Early Buddhist Meditation Read online

  25 Bhikṣu Thich Minh Chau 1991, 14.

  26 Ibid.

  27 His research investigated in detail one manuscript from this collection, the Senior Kharoṣṭhī Fragment 5, which contains four of the twenty-four texts, associated with the Connected Discourses.

  28 Glass Andrew 2006, 63–5. The most extensive differences between these two come in the Sāña-sūtra, yet this sūtra, appears to be unique to the Gandhārī tradition. The differences in the next three sūtras from their parallels in the Saṃyutta Nikāyas are in all cases rather minor.

  29 Glass 2006, 65.

  30 Bhikkhu Anālayo stated this in an interview to the Insight Journal of the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies; http://www.bcbsdharma.org/2012-08-31a-insight-journal/

  31 Bhikkhu Anālayo has pointed out that variations found appear to be simply the kind of errors that are natural to material preserved over a longer period by oral means (Bhikkhu Anālayo 2010b, 17).

  In an e-learning course, in the Centre of Buddhist Studies, University of Hamburg, Anālayo has also concluded more generally in one of his lectures, that there are many variations between the Pāli and Chinese versions, but only rarely, it is in terms of content or way of presentations (e-learning course, ‘Purification, Ethics and Karma in Early Buddhist Discourse – Studies in the Madhyama āgama,’ lecture 2, the 21st of April 2011, 0:13: 27–8).

  32 Pande has also stated that the materials of both the Nikāyas and the Āgamas are pretty much the same, except from the order of arrangements (p. 4). Pande has commented that the ‘general similarity in content appears to be as clear as that of difference in grouping and arrangement. That both sets of collections go back to a common original is apparent (Pande [1957]1999, 6).

  33 In his History of Indian Buddhism, Étienne Lamotte has concluded that ‘the doctrinal basis common to the Āgamas and Nikāyas is remarkably uniform. Preserved and transmitted by the schools, the sūtras do not however constitute scholastic documents, but are the common heritage of all the sects… any attempt to reconstruct a “pre-canonical” Buddhism deviating from the consensus between the Āgamas and Nikāyas can only end in subjective hypotheses’ (Étienne Lamotte 1988, 156). See also Wynne 2003, 15.

  34 Bucknell 1993, 387–95.

  35 The Theravāda commentarial interpretation of the jhānas is a comprehensive issue by itself that is not the aim of this study.

  36 See Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha (Shwe Zan Aung trans. 1995, 54); Gunaratana 1999, 79. According to Buddhaghosa, vitakka and vicāra indicate that for entering the first jhāna, the mind is directed to the meditation object. E.g., Vism IV.27–33; IV.88–91.

  37 In Vism III.2; IV.33 Buddhaghosa explains that the difference between access concentration and jhānas is that in access concentration the factors are not strong and the mind holds the object of meditation only for a short time. According to Pa-Auk Sayadaw, a contemporary Burmese monk who is one of the leading jhāna teachers, both access concentration and absorption concentration (i.e., the jhānas) have the same paṭibhāga nimitta. The difference, according to Pa-Auk Sayadaw is that in access concentration the jhāna factors are not fully developed and therefore the bhavaṅga still occurs (Sayadaw 2003, 49). Furthermore, it seems that as soon as the mind drops the particular meditation object that was chosen for entering the jhānas, happiness and tranquillity disappear and the mind is again beset by the flow of defilements. In other words, the jhānas are dependent on the particular object one has chosen and cannot be sustained when the awareness moves to another object

  38 Shwe Zan Aung 1995, 56. Note that for Buddhaghosa, and contemporary Theravāda thinkers and meditation teachers, the jhānas are not merely one-pointed concentration, but one-pointed absorption. See, for example, Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu 1980, 156.

  39 Bucknell 199, 387–8. Note that some objects can lead up to the fourth jhāna, while others do not.

  40 Bucknell 1993, 403. See a detailed treatment of the kaṣina and its relation to the arūpa attainments in Wynne 2007, 28–30.

  41 The arūpa samāpattis are four meditational states. Each is referred to by the name of its respective objective sphere. The first arūpa attainment transcends all perception of objects of the five senses and it is called the ‘sphere of infinite space’ (ākāsānañcāyatana). From there, one proceeds to the ‘sphere of infinite consciousness’ (viññāṇañcāyatana). The next two arūpa attainments are the ‘sphere of nothingness’ (ākiñcaññāyatana) and the sphere of ‘neither-perception-nor-non-perception’ (nevasaññānāsaññāyatana). Thus, this meditative process is completely detached from external stimuli; it increases abstraction and produces quietude of all mental events in the mind (e.g., SN IV 263–8). It should be noted here that Bronkhorst has demonstrated that Jaina meditation has features that are similar to the four arūpa samāpattis and also that this list of meditational states agrees well with what he calls ‘main stream meditation’ viz. a process that aims to stop mental activity. He also has inferred that these meditational states entered Buddhism from Jainistic or related circles (Bronkhorst 1993, 88). For a full discussion, see Bronkhorst 1993, 30–67.

  42 The last two arūpa samāpatti are described as attainments attained through the teachings of Uddaka Rāmaputta and Āḷara Kalama, while the jhānas were taught only by the Buddha.

  43 Bucknell 1993, 403.

  44 The model of the Visuddhimagga is based on the seven purifications. However, this model, though it appears in the Rathavinīta Sutta of the MN, is not common in other suttas. Also, the complete path structure that Buddhaghosa presents in the Visuddhimagga, has no parallel in any of the suttas of the Pāli Canon.

  45 Gethin 2001, 350.

  46 Cousins 1974, 123. Buddhaghosa states that to attain jhāna one must balance the five faculties (Vism IV 45–9) and the seven bojjhaṅgas (IV 51–64). However, it is not clear what kind of wisdom he is referring to. Perhaps the wisdom (paññā) in this regard is not insight into the three characteristic but an understanding of how to train the mind to attain the jhānas (that is, how to still the mind) and also how to re-attain the jhānas easily, when they are lost (Vism IV 120–2). That is, “learning one’s consciousness sign” (Vism IV 122). Nevertheless, as pointed out to me correctly by Peter Harvey, with regard to the jhāna s, even though the wisdom Buddhaghosa refers to was not about vipassanā into the three characteristics, one does see the ever-changing nature of the mind naturally when trying to still it. Furthermore, the mind that emerges from the jhānas is also very sensitive to small changes and subtle dukkha. Even if this is so, it seems that for Buddhaghosa, the jhānas are states of absorption that can aid the process of wisdom when stilling the mind and also when emerging from them; however, one cannot develop insight into the nature of experience while dwelling in them.

  47 In most occasions, Buddhaghosa refers to only two kinds of samādhi: ‘access samādhi’ (upacāra samādhi) and ‘absorption samādhi’ (appaṇā samādhi/jhāna) (Cousins 1994– 6, 46). In his notes, Cousins gives the reference to this twofold division of samādhi: Vism III.5ff. However, Buddhaghosa mentions a threefold samādhi: momentary, access and absorption in Vism IV.99.

  48 See Vism I.6 and the commentary note (n.3) that explains that what can be excluded from the path is samatha, in the sense of the jhānas. This is because some degree of concentration is needed, but not the jhānic concentration). It seems that for Pa-Auk Sayadaw, the most renowned teacher of samatha meditation in contemporary Theravāda, just as for Buddhaghosa, it is preferable that a yogi will attain the jhānas and the arūpa samāpattis as a basis for insight practice as it facilitates it (and according the Mahāsi, who cites the MN Aṭṭhakathā, the jhānas are a way to find ease from the practice of insight (Mahāsi Sayadaw 2016, 33). However, as pointed by two of Pa-Auk Sayadaw’s disciples in a book dedicated to his meditation system, ‘the venerable Pa-Auk Sayadaw indicates that if someone finds, after exhaustive effort, that she or he cannot progress through the jhānas beginning with ānāpāna-sati meditation, the stude
nt may be directed to try the four element meditation… These practitioners would be considered “vipassanā yogis” or “dry-insight yogis,” as they are proceeding directly to the vipassanā practice.’ It is important to bear in mind that for Pa-Auk Sayadaw, one cannot attain the jhānas using the four elements, as they are objects of momentary concentration. Yet this meditation can lead to access concentration (see also Vism XI.44) and liberation (see Vism XI.117) (Snyder and Rasmussen 2009, 120). This view is also presented by Buddhaghosa in Vism XVIII.5 in which he instructs the discernment of the four elements as the way to achieve ‘purification of view’ for ‘one whose vehicle is pure insight’.

  49 Cousins 1974, 123.

  50 Cousins 1974, 116; Vism XVIII.5.

  51 See chapters 8 and 9 for more detailed discussion.

  52 SA II.127.

  53 Cousins has pointed out that in the Abhidhamma, the transcendent path (lokuttaramagga) must be at least the degree of the first jhāna (Dhs, 60; 69ff) (Cousins 1994–6, 48). This view is also presented in the Aṭṭhakanāgara Sutta (MN I.350). Interestingly, this view is not presented in this suttas as a statement made by the Buddha, but by Ānanda, who was not an Arahant. Furthermore, the sutta does not mention that the Buddha confirmed or approved of Ananda’s teaching.

  54 Griffiths has claimed that the attempt to integrate samatha and vipassanā into a single process of liberation is particularly difficult (Griffiths 1999, 19).

  55 E.g., AN IV.451–6, which describes various types of liberated persons. Interestingly, none of them is envisioned without the attainment of the jhānas.

  56 In MA III.256 the commentator identifies the eight liberations with the jhānas and the kaṣina practice.

  57 Brahmāli Bhikkhu 2007, 77.

  58 Note that even the interpretation of the four stages of awakening, as a path-moment and fruit moments, cannot be found in the Nikāyas.

  59 Brahmāli Bhikkhu 2007, 84–5.

  60 Brahmāli Bhikkhu 2007, 81. See, for example, the commentary to MN II.28 [MA III.270].

  61 Brahmāli Bhikkhu 2007, 90.

  62 DN III.268: pathavīkasiṇameko sañjānāti uddhaṃ adho tiriyaṃ advayaṃ appamāṇaṃ.

  63 Wynne 2007, 30–7.

  64 Wynne 2007, 111. According to Wynne, ‘the goal of Āḷāra Kālāma (ākiñcañña) corresponds to the Brahminic notion that the unmanifest brahman is a state of ‘non-existence’… the goal of Uddaka Rāmaputta (nevasaññānāsaññā) corresponds to the description of the unmanifest state the cosmos in the Nāsadīvasūkta… and the ultimate state of self in the Māṇḍūkya Upanṣas’ (Ibid.).

  65 MN I 166: ‘This Dhamma does not lead to disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to peace, to direct knowledge, to awakening, to Nibbāna, but only to reappearance in the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception’ (nāyaṃ dhammo nibbidāya na virāgāya na nirodhāya na nibbānāya saṃvattati, yāvadeva nevasaññānāsaññāyatanūp apattiyāti). The same was said by the bodhisatta with regard to the teaching and attainment of Āḷāra Kālāma (MN I 165).

  66 E.g., DN III.132, SN V.308.

  67 MN I.246–7 and SN I.48.

  68 In MA III.256 the commentator identifies the eight liberations with the jhānas and the kaṣina practice.

  69 E.g., Vism VI.67 and Sayalay 2005, 133.

  70 MN I.301.

  71 MN III.136.

  72 Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana CD-ROM Version 3 of the Vipassanā Research Institute.

  73 I use the term ‘phenomena’ to refer what occurs in the mind: mental phenomena are acts of consciousness (or their contents), and physical phenomena are objects of external perception. Phenomena are things as they are given to our consciousness, whether in perception, imagination, thought or volition.

  74 Warnke 1987, 83.

  75 Warnke 1987, 87.

  76 Arbel 2004.

  77 Schmithausen has divided the different approaches to this matter into two groups. One is the British Buddhologists (not exclusively), who ‘stress the fundamental homogeneity and substantial authenticity of at least a considerable part of the Nikāyic material’ (Ruegg and Schmithausen (ed.) 1990, 1). Another group, in which Schmithausen includes himself, applies the method of higher criticism to canonical texts, ‘in order to isolate accretions, different strata or heterogeneous components’ (Ibid., 2). Other scholars also support the first group. See L. S. Cousins 1984, 67 note 2; Govind Chandra 2000, 4. For a discussion of the problem of employing a method of higher criticism to the canonical texts, see Hinṃber 1994, 73.

  78 Gombrich 1998, 5.

  79 Silk 2002, 383.

  1

  The Fourfold Jhāna Model

  Buddhist or not?

  Prior to his awakening, the unawakened Bodhisatta was an ascetic wanderer (samaṇa).1 He was one among others in ancient India who decided to leave home for homelessness in search of liberation (mokṣa) from dukkha (duḥkha) and the round of saṃsāra. These ascetic wanderers were part of a spiritual milieu that we now define as the ‘forest traditions’: spiritual seekers who left society for the life of mendicants, formulating various metaphysical theories and practicing different types of ascetic and contemplative practices.2 The spiritual journey of the young Siddhattha Gotama within this setting appears in various places in the Pāli Nikāyas. According to these texts, he had practiced diverse practices with other samaṇas and under recognized teachers of his time.3 However, after his awakening, the ‘awakened one’ (Buddha), formulated a unique path (Dhamma) denouncing various theories,4 perceptions and practices prevalent among other samaṇas5 and brāhmaṇas. 6 The language of the Buddha’s teaching as presented in the Nikāyas was not foreign to his spiritual companions as evidenced by his use of known terms and accepted theoretical framework. However, by virtue of its conceptual content and practical instructions, in many cases innovative, it did herald a different approach to the spiritual quest.

  This setting, in which the Buddha’s teaching was formulated and taught, has prompted scholars to try and determine what elements derive from innovations in the Buddha’s teaching and what elements were borrowed from non-Buddhist traditions.7 The interpretation of various concepts and practices in the Pāli Nikāyas was often influenced by these preconceptions about what is ‘really’ Buddhist and what is not. This was done especially with reference to Buddhist meditation theory. In particular, the existence of two ostensible types of meditation, namely, samatha (i.e., the jhānas, the arūpa samāpattis and saññāvedayitanirodha) and vipassanā (the practice of satipaṭṭhāna) evoked an apparent difficulty in their interpretation in the Buddhist path of awakening. As a result, in the Theravāda commentarial tradition,8 in the study of early Buddhism,9 and in modern Theravāda meditational circles, the supposition that the jhānas are a borrowed element from Indian contemplative traditions,10 while vipassanā is the only unique liberating technique which is distinctively Buddhist, became a predominant view. In other words, the jhānas were perceived as attainments which do not lead to liberation, on the assumption that they are not part of the unique teaching of the Buddha.11

  Writing on the subject of the jhānas, Walpola Rāhula gives a clear presentation of modern Theravāda perception on this issue: ‘[A]ll these mystic states, according to the Buddha have nothing to do with Reality, Truth, Nirvana.’ Rāhula further proclaimed that samatha meditation existed before the Buddha, and that it should not be considered as a practice leading to liberation.12 Robert Gimello, for example, has also stated in his article ‘Mysticism and Meditation’ that ‘it is especially to be emphasized that samādhi and its associated experiences are not themselves revelatory of the truth of things, nor are they sufficient unto liberation from suffering’.13 As Sarbacker has correctly pointed out in his book Samādhi: The Numinous and the Cessative in Indo-Tibetan Yoga, vipassanā and samatha have been a subject of considerable controversy in Buddhist studies, ‘where there has been difficulty understanding why such an important part of Buddhist meditation theory (samatha) has become not only
a marginal practice but one that might even receive ridicule by some practitioners’.14

  This issue has been approached in various ways by different scholars. Paul Griffiths, for example, presented a theory that attempts to resolve the difficulty, in his view, of integrating vipassanā and samatha meditation. Griffiths claimed that samatha meditation has a different aim from that of vipassanā meditation.15 According to Griffiths, the attempt to reconcile the two methods of meditation and to integrate them into a single process of liberation is particularly difficult.16 La Valleé Poussin has maintained that trance (dhyāna) in Brahmanism ‘is the necessary path to the merging of the individual self into the universal self’,17 and that ‘Buddhist trances were practiced by non-Buddhists, and scholars agree that Buddhists did actually borrow from the common store of mystical devises’.18 La Valleé Poussin does distinguish between trance that does not have the right aim and trance that does, and he reminds that ‘Śākyamuni obtained “enlightenment” by the practice of trance’.19 However, La Valleé Poussin also states that ‘trance, like asceticism, is not an essential part of the Path’.20

  In his book Tranquillity & Insight: An Introduction to the Oldest Form of Buddhist Meditation, Amadeo Solé-Leris presents a common view in modern Theravāda regarding the role of samatha meditation in the Buddhist path. He states that tranquillity meditation

  [I]s not essentially different from the techniques used in other meditative traditions… These were the techniques (except, of course, for the attainment of cessation) to which Gotama the prince turned after abandoning his royal home. He tried them out and found them incapable of producing the definitive enlightenment he sought… This is why he left the two Yoga teachers with whom he had been practising and struck out on his own. The result of his endeavours was vipassanā, insight meditation, which, as I said before is distinctively Buddhist Meditation.21