The Connected Discourses of the Buddha

by Bhikkhu Bodhi

  The presentation of the seven sets in a graded sequence might convey the impression that they constitute seven successive stages of practice. This, however, would be a misinterpretation. Close consideration of the series would show that the seven sets are ranked in a numerically ascending order, from four to eight, which means that their arrangement is purely pedagogic and implies nothing about a later set being more advanced than the earlier sets. Even more decisively, when we examine the contents of the seven sets as formally defined and explained in the suttas, we would see that their contents are inextricably interwoven. Often factors in one set are identical with those in another; sometimes one set reorders the constituents of another; sometimes one set subdivides a factor treated synoptically in another. What emerges from a close study of the seven sets, as presented in the Mahāvagga, is an array of overlapping, intersecting, mutually illuminating portraits of a single course of practice aimed at a single goal, deliverance from suffering. By presenting the course of practice from different angles, in different keys, and with different degrees of detail, the texts are able to finely modulate the practice of the path to suit the diverse needs of the people to be trained. This accounts for the versatility of the Buddha’s teaching, its ability to assume variable expressions in accordance with the different aptitudes, preferences, and propensities of different human beings.

  The need for a path is bound up with the whole structure of the Dhamma, girded from below by the abstract principle of conditionality, “When this arises, that arises; when this ceases, that ceases.” Bondage and suffering arise from ignorance, from a failure to see and understand the subjects treated in the earlier saṃyuttas: the five aggregates, the six sense bases, and the eighteen elements as the constituent factors of sentient existence; dependent origination as the inherent dynamism by which saṃsāra again and again renews itself from within, bringing along the suffering of repeated birth, aging, and death. To gain irreversible release from suffering we have to cut through the tangle of craving and clinging, and for this “disentanglement” to be final and complete, we must extricate the most deeply buried root of all, namely, ignorance.

  The direct antidote to ignorance is knowledge—not mere conceptual knowledge, but direct insight into things as they really are—and it was one of the Buddha’s key discoveries that the knowledge needed for liberation can be developed. Such knowledge does not depend on divine grace or arise as a mystical intuition, but emerges out of a matrix of persistent spiritual practice governed by a precisely articulated groundplan. This course of practice is a process of self-cultivation sustained by the unvarying laws of conditionality. The different factors embedded in the seven sets are the qualities that need to be developed. They are the conditions which, when methodically generated and fortified, directly conduce to the arising of the liberating knowledge.

  The major saṃyuttas of the Mahāvagga can be seen as offering a conception of the path that is the converse of the Asaṅkhatasaṃyutta (43). The latter begins with the goal, the unconditioned, and then asks, “What is the path leading to this goal?” The answer given is framed in terms of the seven sets, and thus here the texts extract the path from the goal. The Mahāvagga takes the complementary approach. Here we begin with the seven sets and by following their course of movement we are brought to see that they “slant, slope, and incline towards Nibbāna” just as surely as the waters in the great Indian rivers flow towards the ocean. Thus, from the perspective offered by the Mahāvagga, the seven sets become the constellation of training factors that bring the realization of a goal towards which they inherently incline. We might even speak of the path factors as being “pregnant” with the goal, though we must qualify this by noting that the development of the path does not bring Nibbāna itself into being, but rather promotes the attainment of a goal which, as unconditioned, is not locked into the process of causality.

  I said just above that the seven sets overlap and intersect. How this is so becomes clearer when we recognize that the terms used to designate different items among the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment are often synonyms representing the same mental factor. The different names merely serve to illuminate different functions of these mental factors while the arrangement into seven sets shows how the factors can collaborate in diverse patterns of mutual support.

  This aspect of the aids to enlightenment becomes more evident through the analytical treatment of the Abhidhamma, which collates the synonymous terms used to represent a single mental factor. A concise statement of the results obtained is found at Vism 680 (Ppn 22:41–43). Applied to the seven sets, we see, firstly, that one mental factor, energy (viriya), occurs in nine roles: as the four right strivings; as the basis for spiritual power headed by energy; as a faculty, power, and enlightenment factor; and as the path factor of right effort. Mindfulness (sati) takes on eight roles: as the four establishments of mindfulness; as a faculty, power, and enlightenment factor; and as the path factor of right mindfulness. Wisdom (paññ̄) serves in five capacities: as the basis for spiritual power headed by investigation; as a faculty and power; as the enlightenment factor of discrimination; and as the path factor of right view. Concentration (sam̄dhi) occurs four times under its own name: as a faculty, power, enlightenment factor, and path factor; it also participates in all four bases for spiritual power. Faith (saddh̄) occurs twice, as a faculty and power. The other nine aids to enlightenment occur only once each. Table 7 represents this correlation visually.

  TABLE 7

  The Aids to Enlightenment by Way of Mental Factors (based on Vism 680 and CMA 7:32–33)

  From this we can see that four factors permeate the practice in a variety of guises: energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. These factors, it must be noted, are not different from mental qualities that arise periodically in the ordinary, undeveloped mind. In the untrained mind, however, their occurrence is sporadic and random. The intention behind the Buddha’s presentation of the practice is to train the disciple to arouse these factors deliberately, through the exercise of the will, and then to strengthen them and unify their functions so that they can work together as members of an indomitable team. Hence the stress laid, over and over, on the idea that one “develops and cultivates” (bhāveti bahulı̄karoti) the aids to enlightenment. When they are developed and cultivated in unison, under the dominion of an overarching purpose, their inherent potentials can be actualized and gradually raised to the pitch of intensity needed to snap the fetters that, since beginningless time, have kept us in bondage to suffering.

  When the factors in the seven sets are said to be “aids to enlightenment” (or, literally, “states on the side of enlightenment”), this raises the question of their relationship to the experience of enlightenment itself. In the Nikāyas the word enlightenment (bodhi, sambodhi) seems always to be used to denote the cognition issuing directly in arahantship, hence as equivalent to the knowledge of the destruction of the taints (ā̄savakkhaya-ñāna). In these oldest sources, the thirty-seven factors constitute the practice leading to enlightenment. When they are fulfilled, enlightenment naturally follows.

  The Pāli commentaries, however, offer a more complex answer to our question, based on the more minute and technical analysis of experience undertaken in the Abhidhamma treatises. Their more recent provenance should not be a reason for rejecting them out of hand, for the Abhidhamma and the commentaries often make explicit principles derivable from the older texts but not yet worked out in them. The commentaries understand enlightenment as consisting in four discrete momentary attainments, called the four supramundane paths (lokuttaramagga), each of which eliminates or attenuates a particular group of defilements and is followed immediately by its fruit (phala). Attainment of the path and fruit transforms the disciple into a “noble person” (ariyapuggala) at the corresponding level of sanctity: a stream-enterer, a once-returner, a nonreturner, or an arahant. The path of stream-entry eradicates the lowest three fetters—identity view, doubt, and wrong grasp of rules an
d vows; the path of once-returning does not eradicate any fetters but attenuates lust, hatred, and delusion; the path of nonreturning eradicates sensual desire and ill will; and the path of arahantship eradicates the five higher fetters—lust for form, lust for the formless, conceit, restlessness, and ignorance. The alignment of stages of liberation with the elimination of defilements is already found in the Nikāyas. What is innovative in the Abhidhamma is the conception of the supramundane path as a momentary breakthrough, though even this can claim precedents in the canon (see just below).

  On the basis of this picture of the spiritual path, the commentaries hold that the development of the aids to enlightenment takes place in two stages or at two levels. The first is called the preliminary portion of practice (pubbabhāga-paṭipad̄ā), during which the practitioner develops and cultivates the aids to enlightenment for the purpose of attaining the supramundane path (see Vism 679–80; Ppn 22:39–40). The virtuous worldling does so with the aim of reaching the path of stream-entry; those established in the lower three fruits do so with the aim of reaching the next higher path. In the preliminary portion of practice the aids to enlightenment are developed because they lead to enlightenment. And while a number of factors will naturally occur simultaneously, some degree of progression will be inevitable as more powerful and deeper forces gradually gain ascendency. With the arising of the supramundane path, however, all thirty-seven aids to enlightenment occur simultaneously. At this point the thirty-seven factors no longer lead to enlightenment. Rather, they are enlightenment; they constitute the constellation of mental factors, raised to supramundane stature, that make the cognitive event in which they occur a distinctive experience of awakening (see Vism 670; Ppn 21:130–33; and Vism 679–80; Ppn 22:39–40). Refined and strengthened by the power of prior development, they collectively contribute to the total experience by which the aspirant attains freedom from suffering. In terms of a classical paradigm, they each participate in the process of fully understanding the noble truth of suffering; of abandoning craving, the cause of suffering; of realizing Nibbāna, the cessation of suffering; and of developing the path, the way to the cessation of suffering.

  In the Mahāvagga itself the idea of a supramundane path, understood as a momentary peak experience, is not explicit, though precedents for this idea may be located in the canonical model of the breakthrough to the Dhamma (i.e., the attainment of stream-entry; see 22:83, 90; 35:74, 46:30, etc.) and the liberation from the taints (i.e., the attainment of arahantship; see 15:13; 22:59; 35:28, 75, 121) as sudden transformative events that usually follow a period of prior gradual preparation. But whether or not the notion of a momentary path attainment has a basis in the suttas, the Mahāvagga (read in conjunction with other parts of the Nikāyas) implies that the path has a dual character. The first phase is the practice taken up by one who is technically still a worldling (puthujjana) training to make the breakthrough to the Dhamma. Such a person will develop the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment for the purpose of making the breakthrough. At a certain point, when the practice has ripened, this person will enter upon “the fixed course of rightness” (sammatta-niȳāma), either as a faith-follower or a Dhamma-follower (see 25:1). At this point the attainment of stream-entry is certain within that life itself. Now the thirty-seven factors acquire a truly transcendental dimension, since they are “pregnant” with the realization of Nibbāna and will give birth to this realization when the due time arrives. As the practitioner continues to “develop and cultivate” them, even over several more lifetimes, the various defilements are eliminated and the path yields the successive fruits of the holy life, culminating in true knowledge and liberation (vijj̄vimutti), which marks the end of the journey.

  In the Mahāvagga, as I said earlier, the seven sets appear in a different order from the simple numerical one in which they are usually presented. The chapter on the Noble Eightfold Path was probably placed first for the sake of emphasis: to show this most ancient formulation of the practice as the quintessential expression of the Buddha’s way to liberation. The seven factors of enlightenment may have been placed next, again out of turn, because they have the widest compass after the eightfold path. The arrangement of the following chapters does not appear to conform to a deliberate pattern. The Anuruddhasaṃyutta seems to be an appendix to the Satipaṭṭhānasaṃyutta and may have evolved from that collection. The last four chapters of the Mahāvagga do not deal explicitly with topics that fall under the seven sets, but even these tie up with them, as we shall see below when we examine the individual chapters.

  In the General Introduction I discussed the use of templates to generate suttas that cut across the different saṃyuttas, arranging their subject matter into distinctive and revealing patterns. In the Mahāvagga a new cluster of templates appears, apart from the “repetition series,” which I will touch on in the survey of the Maggasaṃyutta. The allotment of templates to subjects is as follows (see Concordance 3 for sutta references):Several practices “lead to going beyond from the near shore to the far shore”: said of the eightfold path, the enlightenment factors, the establishments of mindfulness, and the bases for spiritual power.

  “Those who have neglected them have neglected the noble path leading to the complete destruction of suffering, while those who have undertaken them have undertaken the noble path”: said of the same four groups.

  “They are noble and emancipating and lead to the complete destruction of suffering”: said of the enlightenment factors, the establishments of mindfulness, and the bases for spiritual power—but not of the eightfold path.

  “They lead to utter revulsion, dispassion, cessation, peace, direct knowledge, enlightenment, and Nibbāna”: again, said of the same three groups.

  “They do not arise, developed and cultivated, apart from the appearance of a Buddha or outside his Discipline”: said of the eightfold path, the enlightenment factors, and the faculties.

  “They yield one of two fruits, final knowledge (i.e., arahantship) or nonreturning”: said of the enlightenment factors, the establishments of mindfulness, the faculties, the bases for spiritual power, and mindfulness of breathing.

  “They yield seven fruits and benefits” (obtained by a finer differentiation of the above two fruits): said of the enlightenment factors, the faculties, the bases for spiritual power, and mindfulness of breathing—but not of the establishments of mindfulness.

  It is a matter for conjecture why some templates are applied to certain sets of practices but not to others. However, as all the above templates seem fully applicable to all the sets, this may be due to sheer chance (or to the loss of certain suttas in the line of transmission) and not to a policy of deliberate exclusion.

  45. Maggasaṃyutta

  The best known of the seven sets is, of course, the Noble Eightfold Path, announced already by the Buddha in his first sermon at Bārāṇası̄ and repeatedly referred to throughout his discourses. The Noble Eightfold Path is given such prominence not only because it has an honoured place as the fourth of the Four Noble Truths, and is thus comprised within the chief doctrine of early Buddhism, but because it is the most comprehensive of the seven sets. Its eight factors have a wider scope than the others, making the practice of the Dhamma a complete way of life. The eightfold path spans the three trainings in virtue, concentration, and wisdom; it guides action of body, speech, and mind; and it transforms our ordinary conduct, thought, and view into the conduct, thought, and view of the noble ones. The other sets, though oriented towards the same goal, are more restricted in scope, pertaining almost exclusively to the meditative phase of the eightfold path.

  The Noble Eightfold Path is also the most inclusive in relation to the other six sets, capable of accommodating within itself most, though not all, of their components. Thus right view, as a synonym for wisdom, includes the basis for spiritual power headed by investigation; the faculty and power of wisdom; and the enlightenment factor of discrimination of states. Right effort includes the four right
strivings; the basis for spiritual power headed by energy; the faculty, power, and enlightenment factor of energy. Right mindfulness includes the four establishments of mindfulness, and the faculty, power, and enlightenment factor of mindfulness. Right concentration explicitly includes the faculty, power, and enlightenment factor of concentration, and implicitly all four bases for spiritual power. Thus, when the other six sets are correlated with the Noble Eightfold Path, we can see that of their twenty-nine constituents, twenty-four have counterparts among the path factors.

  The eightfold path is described by the Buddha as ariya, noble, and this qualification is important. It would be too restrictive to maintain, as some interpreters of early Buddhism have done, that the eightfold path can be practised only by those who are technically ariyapuggalas, noble individuals beginning with the faith-follower (saddh̄nus̄rı̄). Certainly the Buddha offered the eightfold path to all his disciples who aspired to release from the suffering of saṃsāra, and for this reason he called it the way leading to the cessation of suffering. We might understand the adjective ariya in a broader sense as indicating not only that this is the path followed by the ariyans, but also that this is the path to be practised to arrive at the ariyan state, the state of inward spiritual nobility. To reach the truly ariyan Noble Eightfold Path that leads infallibly to Nibbāna, one has to start somewhere, and the most reasonable place to start is with the development of the eight path factors in their humbler, more immediately accessible manifestations.