bait because of being the bait [laid] by the Māra of death and the Māra of defilement; as subject to birth, to ageing, to illness, and to death because of having birth, ageing, illness and death as their nature; as subject to sorrow, to lamentation and to despair because of being the cause of sorrow, lamentation and despair; as subject to defilement because of being the objective field of the defilements of craving, views and misconduct.

20. Now, there are [613] fifty kinds of contemplation of impermanence here by taking the following ten in the case of each aggregate: as impermanent, as disintegrating, as fickle, as perishable, as unenduring, as subject to change, as having no core, as due to be annihilated, as formed, as subject to death. There are twenty-five kinds of contemplation of not-self by taking the following five in the case of each aggregate: as alien, as empty, as vain, as void, as not-self. There are one hundred and twenty-five kinds of contemplation of pain by taking the rest beginning with “as painful, as a disease” in the case of each aggregate.

So when a man comprehends the five aggregates by means of this comprehending as impermanent, etc., in its two hundred aspects, his comprehending as impermanent, painful and not-self, which is called “inductive insight,” is strengthened. These in the first place are the directions for undertaking comprehension here in accordance with the method given in the texts.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

“‘Liking that is in conformity’ is a liking for knowledge that is in conformity with the attainment of the path. Actually the knowledge itself is the ‘liking’ (khanti) since it likes (khamati), it endures, defining by going into the individual essence of its objective field. The ‘certainty of rightness’ is the noble path; for that is called the rightness beginning with right view and also the certainty of an irreversible trend” (Vism-mhṭ 784).

[2]:

Upasaṭṭhatā—“being menaced;” abstr. noun fr. pp. of upa + saj; not as such in PED.

[3]:

The eight worldly states are: gain and non-gain, fame and non-fame, blame and praise, and pleasure and pain (D III 160).

[4]:

Avatthā—“occasion”: not in PED.

[5]:

Allīyituṃ—“to give shelter”: not in PED, but see leṇa.

[6]:

Allīnānaṃ—“for the unsheltered”: allīna = pp. of ā + līyati (see note 8 above), the “un-sheltered.” Not in PED. Not to be confused with allīna = adherent (pp. of ā + līyati, to stick, to be contiguous); see e.g. XIV.46.

[7]:

Vism-mhṭ has “Jāti-ādi-bhayānaṃ hiṃsanaṃ vidhamanaṃ bhayasāraṇattaṃ,” which suggests the rendering “because of not being a refuge from fear.”

[8]:

Ādīna—“misery” or “miserable”: not in PED. Ādīna—“misery” or “miserable”: not in PED.

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