PRESENTED TO THE BUDDHA CENTER ON AUGUST 3 AND 6, 2013, AND AGAIN TO THE NEW BUDDHA CENTRE ON SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 2024. 

Talk 8

The Art of Meditation

Buddhism is primarily a method of mental cultivation. The Buddha says that there is nothing as unwieldy, harmful, and prone to suffering as an undeveloped mind; there is nothing as wieldy, beneficial, and prone to happiness as a developed mind. Mental development or self-cultivation entails two things primarily – serene mental concentration and awareness. The development of serenity leads to the stilling of lust, craving, or attachment and develops the mind. The development of awareness leads to wisdom and the abandonment of ignorance, the root cause of the chain of cause and effect. The combination of serenity and awareness leads to the realization of the Eightfold Path, and thence to enlightenment itself.

The development of serenity and awareness are the two essential requisites of the path. All spiritual methods or techniques, no matter how apparently complex, are ultimately reducible to either one or the other or some combination of the two. Ananda, the Buddha’s main disciple, identifies four possible combinations: serenity followed by awareness, awareness followed by serenity, the progressive alternation of serenity and awareness, and a rather interesting one – anxiety or agitation, spontaneously resolved by the arising of serenity and awareness through some sort of spiritual crisis. Bodhi glosses this crisis as the spontaneous arising of awakening. One may compare this concept with the great European mystic George Gurdjieff’s concept of the “shock” or Padmasambhava’s concept of the “leap” by which one achieves a fundamental change of state. Chan Buddhism calls this “instantaneous enlightenment,” which became the basis of the argument between the gradualists and the subtilists. Jesus also alludes to such a state in the Gospel of Thomas. Ananda declares that these are the only ways to experience emancipation.

The Buddha identifies four types of people: one who gains internal serenity of mind but does not gain the higher wisdom of awareness into phenomena; one who gains the higher wisdom of awareness into phenomena, but not the internal serenity of mind; one who gains neither; and one who gains both. Thus, one should approach one who has developed the faculty or realization in which one is lacking for instruction on how to develop that realization. One who has developed both should establish themself in them, as well as applying themself to the further destruction of the taints. The PED states that the taints consist of attachment to ‘sensuality,’ ‘rebirth,’ and ‘ignorance.’  The commentaries added a fourth taint, which the PED translates as ‘speculation’ or ‘wrong view,’ to the list several centuries later.

In the context of memorizing the teachings, the Buddha identities lust, anger, dullness and drowsiness, restlessness and remorse, and doubt, as factors that disturb the equanimity of the mind and so inhibit memorizing and, by implication, studying the teachings. These are the five hindrances. The hindrances disturb the mind and make it impossible to recognize its true nature.

The Buddha compares the refinement of the mind to the process by which gold is refined. Gold is a metaphor for the inherent lucidity of sentience itself. One washes, rinses, cleans, and finally melts gold in a formula suggestive of European alchemy, explored deeply by C.G. Jung, for example. The reference to melting is especially interesting. One of the popular notions about Buddhism is that it is passive, but one finds references all through the Pali Canon to the cultivation of will and the development of energy (or “virile force”) as essential elements of the path. The Buddha himself was described as a virile “bull of a man.” The sexual potency of the male monastics is emphasized. Here these metaphors go even further. If gold is the mind, what does melting the mind mean? Compare the Tibetan concept of tummo or “psychic heat,” analogous to kundalini, tapas, or even ch’i (qi).

Pure gold, originally brittle, becomes pliant, workable, and bright. The notion of mental pliancy pervades the Pali Canon.

The Buddha says, “there comes a time when [one’s] mind becomes inwardly steadied, composed, unified, and concentrated. That concentration is then calm and refined; it has attained full tranquility and achieved mental unification; strenuous suppression of the defilements does not maintain it. Then, to whatever mental state realizable by direct knowledge he directs his mind, he achieves the capacity of realizing that state by direct knowledge, whenever the necessary conditions obtain.” The scientific precision of this statement is remarkable.

The Buddha refers to various mental powers or psychic abilities. One may develop these abilities by means of meditation. They include bilocation, invisibility, levitation, passing through matter, travelling cross-legged through the sky, mastery of the body, clairaudience, clairvoyance, telepathy, and remembering past lives, both of oneself and others. Yogis also attest to these powers. Techniques to develop them were highly developed by the Tibetans in particular.

Whether one accepts these powers literally or as psychic experiences, the literature of parapsychology teems with many accounts of similar experiences and abilities. It is hard for Westerners to appreciate how far such powers may be developed, since there is nearly no culture for their development in our secular materialist society. Nevertheless, over the past hundred years, science itself has gone far beyond the materialistic description of the world.

It seems more cogent to accept the reality of psychic powers, at least provisionally, than to reject them altogether as mere fabrications. The Pali Canon enumerates specific individuals in the ancient community to whom the Buddha attributed such powers. Westerners tend to reject such abilities dogmatically, but are the reality of curved space, time dilation, atomic energy, multiverses, the quantum act of observation, strings, black holes, virtual particles, singularities, the big bang, the holographic universe, or artificial intelligence (AI) any less fantastic? All of these are commonplaces of 21st century science and will define the Buddhism of the future.

As an aid to meditation, the Buddha recommended attending to an image or “sign” that opposes any distraction. One can counteract evil, unwholesome thoughts, such as hatred, desire, and delusion, by concentrating on some sign connected with what is wholesome. In this way, the mind becomes steadied, composed, unified, and concentrated.

Bodhi gives examples of the kinds of signs that the Buddha recommended in specific situations. For example, one can counteract sensual desire by contemplating the unattractiveness of the body. One can counteract desire toward inanimate objects by contemplating change. One can counteract hatred toward living beings by contemplating loving-kindness. One can counteract hatred toward inanimate objects by meditating on the elemental nature of things. One can counteract delusion by studying the teaching.

If, after meditating on these signs, the distraction persists, the Buddha recommends meditating on the danger inherent in the distraction. If one continues to be distracted, the Buddha recommends simply ignoring the distraction. If the distraction continues, the Buddha recommends inquiring into its causes in an indefinite succession leading to subtler and subtler causes, culminating finally in quiescence. Finally, and only if the distraction continues, the Buddha recommends “crushing the mind with the mind,” or forcibly repressing the distraction through sheer force of will and determination. The Buddha says, “this monk is called a master of the courses of thought. He will think whatever thought he wishes to think and he will not think any thought that he does not wish to think.” Note however that repression is the Buddha’s last resort.

Similarly, no matter how people speak to you, the Buddha recommends remaining indifferent and responding to them with an altruistic mind. As in the loving-kindness meditation, one expands that intention outward from that individual to all individuals and ultimately to all living beings and thence to the universe, even, to use the Buddha’s metaphor, “if bandits were to sever you savagely limb by limb with a two-handled saw.” Jesus famously recommended plucking out one’s eye or cutting off one’s hand in similar circumstances.

For one who is on the path, the Buddha recommends contemplating the Buddha, the Teaching, the Order, morality, generosity, and the divine beings. One takes these things as objects of one’s concentrated attention. The qualities of the object of the meditation arise in the mind of the meditator, resulting in inspiration, gladness, rapture, calm, happiness, and concentration. Meditations on the Buddha and the divine beings became important practices within Tibetan Buddhism.

The Buddha declares the Four Foundations of Awareness to be the essential elements of the path that leads inevitably to emancipation. One establishes each step, once acquired, in a progressive direction that cannot be reversed (the so-called “one way”). (I follow Bodhi’s interpretation here.) The path is negentropic, as distinct from the entropic nature of the world, which leads to ever-greater degeneration.

The four foundations of awareness are awareness of the body, feelings, mind, and phenomena, in an ascending arc that leads from the particular to the universal and from the gross to the subtle. Body corresponds to the element of earth, feelings to the element of water, mind to the element of air, and finally phenomena to the element of fire, i.e., the dynamic principle of causality. One can establish awareness of the body by means of seclusion, sitting, and cultivating awareness of the breath, the life force of the body, embodied in the Indian concept of soul.

The Buddha emphasizes the importance of cultivating a global awareness of the body. Meditation is not a state of dissociation. Awareness may be extended to the posture, and finally to the comprehension of the three marks or characteristics of existence –change, suffering or unsatisfactoriness, and selflessness).

One undermines attachment to the body by analyzing the body into its elements, viz., hair, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones and marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, diaphragm, spleen, lungs, intestines, mesentery, stomach, feces, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, grease, spittle, snot, oil of the joints, and urine. The nine charnel ground meditations include contemplating one’s body in various states of decay. These contemplations include a bloated corpse, a corpse devoured by animals, a desiccated skeleton, and finally a pile of disintegrating bones.

The corpse meditations bear a striking resemblance to the Chöd cult of Tibetan Buddhism. The practitioner visualizes their own body and offers their flesh as the offering at a tantric feast. Iconographically, the skin of the practitioner’s body represents illusory surface reality. One cuts it from bones that represent the true self.

Bodhi suggests that these practices may involve visualizations of the body in the various states. However, advanced Buddhist adepts also practised the charnel ground contemplations in actual charnel grounds, which must have been extraordinarily psychologically powerful.

Contemplation of the feelings is simply being aware of the pleasurable or unpleasurable state of one’s feelings, without attachment. In contemplating the mind, one replaces the awareness of feelings with awareness of one’s own mental state.

Contemplation of phenomena involves awareness of phenomena in terms of the five hindrances, the five aggregates, the six senses, the seven enlightenment factors, and the Four Truths. This means being aware of attachment to phenomena, change, sense perceptions, one’s state of realization, and suffering.

Recognizing the factors of enlightenment within oneself is included in the contemplation of phenomena because this refers to an objective recognition of the ontological status of one’s realization. Realization is not subjective. Enlightenment is not a subjective quality or state any more than the bliss or rapture of enlightenment is a “feeling.”

The Buddha states that the practice of the four foundations of awareness over a period of seven years leads to stream-entry. One either achieves final enlightenment immediately or is reborn in one of the Pure Abodes. From here, one attains enlightenment directly, with no more human rebirth. Rebirth in the Pure Abodes is the one rebirth in the world that the Buddha says he never experienced. To be reborn there means that one is never reborn as a human being. The Buddha goes on to say something very remarkable:

Let alone seven years, monks. If anyone should develop these four establishments of awareness in such a way for six years … for five years … for four years … for three years … for two years … for one year, one of two fruits could be expected for him: either final knowledge here and now, or if there is a trace of clinging left, nonreturning. Let alone one year, monks. If anyone should develop these four states of awareness in such a way for seven months … for six months … for five months … for four months … for three months … for two months … for one month … for half a month, one of two fruits could be expected for him: either final knowledge here and now, or if there is a trace of clinging left, nonreturning. Let alone half a month, monks. If anyone should establish these four establishments of awareness in such a way for seven days, one may expect one of two fruits: either final knowledge here and now, or if there is a trace of clinging left, non-returning.

This passage repeats all through the Pali Canon. It directly contradicts the common assumption that enlightenment is an exceptional achievement that takes hundreds and thousands if not millions of rebirths to achieve. One finds this assertion repeated endlessly in the popular Buddhist literature. We have already alluded to the evidence of householders achieving awakening, and even final emancipation, after a brief period.

The Theravada interpretation of this fact is that these individuals were associated with the Buddha in past lives. These advanced practitioners were already on the verge of awakening. Perhaps, but this quotation suggests that this is not the whole explanation. The implication is clear. Establishing oneself in the four foundations of awareness leads to awakening at least after no more than seven years, but may result in awakening, and even final emancipation, almost immediately, if the karmic conditions are proper.

There are examples in the canon of householders achieving final enlightenment within five days of “going forth.” The passage quoted is clear. Awakening is not the exclusive prerogative of a special elite of reborn prior associates of the Buddha. To repeat, “if *anyone* [emphasis added] should establish these four establishments of awareness in such a way for seven days, one of two fruits could be expected for him: either final knowledge here and now, or if there is a trace of attachment left, non-returning.

Ananda’s Riddle

Ananda, the Buddha’s personal attendant, presents a riddle to the Buddha. This is a rare instance of an actual riddle in the Pali Canon. Of course, riddles became a popular pastime in certain sects of Zen Buddhism, the so-called koan. In any case, the riddle is: “Is there one thing that, when developed and cultivated, fulfils four things? And four things that, when developed and cultivated, fulfil seven things? And seven things that, when developed and cultivated, fulfil two things?” It is curious that Ananda presents this riddle to the Buddha, and not the other way around.

The Buddha’s answer is that concentrating on breathing is the one thing that, when developed and cultivated, fulfils the four establishments of awareness – body, feelings, mind, and phenomena. The four establishments of awareness, when developed and cultivated, fulfil the seven factors of enlightenment – awareness, discrimination, rapture, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity. The seven factors of enlightenment, when developed and cultivated, fulfil true knowledge and liberation. Wisdom and emancipation are set against each other as co-determining factors, like the co-determination of consciousness and “name and form” in the chain of cause and effect. The text emphasizes the preeminent importance of wisdom in the realization of emancipation.

It is interesting that the “one thing” in the sequence is not the goal, but rather the means, awareness of breathing.

Awareness of breathing is the essential technique. Specifically prescribed for restlessness, Bodhi notes that the Nikayas recognize awareness of breathing as a technique of fundamental importance. The importance of breath meditation is due to the pan-Indian association of the breath with the vital life force associated with the soul. Even though the Buddha repudiated the metaphysical doctrine of a soul as such, he still emphasizes the breathing meditation technique itself.

The Buddha declares that awareness of breathing is the essential meditation by which he attained enlightenment. Even after attaining enlightenment, during his 45-year teaching career, the Buddha continued to practise awareness of breathing in retreat. He uniquely refers to this technique as “the Tathagata’s dwelling.” It is significant that the Buddha continues this practice, even after becoming a perfected being. The development of awareness of breathing underlies all four establishments of awareness. It constitutes the universal underlying technique leading to the seven factors of enlightenment and thence to wisdom and emancipation itself.

The thirty-one planes of existence are also levels or stages of realization. There is no ultimate distinction in Buddhism between macrocosm and microcosm, the universal and the individual, ontology and psychology, reality and mind. The three realms of reality are the worlds of desire, form, and formless mind.

The form world consists of four sets of three worlds and five Pure Abodes. The four formless worlds supersede these worlds. The form and formless worlds correspond to the four meditative attainments, followed by the realization of infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, and neither perception nor non-perception. Altogether, there are eight successive stages of realization.

The Bodhisattva achieved the realization of the state of nothingness under his first teacher, Alara Kalama. He realized neither perception nor non-perception under his second teacher, Uddaka Ramaputta. Although the meditative attainments are associated with the last step of the Eightfold Path, Perfect Concentration, lay people can attain the meditative attainments. Thus, the Eightfold Path is not the prerogative of monastics.

The first meditative attainment is the lowest. The first meditative attainment corresponds to Mahabrahma with his minsters and retinue, a kind of divine kingdom. The king of this kingdom is the Great Brahma. Great Brahma is a divine being originally from the next highest level who has been reborn in the brahma worlds due to loss of merit. Devolution is the fate that befalls all divine beings, since despite their high spiritual status they are still imperfect. Human beings themselves have descended from a divine realm.

One may simply regard Great Brahma as God. He is famous for his delusion that he is the creator of the universe. This idea is like the Gnostic view of the Biblical Yahweh, who is regarded as a demiurge or false god. The attainment of the first meditative state is essentially equivalent to the religious goal of reaching “heaven.” Residents of the Brahma realms can enter our realm and interact with us. They visited and spoke with the Buddha at night. Communicating with divine beings during extended periods of seclusion is common in the Tibetan tradition.

The second meditative attainment corresponds to three worlds of radiance.

The third meditative attainment corresponds to three worlds of glory.

The worlds beyond the meditative attainments are split into infinite space and infinite consciousness; nothingness; and the opening to the transdual. These are the Four Formless Worlds, consisting only of mind. This structure suggests the Cabalistic conception of Ayin, nothingness; Ein Sof, limitlessness or infinite space; and Ohr Ein Sof, limitless light, followed by ten worlds of being (the sefirot). This diagram is called the Tree of Life (Etz Chaim). It is the fundamental ontological structure of the Hebrew mysticism called Cabala.

One attains the first meditative attainment by withdrawing from sensual pleasures and unwholesome states. This state is still cognitive, combined with the rapture and happiness born of seclusion.

With further practice, the cognitive aspect of the first meditative attainment drops away. The arising of confidence and unification of mind without cognition, and the rapture and happiness born of concentration, characterizes it. This is the second meditative attainment.

With further practice, the quality of rapture disappears. Equanimity, awareness, and clear comprehension arise, accompanied by happiness in the body. This is the third meditative attainment.

With further practice, pleasure and pain (i.e., of the body) and joy and displeasure disappear. The purification of awareness by equanimity characterizes it. This is the fourth meditative attainment.

With further practice, the perception of form, sensation, and diversity completely disappear. One realizes infinite space. This is the first of the four formless worlds.

With further practice, the realization of the infinity of space disappears. One realizes that consciousness is infinite. This is the second of the four formless worlds.

With further practice, the realization of the infinity of consciousness disappears. One becomes aware that there is nothing. This is the third of the four formless worlds.

Finally, with further practice, the realization of nothingness disappears. One enters a transdual state of neither perception nor non-perception. This is the fourth of the four formless worlds and the highest worldly state.

None of these states is identical with complete emancipation. True emancipation is beyond them all.

Buddha Centre, Saturday, August 31, 2024

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