Early Indian and Theravada Buddhism: Soteriological Controversy a ...

concentrated attention given to all acts and observations seems to be similar to how the tradition describes nibbāna. What is nibbāna if not pure equanimity and mindfulness? What is missing from the equation? However, it must be acknowledged that most soteriological texts from the Nikāyas do say that one who has attained the fourth jhāna must go on to have some liberating form of insight, such as knowledge of the four noble truths. This comes across as rather odd, given that one is liberated not just by knowing them but by practicing the fourth truth of the noble eightfold path, which culminates, after all, in right mindfulness and right concentration, two characteristics of the fourth jhāna.

On the subject of the noble path, Vetter¹⁴ and Wayman¹⁵ have argued that the path as sequentially listed in the Nikāyas is at odds with the commentaries’ sequence of the “three trainings” (ti-sikkhā). Whereas the commentarial formula has ethics (sīla) first, meditation (samādhi) second, and wisdom (paññā) third, the path in the suttas lists the components of wisdom first, ethics second, and meditation third. Each author maintained that anything termed a “path” is likely to have been understood as a process of one step leading to the next. Vetter pointed out that there is textual evidence to bear this out. For example, there is AN X.XI.13, which reads as follows:

In one who swayed by knowledge and has good sense, right understanding springs up. Right understanding gives rise to right intention, right intention to right speech. Right speech to right action, right action to right livelihood, right livelihood to right effort, right effort to right mindfulness, right mindfulness to right concentration, right concentration to right knowledge, and that to right liberation.

AN X.XII.9 is quite similar, reading, “From right view proceeds right intention…from right mindfulness proceeds right concentration, from right concentration, right knowledge, and from right knowledge, right liberation.” These two passages seem to belong to those texts that advocate a samatha-based path, in that they see knowledge and release spring