4.2 (b): The Good Friend and the Subject of Meditation

[Full title: 4.2: The Preliminaries Practice (b): The Good Friend and the Subject of Meditation]

The path of practice leading to the jhānas is an arduous course involving preciseness. Techniques and skillfulness are needed in dealing with the pitfalls that lie along the way. The knowledge of ‘how to attain the jhānas’ has been transmitted through a lineage of teachers going back to the time of the Buddha himself. A prospective meditator is advised to avail himself of the living heritage of accumulated knowledge and experience by placing himself under the care of a qualified teacher, described as a “good friend” (kalyāṇamitta), one who gives guidance and wise advice rooted in his own practice and experience. On the basis of either of the power of penetrating others minds, or by personal observation, or by questioning, the teacher will size up the temperament of his new pupil and then select a mediation subject for him appropriate to his temperament.

The various meditation subjects that the Buddha prescribed for the development of serenity have been collected in the commentaries into a set called the forty kammatthāna. This word literally means a place of work, and is applied to the subject of meditation as the place where the meditator undertakes the work of meditation. The forty meditation subjects are distributed into seven categories, enumerated in the Visuddhimagga as follows: ten kasinas, ten kinds of foulness, ten recollections, four divine abidings, four immaterial states, one perception, and one defining.^[1]

A kasina is a device representing a particular quality used as a support for concentration. The ten kasinas are those of earth, water, fire and air; four color kasinas–blue, yellow, red and white; the light kasina and the limited space kasina. The kasina can be either a naturally occurring form of the element or color chosen, or an artificially produced device such as a disk that the meditator can use at his convenience in his meditation quarters.

The ten kinds of foulness are ten stages in the decomposition of a corpse: the bloated, the livid, the festering, the cut-up, the gnawed, the scattered, the hacked and scattered, the bleeding, the worm-infested and a skeleton. The primary purpose of these meditations is to reduce sensual lust by gaining a clear perception of the repulsiveness of the body.

The ten recollections are the recollections of the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Saṅgha, morality, generosity and the deities, mindfulness of death, mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of breathing, and the recollection of peace. The first three are devotional contemplations on the sublime qualities of the “Three Jewels,” the primary objects of Buddhist virtues and on the deities inhabiting the heavenly worlds, intended principally for those still intent on a higher rebirth. Mindfulness of death is reflection on the inevitablity of death, a constant spur to spiritual exertion. Mindfulness of the body involves the mental dissection of the body into thirty-two parts, undertaken with a view to perceiving its unattractiveness. Mindfulness of breathing is awareness of the in-and-out movement of the breath, perhaps the most fundamental of all Buddhist meditation subjects. And the recollection of peace is reflection on the qualities of Nibbāna.

The four divine abidings (brahmavihara) are the development of boundless loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. These meditations are also called the “immeasurable” ( appamanna) because they are to be developed towards all sentient beings without qualification or exclusiveness.

The four immaterial states are the base of boundless space, the base of boundless consciousness, the base of nothingness, and the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception. These are the objects leading to the corresponding meditative attainments, the immaterial jhānas.

The one perception is the perception of the repulsiveness of food. The one defining is the defining of the four elements, that is, the analysis of the physical body into the elemental modes of solidity, fluidity, heat and oscillation.

The forty meditation subjects are treated in the commentarial texts from two important angles–first one is their ability to induce different levels of concentration, and the other their suitability for differing temperaments. Not all meditation subjects are equally effective in inducing the deeper levels of concentration. They are first distinguished on the basis of their capacity for inducing only access concentration or for inducing full absorption; those capable of inducing absorption are then distinguished further according to their ability to induce the different levels of jhāna.

Of the forty subjects, ten are capable of leading only to access concentration: eight recollections, i.e. all except mindfulness of the body and mindfulness of breathing, plus the perception of repulsiveness in nutriment and the defining of the four elements. These, cannot lead beyond access because they are occupied with a diversity of qualities and involve and active application of discursive thought. The other thirty subjects can all lead to absorption.

The ten kasinas and mindfulness of breathing, owing to their simplicity and freedom from thought construction, can lead to all four jhānas. The ten kinds of foulness and mindfulness of the body lead only to the first jhāna, being limited because the mind can only hold onto them with the aid of applied thought (vitakka) which is absent in the second and higher jhānas. The first three divine abiding can induce the lower three jhānas but the fourth, since they arise in association with pleasant feeling, while the divine abiding of equanimity occurs only at the level of the fourth jhāna, where neutral feeling gains ascendency. The four immaterial states conduce to the respective immaterial jhānas corresponding to their names.

The forty subjects are also differentiated according to their appropriateness for different character types. Six main character types are recognized–the greedy, the hating, the deluded, the faithful, the intelligent and the speculative–this oversimplified typology being taken only as a pragmatic guideline which in practice admits various shades and combinations. The ten kind of foulness and mindfulness of the body, clearly intended to attenuate sensual desire, are suitable for those of greedy temperament. Eight subjects–the four divine abidings and four color kasinas–are appropriate for the hating temperament. Mindfulness of breathing is suitable for those of the deluded and the speculative temperament. The first six recollections are appropriate for the faithful temperament. Four subjects–mindfulness of death, the recollection of peace, the defining of the four elements, and the perception of the repulsiveness in nutriment–are especially effective for those of intelligent temperament. The remaining six kasinas and the immaterial states are suitable for all kinds of temperaments. But the kasinas should be limited in size for one of speculative temperament and large in size for one of deluded temperament.

Immediately after giving this breakdown Buddhaghosa adds a proviso to prevent misunderstanding. He states that this division by way of temperament is made on the basis of direct opposition and complete suitability, but actually there is no wholesome form of meditation that does not suppress the defilements and strengthen the virtuous mental factors. Thus an individual mediator may be advised to meditate on foulness to abandon lust, on loving-kindness to abandon hatred, on breathing to cut off discursive thought, and on impermanence to eliminate the conceit “I am.” ^[2]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

The following discussion is based on The Visuddhimagga of Buddhaghosācāriya110-115; The Path of Purification112-118

[2]:

Aṅguttara-Nikāya IV. 358.