Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge c14.25

c14.25

(726) In outlining the causes and conditions for the emergence or non-emergence of this (kind of) knowledge it is said: 'When one dwells with one's mind obsessed with and given to passion and one does not truly know and see the elimination of the passion that has arisen, it is a cause of one's failure to know and see . . . (likewise) ill-will, sloth and torpor, excitement and perplexity, and doubt (are causes of one's failure to know and see).¹ On the other hand, the cultivation of the seven factors of enlightenment (sattabojjhanga) is said to be a cause and condition for the arising of knowledge and insight.² (727) The five factors outlined above as what causes the lack of knowledge and insight are in fact the same as what is commonly known in the Pāli Nikāyas as 'the five impediments' (pañcanīvaraṇa-, D. I.73). According to the Buddhist theory, the elimination of these five factors is said to clear the way for the development of the jhānas or the meditative states of the mind: 'When these five impediments are eliminated he looks within himself and gladness arises in him and with gladness, joy; with his mind overjoyed his mind becomes at ease and with his body at ease he experiences happiness, being happy his mind becomes concentrated.'³ Then follows a description of the first up to the fourth jhānas.⁴ It is at this stage, on the attainment of the fourth jhāna 'when the mind is concentrated, pure, cleansed, free from blemishes, purged of adventitious defilements, supple, pliant, steady and unperturbed' (evaṃ samāhite citte parisuddhe pariyodāte anaṅgaṇe vigatūpakkilese mudubhūte kammaniye thite ānejjappatte, D. I.76) that he is said to 'turn and direct his mind to knowing and seeing' (ñāṇa-dassanāya cittaṃ abhinīharati abhininnāmeti, *loc. cit.*). The mind in this state is said to observe introspectively but directly one's consciousness associated with the body.⁵ In this same state he turns and directs his mind to 'psycho-kinetic activity' (iddhi-vidhāya, D I.77), to 'clair-audience' (dibbāya sotadhātuyā, D. I.79), to 'telepathic knowledge' (cetopariyañāṇāya, D. I 79), to the 'retrocognitive knowledge of past existences' (pubbenivāsānussatiñāṇāya, D. I.81), to the 'knowledge of the decease and survival of beings' (sattānaṃ cutūpapātañāṇāya, D. I.82), to the ‘knowledge of the destruction of defiling impulses’ (āsavakkhayañāṇāya, D. I.83). These six came to be known as the ‘six (kinds of) higher knowledge’ (chaḷabhiññā, *v. infra*, 752) in the Pāli Nikāyas but since the first is a case of ‘knowing how’ and not of ‘knowing that’¹ it came to be dissociated from the rest and these latter were known as the ‘five (kinds of) higher knowledge’ (pañcābhiññā, *v. infra*, 752).