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
path outside of the seven bases or resources. Therefore one is able to engender true cognition by
relying on the concentration of the desire realm. 35
b. Question. – This person [= the perfected being in the Susıma] attains the path of perfected
being (arhat) by relying on the preliminary stage (s›mantakabhÒmi) of the first meditation, not by
relying on the concentration of the desire realm.
Answer. – No, because by saying: ‘outside of the seven bases or resources’, one excludes the
first meditation with its preliminary stage.
Furthermore, there is no reason to rely on the preliminary stage and not on the concentration of
the desire realm. If these practitioners are able to enter into the preliminary stage, why would
they not enter into the first meditation? There is no reason for that.
Furthermore, the SusımasÒtra says: “First comes the ‘cognition of the stability of the factors’
(dharmasthitijñ›na), afterwards the ‘cognition of Nibb›na’ (nirv›˚e jñ›na)”, 36 which means that it
is not necessary first to attain the concentration of meditation in order to then reach the
‘destruction of the fluxes’ (›sravak˝aya): only the prior ‘cognition of the stability of the factors’ is
needed to arrive at the ‘destruction of the fluxes’. Therefore we know that the concentration of
meditation is put aside [as unnecessary]. The SusımasÒtra was spoken in order to put it
aside… No sÒtra names the ‘preliminary stage’. Therefore it is your own imagination…
c. Question. – We have [previously] given the comparison of one wedge driving out another.
By means of the path of one stage the fetters of another stage are cut off. Just as a small wedge
drives out a big wedge, just so the path of the form realm (rÒpadh›tu) cuts off the desire realm
(k›madh›tu). The practitioners, when they have first cut off the desire realm and the bad factors
(dharma), are then able to enter into the first meditation: whence the necessity of a preliminary
stage by means of which the desire realm is cut off.
Furthermore, it is said: “Because of the form realm, one leaves the desire realm”: if there were
no preliminary stage, how [would one leave the desire realm] because of the form realm?
Furthermore, the sÒtra says that the practitioners, by attaining pure complacency are able to
abandon impure complacency: as Nanda, out of love for the goddesses, abandoned his natural
desire.
Furthermore, if one does not taste the calm of the first meditation, how could one the five sense
objects (k›ma) as being ‘coarse-perverted’?
35 The Sarv›stiv›da is far from denying that there is a ‘concentration’ of the desire realm. On the contrary, it
teaches that concentration (sam›dhi), i.e., the one-pointedness on the object of the mind, which makes the
mind rest on an object in an uninterrupted stream, is necessary in every mind-state (KoŸa, ii, 156). But this
ordinary concentration (sam›dhi) is not effective for discrimination.
36 Below, F 207.
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