Four hundred and fourteen discards of the path of meditation

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Four hundred and fourteen discards of the path of meditation — according to the Higher Abhidharma tradition of Asanga, which is found in his Compendium of Abhidharma, for the Great Vehicle there are four hundred and fourteen discards to be relinquished on the path of meditation in order to reach complete buddhahood. The discards of the path of meditation are mistaken engagements with objects.

Here we consider the three realms, namely the desire realm, the form realm and the formless realms:

  • There are six discards for the desire realm. To explain further:
    • From among the six root destructive emotions, doubt has been eliminated on the path of seeing (since it is only imputed ignorance), and so there are four left which are not views (i.e. ignorance, desire, anger and pride).
    • The sixth root destructive emotion of wrong view is divided into five. From among these five wrong views, the three views which are imputed ignorance—wrong views, belief in ideological supremacy and belief in ethical and ritual supremacy—are already removed on the path of seeing. So the innate aspects of two wrong views are remaining—the view of the transitory collection and the extremist views. Thus there are six discards for the desire realm.
  • Since anger is not present in the two higher realms, there are only five discards for each of them.
  • Each of the nine levels of the three realms are divided into nine levels of discards, which makes eighty-one in total (similarly as the eighty-one discards in the Basic Vehicle).
  • Thus, 5 discards multiplied by 81 makes 405.
  • If we then add the nine discards of anger in the desire realm, the total is 414.

This presentation is from the point of view of the subject.

Regarding the way in which the discards are relinquished:

  • on the second bhumi one removes the greater of the greater discards of each of the nine levels of the three realms,
  • on the third one removes the middling of the greater discards of each of the nine levels, and so on.