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

Mentioned earlier, a major reason for the apparent tension between supporters of these two approaches should be expanded upon here. It appears that they not only disagreed about what qualifies as the best means of overcoming suffering, but they also differed in their views of what the root cause of this suffering was. This difference is brought out in a passage from the Anguttara Nikāya, which says that the noble person who is liberated of mind is freed from craving as a result of the cultivation of samatha. The noble person who is liberated by insight is freed from ignorance through the cultivation of vipassanā. That the early Theravāda tradition thought explicitly in these terms, and that cultivation of tranquility led to one kind of liberation whereas the cultivation of insight led to another, is seen at AN I.61:

What is the result, o monks, of the cultivation of tranquility? The mind is developed. What is the result of a developed mind? Craving [rāga] is abandoned. What is the result, o monks, of the cultivation of insight? Wisdom [paññā] is developed. What is the result of the development of wisdom? Ignorance [avijjā] is abandoned. A mind defiled by craving is not liberated; nor can insight defiled by ignorance be cultivated. Indeed, o monks, this cessation of craving is the liberation of mind [cetovimutti], this cessation of ignorance is liberation by insight [paññāvimutti].

So the practitioners of samatha, agreeing with Buddhism’s second noble truth, have tended to see the basic human problem as addictive desire—the craving after and clinging to the things of the world. Consequently, the most effective method for overcoming such passionate attachment is to practice those meditative techniques designed particularly to gradually withdraw the mind and senses from all external, physical stimuli, as well as from all internal, mental stimuli. By contrast, the practitioners of insight meditation, agreeing with the Buddhist formula of dependent arising, have tended to identify the source of suffering as ignorance—the inaccurate understanding of the way things really are. They have held that repeated efforts to internalize the categories of Buddhist thought by way of practicing analytic meditation results in the