Vimokkha

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Vimokkha (Pāli), vimokṣa (Skt., ‘liberation’, ‘deliverance’). A term occurring in early Buddhism in connection with two classificatory lists. First: the Eight Liberations or Stages of Liberation. These form a slight variant on the eight jhānas as a system of classifying stages of attainment in developing concentration meditation (samādhi).

Second: the Three Doors to Deliverance (vimokkha-mukha). When a person resolves to attain nirvāna, he cannot make nirvāna itself a subject of meditation, for it is ‘inconceivable’, not an object of thought. He therefore makes his way towards nirvāna by making impermanence (anicca), suffering (dukkha), and noself (anatman), respectively, his subjects of meditation.