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

on soteriology, especially meditation. This chapter begins by instigating an exploration of the nature of the dichotomy of samatha-bhāvanā and vipassanā-bhāvanā.

In brief, samatha is an enstatic¹¹ type of meditation, aimed at achieving rarefied states of pure, undistracted consciousness, characterized by increasingly higher levels of mental quietude and one-pointed concentration of mind. It involves advancing through a hierarchically structured series of eight stages of meditative progress, with the first four being called jhānas (states of meditative absorption) of the material realm (so-called because the levels of consciousness achieved in these states equate to those in the realm of deities who manifest form, according to Buddhist cosmology) and the next four being called samāpattis (attainments) of immaterial realm (so-called because the states of mind acquired in them equate with those of the formless deities of Buddhist cosmology). As the meditator moves up through these stages, the states become progressively empty of intellectual, emotional, and sensorial content and more subtle in terms of transic depth. This process culminates in a ninth state, known as the “cessation of cognition and sensation” (saññā-vedayita-nirodha) or, as it was known more succinctly in the commentarial tradition, simply “attainment of cessation” (nirodha-samāpatti).

In the Pāli Nikāyas, one finds several points at which this state of “attainment of cessation” and the path leading up to it are unequivocally declared to be soteriologically supreme. In a discourse from the AN (IV.454), attainment of cessation is defined as diṭṭhadhammanibbāna—nibbāna as it is experienced here and now in the adept’s present life. At another point (MN I.203–204), the four jhānas and four samāpattis, culminating in the attainment of cessation itself, are all described as higher and more excellent than all other spiritual attainments, including the knowledge and vision acquired through insight. MN I.209 says of each jhāna and samāpatti that it is a “superhuman state, a distinction in knowledge and vision worthy of the noble ones, a comfortable abode.” It is also said (MN I.456) that one who achieves the attainment of cessation