Living
in a Buddhist country it is no surprise if a person of any ethnicity is aware
of the meditation styles of Buddhism supposed as the teachings of Gautama
Buddha. One could easily say without wonderment that meditation is the focusing
of the attention on the in breath and the out breath at the point of the
nostril. Moreover, if somebody is a reader of Buddhist literature or a
practitioner of Buddhist meditation, he or she might be aware of the other
methods of ‘Anapanasati’ or the tranquility meditation such as the focus on the
movement of the belly or laying attention on the body and imagining the breath
coming in and out of all pores of the body. But in my opinion, there are
considerable as well as trifle transgressions in modern meditation practices when
compared with the teachings of the Buddha on the samatha meditation. Therefore,
the purpose of this blog post is to do a careful and close reading of the part
of tranquility meditation as taught and understood by myself.
For
the exegesis of this blog I will be using different parts of the translation of
Anapanasati Sutta by Thannissaro Bikkhu as uploaded in the weblink:
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.118.than.html
"Now how
is mindfulness of in-&-out breathing developed & pursued so as to be of
great fruit, of great benefit?
"There is the case where a
monk, having gone to the wilderness, to the shade of a tree, or to an empty
building, sits down folding his legs crosswise, holding his body erect, and
setting mindfulness to the fore. Always mindful, he breathes in; mindful he
breathes out.”
In
this initial portion of the sutta the Buddha explains the conditions that help
to the improvement of tranquility. One has to find a quite place for meditation
and he/she needs to hold the body erect, squatting on earth. The part that I
want to discuss further is the last part of the first half from this extract:
‘Setting mindfulness
to the fore’
Most
monks and lay teachers of meditation imparts that this portion means to focus
on the nostril or the belly for the movement of the breath. But this is the
opinion provided by pali commentaries, Vissuddhimagga of Ven. Buddhagosha as
well as the opinion of vipassana traditions. Buddha does not suggest that we
should focus on a specific place when starting the meditation. Rather he suggests
us to place the attention/mindfulness on the front. In my practice of
meditation according to this interpretation, I recognized that meditation is
less distracting from the object of attention (the front of body) compared to
meditating by trying to keep your attention on a very narrow object of
attention.
Starting
from this point it is also easy to focus on the movement of breath in and out
and be vigilant about the diversion of the attention. But it is also remarkable
how Buddha has not mentioned or the monks that compiled the sutta has not at
least briefly mentioned about the dispersion, diversion or restlessness of the
mentality during meditation which brings to the following portion of the first
quarter of the Anapanasati Sutta:
"[1] Breathing
in long, he discerns, 'I am breathing in long'; or breathing out long, he
discerns, 'I am breathing out long.' [2] Or breathing in
short, he discerns, 'I am breathing in short'; or breathing out short, he
discerns, 'I am breathing out short.' [3] He trains himself,
'I will breathe in sensitive to the entire body.' He trains himself, 'I
will breathe out sensitive to the entire body.' [4] He trains
himself, 'I will breathe in calming bodily fabrication.' He trains
himself, 'I will breathe out calming bodily fabrication.'
The
most important elements of the above portion are the 3rd and 4th
lines from the above passage which are neglected as well as unrecognized by the
contemporary meditation trainers. This is a relatively an uncritical divergence
from what the Buddha is suggesting the trainee to do:
[3] He
trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to the entire body.' He
trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to the entire body.' [4] He
trains himself, 'I will breathe in calming bodily fabrication.' He trains
himself, 'I will breathe out calming bodily fabrication.'
In
my personal practice I recognized that the meditation practitioner does not
experience the sensitivity to the entire body as well as calming of bodily
fabrications if they focus their concentration tightly on single place like the
nostril or belly.
But
when the practitioner closes his eyes while focusing on the front of him, his
attention gradually and naturally spans to the whole body while he/she is
conscious of the breath’s movement simultaneously. Then the sensitivity to the
entire body yokes with the movement of breathing becoming a single breath-body
attention. This is a seamless process of improvement of the awareness and this
can be even recognized in the subtle tone of Buddha in the passages third and fourth.
The subtle third and fourth lines suggest a gradual as well as a conscious
improvement of attention to the whole body.
Additionally,
I also noticed that the fourth line’s suggestion of calming bodily fabrications
is a hint to the existence of many tensions/pains in different parts of the
body which can be recognized or at least I myself recognized when the body is
calmed. As the body calms down the meditator/yogi feels these tension points in
the body which has to be pacified by ‘calming bodily(tension) fabrications’ to
achieve the higher and altered states of meditation:
"[5] He trains himself, 'I
will breathe in sensitive to rapture.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out
sensitive to rapture.' [6] He trains himself, 'I will breathe
in sensitive to pleasure.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to
pleasure.'
Consequentially
as the sensitivity spans and the bodily fabrications are calmed the meditator
experiences the Jhana or concentrated meditation states which are rapture and
pleasure.
Therefore,
in the close reading of the original sutta, it is clear that concentrated
meditation states presuppose the calming of mental fabrications which are
dissolved in the seventh and eighth lines of the sutta:
[7] He
trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to mental fabrication.’ He
trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to mental fabrication.' [8] He
trains himself, 'I will breathe in calming mental fabrication.' He trains
himself, 'I will breathe out calming mental fabrication.'
On
following the guidance in the sutta I recognized myself that the body calms
down faster than the mind, but the meditation does not deter from the
tranquility it produces. After calming down the body it naturally begins to
calm the mind if the meditator is maintaining his/her attention consistently
with the movement of the breath as well as the breath’s subtle movement of body.
Moreover,
the commentaries of the Pali cannon recommend the Anapanasati meditation to
deluded and speculative minds. A deluded or a speculative mind will always
encounter hardships in concentrating their mind just as much as I encountered
in my own shortcomings with the more common methods of Anapanasati meditation
which I practiced for a while. It is therefore my view that the commentaries also
suggest a system of Anapanasati meditation as I have described in this essay.
As
the reader can recognize (specially if he/she is a meditator) there are marked
distinctions in the explanations of meditation between the suttas and the
contemporary meditation trainers. But my intention is not to suggest that
contemporary meditation systems are invalid. On the contrary these meditation
systems are equally valid as the teachings in the suttas and in some instances
very helpful for miscellaneous kinds of people. According to the writer’s
perspective the more common samatha meditation systems taught by monks and lay
people are helpful in improving strong concentration and mindfulness skills,
while Buddha’s sutta method is focused on improving tranquility just enough for
the exploration of the basic nature of the mind, body and the world; the
impermanence, suffering and no-self.
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