The eight path factors are formally defined at 45:8, using stock definitions found elsewhere in the Pāli Canon (e.g., at DN II 311 and MN III 251–52). But these definitions scarcely indicate how the path is to be developed as a whole. On this question we do not find detailed instructions made explicit anywhere in the Mahāvagga, and thus a “how-to manual” of the practice has to be pieced together from various sources. We can start with the Buddha’s statement that each path factor emerges from its predecessor (45:1) and use this as a key for sketching a picture of how the path unfolds in actual experience. On gaining faith in the Buddha in his role as the Tathāgata, the supreme guide to deliverance, the disciple must first arrive at a clear conceptual understanding of the teaching, particularly with respect to the principle of kamma and its fruit and the Four Noble Truths. This is right view (samm̄dị̣hi) in its embryonic stage. Right view alters the disciple’s motives and purposes, steering him or her away from sensuality, ill will, and cruelty, towards renunciation, benevolence, and compassion: this is right intention (samm̄sȧkappa ). Guided by right intention, the disciple undertakes the three ethical factors of the path: right speech, right action, and right livelihood (samm̄v̄c̄, sammākammanta, samm̄-̄jıva). Standing on this foundation of virtue (see 45:149), the disciple trains the mind by diligently and energetically developing the four establishments of mindfulness: this is right effort (samm̄v̄ȳm̄) applied to the practice of right mindfulness (samm̄sati). When the effort bears fruit, the disciple enters and dwells in the four jhānas (or, according to the commentaries, a lower degree of concentration bordering on the first jhāna): this is right concentration (samm̄sam̄dhi).
Right concentration, however, is not the end of the path. Now the disciple must use the concentrated mind to explore the nature of experience. Again, the method is right mindfulness, but this time with emphasis on the fourth establishment, mindful contemplation of phenomena. The disciple contemplates the phenomena comprised in the five aggregates and the six sense bases to discern their marks of impermanence, suffering, and nonself. This is right view at a higher plane, the plane of insight (vipassanā ). At a certain point in the course of contemplation, when insight becomes sharp and penetrative, the disciple enters upon the fixed course of rightness (sammatta-niyāma), the supramundane path, either as a faith-follower or a Dhamma-follower, and thereby becomes bound to win the fruit of stream-entry within this life itself. Now he or she is described as one practising for the realization of the fruit of stream-entry (sotāpattiphalasacchikiriȳya pạipanna). When the practice of the path is fully ripe, all eight factors converge and join forces, setting off the “breakthrough to the Dhamma” by which the disciple directly sees the Four Noble Truths and cuts off the three lower fetters.
Now the disciple has truly plunged into the stream of the Dhamma, the transcendental eightfold path, which will bear him or her onwards towards the great ocean of Nibbāna. But the disciple must continue to cultivate the eight path factors until the remaining fetters are eradicated and the underlying tendencies uprooted. This occurs in the three successive stages of once-returner (sakad̄ḡmı̄), nonreturner (an̄ḡmı), and arahantship, each with its twin phases of path and fruition. With the attainment of arahantship, the development of the path comes to an end. The arahant remains endowed with the eight qualities that constitute the path, completed by right knowledge and right liberation (see the person “better than the superior person,” 45:26), but for the arahant there is nothing further to develop, for the aim of developing the path has been reached.
It is within the process of perfecting the path that all the other aids to enlightenment are simultaneously perfected. Thus we can describe the way to deliverance alternatively as the development of the Noble Eightfold Path, or of the seven factors of enlightenment, or of the four establishments of mindfulness. Each one implicitly contains the others, and thus selecting one system as a basis for practice naturally brings the others to completion.
Because of its liberal use of repetition series, the exact structure of the Maggasaṃyutta is hard to discern, and even different Oriental editions divide the chapter up in different ways. There is general agreement that the total number of suttas is 180; the problem concerns the arrangement of the later vaggas. The first five vaggas, with forty-eight suttas, are simple enough. These vaggas extol the Noble Eightfold Path as the supreme expression of the way to Nibbāna, the removal and destruction of lust, hatred, and delusion. The eightfold path is the holy life in its broadest extent (45:6, 19, 20), a holy life which yields the four fruits of liberation and culminates in the destruction of the three root defilements (45:39–40). The path is also the essence of asceticism and brahminhood (45:35–38), and thus by implication the way that all genuine ascetics and brahmins should be following. But the path is not exclusively for renunciants. It can be commended to both laypersons and monastics, for what matters is not the outward way of life but engagement in the right practice (45:23–24). These suttas also stress the importance of good friendship for following the eightfold path, giving a communal dimension to spiritual practice. Indeed, in one text the Buddha declares that good friendship is the entire holy life (45:2). Vagga V enumerates the purposes for which the holy life is lived under the Blessed One—the fading away of lust, the abandoning of the fetters, etc.—and in each case the Noble Eightfold Path is prescribed as the means for fulfilling that purpose.
With vagga VI the peyyāla or repetition series begin. The first three vaggas of this type mention seven prerequisites and aids for the arising of the Noble Eightfold Path, presumably in its transcendental dimension. The seven conditions are: (1) good friendship (kalỵ̄amittat̄); (2) virtue (sı̄la); (3) desire (chanda), wholesome desire for the goal; (4) self (att̄), perhaps meaning self-possession; (5) view (dị̣hi), the conceptual right view of kamma and its fruit and of the Four Noble Truths; (6) diligence (appam̄da), heedfulness in the practice; and (7) careful attention (yoniso manasik̄ra), thorough consideration of things in ways conducive to spiritual growth. Elsewhere the Buddha singles out good friendship as the chief external aid in the practice of his teaching, with careful attention as the chief internal aid (see 46:48, 49).
The seven conditions are presented under three different aspects, each of which features in one of the three vaggas: as the “forerunner and precursor” for the arising of the Noble Eightfold Path; as the “one thing very helpful” for the arising and fulfilment of the path; and as the “one thing that is most effective” for the arising of the path. Each vagga runs through the seven conditions twice, according to two different descriptions of the eight path factors. The first of these characterizes each path factor as “based upon seclusion, dispassion, and cessation, maturing in release,” the second as having “as its final goal the removal of lust, the removal of hatred, the removal of delusion.” The significance of these epithets is explained by the commentary (see V, nn. 7, 15).
Next come four repetition series rooted in a simile comparing the orientation of the path towards Nibbāna to the sloping of India’s five great rivers first towards the east, and then (what amounts to the same thing) towards the ocean. As the five rivers are treated first individually and then collectively, each half-vagga contains six suttas, for a total of twelve. Each string of twelve suttas is expounded in four versions, but rather than subsume the different versions under one vagga (as was done in vaggas VI, VII, and VIII), the text makes each version a vagga in its own right, so that the four versions extend over vaggas IX–XII. The two new versions, in vaggas XI and XII, respectively describe each path factor as “having the Deathless as its ground, destination, and final goal,” and as “slanting, sloping, and inclining towards Nibbāna.”
In vaggas XIII and XIV, the method of assignment is inverted. In these two vaggas, with twenty-two suttas between them, the same four versions are used, but now the sutta is taken as the unit of enumeration and the four versions are incorporated within each sutta, without separate numbering. The sut
tas bring forth a dazzling series of similes, and the effect of reading them all at a single sitting can be exhilarating, like watching the waves of the ocean break upon the shore on a full-moon night.
The last two vaggas, XV and XVI, list various groups of defilements (such as the āsavas or taints) and aspects of existence (such as the three bhavas or types of existence). Of each group it is said that the Noble Eightfold Path is to be developed for four purposes: for direct knowledge of it (abhiññ̄), for full understanding of it (pariññ̄), for its utter destruction (parikkhaya), and for its abandonment (pah̄a). Taken together, these two vaggas show unambiguously that the Noble Eightfold Path is aimed at the destruction of suffering and its causes. The fourfold treatment is given in full only for 45:161, but it can be applied to the subject of every sutta, of which there are twenty, ten per vagga. If each mode of treatment were to be counted as a separate sutta, the number of suttas in the two vaggas would be increased fourfold, and with four different versions taken into account, sixteenfold.
46. Bojjhaṅgasaṃyutta
The word bojjhaṅga is a compound of bodhi, enlightenment, and aṅga, limb or factor. The commentaries tend to interpret the word on the analogy of jhānaṅga, the jhāna factors, taking it to mean the factors constitutive of enlightenment. In the Abhidhamma Piṭaka this interpretation becomes so prominent that in texts applying the strict Abhidhamma method (as opposed to those making use of the Suttanta method) the bojjhaṅgas are assigned only to supramundane states of consciousness, those pertaining to the paths of liberation, not to wholesome states of mundane consciousness. In the Bojjhaṅgasaṃyutta, however, the factors of enlightenment are given this designation primarily because they lead to enlightenment (46:5, 21). They are thus the constellation of mental factors that function as causes and conditions for arriving at enlightenment, the liberating knowledge and vision (46:56).
The seven factors of enlightenment are, for a Buddha, like the seven precious gems of a wheel-turning monarch (46:42). The factors initially emerge in sequence, with each serving as the condition for the next (46:3). They arise within the practice of the last three factors of the Noble Eightfold Path, guided by right view; but they represent this segment of the path in finer detail, with recognition of the contrasting qualities that must be brought into delicate balance for the path to yield its fruits. First one attends mindfully to an object of meditation, generally selected from among the four objective bases of mindfulness (body, feelings, mind, phenomena): this is the enlightenment factor of mindfulness (sati-sambojjhaṅga). As mindfulness becomes steady, one learns to discern the object’s features more clearly, and can also distinguish between the wholesome and unwholesome states of mind that arise within the process of contemplation: the enlightenment factor of discrimination of states (dhammavicaya-sambojjhaṅ̇ga ). This fires one’s efforts: the enlightenment factor of energy (viriya-sambojjhaṅ̇ga). From energy applied to the work of mental purification joy arises and escalates: the enlightenment factor of rapture (pı̄ti-sambojjhaṅga). With the refinement of rapture the body and mind calm down: the enlightenment factor of tranquillity (passaddhi-sambojjhaṅga). The tranquil mind is easily unified: the enlightenment factor of concentration (samāndhi-sambojjhaṅga ). One looks on evenly at the concentrated mind: the enlightenment factor of equanimity (upekkhā-sambojjhaanga). As each subsequent factor arises, those already arisen do not disappear but remain alongside it as its adjuncts (though rapture inevitably subsides as concentration deepens). Thus, at the mature stage of development, all seven factors are present simultaneously, each making its own distinctive contribution.
The suttas of the Bojjhaṅgasaṃyutta commonly describe the enlightenment factors by the stock formula “based upon seclusion, dispassion, and cessation, maturing in release.” Since in the Nikāyas, outside the Mahāvagga, this phrase occurs only in apposition to the enlightenment factors, it is possible this was its original provenance and its application to the other sets among the aids to enlightenment is derivative. As the commentarial explanation of the terms suggests, this description best fits the bojjhaṅgas only in the advanced stages of insight and at the level of the supramundane path, when the bojjhaṅgas are actively eliminating the defilements and leaning towards the realization of Nibbāna. It is only then that they can actually be described as leading to enlightenment. Earlier their function is merely preparatory.
The supramundane dimension of the bojjhaṅgas seems to be signalled by a phrase occasionally appended to the familiar formula: “vast, exalted, measureless, without ill will” (vipulạ mahaggataṃ appamāṇaṃ abȳpajjhạ). So described, the enlightenment factors are said to enable a bhikkhu to abandon craving (46:26) and to penetrate and sunder the mass of greed, hatred, and delusion not penetrated before (46:28). With the breakthrough to the Dhamma the bojjhaṅgas become inalienable possessions, and the noble disciple who has acquired them has “obtained the path” (maggo pạiladdho) that leads infallibly to liberation from the taints (46:30). It is significant that in this passage the seven enlightenment factors assume the function usually ascribed to the Noble Eightfold Path. Even arahants continue to arouse the bojjhaṅgas, not for some ulterior goal, but simply as a way of noble dwelling in the present (46:4).
The seven enlightenment factors fall into two classes, the activating and the restraining. The former arise first: discrimination of states, energy, and rapture. The latter emerge later: tranquillity, concentration, and equanimity. The activating factors are to be cultivated when the mind is sluggish, as one feeds a small fire with fuel to make it blaze up. The restraining factors are to be cultivated when the mind is excited, as one sprinkles a bonfire with water and wet grass to reduce it. Mindfulness does not belong to either class, for it is useful everywhere, particularly in ensuring that the activating and restraining factors are kept in balance (46:53).
Repeatedly, the Bojjhaṅgasaṃyutta establishes an antithesis between the seven enlightenment factors and the five hindrances (pañca nı̄varạa): sensual desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and remorse, and doubt. The latter are the main obstacles to meditative progress in both concentration and insight. The abandoning of the hindrances is often described in the texts on the disciple’s gradual training (e.g., at DN I 71–73 and MN I 181). Here the five hindrances are called obstructions of the mind that weaken wisdom, while the enlightenment factors are assets that lead to true knowledge and liberation (46:37). The hindrances are comparable to corruptions of gold, to parasitic forest trees, to impurities in water which obscure the reflection of one’s face (46:33, 39, 55). They are makers of blindness, destructive to wisdom, distractions from the path to Nibbāna; the enlightenment factors are makers of vision and knowledge, promoters of wisdom, aids along the path to Nibbāna (46:40, 56).
In the Bojjhaṅgasaṃyutta the Buddha describes in detail the conditions responsible for the arising and growth of both the hindrances and the enlightenment factors. He thereby shows how the general principle of conditionality can also be applied to the specific psychological causes of bondage and liberation. The conditions of both sorts are spoken of as nutriments (̄h̄ra), a word which underlines the gradual, assimilative aspect of conditionality in relation to mental degeneration and development. At 46:2 the role of the nutriments in relation to the hindrances and enlightenment factors is compared to the sustenance of the body. Here only the active side of nutrition is in evidence. A later sutta (46:51) goes further and shows as well the “denourishment” of the hindrances and enlightenment factors, that is, the measures that prevent them from arising and developing. Prominent among the nutriments for all five hindrances is careless attention (ayoniso manasik̄ra), and prominent among the nutriments for all seven enlightenment factors is careful attention (yoniso manasik̄ra ). The role of attention in relation to the hindrances and enlightenment factors is also emphasized at 46:23, 24, and 35.
While the Bojjhaṅgasaṃyutta does not include parallels to the vaggas of the Maggasaṃyutta that
identify the conditions for the path, we can put together a picture of the conditions for the enlightenment factors by collating suttas scattered across this collection. Careful attention is the forerunner of the enlightenment factors and also the chief internal condition for their arising (46:13, 49). But good friendship is equally efficacious as a forerunner and is the chief external condition for their arising (46:48, 50). Other conditions mentioned are virtue (46:11) and diligence (46:31). In a discussion with a wanderer, the Buddha holds up true knowledge and liberation as the goal of the holy life. This is achieved by developing the seven enlightenment factors, which are in turn fulfilled by the four establishments of mindfulness, which depend on the three kinds of good conduct (of body, speech, and mind), which in turn depend on sense restraint (46:6). Thus we see traces here of another version of “transcendental dependent origination” running parallel to the series described at 12:23.
Two suttas show eminent monks recovering from illness when the Buddha recites the enlightenment factors in their presence, and a third shows the Buddha himself recovering when a monk recites them to him (46:14–16). Thus these suttas seem to ascribe a mystical healing power to the recitation of the enlightenment factors. Of course, the healing power does not reside in the words of the text alone, but requires the concentrated attention of the listener. In Sri Lanka these three suttas are included in the Maha Pirit Pota, “The Great Book of Protection,” a collection of paritta or protective discourses, and monks commonly recite them to patients afflicted with serious illness.
The Connected Discourses of the Buddha Page 162
