Anupubbasikkhā

anupubbasikkhā (Pali). "Gradual training." In the Pali tradition, the discipline of practicing the dharma in a progressive manner, which leads by stages to progress on the path.

The Udana states:

Just as the ocean has a gradual shelf, a gradual slope, a gradual inclination, with a sudden drop-off only after a long stretch, in the same way this discipline of Dhamma (dhamma-vinaya) has a gradual training (anupubbasikkhā), a gradual performance (anupubbakiriyā) , a gradual progression (anupubbapatipadā), with a penetration to gnosis only after a long stretch.

— Udana, 5.5

Explanation

Bhikkhu Sujato states:

The Gradual Training sets out the steps taken by a Buddhist renunciate on their path. It begins with the arising of a Buddha in the world. Hearing the Buddha’s teaching, a person reflects on how best it can be applied to their own life. Realizing that “the household life is cramped and dirty, but the life of one gone forth is wide open”, they give up their worldly possessions and attachments, don the ochre robe of a Buddhist mendicant, and undertake a life of morality, simplicity, and meditation. Proceeding step by step to ever more advanced practices, they eventually enter into deep meditative absorption (jhāna) before realizing the four noble truths and finding true freedom.

The Gradual Training is an expansion of the threefold training (tisso sikkhā): ethics (sīla), meditative immersion (samādhi), and wisdom (paññā). At AN 3.89 the three trainings are defined:

• ethics (in a monastic context) requires keeping the monastic rules;
• meditative immersion is the four absorptions;
• wisdom is the understanding of the four noble truths.

This teaching is distributed widely throughout the early Buddhist texts. In the Dīgha, for example, it’s found in the Mahāparinibbānasutta as a standard teaching repeated by the Buddha at many of the stops on his journey. A series of shorter discourses on this subject may be found in the Samaṇa Vagga of the Aṅguttara (AN 3.81–91).

See also

• Four Noble Truths
• Threefold Training

Sources

• Bhikkhu Bodhi, ed. (2008), The Discourse on the Fruits of Recluseship: The Sámaññaphala Sutta and its Commentaries, translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi, Buddhist Publication Society 
• Bhikkhu Sujato, ed. (2024), Long Discourses, translated by Bhikkhu Sujato, SuttaCentral 

External links

• Anupubbikathā, Wikipedia
• "The Factors of the Gradual Training As Found in Various Suttas" table by Leigh Brasington