The Foundations of Buddhism

188 The Buddhist Path

The culmination of calm meditation is the attainment of a state

of calm where the mind rests in complete ease and contentment

-either access concentration or on~ of the four dhyiinas; the

culmination of insight meditation is likewise a state of calm and

ease-one of the dhyiinas or also (according to the Sarvastivadins)

the state of access concentration. But the difference is that in the

final stage of insight meditation the mind settles not with an abstract

concept as its object, but in the direct seeing of suffering, its cause,

its cessation, and the path leading to its cessation. There are thus

two varieties of concentration-one achieved solely as a re-

sult of calm meditation, the other achieved as a result of both

calm and insight meditation. The latter may be either ordinary

(laukika/lokiya) or transcendent (lokottara/lokuttara) depend-

ing on whether it involves a direct experience of nirvana or not.

The point at which a meditator actively turns to the contem-

plation of phenomena as impermanent, suffering, and not self is

not fixed either for the ancient manuals or in modern practice.

The theoretical models of the paths set out in the classical man-

uals of Upatissa, Buddhaghosa, and Vasubandhu accommodate

two basic approaches: one in which the meditator practises the

dhyiinas fully before turning to the development of insight and

one in which the meditator attempts to cultivate insight with only

a minimal basis of calm.

Just as the manuals provide various schemata for the stages of

calm meditation, so also they provide different accounts of the

stages of insight meditation. After Buddhaghosa, the Theravadin

tradition works primarily with a system of seven 'purifications'
(visuddhi) alongside a series of eight (or sometimes ten) know-
ledges. From the north Indian tradition, and especially the writ-
ings of Vasubandhu and Asailga, the Mahayana traditions of China
· and Tibet inherit a system of five paths (miirga) and four 'stages
of penetrative insight' (nirvedha-bhiigiya) which comes to be set

alongside a system often 'levels' (bhumi) ofthe bodhisattva paths

to buddhahood (see Tables 6 and 7).

The scheme of the seven purifications

In the system of seven purifications, the first two ('purification

of conduct' and 'purification of consciousness') are concerned with