(maggasammāsamādhi) and its object, called ‘renunciation’ (vavassagga), is nibbāna.”1 (Wr. tr.). The AKguttara subcommentary explicitly identifies the second meditator with the vipassanāyānika: “‘He develops serenity preceded by insight’: this is said with reference to the vipassanāyānika.”2 (Wr. tr.).
Thus the samathayānika attains in order first access concentration or mundane jhāna and then insight-knowledge, by means of which he reaches the supramundane path containing wisdom under the heading of right view (sammādi((hi) and supramundane jhāna under the heading of right concentration (sammāsamādhi). The vipassanāyānika, in contrast, skips over mundane jhāna and goes directly into insight-contemplation.
When he reaches the end of the progression of insight-knowledge he arrives at the supramundane path which, as in the previous case, brings together wisdom with supramundane jhāna. This jhāna counts as his accomplishment of serenity.
Insight cannot be practiced while absorbed in jhāna, since insight-meditation requires analysis, investigation, and observation, all of which are impossible when the thought faculty is immersed in one-pointed absorption. But after emerging from the jhāna the mind is cleared of the hindrances, and the stillness and clarity that then result conduce to precise, penetrating insight.
The jhānas also enter into the samathayānika’s practice in a second capacity; that is, as objects for scrutinization by insight. The practice of insight consists essentially in the examination of mental and physical phenomena to discover their marks of impermanence (aniccatā), suffering (dukkhatā), and selflessness (anattatā). The jhānas a yogin has attained and emerged from provide him with a readily available and strikingly clear object in which to seek out the three characteristics. After emerging from a jhāna the meditator will proceed to examine the jhānic consciousness, analyzing it into its components, defining them in their precise particularity, and discerning the way they exemplify the three universal marks. This process is called sammasanañā5a,
“comprehension-knowledge,” and the jhāna subjected to such a treatment is termed the sammasitajjhāna, “the comprehended jhāna.”1 Though the basic jhāna and the comprehended jhāna will often be the same, the two do not necessarily coincide. A yogin cannot practice comprehension on a jhāna higher than he is capable of attaining, but a yogin who uses a higher jhāna as his pādakajjhāna can still practice insight-comprehension on lower jhānas he has previously attained and mastered. This admitted difference in nature between the pādaka and sammasitajjhānas leads to discrepant theories about the supramundane concentration of the noble path, as we will see below.2 In the AKguttara Nikāya the Buddha shows how arahatship, “the destruction of the cankers,” is attained by a samathayānika yogin who attains a basic jhāna and after emerging from it makes that same jhāna the object of insight-comprehension:
I say, monks, that the destruction of the cankers occurs in dependence on the first jhāna. With reference to what is this said? Here, monks, a monk enters and abides in the first jhāna… Whatever is contained there belonging to material form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness – he contemplates these phenomena as impermanent, suffering, a disease, a boil, a dart, as misery, affliction, alien, disintegrating, empty, and selfless. He turns his mind away from those phenomena and focusses it on the deathless element… Standing upon that he reaches the destruction of the cankers.3 (Wr. tr.).
1. PP., pp. 706-709. Vism., pp. 521-22.
2. See below pp. 347-51.
3. “Pa:hamaJ p’āhaJ bhikkhave jhānaJ nissāya āsavānaJ khāyaJ vadāmī ti iti kho pan’etaJ vuttaJ, kin c’etaJ pa:icca vuttaJ? Idha bhikkhave bhikkhu vivicc’eva kāmehi… pa:hamaJ jhānaJ upasampajja viharati… So yad eva tattha hoti rūpagataJ vedanāgataJ saññāgataJ saKkhāragataJ viññāLagataJ, te dhamme aniccato dukkhato rogato gaLYato sallato aghato ābadhato parato palokato suññato anattato samanupassati. So tehi dhammehi cittaJ pa:ivapeti, so tehi dhammehi cittaJ pa:ivapetvā amatāya dhātuyā cittaJ upasaJharati… So tattha :hito āsavānaJ khayaJ pāpuLāti.” AN. 4:422-23.
In entering the first jhāna before commencing insight, the meditator makes it his basic or foundational jhāna; in contemplating its factors as impermanent, suffering, and selfless (which comprise all the other terms of contemplation) he makes the first jhāna his object of insight-comprehension. The Buddha repeats the same procedure, with appropriate modifications, for the remaining fine material jhānas and the lower three immaterial jhānas; for the last immaterial jhāna and the attainment of cessation a variant method is used, as these two states due to their subtlety do not come directly into the range of insight-contemplation.
Whereas the sequence of training undertaken by the samathayānika meditator is evident and unproblematic, a difficulty seems to crop up in the case of the vipassanāyānika’s approach. This difficulty lies in accounting for the concentration he uses to provide a basis for insight. Concentration is needed in order to see and know things as they are.
The standard order of practice repeated countless times throughout the canon is moral discipline, concentration, and wisdom, with concentration declared to be the foundation for wisdom. The Buddha calls concentration the supporting condition (upanisā) for “the knowledge and vision of things as they really are,” while “one who lacks right concentration is deprived of the supporting condition for knowledge and vision of things as they are.”1 (Wr. tr.). Finally, in the sequence of the seven purifications through which all yogins must pass, the second purification – purification of mind (cittavisuddhi) – is shown to precede and support the five subsequent purifications that begin with purification of view (di((hivisuddhi).2 Purification of mind is generally defined as access and absorption concentration, and the last five purifications as the wisdom of insight and the path. Since each purification has to be fulfilled in due order before undertaking the next, the same problem surfaces of accounting for the concentration the vipassanāyānika uses to arrive at insight.
The solution to this problem is found in a type of concentration distinct from the access and absorption concentrations pertaining to the vehicle of serenity. This type of mental unification is called “momentary concentration” (kha5ika samādhi). Despite its name, momentary concentration does not signify a single moment of concentration amidst a current of distracted thoughts. Rather, it denotes a dynamic concentration which flows from object to object in the everchanging flux of phenomena, retaining a constant degree of intensity and collectedness sufficient to purify the mind of the hindrances.
Momentary concentration arises in the samathayānika yogin simultaneously with his post-jhānic attainment of insight, but for the vipassanāyānika it develops naturally and spontaneously in the course of his insight practice without his having to fix the mind upon a single exclusive object. Thus the follower of the vehicle of insight does not omit concentration altogether from his training, but develops it in a different manner from the practitioner of serenity. Skipping over the jhānas, he goes directly into contemplation on the five aggregates, and by observing them constantly from moment to moment acquires momentary concentration as an accompaniment of his investigations. This momentary
1. “Sammāsamādhisampannassa upanisā sampannaJ hoti yathābhūtañāLadassanaJ… sammāsamādhi-vipannassa hatūpanisaJ hoti yathābhūtañāLadassanaJ.” AN. 5:4-5.
2. The seven purifications (sattavisuddhi) are discussed in detail in the following section.
concentration fulfills the same function as the basic jhāna of the serenity-vehicle, providing the foundation of mental clarity needed for insight to emerge.
The importance of momentary concentration in the vehicle of insight is testified to both by the classical Theravāda exegetical literature and by modern exponents of the “dry vipassanā” approach. The Visuddhimagga, in its discussion of mindfulness of breathing, states that “at the actual time of insight momentary unification of the mind arises through the penetration of the characteristics (of impermanence, and so on).”1 Its commentary, the Paramatthamañjūsā, defines the phrase “momentary unification of the mind” as concentration lasting only for a moment, stating: “For that too, when it occurs uninterruptedly on its object in a single mode and is not overcome by opposition, fixes the mind immovably, as if in absorption.”2
The same work contains several other references to momentary concentration. Co-mmenting on Buddhaghosa’s remarks that sometimes the path to purification is taught by insight alone, the Mahā )īkā points out that this remark is meant to exclude, not all concentration, but only “that concentration with distinction,” i.e. access and absorption.
It then says: “Taking this stanza [Dhp. v. 277] as the teaching for one whose vehicle is insight does not imply that there is no concentration; for no insight comes about without momentary concentration.”3 A short while later the Mahā )īkā again identifies momentary concentration with the type of concentration appropriate to one whose vehicle is insight:
… supramundane… concentration and insight are impossible without mun-dane concentration and insight to precede them; for without the access and absorption concentration in one whose vehicle is serenity, or without the momentary concentration in one whose vehicle is insight, and without the Gateways to Liberation…, the supramundane can never in either case be reached.4
The commentary to the Majjhima Nikāya, in a passage quoted fully above, states that
“someone contemplates with insight the five aggregates of clinging as impermanent, etc.
without having produced the aforesaid kinds of serenity.”5 Its subcommentary, clarifying this statement, explains: “The qualification ‘without having serenity’ is meant to exclude
1. PP., pp. 311-12. “VipassanākkhaLe lakkhaLapa:ivedhena uppajjati khaLika-cittekaggatā;…” Vism., p. 239.
2. PP., pp. 311-12 Fn. 63. “KhaLikacittekaggatā’ti khaLamatta::hitiko samādhi. So’pi hi ārammaLe niran-taraJ ekākārena pavattamāno pa:ipakkhena anabhibhūto appito viya cittaJ niccalaJ :hapeti.” Vism.T.
1:342.
3. PP., p. 2 Fn. 3. “Matta saddena ca visesanivattiatthena savisesaJ samādhiJ nivatteti. So upacārappanā-bhedo vipassanāyānikassa desanāti katvā na samādhi mattaJ. Na hi khaLikasamādhiJ vinā vipassanā sambhavati.” Vism.T. 1:11.
4. PP., p. 3 Fn. 4. “Nānantariyabhāvena panettha lokiyāpi gahitāva honti lokiyasamatha vipassanāya vinā tadabhāvato. Samathayānikassahi upacārappanābhedaJ samādhiJ, itarassa khaLikasamādhiJ. Ubhaye-sampi vimokkhamukhattayaJ vinā na kadācipi lokuttarādhigamo sambhavati.” Vism.T. 1:15. For the three gateways to liberation, see below pp. 318-19.
5. See above, p. 294.
access concentration, not momentary concentration, for no insight is possible without momentary concentration.”1 (Wr. tr.).
A concise description of the way momentary concentration arises is presented by the Venerable Mahāsī Sayadaw.2 The Sayadaw explains that a meditator begins the develop-ment of insight by attending to the diverse develop-mental and bodily processes that become manifest to him, making the tactile process of the rising and falling of the abdomen his basic object of mindfulness. At first, during the early part of his practice, his mind tends to be distracted by wandering thoughts, but with time his thought-process of noticing becomes well concentrated. When he can notice the objects that appear continuously, undisturbed by hindrances, his practice has arrived at momentary concentration:
While thus practising the exercise of noticing with ‘unhindered mind’, the noticing mind will get more close to and fixed at whichever object is noticed, and the act of noticing will proceed without break. At that time there arises in him, in uninterrupted succession, ‘the concentration of mind lasting for a moment’, directed to each object noticed.3
The Sayadaw holds that this momentary concentration claims the place of purification of mind in the dry insight-worker’s course of development. He states that though it “has only momentary duration, its power of resistance to being overwhelmed by opposition corresponds to that of access concentration.”4
Momentary concentration is thus, in contrast to jhānic concentration, a fluid type of mental collectedness consisting in the uninterrupted continuity of thoughts engaged in noticing the passing succession of objects. Its objects are varied and changing but its force of concentration remains constant. This force fixes the mind on the object as though fixing it in absorption, holding the hindrances at bay and building up the power of mental purification. For this reason momentary concentration can be understood as implicitly included in access concentration in the standard definitions of purification of mind as consisting in access and absorption.