THE SEVEN STAGES OF MINDFULNESS (3)

5. PURIFICATION BY KNOWLEDGE AND VISION OF WHAT IS THE PATH AND WHAT IS NOT PATH

In this stage of purification there is no pain any longer. So, meditation is going very well and smooth. The mindfulness is sharp, concentration is deep, effort is neither lay nor tense but it is vigorous, consistent and in balance with concentration. Meditators feel at ease, happy, blissful and peaceful. There arise tranquility and pasture due to insight. The body is light, agile and sometimes lifted up. Meditators see some light pertaining to insight; sometimes they see a light like a lamp, other times a brilliant light and so on. The insight knowledge is keen, sharp and very penetrating; it clearly realizes appearance and disappearance of mental and physical phenomena as they are noticed. There arises strong and firm faith in the Triple Gemes. They have strong desire to urge their friends and relatives to practise this Vipassana meditation.

With these good experiences some meditators may think, "This must be Nibbãna, this is great; I have never experienced this before, now I have attained Nibbãna." They feel delight and are attached to them, So, they do not wish to proceed with their practice; they are content with these good experiences; and actually they experience them half-way to Nibbãna. Therefore, these experience are known as the ten Corruptions of Insight. This stage may be experienced in about four weeks if a meditator practices intensively with strenuous effort.

A meditator, through the instruction by her meditation teacher or someone else, comes to rightly understand that these are corruptions of Insight. When she realizes that delight in them is not the right path and only to notice them is the right path, then can she proceed with her intensive practice. Only then, she overcomes the corruptions and makes progress towards the goal. This is purification by knowledge and vision of what is the path and what is not path (maggãmagga-ñañadassana-visuddhi).


6. PURIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE AND VISION

When the First Path knowledge (sotãpatti-magga ñaña) realizes these Four Noble Truths, knowledge and vision is purified. So this is know as Ñañadassana-visuddhi, Purification of Knowledge and Vision. Immediately after the first path knowledge there arises the first fruition knowledge (sotãpatti-phala-ñaña) and the arises reviewing knowledge (paccavekkhana ñaña).

Thus she has attained all the seven stages of the purification (satta visuddhi) and become a sotapanna. Sota is stream, apanna is enterer; thus the compound word sotapanna is stream-enterer. When she attains the first path knowledge she enters in to the stream of the noble eight-fold path; so is she called stream-enterer (sotapanna) the first noble person (ariya puggala).