Vimuttimagga

• Front
  • Prefaces
    • Electronic edition note
    • Dedication quote
    • Editorial data
    • Dedication
    • Prefatory Note to Original Draft Translation
    • Acknowledgments (Original Draft Translation)
    • Preface
  • In Memoriam: Soma Mahā Thera (1898—1960)
  • Introduction
    • Tipiṭaka Sanghapāla Thera of Funan
    • The Visuddhimagga
    • The Vimuttimagga and the Visuddhimagga
  • Bibliography
    • Abbreviations
• I. Introductory discourse
  • Salutation
  • Introductory stanza
  • Path of freedom described
  • Merits of acknowledgement of the path
  • Three trainings
  • The meaning of training
  • Removal of impurities
  • The three kinds of good
  • The three kinds of happiness
  • Perfection of the middle way
• II. On distinguishing virtue
  • Virtue defined
  • Salient characteristic of virtue
  • Function, manifestation and near cause of virtue
  • Benefits of virtue
  • Meaning of virtue
  • Virtue and mode of life
  • Thee kinds of virtue
  • What produces virtue
  • Stages in virtue
  • Impediments and causes of virtue
  • Groups of virtue (various)
    • First group of two in virtue
    • Second group of two in virtue
    • Third group of two in virtue
    • Fourth group of two in virtue
    • Fifth group of two in virtue
    • Sixth group of two in virtue
    • Seventh group of two in virtue
    • Eighth group of two in virtue
    • Ninth group of two in virtue
    • Tenth group of two in virtue
    • First group of three in virtue
    • Second group of three in virtue
    • Third group of three in virtue
    • Fourth group of three in virtue
    • Fifth group of three in virtue
    • Sixth group of three in virtue
    • Seventh group of three in virtue
    • Eighth group of three in virtue
    • First group of four in virtue
    • Second group of four in virtue
    • Third group of four in virtue
    • Fourth group of four in virtue
    • Fifth group of four in virtue
    • Fifth group of four in virtue summarized
  • What purifies virtue
  • Causes through which one dwells in virtue
• III. On austerities
  • The thirteen austerities
  • Brief explanation of the thirteen austerities
  • ‘Dirt-rags’
  • ‘Three robes’
  • ‘Begged food’
  • ‘Regular alms-round’
  • ‘One-eating’
  • ‘Measured food’
  • ‘No food after time’
  • ‘Dwelling in a peaceful place’
  • ‘Dwelling under a tree’
  • ‘Dwelling in a dewy place’
  • ‘Dwelling among the graves’
  • ‘Any chanced upon place’
  • ‘Always sitting and not lying down’
  • Expedience in the observance of the austerities
  • Miscellaneous teachings
• IV. On distinguishing concentration
  • Meaning of concentration
  • Salient characteristic etc.
  • Benefits produced by concentration
  • Obstacles to concentration
  • Causes of concentration
  • Requisites of concentration
  • Kinds of concentration (Various)
    • Two kinds of concentration
    • Three kinds of concentration
    • Four kinds of concentration
    • Five kinds of concentration
  • Miscellaneous teachings
    • Why four and five meditations are taught
• V. On approaching a good friend
  • Qualities of a good friend
  • The search for a good friend
  • A beginner’s duties
• VI. The distinguishing of behaviour
  • Kinds of behaviour
  • Fourteen kinds of persons
  • Fourteen kinds reduced to seven
  • Modes of practice
  • Seven reduced to three
  • Causes of behaviour
  • Elements as causes of behaviour
  • The humours as causes of behaviour
  • Seven aspects of behaviour
  • On robbing, begging, sitting, sleeping and resort
  • Miscellaneous teachings
• VII. The distinguishing of the subjects of meditation
  • Thirty-eight subjects of meditation
  • Method of discovering the qualities
  • By way of meditation
  • By way of transcending
  • By way of increasing
  • By way of cause
  • By way of object
  • By way of speciality
  • By way of plane
  • By way of seizing
  • By way of person
• VIII. Entrance into the subject of meditation
  • Section One
    • Earth kasiṇa, its practice, salient characteristic, function and near cause
    • Benefits
    • Meaning of kasiṇa
    • Kinds of earth
    • Non-prepared earth
    • On making a mandala
    • Method of earth kasiṇa meditation
    • Tribulations of sense-desires illustrated in twenty similes
    • Renunciation and its benefits
    • Method of practice of earth kasiṇa
    • Three ways of sign-taking
    • Grasping sign
    • The after-image
    • The sign
    • Protecting the sign
    • Access-meditation
    • Fixed meditation, jhāna
    • Increasing of the kasiṇa
    • Skilfulness in fixed meditation, jhāna
    • Ten ways
    • Simile of the horse-chariot
    • Simile of the inked-string
    • The first meditation, jhāna
    • Three kinds of separation from lust and demeritorious states
    • Two kinds of lust
    • Roots of demerit
    • Reasons for treating lust and demerit separately
    • Separation from demeritorious states
    • Difference between lust and demerit
    • Initial and sustained application of thought
    • Initial application and sustained application of thought discriminated
    • Similes of the bell etc.
    • Similes of the bird etc.
    • Solitude
    • Joy and bliss
    • Five kinds of joy
    • Bliss
    • Five kinds of bliss
    • Differences between joy and bliss
    • First meditation (jhāna)
    • Five hindrances
    • Five factors
    • Similes of chariot and army
    • Three kinds of goodness
    • Ten characteristics
    • Twenty-five benefits
    • Simile of the bath-attendant
    • Three kinds of rebirth
    • Meditation which partakes of deterioration, stability, distinction and penetration
  • Section Two
    • The simile of the young cow
    • Entrance into the second meditation, jhāna
    • Simile of the pool of water
    • The third meditation, jhāna
    • Simile of the calf
    • Simile of the lotus pond
    • The fourth meditation, jhāna
    • Simile of the white cloth
    • The sphere of the infinity of space
    • The concentration of the sphere of infinite consciousness
    • The sphere of nothingness
    • The sphere of neither perception nor non-perception
    • Miscellaneous teachings
    • The water kasiṇa
    • The fire kasiṇa
    • The air kasiṇa
    • The blue-green kasiṇa
    • The yellow kasiṇa
    • The red kasiṇa
    • The white kasiṇa
    • The light kasiṇa
  • Section Three
    • The (separated) space kasiṇa
    • The consciousness kasiṇa
    • Miscellaneous teachings
    • The ten perceptions of putrescence
      • (1) The perception of bloatedness
      • (2) The perception of discolouration
      • (3) The perception of festering
      • (4) The perception of the fissured
      • (5) The perception of the gnawed
      • (6) The perception of the dismembered
      • (7) The perception of the cut and the dismembered
      • (8) The perception of the blood-stained
      • (9) The perception of worminess
      • (10) The perception of the bony
      • Miscellaneous teachings
      • The recollection of the Buddha
      • The recollection of the law
      • The recollection of the community of bhikkhus
      • The recollection of virtue
      • The recollection of liberality
      • The recollection of deities
  • Section Four
    • Mindfulness of respiration
    • Benefits
    • Procedure
    • Counting, connection, contacting and fixing
    • Sixteen ways of training in mindfulness of respiration
    • The three trainings
    • The four foundations of mindfulness
    • The seven enlightenment factors
    • Mindfulness of death
    • Similes of the foam, plantain trunk and bubble
    • Mindfulness of body
    • Thirty-two parts of the body
    • Mindfulness in thirteen ways
    • The worms that rely on the body
    • Bones of the body
    • Impurity of the body
    • Some diseases
    • The recollection of peace
    • Miscellaneous teachings
  • Section Five
    • The immeasurable thought of loving-kindness
    • Disadvantages of anger and resentment
    • Simile of the saw
    • Twelve means of removing hatred
    • Simile of the pond
    • Ten perfections
    • The four resolves
    • The immeasurable thought of compassion
    • The immeasurable thought of appreciative joy
    • The immeasurable thought of equanimity
    • Miscellaneous teachings
    • The determining of the four elements
    • Twenty ways of grasping the element of earth
    • Twelve ways of grasping the element of water
    • Four ways of grasping the element of fire
    • Six ways of grasping the element of air
    • The four elements
    • Simile of the puppet
    • The loathsomeness of food
    • The dwelling of the homeless
• IX. The five forms of higher knowledge
  • Three kinds of supernormal power
  • Seven kinds of supernormal power
  • Procedure of developing supernormal power
  • Supernormal power of resolve
  • Supernormal power of transformation
  • Supernormal power caused by mind
  • Miscellaneous teachings
  • Divine hearing
  • Knowledge of others’ thoughts
  • Recollection of past lives
  • Divine sight
  • Miscellaneous teachings
• X. On distinguishing wisdom
  • Wisdom defined
  • Benefits of wisdom
  • Meaning of wisdom
  • Two kinds of wisdom
  • Groups of wisdom (various)
    • First group of three in wisdom
    • Second group of three in wisdom
    • Third group of three in wisdom
    • First group of four in wisdom
    • Second group of four in wisdom
    • Third group of four in wisdom
    • Fourth group of four in wisdom
    • Fifth group of four in wisdom
    • Sixth group of four in wisdom
    • Seventh group of four in wisdom
    • Eighth group of four in wisdom
    • Ninth group of four in wisdom
    • Tenth group of four in wisdom
    • Eleventh group of four in wisdom
• XI. The five methods
  • Section One
    • The aggregate of form
    • Four primaries defined
    • Derived material qualities
    • Sense-organ of eye
    • Sense-organ of ear
    • Sense-organ of nose
    • Sense-organ of tongue
    • Sense-organ of body
    • Difference between the four primaries and derived matter
    • Simile of the three sticks
    • Material qualities by way of arising
    • Material qualities by way of group
    • Material qualities by way of birth
    • Material qualities by way of diversity,—groups of two in material qualities
    • Groups of three in material qualities
    • Four kinds of material qualities
    • Material qualities by way of unity
    • Aggregate of feeling
    • Aggregate of perception
    • Aggregate of formations
    • Thirty-one similes
    • Aggregate of consciousness
    • Through sense-organ-object
    • Through object
    • Through states
    • Through word meaning
    • Through characteristic
    • Through discrimination
    • Through comprehension
    • Twelve sense-organs and sense-objects
    • Through word meaning
    • Through limits
    • Through condition
    • Simile of the thread
    • Simile of the mango
    • Element method
    • Conditioned arising method
      • (a) Direct order
      • (b) Reverse order
    • Ignorance
    • Formations
    • Simile of the seeds
    • Simile of the sun
    • Simile of the two bundles of reeds
    • Simile of the seed, shoot and plant
    • What conditions ignorance
    • Simile of the colours of a painter
    • Conditioned arising to be known in seven ways
    • First three links
    • Death of the ignorant craving evil-doer
    • Action, action-sign, destiny, destiny-sign
    • Four group division
    • Twenty modes
    • Direct and reverse order
    • Mundane and supramundane conditioned arising
    • Four kinds of conditioned arising
    • Through comprehension
  • Section Two
    • The four noble truths
    • Truth of ill
    • Five groups of clinging
    • Two kinds of ill
    • Three kinds of ill
    • Truth of the origin of ill
    • Truth of the cessation of ill
    • Truth of the path leading to cessation of ill
    • Through word meaning
    • Through characteristics
    • Through series
    • In brief
    • Similes of the poisonous tree, the ship, the burden
    • Through discrimination
    • Through enumeration
    • Through sameness
    • Through difference
    • Through one kind etc.
    • Through inclusion
• XII. On discerning truth
  • Section One
    • Aggregates, elements, sense-spheres
    • Similes of the three hundred halberds and of the burning head
    • Procedure
    • Differences between name and form
    • Summary of the truth of ill
    • Cause and condition of ill
    • The purity of transcending uncertainty
    • Truth of cessation
    • Truth of the path
    • One hundred and eighty ways of knowing the five clinging aggregates
    • Impermanence, ill, not-self
    • The signless, the unhankered, and the void
    • The knowledge of the rise and fall
    • Defilement-grasp
    • Concentration-grasp
    • Insight-grasp
    • Two ways of grasping of thought-characteristics
    • Characteristics of rise and fall in three ways
    • Acquiring the highest knowledge
    • Simile of the bird surrounded by fire
    • Four states
    • Non-effort in the arising of the formations
    • Reviewing of breaking up
    • Breaking up through three ways
      • (a) Through assemblage
      • (b) Through duality
      • (c) Through understanding
    • Similes of drum-sound, town of gods, lightning
  • Section Two
    • Fear knowledge
    • Similes of the man with the sword, poisonous snake, and heap of fire
    • Knowledge of the desire for release
    • Adaptive knowledge
    • Knowledge of adoption
    • Similes of the boat, lamp, and sun
    • Simile of the burning city
    • Three fetters
    • Once-returner
    • Non-returner
    • Saintship
    • Three kinds of stream-entrant
    • Five kinds of non-returner
    • Simile of the fiery sparks
    • Miscellaneous teachings
    • Serenity and insight
    • Initial application of thought and bare insight
    • Joy
    • Feeling
    • Plane
    • Faculties
    • The three emancipations
    • Emancipation and the entrance into it
    • One hundred and thirty-four defilements
    • Three immoral roots
    • The three kinds of seeking
    • The four corruptions
    • The four knots
    • The four floods
    • The four yokes
    • The four clingings
    • The four wrong courses of action
    • The five kinds of meanness
    • The five hindrances
    • The six roots of contention
    • The seven latencies
    • The eight worldly conditions
    • The nine conceits
    • The ten defilements
    • The ten courses of unskilful actions
    • The ten fetters
    • The ten errors
    • The twelve reversals
    • The twelve arisings of unskilful thought
    • The two enjoyments
    • Enjoyment of the fruit
    • A second point of view
    • A third point of view
    • The signless concentration of mind
    • The enjoyment of the dissolution of perception and sensation
• Contemplation in the Dhamma