Meditative absorption on the four truths

• Importance of generating the motivation for liberation or full awakening
• Meditating on four truths and sixteen aspects of four truths
• Four types of practitioners who don’t follow the supermundane path in a given life
• Overview of twenty sangha
• Sravaka path and bodhisattva path
• Fruits of stream enterer, once returner, nonreturner and arhat
• 9 levels, 3 grades and 3 sub-divisions of afflictions
• Seven mental contemplations of supermundane path
• Conceit of I and meditating on subtle impermanence
• Four levels of path of preparation
• Four types of sravakas
• Alternating analytical and stabilizing meditation on emptiness
• Rebirth in five pure abodes in form realm
• Alternating unpolluted and polluted meditation fourth dhyana
• Bodhisattvas’ dhyanas cultivated to attain excellent qualities of concentration and dhyanas cultivated to accomplish the welfare of sentient beings

67 Meditative Absorptions on the Four Truths (download)

Contemplation points

1. As a Buddhist practitioner, why is it so important to hold a clear aspiration to attain liberation or buddhahood when developing serenity?
2. To attain liberation, it is not necessary to gain all the meditative absorptions of the form and formless realm. What level of serenity does Tsongkhapa say must be attained? What must that level be conjoined with to attain liberation? On the other hand, why do buddhas have to attain all the meditative absorptions?
3. Contemplate: Followers of all three vehicles realize the same selflessness – the emptiness of inherent existence of all persons and phenomena. They are distinguished in terms of the method side of the path. Unpack this. What does this mean?
4. What are the two ways that the eighty-one grades of afflictions can be abandoned?
5. Using the text as a guide, walk through how sravakas progressively develop the seven mental contemplations in relation to the four truths as laid out by Asanga in Sravaka Grounds, spending time meditating on each stage and how each naturally progresses to the next
6. Using the text as a guide, go through the four different ways that sravakas can get to arhatship: simultaneous eliminators, leapers, gradual attainers, and gradual eliminators. Contemplate each and how it leads to liberation.
7. Why is it important to learn all the different ways that people can practice and all the different sequences they can follow on the path and still come to the point of attaining nirvana?