Abstract

This chapter addresses several Buddhist path models. It explains the interdependent nature of different types of path-related training and conditioning and the experiences and realizations they aim at bringing about. In particular, it explores the negative process of deconstruction of conceptual thinking, designed for achieving realization of ultimate reality. It argues that although realization of reality is similar to other mystical experiences in certain ways, what makes it unique is that it consists of negations, not affirmations. It also introduces a distinction between the “practical” level, which pertains to realization of reality and deconstructive contemplative processes leading to it, and the “descriptive” level, which pertains to the articulation of that realization, its “objects,” and its triggering processes. It argues that while the two levels are interrelated, different ways of describing realizations of reality and deconstructive processes leading to them do not necessarily indicate differences in those realizations and processes.