advanced canonical teaching
Virtue and concentration
“How does the older book describe the first two trainings?”
Chapters 2 to 9 treat the first two thirds of the way: virtue, voluntary austerity, concentration, the good friend, the knowledge of one's own temperament, the objects of practice and the entrance into absorption. What stands out is how much room the book gives to the question who it is that practises.
For reading
Editorial explanation — quotations are marked as Canonical text and linked.
In one sentence
The older manual treats virtue and concentration in eight chapters — and spends three of them on who it is that practises.
In today's language
Chapter 2 begins with a series of questions that recurs throughout the book: what is virtue? What is its salient characteristic, its function, its manifestation, its proximate cause? What benefit does it bring? How many kinds are there?
The answer about the characteristic is terse: the removal of non-dignity by dignity. Behind it stands the explanation that non-dignity is transgression — and that in three forms: against the rule of the order, against one's own way of life, against the foundations themselves.
Chapter 3 treats the voluntary austerities, the counterpart to the thirteen ascetic practices of the Visuddhimagga.
Chapter 4 determines concentration. Here too the series of questions, and the answer is remarkable: not “one-pointedness” as in the younger book, but an enumeration — purity of mind, steadfast endeavour, dwelling with the truth having the benefit of tranquillity, not being distracted. The image that follows immediately is the unflickering flame of a lamp out of the wind.
And then come three chapters that do not stand thus in the Visuddhimagga.
Chapter 5: approaching the good friend. How one finds a teacher, by what one recognises him, how one draws near to him.
Chapter 6: distinguishing the temperament. Fourteen types, formed from greed, hatred and delusion and their mixtures, and detailed signs by which one reads them off — from bodily posture, from the manner of eating, from clothing, from the glance.
Chapter 7: the objects of practice — and their assignment to these types.
Only chapter 8 describes the entrance into the practice itself, and chapter 9 the five higher kinds of knowledge that can follow from full concentration.
Why this matters
Because the arrangement is itself a statement. Between the determination of concentration and the first practising stand three chapters in which nothing is practised. They deal with the precondition that is not a technique: that somebody is there who knows one, and that one knows what person one is dealing with — oneself.
The canon supports this with one of the sharpest formulations it has. In SN 45.2 Ānanda says that noble friendship is half of the holy life. The Buddha contradicts him: not the half — the whole.
Canonical basis
AN 11.1 is the reason for the sequence virtue → concentration: a chain from freedom from remorse by way of gladness and stillness to concentration, with no link skipped. DN 2 sets out the same way as a graded sequence.
MN 118 is the most fully treated object of practice in both manuals: mindfulness of breathing in sixteen steps. AN 5.28 describes the four absorptions in similes — the goal of chapter 8.
MN 27 belongs to chapter 5: before one follows a teacher one examines him, and not by a single sign.
Components
- Virtue (ch. 2): characteristic, function, manifestation, proximate cause, benefit, kinds.
- Austerity (ch. 3): the voluntary severities.
- Concentration (ch. 4): determination, hindrances, kinds, bringing about.
- The good friend (ch. 5).
- The temperament (ch. 6): fourteen types and their signs.
- The objects of practice (ch. 7): ordered and assigned to the types.
- Entrance into the practice (ch. 8) and the five higher kinds of knowledge (ch. 9).
Connection with other teachings
The three trainings appear once more expressly in chapter 8 as the frame — higher virtue, higher mind, higher wisdom. With that the book itself marks where one stands in reading: the end of chapter 9 is the end of the second training. What follows is the third.
Significance for practice
The most usable part in practice is chapter 6, and that read against the grain. The signs listed there for the temperament are everyday observations — how somebody walks, how he eats, what his glance falls on. One need not adopt the fourteen types to find the question behind them usable: which inclination is the most frequent in me, and which practice works against it instead of with it?
Common misinterpretations
“The good friend is a pleasant extra.” SN 45.2 says the opposite, and the book grants him a chapter of his own — before the first chapter on practice.
“The doctrine of types is characterology.” It is a tool for assigning objects of practice, not a description of personality. The book assumes that it is applied by a teacher, not to oneself.
“The five higher kinds of knowledge are the goal of concentration.” In chapter 9 they are a possible consequence of full concentration — and they stand before the chapter on wisdom, not after it.
What you now have in hand
- reproduce the book's determinations of virtue and of concentration
- explain why a chapter of its own is given to the good friend
- say what is meant by “temperament” and what it is ascertained for
- compare the objects of practice of the Vimuttimagga with those of the Visuddhimagga
- describe how the book presents the transition into absorption
Key terms of this stage
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Immersion samādhi
One-pointed collectedness of mind.
Note for myself
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Absorption jhāna
A state of collected attention resting in itself; the canon describes four such stages and names for each the factors that carry it.
Note for myself
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Meditation subject kammaṭṭhāna
The subject one works with in practice; the training in concentration knows forty of them.
Note for myself
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One-pointedness ekaggatā
One-pointedness, collectedness (a jhāna factor).
Note for myself
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Five ethical precepts pañcasīla
Not to kill, not to take what is not given, no sexual misconduct, no false speech, no intoxicants: training rules (sikkhāpada) that one takes upon oneself — protection for others and a condition for a quiet mind.
Note for myself
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Hindrance nīvaraṇa
One of the five things that keep the mind from settling — sensual desire, ill will, dullness, restlessness and doubt.
Note for myself
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Further reading optional
Loving-kindness mettā Rapture pīti Mindfulness sati Formless absorption arūpa-jhāna Right livelihood sammā-ājīva
Source texts Canonical text
- AN 11.1 — The chain from wholesome virtue by way of freedom from remorse and gladness to concentration — the reason why virtue comes first
- SN 45.2 — “The whole of the holy life is noble friendship” — the discourse underlying the chapter on the good friend
- MN 118 — Mindfulness of breathing in sixteen steps — in the Vimuttimagga the most fully treated object of practice
- AN 5.28 — The four absorptions in similes — the state into which chapters 8 and 9 issue
In the book itself
“The removal of non-dignity by dignity”
“Concentration means that one has purity of mind, endeavours steadfastly, dwells with the truth having the benefit of tranquillity and is not distracted. This is called concentration.”
“The first is the training of the higher virtue, the second is the training of the higher thought, the third is the training of the higher wisdom.”
The chapters this stage deals with — they are readable in full under Study on this site:
For reflection
Why does the “good friend” get a chapter of his own?
Because the book holds the matching of object of practice to person to be a task nobody can accomplish alone for himself. Whoever is to determine his own temperament is an interested party. The canon goes even further: in SN 45.2 the Buddha calls noble friendship not the half of the holy life but the whole of it.
What is meant by “temperament”?
The basic inclination in which someone mostly stands — towards greed, hatred, delusion, faith, intelligence, or brooding. Chapter 6 describes by what one recognises it: by posture, clothing, eating, sleep, by the way someone looks at a thing. What he ought to practise is decided accordingly.
Why does concentration not follow immediately upon virtue in the book?
It is determined in chapter 4, but before the practice itself there stand three chapters on the preparation: the teacher, one's own temperament, the choice of object. That is the statement made by the arrangement — one does not begin with a technique but with the question who it is that practises.