Page "Anapanasati" Paragraph 94

The practice tradition suggested by the Treasury itself -- and also by Asaṅga's Grounds of Hearers -- is one in which mindfulness of breathing becomes a basis for inductive reasoning on such topics as the five aggregates ; as a result of such inductive reasoning, the meditator progresses through the Hearer paths of preparation, seeing, and meditation.

It seems at least possible that both Vasubandhu and Asaṅga presented their respective versions of such a method, analogous to but different from modern Theravāda insight meditation, and that Gelukpa scholars were unable to reconstruct it in the absence of a practice tradition because of the great difference between this type of inductive meditative reasoning based on observation and the types of meditative reasoning using consequences ( thal ' gyur, prasaanga ) or syllogisms ( sbyor ba, prayoga ) with which Gelukpas were familiar.

Thus, although Gelukpa scholars give detailed intepretations of the systems of breath meditation set forth in Vasubandu's and Asaṅga's texts, they may not fully account for the higher stages of breath meditation set forth in those texts.

it appears that neither the Gelukpa textbook writers nor modern scholars such as Lati Rinpoche and Gendun Lodro were in a position to conclude that the first moment of the fifth stage of Vasubandhu's system of breath meditation coincides with the attainment of special insight and that, therefore, the first four stages must be a method for cultivating special insight.