The Foundations of Buddhism

The Buddhist Path

mastered the dhyiinas eradicates by the path of seeing the grosser

defilements associated with craving for the world of the five

senses and thereby becomes a stream-attainer. By the successive

attainment of the various dhyiinas and abandoning of subtler

and subtler kinds of attachment by means of the ordinary and

transcendent paths of development, the meditator subsequently

becomes a once-returner and non-returner. Finally by means of

the path of 'completion' or the 'adept' and the attainment of the

diamond-like concentration, he or she eradicates all defilements

and becomes an arhat.

All these lists of stages can seem to the modern mind like schol-

astic excess. But what they seem intended to indicate is the grad~

ual and cumulative process of the spiritual path which is kept

going by the meditator's repeated and persistent practice of

essentially the same exercise: contemplating the world in terms

of dharmas or watching the rise and fall, the coming and going

of phenomena in dependence upon each other. Gradual though

the process is, it is distinguished by various landmarks which the

lists of stages are intended to indicate; what is more it culminates

in a more or less sudden and immediate understanding of the

world which has the effect of changing one for good. Some of

the ancient similes for the progress of meditation practice evoke

the experience of this rather more vividly than all our lists of stages.
As a mason or a mason's apprentice, when inspecting the handle of his
chisel, sees the impressions of his fingers and thumb and yet has no know-
ledge that so much of the handle has been worn away on that day, so
much the day before, so much previously, but when the last bit has been
worn away then he has knowledge-just so the monk who lives engaged
in the practice of meditation has no knowledge that so much. of the
defilements has been worn away that day, so much the day before, so
much previously, but when the last bit has been worn away then he has
knowledge.^41

The relationship of calm and insight

We have seen how developed Buddhist theory envisages two basic

possibilities as far as meditation is concerned. In the first place,