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The Practice of Dhyāna

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The Practice of Dhyāna Chapter Four THE PRACTICE OF DHYĀNA 4.1. PRACTICAL PURPOSE OF THE DHYĀNA Meditation is essentially an experiential activity, not a scholastic subject to be understood through books or secondhand information. It is not an escape from life or evasion from responsibility. Even if the formal meditation practice may appear to the uninformed to be disconnected from real life, its inherent purpose deeply concerns our day-to-day existence and experience. Meditation means mindfulness and wisdom in what we do, speak, and think; it means greater awareness and higher ability in self- control. It is not, therefore, an irrelevant other-worldly practice meant only for monks and ascetics, but is one of the most valuable practical skills meant for enhancing fulfilment in everyday life. The goal of this meditation is the beautiful silence, stillness and clarity of mind. Meditation is the way to achieve letting go i.e. detachment. In meditation one lets go of the complex world outside in order to reach the serene world inside. In all types of mysticism, in many traditions, this is known as the path to the pure and powerful mind. The experience of this pure mind, released from the world, is very wonderful and blissful. 176 177 The mental development mentioned will be reinforced and the source of creativeness of mind will be awakened by the practice of meditation which is the main task of the Buddhist Way ( Māgga) to liberation. Meditation is understood as calming individual’s desire and immediate troubles. It transforms the five hindrances like restlessness, torpor and sloth, sensuous desire, ill-will, sceptical doubt into the five meditative mental factors like thought-conception, discursive thinking, rapture; joy, equanimity – happiness-one pointedness. And all evil thoughts arising from the five hindrances also are calmed or destroyed. In the “fourth meditation,” the Vipassanā is developed fast and comfortably. So, meditation responds to the following purposes of life: - Calming down immediate troubles of a person practising it. - Opening a source of creativeness which is a very important factor contributing to the construction of human culture and civilization. - Developing the wisdom regard (Vipassanā) for ceasing the cause of suffering. - Seeing the truth of the existence of men and things. This is why Lord Buddha taught His disciples: The Bhikkhu whose body and tongue and minds are quieted, who is collected, and has rejected the baits of the world, he is called quiet.295 And: 295 Dhp. 378. Santakāyo santavāco santavā susamāhito,Vantalokāmiso bhikkhu upasantoti vuccati. 178 The bhikkhu, full of delight, who is happy in the doctrine of Buddha will reach the quiet place ( Nibbāna), happiness consisting the cessation of natural inclinations. 296 So, during the period of time of practising meditation for wisdom regard, an individual lives in the fresh air of mind with happy feelings and gets rid of all troubles, worries withering the flowers of young generations In addition to the above things, the practice of following breathing in – and breathing out may help worldly men improve their capacity of memory and observation which is very interesting to students in schools; the practice of following and observing their mind will help them see their mental problems as the result of a task of self – therapy. The Buddhist Way (māgga) of releasing the bondage of Kamma means releasing the bondage of the craving and suffering. This suggests that the cultivation of meditation is the task for liberation which has two things to do: - Controlling a person’s habits of things as having a permanent self from which desire for things arises. - Developing his regard to things as non – self from which desireless thought arises. This task is therefore for the cessation of his troubles and a suffering, which is the cherished dream of a man, and is the root purpose, the branch of modern educational psychology aims at. All teachings of Lord Buddha recorded in Pāli Suttapitaka are centered on this great point. Doubts about this meditation betray a typical misunderstanding concerning Buddhist meditation, prevalent not only among non-Buddhists 296 Dhp. 381. Pāmojjabahulo bhikkhuâ pasanno buddha- sāsane, Adhigacche padam santam sankhāruūpa samam sukham. 179 but also among certain sectors of Buddhists as well. Some people believe that meditation serves no practical purpose and is an escape from the reality of everyday life. Those who embrace this wrong view fail to distinguish between an active training attuned to a state of perfect mental health, tranquility, and equilibrium, which is Buddhist meditation, and a passive engagement in nothing but mystic musings or recitation of mantras, which has nothing to do with Buddhist meditation. They also fail to understand that sitting with closed eyes or repeating unintelligible phrases does not in itself constitute Buddhist meditation. Buddhist meditation by no means implies an escape from life. Its practice is largely based on life activities and its effects are meant to improve the quality of life. To develop a high level of concentration a certain degree of seclusion or a carefully-structured environment may be more favourable, but Buddhist meditation means much more than just concentration practice. In fact, the Buddha pointed out that concentration for its own sake is an obstacle to the higher realization of the Dhamma. Nevertheless, the image of a meditating monk sitting cross-legged, still as a rock, and deeply absorbed in meditation, may have created a general wrong impression that it is the only way to practice meditation. In short, the way of Buddhist meditation, including Calm ( samatha) and Insight (vipassanā) is the way of seeing, developing and cultivating one’s mind. Without it, a person cannot understand what he really is, and cannot resolve his psychological problems for peace and happiness in the here – and – now, as Lord Buddha affirmed: This is the Path, no other’s there for purity of insight, enter then upon this path bemusing Mara utterly.297 297 Dhp. 274. 180 4.2. THE PRELIMINARIES PRACTICE The jhānas do not arise out of a void but in dependence on the right conditions. They come to growth only when provided with the nutriments conductive to their development. Therefore, prior to beginning meditation, the aspirant to the jhānas must prepare groundwork for his practice by fulfilling certain preliminary requirements. He first must endeavor to purify his moral virtue, sever the outer impediments to practice, and place himself under a qualified teacher who will assign him a suitable meditation subject and explain to him the methods of developing it . After learning these disciple must then seek out a congenial dwelling and diligently strive for success. In this section we will examine in order each of the preparatory steps that have to be fulfilled before commencing to develop jhāna. 4.2.1. The Moral Foundation for Dhyāna A disciple aspiring to the jhānas first has to lay a solid foundation of moral discipline. Moral purity is indispensable to meditative progress for several deeply psychological reasons. It is needed first, in order to safeguard against the danger of remorse, the nagging sense of guilt that arises when the basic principles of morality are ignored or deliberately violated. Scrupulous conformity to virtuous rules of conduct protects the mediator from this danger disruptive to inner calm, and brings joy and happiness when the mediator reflects upon the purity of his conduct. 298 A second reason: a moral foundation is needed for meditation follows from an understanding of the purpose of concentration. Concentration, in the 298 See A.V. 1-7. 181 Buddhist discipline, aims at providing a base for wisdom by cleansing the mind of the dispersive influence of the defilements. But in order for the concentration exercises to effectively combat the defilements, the coarser expressions of the latter through bodily and verbal action first have to be checked. Moral transgressions being invariably motivated by defilements – by greed, hatred and delusion – when a person acts in violation of the precepts of morality he excites and reinforces the very same mental factors by which his practice of meditation is intended to eliminate. This involves him in a crossfire of incompatible aims which renders his attempts at mental purification ineffective. The only way he can avoid frustration in his endeavor to purify the mind of its subtler defilements is to prevent the unwholesome inner impulses from breathing out in the coarser form of unwholesome bodily and verbal deeds. Only when he establishes control over the outer expression of the defilements, he can turn to deal with them inwardly as mental obsessions that appear in the process of meditation. The practice of moral discipline consists negatively in abstinence from immoral actions of body and speech and positively in the observance of ethical principles promoting peace within oneself and harmony in one’s relations with others. The basic code of moral discipline taught by the Buddha for the guidance of his lay followers is the five precepts: 1. Abstinence from taking life, 2. Abstinence from stealing, 3. Abstinence from sexual misconduct, 4. Abstinence from false speech, 5. And abstinence from intoxicating drugs and drinks. 182 These principles are bindings as minimal ethical obligations for all practitioners of the Buddhist path, and within their bounds considerable progress in meditation can be made. However, those aspiring to reach the higher levels of jhānas and to pursue the path further to the stages of liberation, are encouraged to take up the more complete moral discipline pertaining to the life of renunciation. Early Buddhism is unambiguous in its emphasis on the limitations of household life for following the path in its fullness and perfection. Time and again the texts say that the household life is confining, a “path for the dust of passion,” while the life of homelessness is like open space.
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