Buddhist Meditation

In early tradition

The earliest tradition of Buddhist practice is preserved in the nikāya/āgamas, and is adhered to by the Theravāda lineage. It was also the focus of the other now-extinct early Buddhist schools, and has been incorporated to greater and lesser degrees into the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and many East Asian Mahāyāna traditions.

Types of meditation

In terms of early traditions as found in the vast Pali canon and the Āgamas, meditation can be contextualized as part of the Noble Eightfold Path, explicitly in regard to:

• Right Mindfulness (samma sati) – exemplified by the Buddha’s Four Foundations of Mindfulness (see Satipatthana Sutta).
• Right Concentration (samma samadhi) – culminating in jhanic absorptions through the meditative development of samatha.

And implicitly in regard to :

• Right View (samma ditthi) – embodying wisdom traditionally attained through the meditative development of vipassana founded on samatha.

Classic texts in the Pali literature enumerating meditative subjects include the Satipatthana Sutta (MN 10) and the Visuddhimagga‘s Part II, “Concentration” (Samadhi).

Four foundations for mindfulness

• Body (kāyā): Breathing (see Anapanasati Sutta), Postures, Clear Comprehending, Reflections on Repulsiveness of the Body, Reflections on Material Elements, Cemetery Contemplations
• Feelings (vedanā), whether pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral
• Mind (cittā)
• Mental Contents (dhammā): Hindrances, Aggregates, Sense-Bases, Factors of Enlightenment, and the Four Noble Truths.

Meditation on these subjects develops insight.

Serenity and insight

The Buddha is said to have identified two paramount mental qualities that arise from wholesome meditative practice:

• “serenity” or “tranquillity” (Pali: samatha) which steadies, composes, unifies and concentrates the mind;
• “insight” (Pali: vipassana) which enables one to see, explore and discern “formations” (conditioned phenomena based on the five aggregates).

Through the meditative development of serenity, one is able to suppress obscuring hindrances; and, with the suppression of the hindrances, it is through the meditative development of insight that one gains liberating wisdom. Moreover, the Buddha is said to have extolled serenity and insight as conduits for attaining Nibbana (Pali; Skt.: Nirvana), the unconditioned state as in the “Kimsuka Tree Sutta” (SN 35.245), where the Buddha provides an elaborate metaphor in which serenity and insight are “the swift pair of messengers” who deliver the message of Nibbana via the Noble Eightfold Path.

In the “Four Ways to Arahantship Sutta” (AN 4.170), Ven. Ananda reports that people attain arahantship using serenity and insight in one of three ways:

1. they develop serenity and then insight (Pali: samatha-pubbangamam vipassanam)
2. they develop insight and then serenity (Pali: vipassana-pubbangamam samatham){{While the Nikayas identify that the pursuit of vipassana can precede the pursuit of samatha, a fruitful vipassana-oriented practice must still be based upon the achievement of stabilizing “access concentration” (Pali: upacara samadhi).}}
3. they develop serenity and insight in tandem (Pali: samatha-vipassanam yuganaddham) as in, for instance, obtaining the first jhana, and then seeing in the associated aggregates the three marks of existence, before proceeding to the second jhana.

In the Pali canon, the Buddha never mentions independent samatha and vipassana meditation practices; instead, samatha and vipassana are two qualities of mind to be developed through meditation.

Nonetheless, some meditation practices (such as contemplation of a kasina object) favor the development of samatha, others are conducive to the development of vipassana (such as contemplation of the aggregates), while others (such as mindfulness of breathing) are classically used for developing both mental qualities.

In Contemporary Theravāda

Also influential is the Thai Forest Tradition deriving from Ajahn Mun and popularized by Ajahn Chah, which, in contrast, stresses the inseparability of the two practices, and the essential necessity of both practices. Other noted practitioners in this tradition include Ajahn Thate and Ajahn Maha Bua, among others.

Another less common type of meditation is practiced in Cambodia and Laos by followers of Tantric Theravada. This form of meditation includes the use of mantras and visualizations.

Text reviewed and edited from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_meditation and will be used to explore concepts and texts. The task I have set myself is to verify what is said here and confirm practice myself.