Passaddhi


Passaddhi is a Pali noun that has been translated as "calmness", "tranquillity", "repose" and "serenity." The associated verb is passambhati.
In Buddhism, passaddhi refers to tranquillity of the body, speech, thoughts and consciousness on the path to enlightenment. As part of cultivated mental factors, passaddhi is preceded by rapture and precedes concentration.
Passaddhi is identified as a wholesome factor in the following canonical contexts:
In various Buddhist canonical schema, the calming of the body, speech and various mental factors is associated with gladness, rapture, and pleasure and leads to the concentration needed for release from suffering.

Meditative calming

Calming bodily and mental formations is the culmination of each of the first two tetrads of meditation instructions in the Pali Canon's famed Anapanasati Sutta:

''Sati, pāmojja, pīti, passaddhi, sukho''

A number of discourses identify the concurrent arising of the following wholesome mental states with the development of mindfulness and the onset of the first jhana:
By establishing mindfulness, one overcomes the Five Hindrances, gives rise to gladness, rapture, pleasure and tranquillizes the body ; such bodily tranquillity leads to higher states of concentration as indicated in this Pali-recorded discourse ascribed to the Buddha:
Alternately, with right effort and sense-restraint, paññā is fully realized, and the jhana-factors arise:

Enlightenment factor

Passaddhi is the fifth of seven factors of enlightenment that lead to deliverance from suffering. Among the factors of enlightenment, serenity is preceded by rapture and leads to concentration as further described by the Buddha in the Anapanasati Sutta:

Jhanic attainment

In describing one's progressive steps through the absorptions, the Buddha identifies six sequential "calmings" :
  1. With the first jhana, speech is calmed.
  2. With the second jhana, applied and sustained thought is calmed.
  3. With the third jhana, rapture is calmed.
  4. With the fourth jhana, in-and-out breathing is calmed.
  5. With the cessation of perception and feeling, perception and feeling are calmed.
  6. With the ending of mental fermentations, lust, hatred and delusion are calmed.

    Arahantship condition

Passaddhi is a "supporting condition" for the "destruction of the cankers", that is, the achievement of Arahantship. More specifically, in describing a set of supporting conditions that move one from samsaric suffering to destruction of the cankers, the Buddha describes the following progression of conditions:
  1. suffering
  2. faith
  3. joy
  4. rapture
  5. tranquillity
  6. happiness
  7. concentration
  8. knowledge and vision of things as they are
  9. disenchantment with worldly life
  10. dispassion
  11. freedom, release, emancipation, deliverance
  12. knowledge of destruction of the cankers
In the Pali literature, this sequence that enables one to transcend worldly suffering is referred to as the "transcendental dependent arising".

Abhidhammic wholesome state

In the Abhidhamma Pitaka's Dhammasangani, the first chapter identifies 56 states of material-world consciousness that are wholesome, including "lightness of sense and thought," upon which the text elaborates:

Post-canonical Pali texts

Passaddhi is referenced in the Visuddhimagga and other Pali commentarial texts.

Tranquillity's nutriments

In the Visuddhimagga, the enlightenment factors are discussed in the context of skills for developing absorption. In particular, the Visuddhimagga recommends that in order to develop the skill of "restrain the mind on an occasion when it should be restrained", one should develop tranquillity, concentration and equanimity. Towards this end, the Visuddhimagga identifies seven things from which bodily and mental tranquillity arise:
  1. "using superior food"
  2. "living in a good climate"
  3. "maintaining a pleasant posture"
  4. "keeping to the middle"
  5. "avoidance of violent persons"
  6. "cultivation of persons tranquil in body"
  7. "resoluteness upon that ."