This tendency becomes even more pronounced when “truth” is further qualified as being either an “ultimate” (paramattha) or a merely “conventional” (samutti) truth. Although this two-truth doctrine is central to the thinking of all Buddhist orthodoxies, the terms “ultimate truth” and “conventional truth” do not occur a single time in the Sutta or Vinaya Piṭakas (baskets) of the Pali Canoṇ Yet for most Buddhist schools today—including the Theravāda—enlightenment is understood as gaining direct insight into the nature of some ultimate truth.
