La Vallée Poussin Musīla and Nārada. The Path - Gampo Abbey

Musıla and N›rada. The Path of Nirv›˚a: by Louis de La Vallée Poussin
The latter, which is purely intuitive, engages the object-referent independent of its name, and is
the only effective one. It envisions the truths with a discrimination sharpened by
concentration. 18
2. For the Sarv›stiv›dins, who continue a long tradition, the ‘concentration’ par excellence is
meditation (dhy›na), especially the fourth meditation. 19
After the failure [to attain nirv›˚a] through his attempts at ‘pure yoga’ in the school of the
teachers who taught the third and the fourth formless equipoise, ⁄›kyamuni decided to practice
the meditations (dhy›na): “This is the path of enlightenment” (eso va maggo bodh›ya). (By means
of the mundane path of detachment), he ascended to the fourth meditation, and, while abiding
there, he acquired the three ‘clear knowledges’ (vidy›) and, excellently, the third, the cognition
of the destruction of fluxes (›sravak˝aya) by means of the vision of the truths. 20
The ‘easy route’ (sukh› pratipad) is the four meditations (dhy›na) because insight (vipaŸyan›) and
calm abiding (Ÿamatha) are balanced there. 21
The first three formless equipoises are the ‘difficult route’ (du¯kh› pratipad) because the power of
insight is weak and calm abiding is strong there.
The fourth formless equipoise is excluded: in it one cannot ‘envision the truths’ because
the power of insight is almost zero and calm abiding is very developed in it. 22
3. Nevertheless, according to the Sarv›stiv›dins, the actual meditation, the ‘fundamental’
(maula) meditation, is not indispensable. Before each meditation, each equipoise (sam›patti),
there is a preliminary stage called ‘preliminary concentration’ or ‘threshold’ (s›mantaka). In the
‘preliminary concentration’ of the first meditation (called ‘preparatory meditation’ [an›gamya]),
the practitioners are able to produce a pure mind, envision the truths, achieve arhathood. 23
18 KoŸa, vi, 143. – Cultivation (bh›van›) is a mystical state. It presupposes virtues of moral and monastic
order, good discriminating customs (‘the two withdrawals’ (vyapakar˝a), ‘the four stocks’), but it is obtained
only by practices, almost physiological, of disgust (‘contemplation of the corpse, etc.’) and by the
hypnotic [?] methods (‘mastering of breathing’). – The KoŸa attempts, moreover, to intellectualize these
processes, vi, 145-150.
19 Harivarman, chap. 158 (on the four ‘cultivations of concentration’ [sam›dhibh›van›], KoŸa, viii, 192;
Dıgha, III, 222): “According to certain masters, only the fourth meditation is effective: this opinion is not
justified”.
20 Majjhima, I, 246. – It is not a matter here of the path of cultivation.
21 KoŸa, vi, 279.
22 Contradiction between Aºguttara, IV, 422 and 426; KoŸa, vi, 236.
23 KoŸa, viii, 178-180; vi, 228, 235. – However, the ‘preparatory meditation’ (an›gamya), like the intermediate
meditation (dhy›n›ntara), is the ‘difficult route’ because calm abiding is weak in it.
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