THE PATH
OF PURIFICATION
(VISUDDHIMAGGA)
BY
BHADANTACARIYA BUDDHAGHOSA
Translated from the Pali
by
BHIKKHU NANAMOLI
FIFTH EDITION
BUDDHIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY
Kandy Sri Lanka
CHAPTER XXIH
THE BENEFITS IN DEVELOPING
UNDERSTANDING
(Pannabhavananisamsa-niddesa)
1. (vi) WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS IN DEVELOPING UNDER-
STANDING? (See Ch. XIV, §1.) [698]
To that question, which was asked above, we reply that this devel-
opment of understanding has many hundred benefits. But it would be
impossible to explain its benefits in detail, however long a time were
taken over it. Briefly, though, its benefits should be understood as these:
(A) removal of the various defilements, (B) experience of the taste of the
noble fruit, (C) ability to attain the attainment of cessation, and (D)
achievement of worthiness to receive gifts and so on.
[A. REMOVAL OF THE DEFILEMENTS]
2. Herein, it should be understood that one of the benefits of the mun-
dane development of understanding is the removal of the various defile-
ments beginning with [mistaken] view of individuality. This starts with
the delimitation of mentality-materiality. Then one of the benefits of the
supramundane development of understanding is the removal, at the path
moment, of the various defilements beginning with the fetters.
With dreadful thump the thunderbolt
Annihilates the rock.
The fire whipped by the driving wind
Annihilates the wood.
The radiant orb of solar flame
Annihilates the dark.
Developed understanding, too,
Annihilates inveterate
Defilements' netted overgrowth,
The source of every woe.
This blessing in this very life
A man himself may know.
[B . THE TASTE OF THE NOBLE FRUIT]
3. Not only the removal of the various defilements but also the experi-
ence of the taste of the noble fruit is a benefit of the development of
understanding. [699] For it is the fruitions of stream-entry, etc.—the
fruits of asceticism—that are called the 'noble fruit'. Its taste is experi-
enced in two ways, that is to say, in its occurrence in the cognitive series
of the path, and in its occurrence in the attainment of fruition. Of these,
only its occurrence in the cognitive series of the path has been shown
(Ch. XXII, §3f.).
4. Furthermore, when people say that the fruit is the mere abandoning
of fetters
1
and nothing more than that, the following sutta can be cited
in order to convince them that they are wrong: 'How is it that under-
standing of the tranquillizing of effort is knowledge of fruit? At the
moment of the stream-entry path right view in the sense of seeing emerges
from wrong view, and it emerges from the defilements and from the
aggregates that occur consequent upon that [wrong view], and exter-
nally it emerges from all signs. Right view arises because of the tran-
quillizing of that effort. This is the fruit of the path' (Ps.i,71), and this
should be given in detail. Also such passages as, 'The four paths and
the four fruits—these states have a measureless object' (Dhs. §1408),
and, 'An exalted state is a condition, as proximity condition, for a meas-
ureless state' (Ptn.l, vol.ii, 227, Burmese ed.), establish the meaning
here.
5. However, in order to show how it occurs in the attainment of frui-
tion there is the following set of questions:
(i) What is fruition attainment?
(ii) Who attains it?
(iii) Who do not attain it?
(iv) Why do they attain it?
(v) How does its attainment come about?
(vi) How is it made to last?
(vii) How does the emergence from it come about?
(viii) What is next to fruition?
(ix) What is fruition next to?
6. Herein, (i) What is fruition attainment ? It is absorption in the cessa-
tion in which the noble fruition consists.
(ii) Who attains it? (iii) Who do not attain it? No ordinary men
attain it. Why? Because it is beyond their reach. But all noble ones attain
it. Why? Because it is within their reach. But those who have reached a
higher path do not attain a lower fruition because the state of each
successive person is more tranquillized than the one below. And those
who have only reached a lower path do not attain a higher fruition
because it is beyond their reach. But each one attains his appropriate
fruition. This is what has been agreed here.
7. But there are some who say that the stream-enterer and once-re-
turner do not attain it, and that only the two above them attain it. The
reason they give is that only these two show achievement in concentra-
tion. But that is no reason, since even the ordinary man attains such
mundane concentration as is within his reach. But why argue here over
what is and what is not a reason? Is it not said in the texts as follows?
'Which ten states of change-of-lineage arise [700] through insight?
'For the purpose of obtaining the stream-entry path it overcomes
arising, occurrence ... (etc., see Ch. XXII, §5) ... despair, and externally
the sign of formations, thus it is change-of-lineage.
'For the purpose of attaining the stream-entry fruition ...
'For the purpose of attaining the once-return path ...
'For the purpose of attaining the once-return fruition ...
'For the purpose of attaining the non-return path ...
'For the purpose of attaining the non-return fruition ...
'For the purpose of attaining the Arahant path ...
'For the purpose of attaining the Arahant fruition ...
'For the purpose of attaining the void abiding ...
'For the purpose of attaining the signless abiding it overcomes aris-
ing, occurrence ... (etc.) ... despair, and externally the sign of forma-
tions, thus it is change-of-lineage' (Ps.i,68).
2
From that it must be con-
cluded that all noble ones attain each their own fruit.
8. (iv) Why do they attain it ? For the purpose of abiding in bliss here
and now. For just as a king experiences royal bliss and a deity experi-
ences divine bliss, so too the noble ones think, 'We shall experience
the noble supramundane bliss', and after deciding on the duration, they
attain the attainment of fruition whenever they choose.
3
9. (v) How does its attainment come about ? (vi) How is it made to
last ? (vii) How does the emergence from it come about ?
(v) In the first place its attainment comes about for two reasons:
with not bringing to mind any object other than nibbana, and with bring-
ing nibbana to mind, according as it is said: 'Friend, there are two
conditions for the attainment of the signless mind-deliverance; they are
the non-bringing to mind of all signs, and the bringing to mind of the
signless element' (M.i,296).
10. Now the process of attaining it is as follows. A noble disciple who
seeks the attainment of fruition should go into solitary retreat. He should
see formations with insight according to rise and fall and so on. When
that insight has progressed [as far as conformity], then comes change-of-
lineage knowledge with formations as its object.
4
And immediately next
to it consciousness becomes absorbed in cessation with the attainment of
fruition. And here it is only fruition, not path, that arises even in a
trainer, because his tendency is to fruition attainment.
11. But there are those
5
who say that when a stream-enterer embarks
on insight, thinking *I shall attain fruition attainment', he becomes a
once-returner, and a once-returner a non-returner. They should be told:
'In that case a non-returner becomes an Arahant and an Arahant a
Paccekabuddha and a Paccekabuddha a Buddha. For that reason, and
because it is contradicted as well by the text quoted above, none of
that should be accepted. Only this should be accepted: fruition itself,
not path, arises also in the trainer. And if the path he has arrived at
had the first jhana, his fruition will have the first jhana too when it
arises. If the path has the second, so will the fruition. And so with the
other jhanas'.
This, firstly, is how attaining comes about. [701]
12. (vi) It is made to last in three ways, because of the words: 'Friend,
there are three conditions for the persistence of the signless mind-deliv-
erance: they are the non-bringing to mind of all signs, the bringing to
mind of the signless element, and the prior volition' (M.i,296-97). Herein,
the prior volition is the predetermining of the time before attaining;
6
for
it is by determining it thus, 'I shall emerge at such a time', that it lasts
until that time comes. This is how it is made to last.
13. (vii) Emergence from it comes about in two ways, because of the
words: Triend, there are two conditions for the emergence from the
signless mind-deliverance: they are the bringing to mind of all signs, and
the non-bringing to mind of the signless element' (M.i,297). Herein, of
all signs means the sign of materiality, sign of feeling, perception, for-
mations, and consciousness. Of course, a man does not bring all those to
mind at once, but this is said in order to include all. So the emergence
from the attainment of fruition comes about in him when he brings to
mind whatever is the object of the life-continuum.
7
14. (viii) What is next to fruition! (ix) What is fruition next tol In the
first case (viii) either fruition itself is next to fruition or the life-con-
tinuum is next to it. But (ix) there is fruition that is (a) next to the path,
(b) there is that next to fruition, (c) there is that next to change-of-
lineage, and (d) there is that next to the base consisting of neither per-
ception nor non-perception.
Herein, (a) it is next to the path in the cognitive series of the path,
(b) Each one that is subsequent to a previous one is next to fruition, (c)
Each first one in the attainments of fruition is next to change-of-lineage.
And conformity should be understood here as 'change-of-lineage'; for
this is said in the Patthana: 'In the Arahant conformity is a condition, as
proximity condition, for fruition attainment. In trainers, conformity is a
condition, as proximity condition, for fruition attainment' (Ptn.1,159). (d)
The fruition by means of which there is emergence from the attainment
of cessation is next to the base consisting of neither perception nor non-
perception,
15. Herein, all except the fruition that arises in the cognitive series of
the path occur as fruition attainment. So whether it arises in the cogni-
tive series of the path or in fruition attainment:
Asceticism's fruit sublime,
Which tranquillizes all distress,
Its beauty from the Deathless draws,
Its calm from lack of worldliness. [702]
Of a sweet purifying bliss
It is the fountainhead besides,
Whose honey-sweet ambrosia
A deathless sustenance provides.
Now if a wise man cultivates
His understanding, he shall know
This peerless bliss, which is the taste
The noble fruit provides; and so
This is the reason why they call
Experience here and now aright
Of flavour of the noble fruit
A blessing of fulfilled insight.
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