Asian Traditions of Meditation

by Halvor Eifring

  Forty Meditation Objects

  In some ways this attempt to ascertain what features within early Buddhism could be said to characterize a meditation object, a “place of work,” has been inconclusive, but the variety of objects, and the way they are matched together, in life and meditation, seem key. Simplicity and the attribute described as “beauty” are primary in practices intended to calm the mind, apparently performing essential roles in effecting unification and an ecstatic calm that nonetheless retains alertness and wisdom. Purification through joy and happiness are central to this process. At the higher stages of meditation, joy and happiness are transcended, though not rejected, as the mind is said to develop skill; they return however, in the sense-sphere, in lower jhānas, and in the process of attaining awakening. Joy (pīti) is a factor of awakening; happiness (sukha) is always described as an important concomitant at each stage of practice, including the path and the attainment of nibbāna. So these factors are also central features in the complexity and complicatedness of other meditations associated with contact with the world and the activities of daily life, and the commentaries constantly cite them as benefits as well. These meditations seem to fulfill a number of functions in calming the mind, but also in allowing appropriate responses to develop to objects that shock the mind—such as death or loathsomeness—by ensuring that peacefulness and cheerfulness become habitual in the underlying tenor of one’s mental state. There is also throughout the texts a sense of a graduated, taught path. Perhaps as is the case with the Jain objects (Johannes Bronkhorst) and yoga techniques (Edwin F. Bryant) discussed in this volume, meditations are graduated and have different levels and stages. In Buddhism, the route can be very different for different meditators, however, and attainments may vary considerably.

  Figure 7.1. Yantra. Courtesy of Dr. Paul Dennison, Samatha Trust (“Na Yan: Continued,” in Samatha, 21).

  Figure 7.2. Yantra. Courtesy of Dr. Paul Dennison, Samatha Trust (“Na Yan: Continued,” in Samatha, 21).

  There does not seem to be any description of what constitutes a meditation object in early texts. An overall category does not seem to have been thought necessary: “meditation” is perhaps a modern construct, where bhāvanā is more generally used in Buddhism. Buddhaghosa gives ten ways of describing a kammaṭṭhāna, or meditation object, that refer specifically only to the meditations on his list.42 The list, however, does not seem to be definitive or prescriptive; some meditations are mentioned in the canon only once and are not included in the list of forty.43

  Meditation Objects and Events in the World

  In many Dhammapada stories, as we have seen, meditation objects, chosen and engaged with intent, overlap with surprise objects, or external events, occurring at crucial and timely moments. This phenomenon is famous in Eastern Buddhism, but is a striking feature of Southern Buddhism as well. Like the Kashmir practices described by Bettina Bäumer,44 they require something more than “technique,” a willing openness to the fortuitous and the fortunate in helping to bring about realization. In early Buddhist understanding, the key term was strong support (upanissaya), the causal condition, such as food or a teacher or a season, that acts as the trigger for meditative change and awakening.45 This will in part be the product of the meditator’s karma, perhaps from past lives.

  Many Dhammapada stories describe enlightenment prompted by such external events. Meditators are described as needing a practice, methods to follow it, and a teacher. But there also seems to be a need to be open to the surprising and the unplanned. The prompt, or trigger that finally arouses inner transformation and liberation, is often some aspect of the deficiency of an object—say, its witheredness or its potential for decay. Sometimes, however, it is puzzling and koanlike. In one story, a young man is struggling with his meditation—a frequent narrative motif, as we have seen, presumably designed to encourage those lacking in confidence. He is given a cloth to rub, with the words “purity, purity” as an internal accompaniment. The cloth, however, gets dirtier and dirtier, and through this contradiction the meditator comes to awakening, seeing that it is internal, not external, purity that constitutes his own route to freedom. He formulates this insight himself, at the attainment of the path (Buddhist Legends I ii 3). In this regard Chán/Zen/Sǒn koans—as described by Morten Schlütter in this volume—are oddly anticipated, an understanding that grappling with a fortuitous paradox may offer the final means of release.

  This chapter has considered a large range of objects, including the visual, the discursive, the emotional, and the inner, as well as those involving perceptions of the breath and the body. There is an emphasis on the visual, perhaps more than other Indic practices. The use of an auditory element to sustain alertness is, however, central to many. Some modern practices link the breath to the internal repetition of words such as “Buddho,” whose sound is supposed to be linked to meaning as well.46 Southeast Asian meditative practice is inventive and various in ways that can only be suggested here. Some modern meditation teaching aligns itself with commentarial procedures, but some is innovative too.

  It might seem that this exploration of objects is focused on method. The intention, however, is to demonstrate that method is governed by the practitioner, steered by the teacher who assigns the object, and supporting conditions, met with openness. In exploration of the operating principles, some unifying strands have emerged: a wide diversity of objects, a graduated path, an emphasis on applicability, the importance of the relationship with the teacher or the good friend, and, in stories, the initiative of the meditator in finding and articulating the practice that brings final awakening. This awakening is often on the basis of an unexpected, fortuitous event in the world that completes that individual’s path. Many stories describe meditators spontaneously alighting upon the object that brings awakening. This often forms the basis of the delighted utterances on attainment, a frequent feature of early Buddhist texts. Any object, it seems, could do this.

  Notes

  1. Buddhist Legends, 3 xx 9. For accessibility and ease of reference, the translation of the Dhammapada-aṭthakathā, the commentary to the Dhammapada, by E. W. Burlingame (Buddhist Legends), is cited throughout this article. All Pali Texts cited in this article may be found in the original, with Roman transliteration, in publications by the Pali Text Society.

  2. I am grateful to Dr. Valerie Roebuck and the late L. S. Cousins for pointing this out to me. Dr. Mahinda Degalle told me (March 25, 2010) that since at least the nineteenth century the usual store of stories for “Sunday school” teaching within Sri Lanka was the Dhammapada-Attakathā, along with associated Sinhala versions and tales, and Jātakas. For shortened summaries of stories and the verses, see Roebuck, Dhammapada.

  3. The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga), by the fifth-century commentator Buddhaghosa, has been the most influential manual in South and Southeast Asia, closely followed by The Path of Freedom (Vimuttimagga) of Upatissa, probably written earlier. The classification of objects for this chapter have been taken from these. Again, for ease of reference, citations of The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga) in this article are given with the chapter number (uppercase Roman numerals) and paragraph number of the Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli translation. At the time of writing, the only translation of Upatissa’s work from the Chinese is the Sri Lankan, undertaken by N. R. M. Ehara, Soma Thera, and Kheminda Thera, and citations are from that. The manuals present the methods probably associated with their own monasteries: Buddhaghosa’s, written at the Mahāvihāra, in Sri Lanka, the home of the Sthāvira/Theravāda, reflects the monastic methods of the time. Upatissa is a mysterious figure, but seems to have been associated with the Abhayagiri Monastery, Sri Lanka, whose methods were probably influenced by Indian Buddhism. See introduction to Path to Freedom (Vimuttimagga), xxxiv–xxxv; and Shaw, Buddhist Meditation, 4–6.

  4. “Wrong views” (micchādiṭṭhi) are said to produce rigidity of mind and body (Aṭṭhasālini, 134).

  5. The word “object” is used here to descr
ibe a kammaṭṭḥāna. Some teachers use the word “theme” or a “grazing place,” gocara. See Dhammadharo, “Basic Themes.”

  6. Many short lists are delineated, and “permed” variously, but, significantly, the Buddha himself never gave a definitive compendium. A possible exception would be the Aṅguttaranikāya’s group of ones (I 34–40), which includes many other features of the path.

  7. See Aṭṭhasalini 189; and, for the suttas, Dīghanikāya (Sutta 17) II 169–199 / Long Discourses of the Buddha, 279–290; Suttanipāta 1133–1149; Dīghanikāya II 253–262 (Sutta 20) / Long Discourses of the Buddha, 315–320. See also Shaw, Buddhist Meditation, 113–118.

  8. For Buddhaghosa’s caution, see, for instance, Visuddhimagga V 26. On this subject, see Shaw, Buddhist Meditation, 92–96.

  9. Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translation of this passage is excellent (Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, 966).

  10. See Dictionary of Pali I 661; for “pervasiveness” as a meaning, see Path to Freedom, 72.

  11. Unlike the mantric meditations of ancient and modern India and some modern Southeast Asian contexts, at this time no significance is attached to the syllables themselves other than as denoters. Meditations involving words whose meaning is felt to be communicated within the syllable soon enter many forms of Buddhism as dhāraṇis, spells, mantras, and yantras.

  12. See Shaw, Buddhist Meditation, 28, 49, and 90; Udāna 34–37 / Shaw, Buddhist Meditation, 26–28; Aṅguttaranikāya I 3; and Paṭisambhidāmagga II 39.

  13. Establishing calm before insight does seem the most common method described in the canon, as in, for instance, in the Meghiya-Sutta, Udāna 34–37 / Shaw, Buddhist Meditation, 26–28. Other routes are also described in Cousins, “Samatha-Yāna and Vipassanā-Yāna.”

  14. The size and the quality of the object are also adjusted to temperament: the desiring temperament is recommended to use a color kasiṇa, starting with “blue,” that is not quite “pure”; the hating temperament is also recommended to do this, though with a pure color, while the deluded temperament should have a small object, so that the mind does not wander (Visuddhimagga III 97–102).

  15. For the way objects may be made small or large, see Dhammasaṅgani 160–247. And for discussion of the kasiṇa, see Shaw, Buddhist Meditation, 86–100.

  16. The Mahāsakulayādi-sutta says for all ten kasiṇas, “One is aware of the earth kasiṇa above, below, across, undivided, immeasurable” (Majjhimanikāya II 15), a formula repeated for all ten.

  17. For closer examination of the Abhidhammic explanation for the affinity between the human bhavaṅga consciousness and the experience of beautiful objects as vipāka, see Aṭṭhasalini 270 / Shaw, Buddhist Meditation, 89–92 and 212n25. These are more likely to arouse skillful consciousness in the active stage of the thought process.

  18. See Saṃyuttanikāya V 119–121; Visuddhimagga IX 121–122; and Shaw, Buddhist Meditation, 166.

  19. For full canonical account of the “deliverances” see Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, 1284–1285n2, quoted in Shaw, Buddhist Meditation, 212n38.

  20. See Dhammadharo, “Basic Themes.”

  21. These are ten kasiṇa, ten asubha, four divine abidings, and the breath.

  22. For some of the varied advice given to Moggallāna by the Buddha, see Aṅguttaranikāya IV 85–88 / Shaw, Buddhist Meditation 56–58.

  23. For an explicit association between the kasiṇa practice and worldview, see Majjhimanikāya II 229–223 / Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, 840; and Paṭisambhidāmagga I 143–144. See also Shaw, Buddhist Meditation, 91,212n30. See also Dessein, “Contemplation of the Repulsive.”

  24. For discussion of the limits of this meditation, which cannot go to higher jhānas as it is said to require the “rudder” of the repeated application of the mind to the object (vitakka), a feature present only in the first of the jhānas, see Visuddhimagga VI 86.

  25. See Deleanu, “Śrāvakayāna,” 3–11, for a description of this practice in early Yogācāra meditation.

  26. The Visuddhimagga and the Vimuttimagga do not seem to give any specific instructions regarding the eyes for other meditations. The body mindfulness practice described by Buddhaghosa is not the practice for daily activities also recommended in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (Majjhimanikāya I 47), but takes the thirty-two parts of the body in turn as properties defined through the kasiṇa method; e.g., teeth, skin, and hair of the head are taken as earth; bodily fluids as water; and so on (Majjhimanikāya I 158). The color of the respective part can also be used for this method. Where the object is external, such as hair of the head, the commentary describes it as a visual kasiṇa object, blue-black or white, depending on color. The eyes are presumably shut for other, internal parts of the body (Visuddhimagga VIII 81–141). Breathing mindfulness practice is conducted with closed eyes, as the breath nimitta is seen in the mind’s eye (Visuddhimagga VIII 214–221).

  27. See Pradhan, Buddha’s System of Meditation, 3:1381–1385.

  28. Early depictions of the Buddha in India at Ajanta, Amaravati, Nagarjunakonda, and so on, suggest that the arrangement of the right hand resting gently cupped on the left was usual, as it is now. In modern practice, a number of posture variations are pursued, including folding the legs to the side. Thai custom permits the meditator to make a graceful and finely planned sweep of the legs within a sitting meditation when very uncomfortable, though some honor is associated with sticking it out.

  29. Buddhaghosa, for instance, mentions standing and walking postures as suitable for “greed” types, and lying or sitting postures for “hate” types (Visuddhimagga III 97–103). For the iconography of gestures and posture, see Matics, Gestures of the Buddha.

  30. As an example of the benefits of this sort of recollection, see Visuddhimagga VII 114, where, it is said, the meditator starts to become intent on generosity (cāga), acts in conformity to loving-kindness (mettā), is fearless, experiences happiness and gladness, and is headed for a heavenly or happy rebirth. For these six recollections, see Visuddhimagga VII; and Path to Freedom, 140–155.

  31. Death is also a frequent object of meditation in Western practices; cf. Rönnegård, “Melétē in Early Christian Ascetic Texts.”

  32. See note 5.

  33. See Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu, Mindfulness with Breathing. See also Nyanaponika Thera, The Heart of Buddhist Meditation, which describes the practice with a stronger emphasis on vipassanā. See also Shaw, Buddhist Meditation, 146–158.

  34. This contrasts with the much narrower meaning of the word in Tantric traditions. See Bäumer, “Creative Contemplation”; and Madhu Khanna’s contribution to this volume.

  35. See, for example, Aṅguttaranikāya IV 84–88 / Buddhist Meditation, 56–58.

  36. See Bronkhorst, Two Traditions, 1–30.

  37. For the most part, walking practices seem to balance sitting meditation. There are many varieties in the present day, emphasizing either calm (associating the rhythm of the walk with a feeling of well-being and of following the movement of the feet and body as the weight changes) or insight, through analysis of the stages of the process of lifting and moving the feet (see Dhammasami, Mindfulness Meditation). Although walking practices are not described in detail in any canonical or commentarial material, stories describe meditators walking, often within the set limits of a caṅkamana, specifically designed walking grounds, as a regular practice, are frequent (Majjhimanikāya I 56–57; Aṅguttaranikāya V 333–334; Aṅguttaranikāya III 29).

  38. There does not seem to be any textual recommendation for this, though monks frequently “localize” the directional aspect of the loving-kindness practice, as described in say, the Cūḷa-Assapura-Sutta (Majjhimanikāya I 283–284), with wishes for the happiness of beings locally, and then over a larger geographical extent, and then in all directions. So, in Letchworth, in the United Kingdom, Venerable Rāhula wishes happiness to all beings in the surrounding environs; Venerable Piyatissa, now abbot of the vihāra in New Yo
rk, when he was visiting Manchester led a practice wishing all beings in the area well before encouraging sending good wishes to areas further afield.

  39. “As for the four sublime abodes, if you don’t have jhāna as a dwelling for the mind, feelings of good will, compassion, and appreciation can all cause you to suffer. Only if you have jhāna can these qualities truly become sublime abodes, that is, restful places for the heart to stay.” Dhammadharo, “Basic Themes.”

  40. Buddhaghosa does not describe space as the fifth element in this practice, but the Mahārahulovāda-Sutta (Majjhimanikāya 1 420–426 / Shaw 2006, 190–193) does. For some sense of the diversity of modern Southeast Asian practice, see D. K. Swearer, “Thailand.” Bizot has drawn attention to the rich variety of amulet, chant and yantra practice in the region in Le Bouddhisme des Thais. See also Crosby, “Tantric Theravāda.”

  41. At the Cultural History of Meditation conference held in Oslo in May 2010, the fivefold interplay of Na Mo Śi Va Ya was discussed by M. D. Muthukumaraswamy. This has obvious affinities with the Na Mo Bu Ddha Ya formula of recent Southeast Asian practice. Cf. Muthukumaraswamy, “Vedic Chanting.”

  42. See Visuddhimagga III 103–121. These ten descriptions are (1) enumeration, as in the seven groups described in this paper; (2) as to whether they bring access meditation (upacāra-samādhi), a joyful state not yet stable enough to arouse jhāna, produced by some of the recollections, or jhāna; (3) as to the jhāna they produce; (4) as to surmounting; kasiṇas, and form meditations, “surmount” by means of mental factors, such as joy, but the formless surmount by means of an object; (5) as to extension and nonextension; kasiṇas can be extended, and will arouse psychic powers, but the breath and the foul do not; (6) as to object; some involve a “counterpart sign,” and some do not; (7) as to “plane”; some, such as the foul and breathing mindfulness, can be practiced only by those in the sense-sphere, not by those in a Brahma heaven, where the body is too refined; (8) as to apprehending; nine kasiṇas (omitting air) and the foul are practiced initially by sight alone, body mindfulness (as taught by Buddhaghosa) by sight and hearsay (suta), breathing mindfulness by touch, air kasiṇa by sight and touch, and the remaining eighteen by “hearsay,” in that they have attributes whose qualities have been “heard” described; (9) as to conditions, as to the states for which they can be conditions; for instance, according to Buddhaghosa, nine kasiṇas (excluding space) are conditions for formless meditation; (10) as to suitability for particular temperaments.