Buddhist meditation
Buddhist meditation is the practice of meditation in Buddhism. The closest words for meditation in the classical languages of Buddhism are bhāvanā and jhāna/dhyāna.
Buddhists pursue meditation as part of the path toward liberation from defilements and clinging and craving, also called awakening, which results in the attainment of nirvana. The Indian Buddhist schools relied on numerous meditation techniques to attain meditative absorption, some of which remain influential in certain modern schools of Buddhism. Classic Buddhist meditations include anapanasati, asubha bhavana ; reflection on pratityasamutpada ; anussati, the four foundations of mindfulness, and the divine abodes. These techniques aim to develop various qualities including equanimity, sati, samadhi c.q. samatha and vipassanā ; and are also said to lead to abhijñā. These meditation techniques are preceded by and combined with practices which aid this development, such as moral restraint and right effort to develop wholesome states of mind.
While some of the classic techniques are used throughout the modern Buddhist schools, the later Buddhist traditions also developed numerous other forms of meditation. One basic classification of meditation techniques divides them into samatha and vipassana. In the Theravada traditions emphasizing vipassana, these are often seen as separate techniques, while Mahayana Buddhism generally stresses the union of samatha and vipassana. Both Mahayana and Theravada traditions share some practices, like breath meditation and walking meditation. East Asian Buddhism developed a wide range of meditation techniques, including the Zen methods of zazen and huatou, the Pure Land practices of nianfo and guanfo, and the Tiantai method of "calming and insight". Tibetan Buddhism and other forms of Vajrayana mainly rely on the tantric practice of deity yoga as a central meditation technique. These are taught alongside other methods like Mahamudra and Dzogchen.
Etymology
The closest words for meditation in the classical languages of Buddhism are bhāvanā and jhāna/dhyāna.Pre-sectarian Buddhism
, as it existed before the development of various schools, is called pre-sectarian Buddhism. Its meditation-techniques are described in the Pali Canon and the Chinese Agamas.Preparatory practices
Meditation and contemplation are preceded by preparatory practices. As described in the Noble Eightfold Path, right view leads to leaving the household life and becoming a wandering monk. Sila, morality, comprises the rules for right conduct. Sense restraint and right effort, c.q. the four right efforts, are important preparatory practices. Sense restraint means controlling the response to sensual perceptions, not giving in to lust and aversion but simply noticing the objects of perception as they appear. Right effort aims to prevent the arising of unwholesome states, and to generate wholesome states. By following these preparatory steps and practices, the mind becomes set, almost naturally, for the onset of dhyana.''Sati/smrti'' (mindfulness)
An important quality to be cultivated by a Buddhist meditator is mindfulness. Mindfulness is a polyvalent term which refers to remembering, recollecting and "bearing in mind". It also relates to remembering the teachings of the Buddha and knowing how these teachings relate to one's experiences. The Buddhist texts mention different kinds of mindfulness practice.The Pali Satipatthana Sutta and its parallels as well as numerous other early Buddhist texts enumerates four subjects on which mindfulness is established: the body ; feelings ; mind ; and phenomena or principles, such as the five hindrances and the seven factors of enlightenment. Different early texts give different enumerations of these four mindfulness practices. Meditation on these subjects is said to develop insight.
According to Bronkhorst, there were originally two kinds of mindfulness, "observations of the positions of the body" and the four satipaṭṭhānas, the "establishment of mindfulness," which constituted formal meditation. Bhikkhu Sujato and Bronkhorst both argue that the mindfulness of the positions of the body wasn't originally part of the four satipatthana formula, but was later added to it in some texts.
Bronkhorst also argues that the earliest form of the satipaṭṭhāna sutta only contained the observation of the impure body parts under mindfulness of the body, and that mindfulness of dhammas was originally just the observation of the seven awakening factors. Sujato's reconstruction similarly only retains the contemplation of the impure under mindfulness of the body, while including only the five hindrances and the seven awakening factors under mindfulness of dhammas. According to Analayo, mindfulness of breathing was probably absent from the original scheme, noting that one can easily contemplate the body's decay taking an external object, that is, someone else's body, but not be externally mindful of the breath, that is, someone else's breath.
According to Grzegorz Polak, the four upassanā have been misunderstood by the developing Buddhist tradition, including Theravada, to refer to four different foundations. According to Polak, the four upassanā do not refer to four different foundations of which one should be aware, but are an alternate description of the jhanas, describing how the samskharas are tranquilized:
- the six sense-bases which one needs to be aware of ;
- contemplation on vedanās, which arise with the contact between the senses and their objects ;
- the altered states of mind to which this practice leads ;
- the development from the five hindrances to the seven factors of enlightenment.
''Anussati'' (recollections)
''Asubha bhavana'' (reflection on unattractiveness)
Asubha bhavana is reflection on "the foul"/unattractiveness. It includes two practices, namely cemetery contemplations, and Paikkūlamanasikāra, "reflections on repulsiveness". Patikulamanasikara is a Buddhist meditation whereby thirty-one parts of the body are contemplated in a variety of ways. In addition to developing sati and samādhi, this form of meditation is considered to be conducive to overcoming desire and lust.''Anapanasati'' (mindfulness of breathing)
Anapanasati, mindfulness of breathing, is a core meditation practice in Theravada, Tiantai and Chan traditions of Buddhism as well as a part of many mindfulness programs. In both ancient and modern times, anapanasati by itself is likely the most widely used Buddhist method for contemplating bodily phenomena.The Ānāpānasati Sutta specifically concerns mindfulness of inhalation and exhalation, as a part of paying attention to one's body in quietude, and recommends the practice of anapanasati meditation as a means of cultivating the Seven Factors of Enlightenment: sati, dhamma vicaya, viriya, which leads to pīti, then to passaddhi, which in turn leads to samadhi and then to upekkhā. Finally, the Buddha taught that, with these factors developed in this progression, the practice of anapanasati would lead to release from dukkha, in which one realizes nibbana.
''Dhyāna/jhāna''
Many scholars of early Buddhism, such as Vetter, Bronkhorst and Anālayo, see the practice of jhāna as central to the meditation of Early Buddhism. According to Bronkhorst, the oldest Buddhist meditation practice are the four dhyanas, which lead to the destruction of the asavas as well as the practice of mindfulness. According to Vetter, the practice of dhyana may have constituted the core liberating practice of early Buddhism, since in this state all "pleasure and pain" had waned. According to Vetter,Alexander Wynne agrees that the Buddha taught a kind of meditation exemplified by the four dhyanas, but argues that the Buddha adopted these from the Brahmin teachers Āḷāra Kālāma and Uddaka Rāmaputta, though he did not interpret them in the same Vedic cosmological way and rejected their Vedic goal. The Buddha, according to Wynne, radically transformed the practice of dhyana which he learned from these Brahmins which "consisted of the adaptation of the old yogic techniques to the practice of mindfulness and attainment of insight". For Wynne, this idea that liberation required not just meditation but an act of insight, was radically different from the Brahminic meditation, "where it was thought that the yogin must be without any mental activity at all, ‘like a log of wood’."
Four rupa-jhanas
Qualities
Interpretation
According to Richard Gombrich, the sequence of the four rupa-jhanas describes two different cognitive states. Alexander Wynne further explains that the dhyana-scheme is poorly understood. According to Wynne, words expressing the inculcation of awareness, such as sati, sampajāno, and upekkhā, are mistranslated or understood as particular factors of meditative states, whereas they refer to a particular way of perceiving the sense objects. Polak notes that the qualities of the jhanas resemble the bojjhaṅgā, the seven factors of awakening, arguing that both sets describe the same essential practice. Polak further notes, elaborating on Vetter, that the onset of the first dhyana is described as a quite natural process, due to the preceding efforts to restrain the senses and the nurturing of wholesome states.Upekkhā, equanimity, which is perfected in the fourth dhyana, is one of the four Brahma-vihara. While the commentarial tradition downplayed the Brahma-viharas, Gombrich notes that the Buddhist usage of the brahma-vihāra, originally referred to an awakened state of mind, and a concrete attitude toward other beings which was equal to "living with Brahman" here and now. The later tradition took those descriptions too literally, linking them to cosmology and understanding them as "living with Brahman" by rebirth in the Brahma-world. According to Gombrich, "the Buddha taught that kindness – what Christians tend to call love – was a way to salvation."