[Buddha-l] Abdhidharma vindicated once again

[Dan Lusthaus]

> Isn't the same "exit" also told in many stories of the Buddha's
> awakening? I.e., he ascended through the four jhanas and then sort of
> "went lateral" into the three watches of the night, culminating in
> knowledge of the uprooting of the asava?

I suppose some, trying to jam as much into the account as possible, have 
thrown the jhanas in as well, but the core story is just the three watches, 
culminating in his realization of pratitya-samutpada, consequently elimating 
the asavas (avidya replaced by vidya). If you want to complicate the 
picture, in the Tevijja-vaccagotta sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya, when Buddha 
denies being omniscient, he offers instead his tevijja (Three vedas, three 
[types of] knowledge), which are knowing his own past lives, the past and 
future lives of others, and how to eliminate the asavas), which, one 
remembers, are the final three iddhis in the list of (usually) six iddhis, 
and the iddhis are, as mentioned previously, sometimes associtated with the 
arupa meditations, so....


 >Is this also to be read in
> terms of the samatha/vipassana tension?

As you wish.

>But then what about the
> uprooting of asava as the culmination of the night? It is a vijjaa or
> "knowledge," however. . .

It's nice to build models, but you have to be careful not to sniff too much 
glue while doing so...

Dan