Identity and Experience_Hamilton_1996

The Viiiiiiinakkhandha 99
levels of meditation, culminating in the attainment of insight. Both normal
samsiiric existence and the various meditative levels correspond to
cosmological levels, in which one can be reborn as well as experiencing
them in meditation. This can be summed up by saying that the metaphor of
the spiritual path underlies Buddhist cosmology.92 At every stage of one's
progress along the path to liberation one's experience, which is one's
'consciousness of' one's life, is conditioned by one's level of ignorance. That
ignorance is characterised by volitions of various kinds and degrees, which
are summarised in Buddhist teachings by the expression 'greed, hatred
and delusion', and it is a pan-Indian phenomenon to state that the
consciousness of an ignorant person is 'defiled', 'veiled', 'tainted3, and so
on. As progress along the path is made, ignorance is reduced and one's
experience is characterised by increasing insight. Decreasing ignorance is
therefore accompanied by (or leads to) the experience of subtle and
formless levels of meditation and/or rebirth. At every one of these levels
viZEiina provides awareness and a sense of continuity. As the individual
progresses, the consciousness provided by viiifiina becomes qualitatively
different: it is increasingly less conditioned (or 'restricted') by 'normal'
samsiiric ignorance. The four formless levels (the ariipajhiinas), for example,
are described as 'the plane of infinite space' (&iinar"icqatana), 'the plane of
infinite consciousness' (vin"n"iinaiic@atana),'the plane of nothingness'
(iiIn'Ecafn"@atana) and 'the plane of neither apperception (or conception) nor
non-apperception' (ne~asaiiiiiincZran"n"123)atana).~~ Though from a perspective of
'normal' awareness we cannot know precisely what is meant by these
descriptions of the arzipajhiinas, it is clear that they represent experience
which is quite different from that of samsiiric existence which is in the
cosmological level known as the kimadhiitu.'Infinite space' and 'infinite
consciousness' might mean the intensification of awareness as one
withdraws from the limiting objectivity of samsaric perception, or one might
describe it as the 'expansion3 of awareness which accompanies the breaking
of the boundaries of sa~iiricognition; 'the plane of nothingness (no-thingness)'
and 'the plane of neither apperception nor non-apperception' are
likely to refer to levels at which one ceases to 'make manifold3. Whatever
their meaning, at all of these levels vin"iiii~ continues to provide
consciousness of: the individual continues to be aware. Even the practice of
saiiiiiivedayitanirodha, which one can attain subsequent to experiencing the
fourth ariipajhgna, and which involves the suspension of all conceptual
activity as we know it does not mean a cessation of consciousness as such.'* In
describing the goal of the path as insight into how things really are
lyathibhiltam), the Buddha indicated that consciousness functions at the final
level: we have already seen above that one has to know what one knows
(paEn"ii is accompanied by vififiina). This is the case even though the final
insight transcends any familiar cognitive experience. Because vin"iiZna
provides awareness at all these levels, it is viiiiiiy that can be described as