Introduction

This essay on the Buddha’s strategies for gaining liberating insight falls into four parts. The first part calls into question an old interpretation of the Buddha as strategist: the theory, first fully formulated in the Commentary many centuries after the Buddha, that the Buddha taught two levels of truth, ultimate and conventional. The last three parts offer an alternative interpretation that seems more in line with the portrait of the Buddha as meditator and teacher as presented in the oldest extant record of his teachings: the Pali suttas, or discourses. The first part is by far the most technical section of the essay. Because of that, and because its purpose is simply to clear the ground for the remaining parts, if you are unfamiliar with the two-truth theory, you may want to skip it entirely and go straight to part 2. Then, if you are interested, you may return to part 1 at a later time. But if you’re already familiar with the two-truth theory, I ask that you put up with the technicalities so that you can read the remaining parts with fresh eyes.