The Three Degrees of Provisions

T1606 clarifies the relationship between these two parallel three-part scales, which together sort every practitioner not yet on the path of seeing into one of three degrees of readiness. Faith-dominant conviction concerning the truths is what constitutes the aid toward liberation, while wisdom-dominant forbearance concerning the very same truths — actually examining and investigating them rather than simply trusting them — is what constitutes the aid toward penetrating insight; the two scales run in parallel because faith must mature into direct investigation before the path of seeing itself becomes possible. As for the "aid toward penetrating insight" specifically, its own strong degree omits the very last of the four stages of preparation, the supreme mundane dharma, since that stage is by its own nature a single, non-continuing instant that leads directly and without interruption into the path of seeing itself — it belongs to what comes next, not to this present classification. And T1606 notes one further important qualification: only the mild and moderate degrees of both aids admit the possibility of regression, and even there, what can regress is merely the active manifestation of the quality in the present, never the underlying habitual imprint already laid down — once a wholesome root oriented toward nirvāṇa has genuinely been planted, it is never entirely lost, even if its outward expression should temporarily recede.

T1606 further subdivides the aid toward liberation itself into four progressive kinds, tracing how this aid actually deepens over time. The aid of reliance is the broadest category, comprising every wholesome root — from the very first stirring of a simple wish for what is wholesome, all the way through to the sustained pursuit of liberation itself — that a practitioner leans on as support along the way. The aid of resolute conviction is the wholesome root that arises together with genuine confident understanding of the corresponding teaching, once that teaching has actually been absorbed rather than merely encountered. The aid of delight is the wholesome root that arises together with a sustained, purified joy, as mental attention comes to rest continuously on liberation itself as its object. And the aid of approaching realization is the wholesome root through which one comes, within this very life, to definitely give rise to the aid toward penetrating insight that follows — the point at which liberation, no longer simply relied on, resolved upon, or delighted in from a distance, is actually about to be directly approached.

T1606 likewise subdivides the aid toward penetrating insight into six progressive kinds. The aid of conformity is the mild wholesome root first generated by taking the truths as object. That very same wholesome root, once it has grown into a moderate degree, is the aid of advancement — called this because it represents a genuine increase over the mild degree before it. That same root, having grown further still into a strong degree such that penetration of the truths' own principle is now certain to occur within this very life, is the aid of penetration. Within this same strong stage, one of unfixed lineage who redirects their aspiration toward the most excellent awakening, or a pratyekabuddha seeking self-realized awakening without a teacher, may carry this same root forward into a subsequent life rather than completing it in this one — this is the aid of carrying forward into another life. Where penetration is instead certain to occur within this very life, it is the aid of a single lifetime. And where penetration is certain to occur within this very sitting, without even the need for a subsequent life at all, it is the aid of a single session — the final and most immediate of the six.

T1606 also preserves the treatise's own citation of a verse spoken by the World-Honored One concerning even the mildest of these aids, the mild aid toward liberation: "Whoever possesses, in the mundane world, correct view of a superior grade, though passing through a thousand further births, will never fall into the three evil destinies." Even the very earliest and least advanced stirring of genuine provisions for the path, on this account, is already enough to permanently close off rebirth in the lower realms — a floor beneath which, once this much has been attained, a practitioner can no longer fall.