Can One Attain Nirvāṇa and Liberation Through Cultivating the Four Dhyānas and Eight Meditative Absorptions?

Nirvāṇa is the realm realized by arhats who have attained liberation of mind (cetovimutti) and liberation by wisdom (paññāvimutti). It is not only related to meditative concentration (samādhi); it is chiefly related to the wisdom of liberation. Even if one cultivates the first dhyāna, the second dhyāna, the third dhyāna, or the fourth dhyāna, one still cannot attain liberation and remains in the cycle of birth and death. Because the root of birth and death—the self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi)—has not been eliminated, the afflictions related to self have not been eliminated either; one remains bound by afflictions, the mind is not liberated, and nirvāṇa has not been realized.

Liberation of mind is the realm of a Small Vehicle practitioner of the third fruit (Anāgāmin): such a person not only possesses meditative concentration at the level of the first dhyāna or above, but has also eliminated self-view, eliminated the afflictions of greed and resentment as well as the three fetters—this is realizing nirvāṇa with remainder (sopadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa). If one further eliminates the conceit of self and the grasping at self, and completely exhausts craving for the three realms, thereby obtaining the wisdom of liberation, one can then enter nirvāṇa without remainder (anupadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa).

Therefore it is said that meditative concentration alone cannot eliminate afflictions; it can only suppress them. The mind is not liberated, and wisdom is not liberated either. Liberation of mind is the liberated realm obtained through wisdom plus meditative concentration, by eliminating afflictions; liberation by wisdom is likewise the liberated realm obtained through the wisdom of liberation plus meditative concentration, by eliminating all afflictions.