30. Discernment in Concentration

That warning is the message of the discernment aimed solely at calm. This means that training in breath meditation in particular, and right concentration in general, play a role not only in training in the heightened mind, but also in training in heightened discernment.

To appreciate how this is so, we have to look at how the Buddha defines discernment before we look at how the four tetrads of breath meditation fulfill the training in right mindfulness and right concentration. That way, we can notice the activity of discernment inherent in those four tetrads.

The discourse that lists the qualities that make you worthy of the Dhamma defines discernment as follows:

Discernment starts with recognizing the distinctive mark of fabrication: events arising and passing away (AN 3:47). In this way, it establishes the fact of fabrication. But just as mindfulness is not bare awareness of events arising and passing away, neither is discernment. It also has to discern the value of fabrication to see that, although fabrications are useful in constructing the path to the end of suffering, ultimately, when that path has been fully developed, no further fabrications are worth the effort that goes into them.

In other words, discernment has to see that fabrication in all its forms—such as the aggregates and consciousness at the senses—is a type of kamma, something you do, and that beyond the path, it’s not worth doing. After all, desire and passion for the processes of fabrication are based on the value judgment that those processes are worth the effort that goes into them. You won’t be able to subdue desire and passion until you arrive at an opposing and more persuasive value judgment, that fabrications, no matter how good, are simply not worth the effort.

These aspects of discernment’s role—seeing both the fact and value of fabrications—are contained in the remaining words in the definition of discernment: noble, penetrating, and leading to the right ending of stress.

In the Buddha’s vocabulary, noble relates to the noble search for the deathless (MN 26). This means you don’t look at arising and passing away simply to affirm that it’s happening. You’re searching for a way to put an end to it, to arrive at something unfabricated. This is why you need discernment that’s penetrating.

A discourse named Penetrating (AN 6:63) shows what this means. To have penetrating knowledge of something, you have to know:

Applied to fabrication, penetrating knowledge would have to see that:

So instead of simply observing arising and passing away, if you want your knowledge to be penetrating, you have to dig into the causes and results of that arising and passing away, and to see their different potentials. This requires that you take a proactive approach to fabrication. If you simply watch fabrications coming and going, you don’t really know which causes lead to which results. But if you consciously and intentionally manipulate the causes, you can learn for yourself what causes what. This is why the Buddha recommended a more proactive approach to breath meditation, in which you train yourself to engage in different bodily, verbal, and mental fabrications to calm the body and mind and to arrive at your own direct knowledge of causal relationships.

For this program of penetrating discernment to lead to the right ending of stress, you not only have to penetrate the six aspects of fabrication listed in AN 6:63, but you also have to put the noble eightfold path into practice. Again, you learn by doing. The path ends stress by fostering dispassion for its cause, which is craving. So to put an end to stress, discernment has to look at the arising and passing away of fabrications in a way that leads to dispassion for craving.

Keep these points in mind as we review the ways in which the four tetrads of breath meditation foster right mindfulness and right concentration. You’ll see that these tetrads also foster discernment that’s noble, penetrating, and leads to the right ending of stress.