The Foundations of Buddhism

The Buddhist Path 199

by the practice of calm meditation one abandons the gross for

the sake of the subtle. That is, by seeing certain experiences

as disturbing, the mind seeks peace in the subtler and subtler

experiences of the dhyiinas. This has the effect of weakening

attachment to experiences tied up with the world of the five senses,
but in subtler experiences there lurk subtler attachments which
may not be recognized for what they are. So although defilements

are controlled they are not rooted out. In the second place, by

the practice of insight meditation one sees experiences as inher-

ently flawed because of the characteristics of impermanence,

suffering, and no self, and thus, instead of letting go of the gross

merely to grasp at the subtle, one lets go of them completely.

In this unqualified letting go of the conditioned one experiences

the unconditioned, nirval)a. Yet in practice in order to see things
as inherently characterized by impermanence, suffering, and no
self one's mind must be clear and undisturbed; more significantly

in order to relinquish the subtlest forms of attachment one must

see the subtle experiences of the dhyiinas as impermanent, suf-
fering, and not self; and to achieve this one must generally first

of all actually experience them. In this way the practice of calm

and insight meditation are bound up together.
Although the theoretical position of the classical meditation
manuals seems basically clear, the precise relationship of calm
meditation and insight meditation is a live issue for both con-
temporary historical scholarship and contemporary Theravada
practice. Let me begin with the latter issue. Within contempor-
ary Theravada practice there is a broad movement of insight
meditation that has had considerable influence in the West. The

tendency of this movement is to. take the view that since the

dhyiinas are only impermanent, relatively pleasant states, the med-
itator should not strive to attain dhyiina but aim at developing
insight from the outset. Moreover, there is a Buddhist tradition
of seeing the highest understanding of other religions as based
on misinterpreted dhyiina experiences. From this perspective, the
dhyiinas can thus even be seen as in· a sense not characteristic-
ally 'Buddhist', since they can be attained in the absence of the

liberating insight which brings direct knowledge of nirviil)a. At