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Mahayana Buddhism and the Five Practice Paths
In Mahayana Buddhism, the five paths and the ten levels map the journey to liberation and complete enlightenment. These Buddhist paths to liberation describe both the actions we are to take along the journey, and the state of mind we reach at each level.
The earliest Buddhist teachings is the Four Noble Truths. In this teaching from the first turning of the wheel of dharma, the Buddha describes our current situation, the pervasive dissatisfaction of dukkha. But he continues, saying that because dukkha is caused, it can also be ended. What’s more, there is a clear path to follow that will lead to its cessation.
Buddhist paths to liberation include also those of the second and third turnings of the wheel: the six paramitas of the bodhisattva path, the Tibetan practice of lamrim and many others, such as the five paths to omniscience. The five paths comprise a Mahayana Buddhist path, to be undertaken with the motivation of a bodhisattva, the wish to liberate not only ourselves, but everyone.
With bodhicitta as our motivation, we enter the Mahayana path. This journey begins with taking the bodhisattva vow. We then continue along the five paths, generating relative bodhicitta and finally, the ultimate bodhicitta of enlightenment.
The Five Paths And The Ten Levels
The five paths were taught by the Bodhisattva Maitreya. We can read about them in a commentary on the Prajñaparamita Sutras, the Abhisamayalamkara. The five paths (and the ten levels, or bhumis, included therein) describe the states of mind we experience as we continue with our practice.
As we progress along the five paths and ten levels, we move from a state of confusion to one of wisdom. This may also be described as moving from a non-meditative, mindless, unaware or un-enlightened state to one of enlightenment. A potentially abstract term, enlightenment can be understood as living meditative absorption. We live in the world, but in a state of uninterrupted mindfulness, awareness, compassion and wisdom.
Along the way to enlightenment, we pass through numerous stages. The five paths to liberation and enlightenment offer one way of understanding these stages.
The Path of Accumulation
The Path of Accumulation is about building the skills of attentive listening, contemplation and meditation. With mindfulness and awareness meditation, we steady the mind and develop insight. Our initial focus is on the four foundations of mindfulness, and the development of bodhicitta, in particular aspiration. This motivation, reinforced by the bodhisattva vow, is what hones our motivation from the desire for our own freedom to working for the benefit of others.
With bodhicitta as our motivation, this path is focused on the accumulation of merit. Merit can be accomplished through both aspiration and ultimate bodhicitta. Merit engenders the circumstance of precious human life, so we can continue to practice throughout countless lifetimes. It is merit that makes progression to the subsequent Path of Preparation possible in this very lifetime.
The Path of Preparation
We have arrived on the path of Path of Preparation once our meditation practice has led us to a cognitive understanding of emptiness, or wisdom. While we continue to accumulate merit on this path, we are also accumulating wisdom, unclouding our minds to see things as they.
Although various schools of Buddhism explain the details differently, on this path the warmth and energy of our meditation practice begins to remove both the emotional and cognitive obscurations that keep us from seeing things as they truly are.
Sometimes referred to as the Path of Joining or Unification, the meditation practices of mindfulness and awareness join together here. We are now much closer to awakening than in the previous Path of Accumulation.
The Path of Seeing
As mental obscurations are abandoned, what was previously a conceptual understanding of emptiness, becomes a non-conceptual, felt, direct experience. When this occurs, we have entered the Path of Seeing. We ‘see’ reality as it is.
We have now achieved the first bhumi, the first of the ten levels. Known as Supreme Joy, our happiness is now unconditional. We are liberated from dependency on circumstance. It is at this level we are considered as a ‘noble one,’ a true bodhisattva who has accomplished the first bhumi. However, this is not yet complete Buddhahood. There are more skillful means to develop and more activities to perfect, so the bodhisattva continues along the path.
The Path of Meditation
Also known as the Path of Familiarization, our continued meditation practice helps us become even more familiar with what has been seen in the previous stage of the Path of Seeing. Here, we continue to cultivate the paramitas and the two bodhicittas, removing more and more subtle mental and emotional veils, and attain the remaining nine bhumis.
Upon reaching the tenth bhumi, we become free of even the subtlest energies that keep us from understanding and living with right view. The noble eightfold path is no longer a practice, but has become a way of being. There is nothing left for us to learn.
The Path of No More Learning
Those seeking enlightenment enter the Path of No More Learning. Having completely purified ourselves of all mental obscurations, training is no longer necessary. We have reached the end of practice – full and complete Buddhahood.
On the Path of No More Learning, the meditator has entered a non-dual state of full integration. At this level, the faintest remaining separation between the relative and absolute, meditative and non-meditative states, has gone.
This is complete enlightenment. Here, the bodhisattva has reached the eleventh bhumi, Universal Radiance. Nothing remains to be purified, fixed or realized. We fulfill our bodhisattva aspirations by simply being ourselves, radiating the wisdom and goodness within, for the benefit of all sentient beings.
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