path of Application, Insight, Meditation and No more Learning

Path of application:

In the four levels of this path. one trains in the first levels of this path, known as "heat" and "climax". One also get trained in the five faculties, enabling one to generate liberative virtues: faith, diligence, awareness, contemplation and wisdom. The last two levels one trains in the five powers in whch antidotes are more powerful and the defilements are weaker than in the case of the four faculties as above.

Path of insight:

In this path one train in the seven branches of the path of enlightenment and these are the training in and support of wisdom free form conceptualizations, the realization of suchness, and the ultimate nature of the four noble truths. By realizing the path of insight one attains the first of the ten stages.

The seven branches of the path of enlightenment are:

Awareness; unforgetfulness of the insight realization.

Discrimination; wisdom which destroys the characteristics of the concept of self.

Diligence; joyfulness in the efforts which apply to the realization.

Joy; joyfulness in contemplation and realization of the truth.

Pliancy; physical and mental maturation of bliss without emotions.

Contemplation; contemplating one pointedly on the state free form emotions.

Equanimity; remaining in the nature free from emotions.

These are meditations on and for developing the realization which is or leads to the freedom from suffering, detachment from the source of suffering, dwelling in the cessation.

Path of meditation:

In this path once trains of the "eightfold noble path". In this context, the eightfold noble path is for progressing and perfecting the realization which one has attained in the path of insight. It consists of contemplation on the ultimate nature.

Path of no more learning:

After completion of the four paths and ten stages and the abandoning of the two obscurations, the emotional and intellectual obscurations with their traces, one attains the fifth path Buddha hood, which possesses the two bodies and five wisdoms.

There are numerous paths detailed in the Buddhist canon, and it would take years and even lifetimes to study each and every one of them. The reason there are so many path is because different methods appeal to different people, who are influenced by their own habitual ways of thinking and the goals they wish to achieve through practice. However, no matter what path we study, we will find one thing to be true in every case. The purpose of giving teachings on the path is to provide us with the means of attaining the skills and experience we need to reach liberation. So we must first understand exactly what the "path" is before embarking on to practice when put into this context.