Kammaṭṭhāna


In Buddhism, literally means place of work. Its original meaning was someone's occupation but this meaning has developed into several distinct but related usages all having to do with Buddhist meditation.

Etymology and meanings

Its most basic meaning is as a word for meditation, with meditation being the main occupation of Buddhist monks. In Burma, senior meditation practitioners are known as "kammatthanacariyas". The Thai Forest Tradition names itself Kammaṭṭhāna Forest tradition in reference to their practice of meditating in the forests.
In the Pali literature, prior to the post-canonical Pali commentaries, the term ' comes up in only a handful of discourses and then in the context of "work" or "trade."
Buddhaghosa uses kammatthana to refer to each of his forty meditation objects listed in the third chapter of the Visuddhimagga, which are partially derived from the Pāli Canon. In this sense kammatthana can be understood as "occupations" in the sense of "things to occupy the mind", or as "workplaces" in the sense of "places to focus the mind on during the work of meditation". Throughout his translation of the Visuddhimagga, Ñāṇamoli translates this term simply as "meditation subject'''".

Buddhaghosa's forty meditation subjects

Kasiṇas as kammaṭṭhāna

Kasina refers to a class of basic visual objects of meditation used in Theravada Buddhism. The objects are described in the Pali Canon and summarized in the famous Visuddhimagga meditation treatise as kammaṭṭhāna on which to focus the mind whenever attention drifts. Kasina meditation is one of the most common types of samatha-vipassana, intended to settle the mind of the practitioner and create a foundation for further practices of meditation. This is similar to the yogic practice of Trāṭaka.
The Visuddhimagga concerns kasina meditation. According to American scholar-monk Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu, "the text then tries to fit all other meditation methods into the mold of kasina practice, so that they too give rise to countersigns, but even by its own admission, breath meditation does not fit well into the mold." He argues that by emphasizing kasina meditation, the Visuddhimagga departs from the focus on jhāna in the Pali Canon. Thanissaro Bhikkhu states this indicates that what "jhana means in the commentaries is something quite different from what it means in the Canon."
Although practice with kasiṇas is associated with the Theravāda tradition, it appears to have been more widely known among various Buddhist schools in India at one time. Asanga makes reference to kasiṇas in the Samāhitabhūmi section of his Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra. Uppalavannā, one of the Buddha's chief female disciples, famously attained arahantship using a fire kasina as her object of meditation.
Of the forty objects meditated upon as kammaṭṭhāna, the first ten are kasina described as 'things one can behold directly'. These are described in the Visuddhimagga, and also mentioned in the Pali Tipitaka.
They are:
  1. earth
  2. water
  3. fire
  4. air/wind
  5. blue
  6. yellow ??? ????; pīta kasiṇa, pīta kṛtsna)
  7. red
  8. white
  9. enclosed space, hole, aperture
  10. consciousness in the Pali suttas and some other texts; the bright light according to later sources such as Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga.
The kasinas are typically described as a coloured disk, with the particular colour, properties, dimensions and medium often specified according to the type of kasina. The earth kasina, for instance, is a disk in a red-brown color formed by spreading earth or clay on a screen of canvas or another backing material.

''Paṭikkūla-manasikāra''

The next ten are impure objects of repulsion, specifically 'cemetery contemplations' on ten stages of human decomposition which aim to cultivate mindfulness of body.
They are:
  1. a swollen corpse
  2. a discolored, bluish, corpse
  3. a festering corpse
  4. a fissured corpse
  5. a gnawed corpse
  6. a dismembered corpse
  7. a hacked and scattered corpse
  8. a bleeding corpse
  9. a worm-eaten corpse
  10. a skeleton

    ''Anussati''

The next ten are recollections :
  1. First three recollections are of the virtues of the Three Jewels:
  2. # Buddha
  3. # Dhamma
  4. # Sangha
  5. Next three are recollections of the virtues of:
  6. # morality
  7. # generosity/relinquishment
  8. # the skillful qualities of Devas
  9. The additional four recollections of:
  10. # the body
  11. # death
  12. # the breath or breathing
  13. # peace

    ''Brahma-vihārā''

Four are 'divine abidings', which are the virtues of the "Brahma realm" :
  1. unconditional kindness and goodwill
  2. compassion
  3. sympathetic joy over another's success
  4. evenmindedness, equanimity

    ''Āyatana''

Four are formless states :
  1. infinite space
  2. infinite consciousness
  3. infinite nothingness
  4. neither perception nor non-perception

    Others

Of the remaining five, one is of perception of disgust of food and the last four are the 'four great elements' : earth, water, fire, air.

Meditation subjects and the four ''jhāna''s

According to Gunaratana, following Buddhaghosa, due to the simplicity of subject matter, all four jhanas can be induced through ānāpānasati and the ten kasinas.
According to Gunaratana, the following meditation subjects only lead to "access concentration", due to their complexity: the recollection of the Buddha, dharma, sangha, morality, liberality, wholesome attributes of Devas, death, and peace; the perception of disgust of food; and the analysis of the four elements.
Absorption in the first jhana can be realized by mindfulness on the ten kinds of foulness and mindfulness of the body. However, these meditations cannot go beyond the first jhana due to their involving applied thought, which is absent from the higher jhanas.
Absorption in the first three jhanas can be realized by contemplating the first three brahma-viharas. However, these meditations cannot aid in attaining the fourth jhana due to the pleasant feelings associated with them. Conversely, once the fourth jhana is induced, the fourth brahma-vihara arises.

Meditation subjects and temperaments

Each kammatthana can be suggested, especially by a spiritual friend , to a certain individual student at some specific point, by assessing what would be best for that student's temperament and the present state of his or her mind.
All of the aforementioned meditation subjects can suppress the Five Hindrances, thus allowing one to fruitfully pursue wisdom. In addition, anyone can productively apply specific meditation subjects as antidotes, such as meditating on foulness to counteract lust or on the breath to abandon discursive thought.
The Pali commentaries further provide guidelines for suggesting meditation subjects based on one's general temperament:
  • Greedy: the ten foulness meditations; or, body contemplation.
  • Hating: the four brahma-viharas; or, the four color kasinas.
  • Deluded: mindfulness of breath.
  • Faithful: the first six recollections.
  • Intelligent: recollection of marana or Nibbana; the perception of disgust of food; or, the analysis of the four elements.
  • Speculative: mindfulness of breath.
The six non-color kasinas and the four formless states are suitable for all temperaments.

Supernormal abilities

The Visuddhimagga is one of the extremely rare texts within the enormous literature of Buddhism to give explicit details about how spiritual masters are thought to actually manifest supernormal abilities. Abilities such as flying through the air, walking through solid obstructions, diving into the ground, walking on water and so forth are performed by changing one element, such as earth, into another element, such as air. The individual must master kasina meditation before this is possible. Dipa Ma, who trained via the Visuddhimagga, was said to demonstrate these abilities.