The Purpose and Practice of Buddhist Meditation Excerpt

The Purpose and Practice of Buddhist Meditation a source book of teachings Sangharakshita

Ibis Publications

INTRODUCTION

2 A system of meditation 1. a successful experiment I feel strongly that there is a great need for a wider and more intensive practice of the ‘classical’ systems of meditation.

When I came back to England in 1964, a high proportion of Western Buddhists seemed interested in meditation, and it was significant that at the Summer School there were four different meditation sessions a day, all of them well attended. In view of the alarmingly high incidence of mental strain and disorder this interest was natural, I observed in an article I wrote at the time, adding that it was always to be borne in mind that the significance of Buddhist meditation was not merely psychological but primarily spiritual: its goal was Enlightenment. The article continued: Some people at the Summer School, however, regretted that a wider range of meditation practices were not available. As one of them told me, ‘We aren’t attracted by Zen, and we don’t like Vipassanā, and there doesn’t seem to be anything in between.’ Actually there is very much ‘in between’. At the 9.30 meditation sessions I conducted an experiment in what I afterwards called Guided Meditation, the class progressing from one stage to another of MettāBhāvanā (Development of Love) practice as directed at five-minute intervals by the voice of the instructor. Verbal directions were gradually reduced to a minimum until, in 25

THE PURPOSE AND PRACTICE OF BUDDHIST MEDITATION

the last session, transition from one stage to the next was indicated merely by strokes on the gong. The experiment seemed successful, and it may be possible to apply the same technique to the teaching of other types of meditation. In any case, I feel strongly that there is a great need, among English Buddhists, for a wider and more intensive practice of the ‘classical’ systems of meditation, such as Mettā Bhāvanā and Ānāpāna Sati (Respiration-Mindfulness), which are common to all Yānas and which constitute the indispensable foundation of the more advanced techniques. I also feel that less attention is paid than might be to the devotional side of the Buddha’s Teaching. As the formula of the Five Spiritual Faculties reminds us, Faith (śraddhā) and Wisdom (prajñā), Energy (vīrya) and Meditation (samādhi), must be in perfect equilibrium: Mindfulness (smrti) ‘is always useful’.

The Vipassanā that some people at the Summer School didn’t like was the controversial Burmese ‘insight meditation’ that Ananda Bodhi had been teaching. My experiment in Guided Meditation was an experiment in the sense that I had not taught meditation in this way before, and as the experiment was successful it did prove possible to apply the same technique to the teaching of types of meditation other than mettābhāvanā. Guided Group Meditation, as I now called it, came to be the standard way in which I taught mettā-bhāvanā and ānāpāna-sati to beginners in meditation both at the Vihara and elsewhere. This served to encourage the practice of the ‘classical’ systems of meditation among English Buddhists, some of whom were inclined to hanker after more ‘advanced’ methods of development.

From Moving Against the Stream (2004, pp.28-9)

2. underground meditation Quite soon, people attending these classes regularly were becoming noticeably calmer, clearer, and happier – as was only to be expected.

When in 1967 I founded a new Buddhist movement, I did so with few preconceived ideas of how Buddhism might be introduced most effectively into this – as it seemed to me then – quite strange society. My initial 26

INTRODUCTION

point of interaction was meditation. I started conducting weekly meditation classes in a tiny basement room in central London. This setting was, I feel now, quite appropriate for my earliest forays into alien territory, into a culture devoted to values that are largely inimical to my own.

In some sense one had to work below the surface, as an underground movement, rather like the early Christians in Rome who are supposed to have met in the Catacombs to take refuge from persecution. We are very fortunate in the West that we are not subject to overt persecution; but modern values which are antipathetic to religious faith of any kind – like materialism, consumerism, and relativism – are enforced in subtle but pervasive ways that make them all the more difficult to resist.

In these ‘underground’ meditation classes, I taught two methods of meditation: the mindfulness of breathing, known in Pāli as ānāpānasati, and the cultivation of universal loving kindness, the mettā-bhāvanā.

Quite soon, people attending these classes regularly were becoming noticeably calmer, clearer, and happier – as was only to be expected.

There are many ways of defining meditation, but in very simple terms we can say that it enables the mind to work directly on itself in order to refine the quality of one’s conscious experience, and in this way to raise one’s whole level of consciousness. This process may be augmented by various indirect methods of raising consciousness, such as Hatha yoga, T’ai chi Ch’uan, and similar physical disciplines, together with the practice and appreciation of the arts. Thus the integration of Buddhism into Western society begins with at least some members of that society raising their levels of consciousness both directly through meditation, and indirectly through various other disciplines.

After a few months, we held our first retreat in the countryside, for just one week. It was attended by fifteen or twenty people who had been coming along regularly to these weekly meditation classes. On this retreat we meditated together, engaged in various devotional practices together, and discussed the Dharma together. Some of the retreatants were there to deepen their experience of meditation, and this they were able to do. But all of them discovered that simply being away from the city, away from the daily grind of work and home life, and being in the company of other Buddhists, with nothing to think about except the Dharma, was sufficient to raise their level of consciousness. So here was another point of interaction: changing the environment, changing the conditions in which people lived. That is, consciousness can be raised, at least to some extent, by changing society.

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THE PURPOSE AND PRACTICE OF BUDDHIST MEDITATION

The integration of Buddhism into Western society therefore involves changing Western society. Inasmuch as our level of consciousness is affected by external conditions, it is not enough for us to work directly on the mind itself through meditation. We cannot isolate ourselves from society or ignore the conditions in which we and others live. We must make it easier for anyone within that society who wants to live a life dedicated to the Dharma to do so. To the extent that Western society has not been changed by Buddhism, to that extent Buddhism has not been integrated into Western society. In order to change Western society it is necessary to create Western Buddhist institutions and Western Buddhist lifestyles.

From What is the Sangha? (2001, pp.243-5)

3. a complete meditation practice Is that all in one sitting?

Sangharakshita: If one wanted a more or less complete and systematic meditation practice, one could start off with the mindfulness of breathing, and get quite a lot of experience of that, then take up the mettā-bhāvanā, which would develop one’s emotional positivity and refine one’s being. Then one could go on to the six element practice, which would develop some Insight into the egolessness of the person, the individual, and then to the śūnyatā practice of the Mahāyāna, and the visualization practice of the Vajrayāna, which represents the birth of the new as it were Enlightened personality. This would give a quite comprehensive practice.

Q: Is that all in one sitting?

S: Oh, no. Well, you could do it in one sitting, but no, I’m thinking of one’s whole practice throughout one’s whole life. You could spend a day, especially on solitary retreat going through these practices in this order, or they could be done on an intensive retreat, but essentially they are practices spread over one’s whole lifetime. You start off with mindfulness, you learn to be very mindful. It may take you several years to get any real improvement. Then – I say then, but that is thinking in terms of the path of regular steps, you don’t have to wait until your mindfulness is perfect before you 28

INTRODUCTION

take up mettā – but then you perfect your positive emotions, not only mettā, but karuṇā, muditā, upekkhā. So far these have all been samatha practices. But then you can take up vipassanā, especially the six element practice, which will in a sense disintegrate the old self and pave the way for the birth of the new self, so to speak. Then one can get further into that by practising the Mahāyāna śūnyatā meditation, and then the Vajrayāna stages of generation and perfection. This would give one a complete meditation practice from beginning to end, in a very simplified form. And this is essentially the path that we follow in our Buddhist movement.

From a seminar on Nāgārjuna’s Precious Garland (1976, p.707)

4. an organic, living system Buddhism grew out of meditation ...

Buddhism grew out of meditation; it grew out of the Buddha’s meditation under the bodhi tree 2,500 years ago. It grew therefore out of meditation in the highest sense: not simply concentration, nor even the experience of higher states of consciousness, but contemplation – a direct, total, all-comprehending vision and experience of ultimate Reality. It is out of this that Buddhism grew, and out of this that it has continually refreshed itself down through the ages.

Of the many methods of meditation developed within the Buddhist tradition, in my own teaching I have taken a few to form what can be called, perhaps a trifle ambitiously, a system: not a dead, mechanical, artificially created system, but an organic, living system. These methods are: the mindfulness of breathing; the mettā-bhāvanā, or the development of universal loving-kindness; the just sitting practice; the visualization practice (the visualization of a Buddha or a Bodhisattva, together with the recitation of the mantra of that Buddha or Bodhisattva); the recollection of the six elements; and the recollection of the nidāna chain.

According to another arrangement of the five basic methods of meditation outlined by my teacher Mr Chen, each meditation is the antidote to a particular mental poison. Meditation on impurity (the ‘corpse meditation’) is the antidote to craving. The mettā-bhāvanā is the antidote to hatred. Mindfulness, whether of the breathing process or of any other physical or mental function, is the antidote to doubt and distraction of mind. Recollection of the nidāna chain is the antidote to ignorance.

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Recollection of the six elements is the antidote to conceit. If you get rid of these five mental poisons, then you are well on your way indeed; you are, in fact, quite close to Enlightenment. In this arrangement, however, the relationship between the practices is, as it were, spatial (they are all on the same level, arranged like a sort of pentad), not progressive. What we need is a progressive arrangement of the methods of meditation, a definite cumulative sequence that takes us forward step by step.

The mindfulness of breathing In such a series, first comes the mindfulness of breathing. There are various reasons why it comes first. It is a ‘psychological’ method, in the sense that the newcomer can look at it psychologically; one does not need to know any distinctively Buddhist teaching to practise it. And it is the starting point for the development of mindfulness with regard to all the activities of life. We start by being mindful of our breath, but we have to try to extend this until we are aware of all our bodily movements and exactly what we are doing. We must become aware of the world around us and aware of other people. We must become aware, ultimately, of Reality itself. But we start with the mindfulness of breathing.

The development of mindfulness is also important because it is the key to psychical integration. When we first learn to meditate, we are usually just a bundle of conflicting desires, both conscious and unconscious, even conflicting selves, loosely tied together with the thread of a name and an address. Even the limited mindfulness developed by practising the mindfulness of breathing helps to bind them together; it at least tightens the string a little bit, to make a more recognizable, identifiable bundle of these different desires and selves.

To carry it a bit further, the practice of mindfulness helps to create harmony between the different aspects (as they have now become) of ourselves. It is through mindfulness that we begin to create true individuality. Individuality is essentially integrated; an unintegrated individuality is a contradiction in terms. Unless we become integrated, unless we are really individuals, there is no real progress, because there is no commitment. Only an integrated person can commit himself, because all his energies are flowing in the same direction; one energy, one interest, one desire, is not in conflict with another. Mindfulness, at so many different levels, is therefore of crucial importance – it is the key to the whole thing.

But there is a danger that in the course of our practice of mindfulness we develop what I have come to term ‘alienated awareness’. This arises 30

INTRODUCTION

when we are aware of ourselves without actually experiencing ourselves.

Therefore, as well as practising mindfulness, it is very important that we establish contact with our emotions, whatever they are. Ideally we will establish contact with our positive emotions, if we have or can develop any, but for the time being, we may have to establish contact with our negative emotions. It is better to establish real, living contact with our negative emotions (which means acknowledging them and experiencing them but not indulging them) than to remain in that alienated state and not experience our emotions at all.

The mettā-bhāvanā It is here that the mettā-bhāvanā and similar practices come in: not just mettā (Sanskrit maitrī), loving-kindness, but also the other brahmavihāras: karuṇā, muditā and upekṣā (Pāli upekkhā) (compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity respectively), as well as śraddhā (Pāli saddhā), faith. All of these are based on mettā, loving-kindness, friendliness; this is the fundamental positive emotion. As the years go by, as I come into contact with more and more people, I see more and more clearly the importance of positive emotions in our lives, both our spiritual lives and our worldly lives. I would say that the development of positive emotions is absolutely crucial for our development as individuals. We are not kept going by abstract ideas. It is our positive emotions that keep us going on the spiritual path, giving us inspiration and enthusiasm, until such time as we can develop Perfect Vision and be motivated by that.

The six element practice But suppose you have developed mindfulness and all these positive emotions, suppose you are a very aware, positive, responsible person, even a true individual, what is the next step? The next step is death. The happy, healthy individual you now are – or were – must die. In other words, the subject-object distinction must be transcended; the mundane individuality, pure and perfect though it may be, must be broken up.

Here the key practice is the recollection of the six elements. There are other practices that help us to break up our present individuality: the recollection of impermanence, the recollection of death, and the śūnyatā meditations, including the meditation on the nidāna chain. But the śūnyatā meditations can become rather abstract, not to say intellectual.

The recollection of the six elements – involving the giving back of the elements in us to the elements in the universe, relinquishing in turn 31

THE PURPOSE AND PRACTICE OF BUDDHIST MEDITATION

earth, water, fire, air, space, even our individualized consciousness – is the key practice for breaking up our sense of relative individuality. We can even say that it is itself a śūnyatā meditation, because it helps us to realize the emptiness of our individuality – it helps us to die. There are many translations for the word śūnyatā. Sometimes it is translated ‘voidness’, sometimes ‘relativity’; H.V. Guenther renders it ‘nothingness’. But it could well be rendered ‘death’, because it is the death of everything conditioned. It is only when the conditioned individuality dies that the unconditioned Individuality begins to emerge. In meditation, as we go deeper and deeper, we often experience a great fear. Sometimes people shy away from it, but it is good to allow oneself to experience it. The fear occurs when we feel what may be called the touch of śūnyatā, the touch of Reality, on the conditioned self. The touch of śūnyatā feels like death. In fact, for the conditioned self it is death. So the conditioned self feels – we feel – afraid. The recollection of the six elements and the other śūnyatā meditations are vipaśyanā (Pāli vipassanā) or Insight meditations, whereas the mindfulness of breathing and the mettā-bhāvanā are samatha (Pāli samatā) or pacification-type meditations. Samatha develops and refines our conditioned individuality, but vipaśyanā breaks down that individuality, or rather it enables us to see right through it.

Visualization When the mundane self has died, what happens next? In not very traditional language, out of the experience of the death of the mundane self the Transcendental self arises. It arises in the midst of the sky – in the midst of the Void – where we see a lotus flower. On the lotus flower there is a seed in the form of a letter – what we call a bīja mantra – which is transformed into a particular Buddha or Bodhisattva figure. Here, obviously, we have come on to the visualization practices.

The visualized figure before you, the figure of a Buddha or Bodhisattva, sublime and glorious though it may be, is, in fact, you: the new you – you as you will be if only you allow yourself to die. In some forms of visualization practice, we recite and meditate first of all upon the śūnyatā mantra: om svabhāva suddhah sarvadharmah svabhāva suddho ’ham, which means ‘all things are pure by nature; I too am pure by nature’. Here pure means pure of all concepts, pure of all conditionality, because we cannot be reborn without passing through death. To be a little elliptical, there is no Vajrayāna without Mahāyāna, and the Mahāyāna is the yāna of the experience of śūnyatā. This is why my old 32

INTRODUCTION

friend and teacher, Mr C.M. Chen, the Ch’an hermit in Kalimpong, used to say, ‘Without the realization of śūnyatā, the visualizations of the Vajrayāna are only vulgar magic.’

There are many different Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, ḍākas, ḍākinīs and dharmapālas to visualize, but the general significance of visualization practice comes out with particular clarity in the Vajrasattva sādhana.

Vajrasattva is a Buddha appearing in Bodhisattva form. He is white in colour: white for purification. Here the purification consists in the realization that in the ultimate sense you have never become impure: you are pure from the beginning, the beginningless beginning, pure by nature, pure essentially; in the depths of your being you are pure of all conditionality, or rather you are pure of the very distinction between conditioned and Unconditioned. For anyone brought up in a guilt-ridden culture like ours in the West, this sort of statement must surely come as a great revelation – a great, positive shock.

Vajrasattva is also associated with death: not only spiritual death, but physical death. There is a connection here with the Tibetan Book of the Dead. In Tibetan, the (so-called) ‘Book of the Dead’ is called Bardo Thödol, which means ‘liberation by hearing in the intermediate state’ (that is to say, by hearing the instruction of the Lama seated by your erstwhile body and explaining to you what is happening to you in the intermediate state after your death). The intermediate state is intermediate between physical death and physical rebirth. But meditation is also an intermediate state, because when we meditate – in the true sense – we die. In the same way, physical death is a meditative state, a state of enforced meditation, enforced samādhi. In both intermediate states – the one between death and rebirth and the one that occurs in meditation – we can see Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, even mandalas of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. These are not outside us; they are the manifestation of our own True Mind, the manifestation of the Dharmakaya, and we can, as it were, identify with them and thus be spiritually reborn in a Transcendental mode of existence. If we do not succeed in identifying in this way, then we are simply reborn in the ordinary sense – we fall back into the old conditioned self.

The four stages So that's the system of meditation, at least in outline. The first of the four great stages is the stage of integration, achieved mainly through practice of the mindfulness of breathing, with the help of mindfulness and awareness in general. In this stage, we develop an integrated self.

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The second stage is the stage of emotional positivity, achieved mainly through the development of mettā, karuṇā, muditā, and so on. Here the integrated self is raised to a higher, more refined, more powerful level, symbolized by the beautiful blooming white lotus flower.

Then there is the third stage: spiritual death, achieved mainly through the recollection of the six elements, but also through the recollection of impermanence, the recollection of death, and the śūnyatā meditations.

Here the refined self is seen through, and we experience the Void, experience śūnyatā, experience spiritual death.

And fourthly, there is the stage of spiritual rebirth, achieved through the visualization and mantra recitation practice. Abstract visualization (the visualization of geometric forms and letters) also helps. This, in broad outline, is the system of meditation.

Where do ordination, the arising of the bodhicitta and Just Sitting fit in?

‘Ordination’ means Going for Refuge; Going for Refuge means commitment; and commitment is possible on different levels. Theoretically, one could be ordained without ever having practised meditation, but that’s highly unlikely. One cannot commit oneself unless one is reasonably integrated; otherwise you commit yourself today and tomorrow you withdraw the commitment, because your total being was not involved.

You also cannot commit yourself unless you have a certain amount of emotional positivity; otherwise you’ve nothing to keep you going. And there should also be at least a faint glimmer of Perfect Vision, or the reflection of a glimmer. Ordination would therefore seem to come somewhere in between the second and third of the main stages of the system of meditation. One might say that it comes when one has just begun to enter the stage of spiritual death, or when one is at least open to that possibility. This, of course, is according to the path of regular steps; we know that there is also a path of irregular steps.

And where does the arising of the bodhicitta come in? Bodhicitta, the will to Enlightenment, is not an egoistic will; it’s more of the nature of a supra-individual aspiration, and it arises only when the individuality in the ordinary sense has been destroyed or seen through, to some extent at least. The bodhicitta is the aspiration to gain Enlightenment for the benefit of all. Not that – as Mahāyāna Buddhists would point out – there is a real individual seeking to gain Enlightenment for the sake of real others. The bodhicitta arises, we may say, beyond self and others, though not without self and others. It arises when the mundane self is destroyed 34

INTRODUCTION

or seen through, but before the ‘Transcendental self ’ has emerged; when one is no longer seeking Enlightenment for the so-called self, but has not yet fully dedicated oneself to gaining it for the so-called other. The bodhicitta therefore arises in between the third and the fourth stages; that is, between the stage of spiritual death and the stage of spiritual rebirth.

The bodhicitta is indeed the seed of spiritual rebirth. There is an anticipation of this at the time of the private ordination when one receives the mantra; the mantra is in a sense the seed of the bodhicitta. After all, one’s ordination is a Going Forth. One has gone forth from the group, at least psychologically if not physically; one aspires to Enlightenment. And surely one aspires not just for one’s own sake but for the sake, ultimately, of all. It isn’t surprising, therefore that at that time some faint reflection of the bodhicitta should arise, at least in some cases.

And thirdly, what about the Just Sitting practice? Well, what about it? It’s difficult to say anything about it, because when one Just Sits, well, one just sits! But at least one can say that there are times when one just sits and there are times when one does not just sit – times, that is to say, when one is doing other things. One of the times when one does not just sit is when one is practising meditations other than Just Sitting (if Just Sitting can be described as a meditation practice) – that is to say, when one is practising meditations such as the mindfulness of breathing, the mettā-bhāvanā, or the six element practice. In all of these, conscious effort is required. But one must be careful that this effort does not become too willed, even too wilful, and to guard against this possibility, one can practise Just Sitting. In other words, there is a period of activity, during which you are practising, say, the mindfulness of breathing or the mettabhavana, and then a period of, as it were, passivity, receptivity. So in this way we go on: passivity, activity; activity, passivity. Mindfulness – Just Sitting. Metta – Just Sitting. Six Elements – Just Sitting. Visualization – Just Sitting. In this way we can develop a rhythm: taking hold of; letting go; grasping; opening up; action; non-action. Thus we achieve a perfectly balanced practice of meditation, a perfectly balanced spiritual life, and the whole system of meditation becomes complete.

Slightly edited from A Guide to the Buddhist Path (1990, pp.145-50), which came from the talk 'A System of Meditation', given in 1978

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