What I’ve done is gone through the text of the gradual training, breaking it down in terms of core doctrines or ideas that allude to or call for further attention elsewhere in the corpus. This is to help situate the teachings within the gradual training in the overall early Buddhist system, helping to better identify the underlying philosophy and function of the training scheme on its own terms. This allows us to better understand what content in the corpus may or may not be relevant to it, or compatible with it. I’ve followed this with a concluding summary of early Buddhist theory and practice in the spirit of the original thread here.
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He realizes with his own insight this world—with its gods, Māras and Brahmās, this population with its ascetics and brahmins, gods and humans—and he makes it known to others.
This seems to imply waking up to the reality of a world full of various beings, human, non-human, celestial, etc. and teaching this to others. Presumably it would involve at least some kind of description of facets of the world relevant for practice and life. Examples would be teachings on kamma, rebirth, ethics, and the arising/ceasing of ‘the world’ or what makes up the world — such as teachings on aging, sickness, death, transience, etc. This is taken up for explicit discussion in the MN/SN/AN Pāḷi collections fairly often. We see the world defined in terms of the senses, their arising/ceasing, kamma and rebirth explained in more detail in terms of ethics and view and so forth. This also comes up towards the end of the gradual training, when speaking of the divine eye to understand kamma. So there seems to be a realization that is said to be explained, but none is of course found in the Gradual Training itself.
He teaches Dhamma that’s good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end, meaningful and well-phrased. And he reveals a spiritual practice that’s entirely complete and pure.
It continues by saying that there are discourses taught with proper meaning and phrasing, as well as a spiritual practice. Presumably, the Gradual Training is an example of the complete and pure spiritual practice. But here we have not come into contact, again, with other Dhamma discourses which the gradual training assumes. As mentioned above, discourses on existential topics and wholesome practices would match this description and inspire someone to practice. But this is still merely assumed as unspoken background for the training about to be laid down.
A householder hears that teaching, or a householder’s child, or someone reborn in a good family.
This implies that there are converts from the household life directly into Buddhist renunciants. While this is a minor detail, I do think that the first people the Buddha would be interacting with and “converting” would be other ascetic peers — not preaching to random householders. In the traditional account of his teaching career, he first converts the five self-mortifiers and later teaches Brahmanical ascetic practitioners. For a householder to hear the Dhamma and go forth under the Buddha’s teaching would generally imply some kind of pre-existing community with a teaching and training regimen, as opposed to a small more disorganized group of ascetics who have been convinced. Nevertheless, this remains not much more than a fine detail.
Next is a discussion of leaving home and going forth as a mendicant following basic precepts. This is not unique to Buddhism and needs no comment here. After the basic precepts, however, follow more detailed ones:
They eat in one part of the day, abstaining from eating at night and at the wrong time.
This was a later rule in the Buddhist community, documented at MN 65, MN 66, and MN 70. There we see clear cases of how there was already an established Buddhist community of mendicants who were familiar with the path before the Buddha decided to limit the communal rules on eating times. It was no received well by all, and there was a good degree of controversy it seems (the case crops up not just in one discourse, but three!). This part of the gradual training, then, would need to have been expanded upon.
When they see a sight with their eyes, they don’t get caught up in the features and details.
After the section on ethics and contentment follows the section on sense restraint (indriyasaṁvara). Here, the framework of the six-senses and corresponding sense experiences is assumed (eye-sight, … mind-idea). This is, of course, a familiar Buddhist framework, and we find it in discussions of ‘the world’ (as mentioned above) and so forth. Other philosophers presented different models for sense activity involving the breath, speech, work, etc.
If the faculty of sight were left unrestrained, bad unskillful qualities of covetousness and displeasure would become overwhelming.
The idea of ‘unskillful qualities’ is a major one in the teaching found elsewhere in the canon, and covetousness (abhijjhā) and displeasure (domanassa) are two common examples included in e.g. the definition of right mindfulness (sammāsati) and the paths of action (kammapatha). Here, not much elaboration or background is needed to comprehend, but there seem to be kernels of ideas behind what qualities are presumed to be developed and why within particular frameworks that are assumed.
they return from almsround, sit down cross-legged, set their body straight, and establish mindfulness in front of them.
Finishing the more fundamental sections on ethics in terms of the body, speech, and mind, comes the description of more profound mental purification. This starts with a reference to ‘establishing mindfulness’ (satiṁ upaṭṭhapetvā), a well-known resolution of ‘satipaṭṭhāna.’ As has been discussed elsewhere on this thread, there does not seem to be a pre-Buddhist attestation of ‘mindfulness’ in this sense. Moreover, there is really no explanation what it would entail in this context. We are not simply referring to sitting down and being calm — this exercise is said to lead to the jhānas, which are highly exalted states of consciousness. Moreover, there is the following section on the five hindrances.
They give up these five hindrances, corruptions of the heart that weaken wisdom.
In an essential description of the path of practice, this is a great overview. But for actual meditators with real lives and minds, there would of course be more discussion about the process of applying mindfulness and purifying the mind which is absent here. Elsewhere, of course, there is extensive discussion of the kinds of mindfulness meditation, more details about entering and developing jhāna, and the five hindrances. The five hindrances are, as exemplified in this text, a major teaching in Buddhist meditation. But here they are hardly treated in terms of how they may be fed or abandoned, not to mention the positive qualities that are referenced here.
Even in the event that this text is the early core going back mainly to the historical Buddha, we would expect this same figure to have much more to say about the hindrances or mindfulness meditation. Where would these discourses be found? Perhaps they are part of what is alluded to at the beginning — the teachings people hear that are good in the beginning, middle, and end and which go into detail about the spiritual practice. We do have examples of these in the early Buddhist corpus — they are found mainly in the SN and the MN, some in the AN (and corresponding parallels).
They enter and remain in the first absorption
Followed by the practice of applying mindfulness and cleansing the mind of the hindrances is the description of the four jhānas. As these are mainly resultant states, not much is needed to be said about them. There is little deviation from these standard formulas, but there is a good amount of elaboration in terms of prerequesites, details, emphasis, and relationship to other practices discussed in the early corpus which practitioners may expect and find very useful.
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Next comes the description of the higher knowledhes (abhiññā) and understanding (paññā) that come from the jhāna states. The gradual training found in the DN elaborates with examples of knowledges not detailed elsewhere. These, then, show signs of expansion. Considering their complete absence in the rest of the early corpus, we may go as far as to presume that they are later than most of it. Nonetheless, this is not certain and they may very well simply be taken up in this collection for its length and focus on the gradual training.
The first four knowledges — ‘knowledge and division’ (of the relationship between the four-element body and consciousness), ‘mind-made body,’ ‘psychic power,’ and ‘clairaudience’ — require little discussion. The first is interesting in that it references themes which are quite important and picked up in more detail elsewhere. Why this ‘knowledge’ would be important or mentioned here would seem to imply the idea of dependency between viññāṇa and nāmarūpa mentioned in the context of dependent arising (paṭiccasamuppāda) and the process of grasping leading to rebirth and continual embodiment. It may also be mentioned as a way of recognizing the potential of the mind outside the materialistic world-view of the body, which is then demonstrated via the following psychic abilities.
They understand the minds of other beings and individuals, having comprehended them with their own mind.
This knowledge is in fact frequently mentioned in the canon, but in a slightly different context — the four satipaṭṭhānā and mental purification (!). The mind-states listed are examples of what mindfulness of the mind (cittānupassanā) involves, including mindfulness of others’ minds (c.f. MN 10, DN 18). AN 10.51 / AN 10.52 are examples where the same metaphor of checking oneself in the mirror is given, found also here in the description of comprehending minds. A very similar simile is related in a teaching about the five hindrances (e.g. AN 5.193).
The above teachings also go into more detail on samādhi and the unskillful qualities one is to look for and purify — all themes related to above references in the gradual training framework. The concept of these various mind states and the formula containing them is a trope in the early corpus that belongs not just here, but equally elsewhere in the canon — another thread to other discourses.
they project [their mind] and extend it toward recollection of past lives.
The next knowledges are the well-known three knowledges (tevijjā) which are frequently attributed to the Buddha and arahant disciples. There is not much to comment here in terms of the past lives passage.
they project [their mind] and extend it toward knowledge of the death and rebirth of sentient beings. … ‘These dear beings did bad things by way of body, speech, and mind. They spoke ill of the noble ones; they had wrong view; and they acted out of that wrong view.
The passage describing the knowledge of kamma and clairvoyance contains references to ‘the noble ones’ and ‘right view’ as opposed to wrong view. ‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ view have been nowhere mentioned or explained previously, and the ‘noble ones’ implies a pre-existing community or group of people. The passage may be an addition — but it is important to keep in mind that this would be sheer speculation. There appears to be no textual reason why this would not be an authentic part of the original gradual training narrative. We have already identified references to other concepts, frameworks, beliefs, and communities within the teaching. Considering this, it would simply be a case of arbitrary choice to decide that all references that do not fit in with the view that the gradual training is independent and pre-exists other teachings.
Finally, there is the liberating knowledge unique to Buddhist training:
[T]hey project [their mind] and extend it toward knowledge of the ending of defilements. They truly understand: ‘This is suffering’ … ‘This is the origin of suffering’ … ‘This is the cessation of suffering’ … ‘This is the practice that leads to the cessation of suffering’.
They truly understand: ‘These are defilements’ … ‘This is the origin of defilements’ … ‘This is the cessation of defilements’ … ‘This is the practice that leads to the cessation of defilements’
Here the text references what are now called the ‘four noble truths’ and uses the framework of the four noble truths (suffering, arising, ceasing, path) applies also to the ‘defilements’ (āsavā). There is no explanation of what the arising of suffering is, and therefore how one would come to this insight by themself is not explained. Presumably, it would have to be understood in some way prior to reflection on and witnessing the destruction for oneself. Likewise, the defilements are listed here as of ‘sensuality,’ ‘existence,’ and ‘ignorance.’ While the first two could be thought of as rather self-explanatory, there is no explanation of what one is ignorant of. If it is the arising of the defilements or aforementioned truths, these are again not explained.
This teaching and example, again, makes sense as an overarching example and explanation of the Buddhist training, but leaves important pieces undefined and unexplained, or otherwise appears to assume references to ideas that are unpacked in other discourses (themselves referenced at the beginning of the text, presumably).
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Now that I’ve given a bit of analysis of the gradual training text in terms of its references and concepts, it is also a good time to mention what I have brought up in the past: the actual context of this text. The gradual training does not appear in a vacuum. It is, invariably, embedded within a larger early Buddhist discourse. In the first chapter of the Pāḷi DN, these discourses always involve discussions with and/or conversions of non-Buddhist persons. The text is framed as a basic explanation to non-Buddhists, from the background of a pre-existing Buddhist community, what their practice entails. Elsewhere, it occurs or is referenced within the canon just alongside other sections which can equally be justified as being authentic or early.
Therefore, from the perspective of the early Buddhist corpus itself, there is no suggestion that this text was meant to be isolated as a stand-alone, all-encompassing Ur-Text of the entire tradition, upon which all other material is later commenting beyond the lifetime of the historical Buddha. On the contrary, it is consistently embedded and necessarily contextualized as a teaching within a pre-existing Buddhist framework, and it contains references to ideas that are otherwise unclear or explained in more necessary detail for practitioners.
Moreover, there are other sections of the early corpus which have historically stood out as examples of potentially very early material. One such example is the Aṭṭhakavagga, now found in the Sutta Nipāta of the Pāḷi Khuddaka Nikāya. Even when factoring in speculative stratification within this collection, there are references within the text that require further explanation or comment for any practical purpose to be derived which is made sense of in other parts of the early corpus (e.g. MN/SN/AN). When we look at these ideas and practices, they include and go beyond examples of references within the gradual training text. From another perspective, then, we seem to preserve examples of a corpus which is broader than the two texts at hand (gradual training and aṭṭhakavagga) and which contains discussions of ideas well-known within Early Buddhist studies.
Where and what are these texts, and what are the core doctrines or practices they present?
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In the spirit of this thread, I would say that Early Buddhism is a soteriological system that takes the worldview of saṁsāra — perpetual [re]birth and [re]death in various realms of existence — and attempts to be free of the suffering involved in it. This suffering is the ultimately unsatisfactory, bleak nature of a transient and painful reality, in which the gratification that is offered (sensuality, generally) is also fleeting and uncomfortable, and higher refuge in divine spheres comes to an end.
There is the recognition of the driving forces: craving (taṇhā) and intentional actions (kamma). The understanding of kamma as intentional actions is an important innovation, and it forms the foundation of the view and implementation of the training. There is recognition of intention expressed via the body, speech, and the mind. One is to cultivate wholesome actions to conduce to more happiness, peace, ease, good rebirth, and ultimately which are supports for more refined, liberating purification of the mind. These help remove qualities such as covetousness, desire, anger and distress which are larger examples of subtle hindrances for the mind to find pleasant ways of abiding and understand the formation of suffering clearly. Kamma (or often 'saṅkhārā) constructs and shapes our experience into its current state, and it is by understanding how to work with and refine this process of shaping happiness/suffering that we come to approximate the principles behind liberation for a more calm, clear picture.
Beyond the driving force (intention/kamma) which shapes the quality and form of experience, there is the force which upholds and maintains it: craving (taṇhā) or grasping (upādāna). Particularly, this relates to desire-driven grasping of and identification with experiential phenomena, or experience itself, which is the domain and scope of saṁsāra. This subjectivity is understood as unreliable and ultimately undesirable. It is not lasting, and therefore cannot provide satisfaction or ultimate ease, despite the wish inherent in craving for it to do so. The major form of stability is in terms of individuality within an existence; one’s life will cease, involving the loss of all that is dear and loved, illness, pain, and decay. This then continues in other forms of transient existence which are also ultimately unsatisfying and involve pain. Moreover, the particulars within experience involve a range of unstable physical and emotional afflictions, as well as unsatisfactory means of deriving ease such as via sensuality, holding and debating views, or taking up particular modes of life.
In order to work with, ease, and relinquish this grasping at and identification with experience, there are various frameworks and examples given of ways in which beings entangle themselves within their own subjectivity. A major framework is that of the six sense-fields (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind). These are the ‘domains’ of subjectivity, and within them we are presented with the phenomena that entices and repels us, and therefore that which we grasp onto and entangle ourselves with. Some take on more formulated views and fixations in regards to their identification and grasping. These are often more subtle (views are less tangible, and philosophical speculation can provide superficial security that masks the danger therein). Therefore, frameworks which go into detail about what is described or thought of, grasped after, and identified with — they may discuss physicality or form (rūpa), perception (saññā), consciousness/awareness (viññāṇa), etc. These views are broken down in e.g. DN 1, but also in SN 22 and elsewhere, where the framework of the ‘five aggregates’ is highlighted as a simple breakdown of these categories.
However subjective experience is broken down, these frameworks are of course simply conceptual constructs meant to aid in investigation and purification. There are a variety of particular modes in which people may form identifications and speculations about their experience — ultimately a subjective, self-fueled tangle. These are exemplified mainly via the undeclared points or questions. They are speculations about the ‘cosmos,’ ‘soul’ and ‘body,’ and the after-death state of one who has been liberated from saṁsāra. Philosophers of the time had various ideas about these topics. For example, if one is liberated from saṁsāra, some may propose it is that they are annihilated at death, thereby freed from it. Others, however, may say they find a truly eternal state of existence beyond the transience of saṁsāra. Others may speculate about the infinite range of the external cosmos, or the connections between the soul and the body.
The Buddhists proposed that, ultimately, these questions operated under erroneous frameworks which involve inherent misunderstandings, proliferations, or identifications with the subjective experience that is the range of saṁsāra. By understanding the dependency of that experience, and by freeing oneself from any grasping and identification with it, one is thereby not able to be reckoned in terms of it. While experience may operate, one cannot place the liberated one within, without, or between it. Therefore, all speculations regarding space-time, annihilation, eternalism, etc. are not proper. They fall outside of the realtiy of our epistemological predicament into the realm of subtle grasping.
The path to this realization is where these ideas — the frameworks of subjectivity and how to relate to it, the shaping force of kamma, and the sustaining force of taṇhā — all converge. Wholesome, skillful qualities are those that reduce the craving, grasping, and attachment to subjectivity and provide proper perspective in regards to it, which leans towards liberation. This is done, as mentioned before, first via essentials of bodily and verbal conduct. This is the foundation for a stable, peaceful, and thereby clear mind that is not so entangled within its own subjectivity so as to stab itself with ultimately self-harming painful intentions. One is instructed to cultivate a sense of minimalist contentment with one’s possessions and lifestyle, further purifying the mind of coarse desire and aversion. Then is the process of sense restraint, whereby one applies the framework of six-fold subjective sensory experience to cultivate a clear, non-reactive mind. This cultivates further wholesome kamma — leading to a stable foundation of joy and contentment free of unwholesome desire — while also providing clarity into the process of grasping at one’s own experience to perpetuate their reckoning in terms of it. The training in sense restraint is a beginning step in ‘disappearing’ from reckoning and perpetuation in terms of saṁsāra.
Ultimately, this training culminates in a firm foundation in both mental stability and peace paired with the inseparable clarity and understanding. This leads onwards to the step of purifying the mind from more subtle obstacles which prevent the mind from further liberation and weaken understanding of the self-inflicted origins of mental suffering (via the process of craving and grasping saṁsāra, which is undesirable). Therefore, the practitioner establishes a proper awareness at their experience that guards the mind from unwholesome states (the side of kamma) and leans towards clear understanding of and personal liberation from reckoning in terms of one’s experience (the side of craving/ignorance). This is primarily via establishing mindfulness at the experience of the body-mind, calming the involvement with it and liberating the mind via progressively more refined evolution of consciousness. This culminates in right samādhi — a state of pure well-being which is wholesome and provides a glimpse of the principle of letting go, non-attachment, and non-craving; it is free from the hindrances that perpetuate unwholesome attitudes towards one’s experience or world, but has not uprooted them for good.
These unified states — the jhānas — can be further refined so long as the practitioner follows the proper principles and perspectives as outlined above, grounded in the pre-requisite practices. (Here, one can see how it is simply non-sensical and contradictory to think of attaining proper jhāna outside the context of the gradual training and right view). As the cultivator perfects their mental liberation from more coarse forms of feeling tone and mental reactivity, they are said to reach a perfectly balanced state of purified equipoise and mindfulness, endowed with clear view and profound non-reactivity towards their being. This allows them to project the mind powered with these qualities towards refined knowledge of their experience and the workings of the arising of their suffering via grasping, unwholesome habits and intentions, etc. in a way that understands the undesirability of what subjectivity or existence has to offer without having personalized, adverse reactions.
This knowledge, dispassion, and freedom is facilitated via understanding the scope of existence. One can recall their past lives as well as the workings of kamma and rebirth of other beings. Then, they can look deeper into the nature of this process within their own mind, understanding the arising and cessation of it. By seeing the nature of their subjectivity and the undesirability it entails — whether through the senses, aggregates, elements, past lives, peace of non-grasping, etc. — they are able to permanently liberate the mind from this process, and therefore also from any reckoning in terms of it in the present life. That is, it is by penetrating into the principles behind the gradual training up to jhāna in a way that is sufficiently broad and all-encompassing, that the practitioner is able to follow the principle all the way to the extinguishment of greed, hatred, and delusion.
From then on, they cannot be found or defined within, without, or in-between, and hold no views or identifications in regards to the experience they have entirely relinquished.
The overall thread here is the nature and workings of experience. Is escape to be found in an eternal form? Eternal consciousness? How does craving arise? What is fueling the intentionality of our experience? Why is rebirth problematic?
This is of course all described, understood, and realized in terms of conditionality and dependent arising. It is by understanding the nature and arising of sense experience, contact, feeling, craving, intentions/volitions, ignorance, etc. that one is able to work through this and escape from it properly without falling into wrong notions, views, or identification. The particular nature of release and the freedom from alternatives in terms of annihilationism or eternalism must be articulated and experientially justified. These principles of conditionality and conditioned arising, then, are essential for all of the above and every aspect of Buddhist training. And this conditionality includes and encompasses the nature of intention and craving in shaping and propelling existence or rebirth; the forces behind saṁsāra do not cease with the sheer physical elements, nor is there eternal rest in a formless conscious state void of the elements.
Frameworks such as the aggregates — which break apart experience in a useful way for meditators and contemplatives — demonstrate this principle of not finding safety in any kind of theoretical doctrine or mental attachment. There is no safety to be found in form, or feeling, all the way up to awareness itself. Understanding how these unsafe phenomena are ‘piled up’ and afflict one who defines themself in terms of them is synonymous with understanding grasping in general. Particular frameworks address particular issues, but the overall principle and training is laid down in the gradual training from sīla to jhāna to understanding.
The details of working with mindfulness, the hindrances, particular mental states, refined levels of understanding and wisdom, virtue, pre-requisite qualities, etc. are provided in detail throughout the early corpus. Likewise, essential doctrinal details and explanations about kamma, conditionality, views, identification, etc. are provided in this early material. They are necessary for and facilitate the above process of training. There are explanations of how one applies mindfulness to work with their body, feelings, mental development, and the the principles and mind states that arise throughout this process. There are details on working with the hindrances, investigating attachment, questioning views, etc.
This is how I would understand the core of Early Buddhist theory and practice, tying in the frameworks of the gradual training and other early texts or collections on the subject. From this it should be clear that the gradual training is, in my view, a depiction of the core early Buddhist training. And those who overlook it to focus on pounding a tilakkhaṇa-centric worldview into their head would not be approaching Early Buddhism from its own side. As I discussed above, frameworks such as the aggregates or sense-fields are not to be taken as ultimate categories to be observed in minute mind-moments; they are closer to practical depictions of what grasping, accumulating, and relinquishing the experiences in our existence entails. Their purpose is supplementary and functional, not primary and prescriptive.
I fail to understand how the ideas in e.g. DN 1 say anything different or less ‘scholarly.’ There is an overarching thread that is held in common with these teachings. And there is clear signs of actual evolution in various minor discourses and in slightly later material such as the Abhidhammas, Niddesas, Avadānas, etc.