wisdom in leading to the end of suffering. Doubt regarding the past, future, and both applies to past lives, future lives, and both. And doubt regarding causally determined states is perplexity over the twelvefold formulation of dependent arising.1
It is evident from these definitions and descriptions that the species of doubt classed as a hindrance is skeptical indecision with respect to the fundamental tenets of Buddhist doctrine and practice. The doubt to be abandoned is not the freedom of philosophical inquiry, which the Buddha openly encouraged in those who sought to gain personal conviction of truth, but stubborn disbelief and perplexity regarding the principles needed for higher development. As long as such doubt persists, the mind is too obscured by confusion to embark on the path leading to higher attainments. As the Visuddhimagga says, doubt has the function of wavering, the manifestation of indecisiveness, and it acts as an obstruction to practice.2
obsessions. Hence the Visuddhimagga mentions bodily and mental seclusion as pre-conditions for entering the jhāna, the former applying particularly to sense stimuli.
the latter to the hindrances.
The third type of seclusion pertinent to the context, seclusion by suppression, belongs to a different scheme generally discussed under the heading of “abandonment” (pahāna) rather than “seclusion.” The basis for this classificatory set is a passage in the canonical exegetical work, the Pa:isambhidāmagga, recording five kinds of abandoning:
“abandoning by suppression, by substitution of opposites, by cutting off, by tranquil-ization, and by deliverance.”1 (Wr. tr.).
The Pa:isambhidāmagga explains them as follows:
For one developing the first jhāna, the hindrances are abandoned by way of suppression. For one developing concentration partaking of penetration, wrong views are abandoned by way of substitution of opposites. For one developing the supramundane path that leads to their destruction, (defilements) are abandoned by way of cutting off. At the moment of fruition they are abandoned by way of tranquillization. And abandoning by deliverance is nibbāna, cessation.2 (Wr. tr.).
These five types of abandonment are elucidated more fully in the commentaries.
1. The Visuddhimagga says that “abandoning by suppression” occurs whenever “any of the mundane kinds of concentration suppresses opposing states such as the hindrances,”3 as illustrated by the pressing down of water-weed by placing a porous pot on weedfilled water. Though the canonical text mentions only the first jhāna as an example, Buddhaghosa remarks that this is mentioned because suppression is obvious then, but suppression also occurs before and after the jhāna, when the hindrances do not invade consciousness by reason of the force of concentration.4
2. The “abandoning by substitution of opposites” is defined as
the abandoning of any given state that ought to be abandoned through the means of a particular factor of knowledge, which as a constituent of insight is opposed to it, like the abandoning of darkness at night through the means of light.5
1. “Pañca pahānāni: vikkhambhanappahānaJ, tadaKgappahānaJ, samucchedappahānaJ, pa:ippassaddhi-ppahānaJ, nissaraLappahanaJ.” Pa(isambhidamaggapāli [Pāli Text in Burmese script], (Rangoon, Burma: Buddhasāsana Samiti, 1962), p. 26 (hereafter cited as Pts.).
2. “Vikkhambhanappahānā ca nīvaraLānaJ pa:hamaJ jhānaJ bhāvayato, tadaKgappahānā ca di::higatānaJ nibbedhabhāgiyaJ samādhi bhāvayato, samucchedappahānañ ca lokuttaraJ khayagāmimaggaJ bhāvayato, pa:ippassaddhippahānañca phalakkhaLe, nissaranappahānañca nirodho nibbānaJ.” Ibid., pp. 26-27.
3. PP., p. 812. “Tena tena lokiyasamādhinā nīvaraLādīnaJ paccanikadhammānaJ vikkhambhanaJ, idaJ vitkkhambhanappahānaJ nāma.” Vism., p. 596.
4. PP., p. 812. Vism., p. 596.
5. PP., p. 813. Vism., pp. 596-97.
This type of abandoning, in other words, represents a form of factor-substitution in which the arising of a particular species of insight-knowledge cancels out and vanquishes a corresponding kind of error. The Visuddhimagga cites as examples the abandoning of the perceptions of permanence, pleasure, and self through the contemplations of impermanence, suffering, and non-self, the principal forms of insight-knowledge.1 Its commentary adds that insight is not the only type of abandoning by substitution of opposites, since the latter can also occur in other ways such as through the purification of morality, which replaces unwholesome states with wholesome ones.2 3. “Abandoning by cutting off” is a name for “the abandoning of the states beginning with the fetters by the noble path knowledge in such a way that they never occur again, like a tree struck by a thunderbolt.”3 This mode of abandoning comes about when the supramundane wisdom of the noble path consciousness eradicates the seeds or latencies of the defilements severing the possibility of their re-occurrence.
4. “‘Abandoning by tranquillization’ is the tranquillizing or subsiding of the defilements at the moments of ‘fruition’ following the noble path consciousness”4 (Wr. tr.). It marks the release consequent upon the destruction of defilements effected by the path.
5. “‘Abandoning by deliverance’ is nibbāna, in which all that is conditioned is abandoned by deliverance from all that is conditioned.”5 (Wr. tr.).
Thus when the Visuddhimagga says that the achievement of the first jhāna is contingent on seclusion by suppression, we must understand this to mean that it requires the abandonment of the hindrances by way of the abandoning by suppression.
The Plane of Abandonment
The abandoning of the five hindrances is a necessary condition for the attainment of the first jhāna. The abandoning of the hindrances does not by itself necessarily indicate that the first jhāna has been achieved, but in order for the jhāna to be achieved the hindrances have to be abandoned. The type of abandoning relevant to the attainment of jhāna is abandoning by suppression. The suppression of the hindrances prepares the mind for entrance upon the jhāna by creating a situation conducive to its actualization.
The jhāna and suppression can thus be understood to exist in a relationship where the
1. Ibid.
2. Dhammapāla, [Visuddhimagga Mahā Tīkā] Paramatthamañjūsā Nāma Visuddhimagga Mahā(īkā. [Pāli Text in Burmese script]. 2 vols. (Rangoon, Burma: Buddhasāsana Samiti, 1960), 2:208-209 (hereafter cited as Vism.T.).
3. PP., p. 816. “YaJ pana, asanivicakkhābhihatassa rukkhassa viya ariyamaggañāLena saJyojanādīnaJ dhammānaJ yathā na puna pavattanti evaJ pahānaJ, idaJ samucchedappahānaJ nāma.” Vism., p. 598.
4. “YaJ pana phalakkhaLe pa:ippassaddhattaJ kilesānaJ etaJ pa:ippassaddhippahānaJ nāma.”
Buddhaghosa, [Majjhima Nikāya A((hakathā (Papañcasūdanī)], [Vol. 1-2] Mūlapa55āsa((hakathā; [vol. 3:]
Majjhimapa55āsa((hakathā; [vol. 4:] Uparipa55āsa((hakathā. [Pāli Text in Burmese script]. 4 vols.
(Rangoon, Burma: Buddhasāsana Samiti, 1957), 1:24-25 (hereafter cited as MN.A.).
5. “YaJ sabbasaKkhatanissa:attā pahīnā sabbasankhataJ nibbānaJ etaJ nissaraLapahānaJ nāma.”
Ibid., 25.
arising of the jhāna is dependent on the prior suppression of the hindrances, and the persistence of the hindrances is obstructive to the attainment of the jhāna.
The work of suppressing the hindrances begins with the first efforts to focus the mind in concentration upon one of the prescribed objects for the development of jhāna, such as the kasi5as. As the meditator fixes his mind on the initial object, a point is reached where he can apprehend the object as clearly with his eyes closed as with them open.
This visualized object is called the “learning sign” (uggahanimitta).1 As he concentrates on the learning sign, his efforts call into play certain mental factors intermittently present in normal consciousness but which now grow in force, duration, and prominence as a result of the meditative exertion. These mental factors activated by the preliminary work of concentration are applied thought (vitakka), sustained thought (vicāra), rapture (pīti), happiness (sukha), and one-pointedness (ekaggatā). When they reach full maturity they will become the jhāna-factors, but in the preliminary stage of concentration they represent the jhāna only in embryonic form. These factors are incompatible with the hindrances and function as their precise antidotes. Thence their repeated cultivation excludes the hindrances, attenuates them, and holds them at bay. As the Visuddhimagga explains:
The hindrances are the contrary opposites of the jhāna factors: what is meant is that the jhāna factors are incompatible with them, eliminate them, abolish them. And it is said accordingly in the Pe:aka: ‘Concentration is incompatible with lust, happiness with ill will, applied thought with stiffness and torpor, bliss with agitation and worry, and sustained thought with uncertainty’.2
With continued practice the “learning sign” gives rise to a purified luminous reproduction of itself called the “counterpart sign” (pa(ibhāga nimitta).3 The manifestation of the counterpart sign marks the complete suppression of the hindrances and the attainment of a degree of concentration known as “access concentration”
(upacārasamādhi): “But as soon as it (counterpart sign) arises the hindrances are quite suppressed, the defilements subside, and the mind becomes concentrated in access concentration.”4
All three events – the suppression of the hindrances, the arising of the counterpart sign, and the entrance upon access concentration – take place at precisely the same moment, without interval. And though previously the process of mental cultivation may have required the elimination of different hindrances at different times, when access is achieved they all subside together:
1. PP., p. 130. Vism., p. 101-102.
2. PP., p. 147. “NīvaranāLi hi jhānaKgapaccanikāni; tesaJ jhānaKgāneva pa:ipakkhāni viddhaKsakāni vighātakāni ti vuttaJ hoti. Tathā hi, ‘samādhi kāmacchandassa pa:ipakkho, pīti byāpādassa, vitakko thīnamiddhassa, sukhaJ uddhaccakukkuccassa, vicāro vicikicchāyā’ti [ ] Pe:ake vuttaJ.” Vism., p. 114.
3. PP., p. 130. Vism., p. 102.
4. PP., p. 131. “Uppannakālato ca pan’assa pa::hāya nīvaraLāni vikkhambhitāni eva honti, kilesā sannisinnā vā, upacārasamādhinā cittaJ samāhitaJ evā ti.” Vism., p. 102.
Simultaneously with his acquiring the counterpart sign his lust is abandoned by suppression owing to his giving no attention externally to sense desires (as object). And owing to his abandoning of approval, ill will is abandoned too, as pus is with the abandoning of blood. Likewise stiffness and torpor is abandoned through exertion of energy, agitation and worry is abandoned through devotion to peaceful things that cause no remorse; and uncertainty about the Master who teaches the way, about the way, and about the fruit of the way, is abandoned through the actual experience of the distinction attained. So the five hindrances are abandoned.1
The term “access concentration” does not appear as such in the four main nikāyas of the Suttapi:aka, but only in the commentaries. However, a state intermediate between normal consciousness and full concentration, in which the hindrances are overcome, is clearly implied by a number of passages. Thus in the Sāmaññaphala Sutta it is said:
But when these five hindrances have been put away within him, he looks upon himself as freed from debt, rid of disease, out of jail, a free man, and secure.
And gladness springs up within him on his realising that, and joy arises to him thus gladdened, and so rejoicing all his frame becomes at ease, and being thus at ease he is filled with a sense of peace and in that peace his heart is stayed.2 The state where the hindrances are abandoned but the mind has not yet become fully concentrated in the first jhāna seems to be the canonical paradigm for access concentration. Though the mental factors determinative of the jhāna are present in access concentration, they do not as yet possess sufficient strength to give this state the full qualification of the first jhāna. They are strong enough only to exclude the hindrances and hold them at bay. This preliminary state, as we said, is a necessary prelude to the attainment of jhāna, but does not itself possess a powerful enough degree of mental unification to actually place the mind in full absorption. With continued practice, however, the nascent jhāna factors will grow in strength until they gain sufficient force to issue in the first jhāna.
1. PP., p. 196. “Tassa pa:ibhāganimittapa:ilābhasamakālaJ eva, bahiddhā kāmānaJ amanasikārā vikkhambhanavasena kāmacchando pahīyati; anunayappahānen’eva’assa lohitappahānena pubbo viya byāpādo pi pahīyati; tathā āraddhaviriyatāya thīnamiddhaJ avippa:isārakarasantadhammānuyogavasena uddhaccakukkuccaJ, adhigatavisesassa paccakkhatāya pa:ipattidesake Satthari pa:ipattiyaJ pa:ipattiphale ca vicikicchā’ti pañca nivaraLāni pahīyanti.” Vism., p. 155.
2. T. W. Rhys Davids and C. A. F. Rhys Davids, trans. Dialogues of the Buddha (Dīgha Nikāya). [Vol. 1:
translated by T. W. Rhys Davids; vols. 2-3: translated by T. W. Rhys Davids and C. A. F. Rhys Davids.
(Sacred Books of the Buddhists, vols. 2-4]. 3 vols. 1889-1921; reprint, London: Luzac & Co., 1956-77), 1;84 (hereafter cited as Dial.). “Seyyathā pi mahā rāja ānanyaJ yathā ārogyaJ yathā bandhanā mokkhaJ yathā bhujissaJ yathā khemanta bhūmiJ, evaJ eva kho mahā-rāja bhikkhu ime pañca nīvaraLe pahīne attani samanupassati.
Tassa ime pañca nīvaraLe pahīne attani samanupassato pāmujjaJ jāyati, pamuditassa pīti jāyati, pīti-manassa kāyo passambhati, passaddha kāyo sukhaJ vedeti, sukhino cittaJ samādhiyati.” DN. 1:72.
Thus, beginning from the ordinary distracted condition of the untrained mind, a yogin begins developing concentration. This initial practice arouses certain mental factors which counter the hindrances and unify the mind upon its object. The complete suppression of the hindrances marks the achievement of access concentration. The attainment of jhāna then lies close at hand. When, through further application, these factors can unify the mind to the degree of immersion in its object, the jhāna is actually attained.