APPROACHES TO MEDITATION

The methods of meditation taught by the Buddha in the Pali Canon fall into two broad systems. One is the development of serenity (samatha), which 'aims at concentration (samädhi); the other is the development of insight (vipassanā), which aims at understanding or wisdom (pañña). In the Buddha's system of mental training the role of serenity is subordinated to that of insight because the latter is the crucial instrument needed to uproot the ignorance at the bottom of samsāric bondage. The attainments possible through serenity meditation were known to Indian contemplatives long before the advent of the Buddha. The Buddha himself mastered the two highest stages under his early teachers but found that they only led to higher planes of rebirth, not to genuine enlightenment (MN 26.15-16). However, because the unification of mind induced by the practice of concentration contributes to clear understanding, the Buddha incorporated the techniques of serenity meditation and the resulting levels of absorption into his own system, treating them as a foundation and preparation for insight and as a "pleasant abiding here and now."

The attainments reached by the practice of serenity meditation are, as mentioned in the preceding section, the eight absorptions - the four jhānas and the four immaterial states - each of which serves as the basis for the next. Strangely, the suttas do not explicitly prescribe specific meditation subjects as the means for attaining the jhānas, but the commentarial literature such as the Visuddhimagga enables us to make the connections. Among the meditation topics enumerated in the suttas, eight of the ten kasinas (MN 77.24) are recognised as suitable for attaining all four jhānas, the last two being the respective supports for the first two immaterial attainments. The eight bases for transcendence seem to be a more finely differentiated treatment of meditation on the colour kasinas, as are the first three of the eight liberations (MN 77.22-23). Mindfulness of breathing, to which the Buddha devotes an entire sutta (MN 118), provides an ever accessible meditation subject that can be pursued through all four jhānas and also used to develop insight. Another method for attaining the jhānas mentioned in the suttas is the four divine abodes (brahmavihāra) - boundless loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy (i.e., gladness at others' success), and equanimity (MN 7, MN 40, etc.). Tradition holds the first three to be capable of leading to the three lower jhānas, the last of inducing the fourth jhāna. The immaterial attainments are to be reached by fixing the mind on the specific object of each attainment - infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, and the state that can only be described as neither percipient nor as non-percipient.

Whereas in serenity meditation the meditator attempts to focus upon a single uniform object abstracted from actual experience, in insight meditation the endeavour is made to contemplate, from a position of detached observation, the ever-shifting flux of experience itself in order to penetrate through to the essential nature of bodily and mental phenomena. The Buddha - teaches that the craving and clinging that hold us in bondage are sustained by a network of "conceivings" (maññita) - deluded views, conceits, and suppositions that the mind fabricates by an internal process of mental commentary or "proliferation" (papañca) and then projects out upon the world, taking them to possess objective validity. The task of insight meditation is to sever our attachments by enabling us to pierce through this net of conceptual projections in order to see things as they really are.

To see things as they really are means to see them in terms of the three characteristics - as impermanent, as painful or suffering, and as not self. Since the three characteristics are closely interlinked, any one of them can be made the main portal for entering the domain of insight, but the Buddha's usual approach is to show all three together - impermanence implying suffering and the two in conjunction implying the absence of self. When the noble disciple sees all the factors of being as stamped with these three marks, he no longer identifies with them, no longer appropriates them by taking them to be mine, I, or self. Seeing thus, he becomes disenchanted with all formations. When he becomes disenchanted, his lust and attachment fade away and his mind is liberated from the taints.

Instructions for the development of insight in the Majjhima Nikāya, though concise, are many and diverse. The single most important lesson on the practice conducing to insight is the Satipatṭhāna Sutta, the Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness (MN 10; also found in the Digha Nikāya with an amplified section on the Four Noble Truths). The sutta sets forth a comprehensive system called satipatṭhāna designed to train the mind to see with microscopic precision the true nature of the body, feelings, states of mind, and mental objects. The system is sometimes taken to be the, paradigm for the practice of "bare insight" - the direct contemplation of mental and bodily phenomena without a prior foundation of jhāna - and, while several exercises described in the sutta can also lead to the jhānas, the arousing of insight is clearly the intent of the method.

Other suttas in the Majjhima Nikāya describe approaches to developing insight that either elaborate upon the satipatṭhāna contemplations or reach them from a different starting point. Thus MN 118 shows how the practice of mindfulness of breathing fulfils all four foundations of mindfulness, not the first alone as shown in MN 10. Several suttas - MN 28, MN 62, MN 140 present more detailed instructions on the contemplation of the elements. MN 37, MN 74, and MN 140 contain illuminating passages on the contemplation of feeling. In some suttas the Buddha uses the five aggregates as the groundwork for insight contemplation (e.g., MN 22, MN 109); in some, the six sense bases (e.g., MN 137, MN 148, MN 149); in some, the two combined (MN 147). MN 112 has sections dealing with insight based on the five aggregates, the six elements, and the six sense bases, and as resulting from the gradual training. MN 52 and MN 64 show that insight can also be aroused with the jhānas, the immaterial attainments, and the divine abodes as its objects: the disciple enters any of these states and contemplates its constituent factors as subject to the three characteristics.

Several sequences of meditative states mentioned in the Majjhima culminate in an attainment called the cessation of perception and feeling (saññāvadayitanirodha). Although this state always follows the last immaterial attainment, it is not, as may be supposed, merely one higher step in the scale of concentration. Strictly speaking, the attainment of cessation pertains neither to serenity nor to insight. It is a state reached by the combined powers of serenity and insight in which all mental processes are temporarily suspended. The attainment is said to be accessible only to non-returners and arahants who have also mastered the jhānas and immaterial states. Detailed canonical discussions of it are found in MN 43 and MN 44.