The Practice of Meditation, based on Morality and leading to the Higher Wisdom, is . . . essential to the attainment of Nibbana according to the Buddhist scheme of Salvation. - Buddhaghosa (Burlingame 1921, I: 20)

Q and A

Sriputta asks: "Why live the religious Buddhist life? Do we live the religious Buddhist life for the sake of purity of conduct?"

Punna Mantaniputta answers: "No."

"For the sake of purity of heart [only]?"

"No."

"Of purity of belief?"

"No."

"Of purity of certitude?"

"No."

"Of purity of insight through knowledge of what is the Way and what is not the Way?"

"No."

"Of purity of insight through knowledge of the Path?"

"No."

"For the sake of purity of insight through knowledge?"

"No. They are only the means to an end."

"Why, then, do we live the religious Buddhist life?"

"That we may attain to Great Nirvana."

Comment

The series of questions and answers cover partial sides to good Buddhism, to be fair, and they should lead to the happy end goal of Nirvanahood. "Every little helps," and purity and insights may serve as great helps too.

~ೞ⬯ೞ~

Buddhaghosa and His Visuddhimagga

Buddhaghosa was an Indian Theravadin Buddhist commentator and scholar from the 400s CE. His name means "Voice of the Buddha" in the Pali language. His best-known work is a comprehensive summary and analysis of the Theravada understanding of the Buddha's path to liberation. His interpretations form the orthodox understanding of Theravada scriptures. He is recognized by both Western scholars and Theravadins as the most important commentator of the Theravada.

There is little information about the life of Buddhaghosa. However, short biographical excerpts describe him as having come to Sri Lanka from India and settled in Anuradhapura.

Buddhaghosa was born into a Brahmin family in the kingdom of Magadhi in Northern India, near Bodh Gaya - some say Kanci in southern India - scholars do not agree about his birth-place - and became skilled in the Hindu Vedas. But when he encountered a Buddhist monk named Revata, the impressed Buddhaghosa became a Buddhist monk and undertook the study of the Tipitaka and its commentaries. Buddhaghosa decided to go to Sri Lanka to study a very large volume of commentarial texts that had been assembled and preserved by the monks, and got their permission to synthesise the assembled commentaries into a comprehensive single commentary in Pali.

The elder monks tested his qualifications, and then he summarised the whole Tripitaka so proficiently that the monks provided Buddhaghosa with the full body of their commentaries. Buddhaghosa went on to write commentaries on most of the other major books of the Pali Canon. After he had translated and synthesised a large body of Singhalese commentaries, Buddhaghosa returned to India, we are told.

Scholars currently agree to accept as Buddhaghosa's work only the commentaries on the first four nikayas, which summarises current Buddhist doctrines, and his Visuddhimagga, which translates to "The Path of Purification. It is "a manual condensing and systematizing the 5th century understanding and interpretation of the Buddhist path as maintained by the elders of the Mahavihara Monastery in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka." (Wikipedia, "Visuddhimagga").

The Visuddhimagga is centered around a form of concentration-meditation in which the mind is focused on a (mental) object. and then tries to fit all other meditation methods into the mold of such practice. But "breath meditation does not fit well into the mold," observes Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Buddha describes a form of breath-meditation. (Ib.)

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana notes that the Buddhaghosa's emphasis on concentration-meditation (kasina-meditation) is not to be found in the suttas, where dhyana is always combined with mindfulness. So Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga departs from the Pali Canon, in which dhyana is the central meditative practice. By that, "jhana [meditative absorption] in the commentaries differs from what it means in the Canon itself." (Ib.) That is not as it should be.

The work deals with themes like Purification of Conduct; of Mind; of View; of Overcoming Doubt; by Knowledge and Vision of What Is Path and Not Path; by Knowledge and Vision of the Course of Practice; of contemplation of reflection. "Purification by Knowledge and Vision" is the culmination of the practice, in four stages leading to liberation and Nirvana. The Visuddhimagga further gives explicit details about how spiritual masters were thought to manifest supernormal abilities, such as flying through the air, walking on water and so forth.

Be that as it may, in the 1100s the Sri Lankan monk Sariputta incorporated many of the works of Buddhaghosa into his own interpretations. In time the teachings of his tradition - and thus those of Buddhaghosa - were spread throughout the Theravada countries.

In India, new schools of Buddhist philosophy (such as the Mahayana) were emerging, many of them making use of Sanskrit both as a scriptural language and as a language of philosophical discourse. [Wikipedia, "Buddhaghosa"; Britannica, "Buddhaghosha"]