(6.1) Theravada - A Brief Overview

[Niết Bàn Tầm]

THERAVADA

1. A BRIEF OVERVIEW

1.1. WHO IS THERAVADA FOR?

Theravada meditation is for people with a scientific mind, who do not believe in superstition and sophistry. They are kind-hearted and have accumulated many merits and virtues (of which a manifestation is that they can earn money easily without deceiving anybody). Since they pursue the Path on their own, they often face many difficulties and unwanted side effects during their practice. Also, because of being overconfident they are subject to deceptive illusions by the invisible world. The deceptions include:
▪ Creating visions or images, so beautiful that these meditation practitioners become entirely indulged in admiration of their beauty and forget the real purpose of their cultivation, i.e. to attain emancipation;
▪ Sending messages in their dreams to shaken their belief;
▪ Making things happen roughly close their thinking and prediction, which will increase their ego and hence divert their attention from the pursuit of liberation; or
▪ Having strangers (falsely) venerate them as masters or saints.

Quite often, overconfident meditators are not aware that the above illusions are manufactured by the invisible world just to prevent them from progressing in their practice.
They are wise in worldly life yet naïve in spiritual cultivation (In fact, we should do the opposite!). Worse, it takes them a long time (approximately from 6 to 12 years) to realize that they have been in the wrong track or employing an incorrect method.

1.2. SOME BASIC CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS

1.2.1. SOME KEY NOTES IN BUDDHISM CULTIVATION

▪ Soulless (anattā) are the body (rūpa), feelings (vedanā), perceptions (saṃjñā), mental activities (saṃskāra), and consciousness (vijñāna).
▪ Fear not and succumb not to any negative power or evil influence. [1]
▪ Adhere to morality (sīla) as strictly as you could.
▪ Do not be impatient and cut corners (or skip the steps) during practice.
▪ Discuss and seek guidance from more experienced and better meditators.

1.2.2. MEDITATIVE STATE OF MIND

After some time of having applied mindfulness meditation, a practitioner could cultivate a certain state of concentration. This gives the practitioner some psychological experiences such as peacefulness, tranquillity, or voidness. Although this meditative state of mind is extremely pleasant it should NOT be mistaken as the attainment of liberation or a perfectly enlightened and emancipated state of mind. This mis-identification is unfortunately quite popular among light-minded people. And the self-indulgence of this unwholesome success in meditation will lead the meditator from one wrong to the next. The ultimate consequence could well be delusion and madness.

To understand more about different meditative states of mind and prevent ourselves from this mis-identification problem, we should read the books below:
▪ The Buddha and His Teachings by Narada Mehathera.
▪ The Middle Length Discourse of the Buddha (Chapter 3) translated by Nanamoli and Bodhi.

However, these books lack discussion and guidance on practical techniques, and solutions to unexpected developments and side effects that may occur during meditation. All these know-how are the focus of this document.

1.2.3. ACCESS-CONCENTRATION (Upacāra Samādhi)

A cultivator who is on the way to or at the neighbourhood of full concentration is regarded as having access-concentration. At this stage he/she may undergo some sudden and unforeseen experiences as follows:
▪ Having jerky and unexplainable body movements;
▪ Feeling hot, itchy, tilting, explosive, shaky, tingly, etc.; and
▪ Seeing images.

These experiences can occur during or after a meditation session, and often are resultant from the right practice of concentration (see below).

1.2.4. WRONG CONCENTRATION (Micca Samādhi)

Practices that rely on the five senses to gather concentration is wrong and inadvisable. They include such hypnosis type of training as intensely looking at the tip of a burning incense or the sun, mindfully reciting the 'Namo Amitabha Buddha' words and picturing them moving around the body, and concentrating on some spot at the back of the neck and feeling heavy or tingly on that spot or shoulders.

1.2.5. RIGHT CONCENTRATION (Sammā Samādhi)

The correct meditation practice is described as Pari-Ajna Ekāgratā (PAE), meaning Mindfulness Meditation with a Subject in Front of Ajna. In this way, a cultivator, with completely closed eyes, tries to visually and conceptually draw his/her meditation object in front of the ajna. With strenuous and perseverant effort, the cultivator will be able to cultivate the First Jhana through the Fourth Jhana.

Let's take a specific example of a cultivator with a chosen kasina of Fire.
▪ The cultivator closes his/her eyes and visualizes the image of a flame until the visualized image turns into a conceptualized flame in front of the ajna and as clear as a real flame. This early stage of PAE practice is analogous to that of a toddler learning to stand up and walk: awkward, wobbling, stooping, falling, crying, and pulling himself/herself back up again.
▪ After having spent some time practicing this method again and again, the cultivator gets used to the whole process and finds it easier to attain and hold on to the kasina. This second stage is similar to the toddler's ability to use chairs and tables as standing supports and maintain his/her balance and stability for longer and farther walks. 

Do and Don't:
+ Although the cultivator is still at the neighbourhood of full concentration, this achievement is very uplifting. What he/she is strongly advised to do is some self-encouragement: "It is great to reach this stage of keeping the fire kasina for a short while. I should ride on this momentum and push forward since there are still many things to do and many higher and more blissful levels to achieve. So, keep on trying!"
+ It is an absolute 'no-no' that the cultivator says to the mind: "You have done wrongly. This is only hallucination!" Such false conviction will create confusion in his/her mind. Why? On the one hand, he/she commands the mind to visualize and conceptualize the kasina image. The mind listens trying really hard to inhibit unwanted and random thoughts and successfully draw up the image. On the other, he/she rubbishes the mind's achievement claiming the image is merely a hallucination. As a result, the mind will get utterly bewildered and does not know what to do next.

▪ The next stage is to light up the object, from which miracles spring up and full concentration (appanā samādhi) is attained. If the cultivator is able to hold on to his kasina image for approximately twelve seconds, he/she reaches the First Jhana. Yes, that sounds very quick. But the ability to prolong the kasina appearance by twelve seconds requires devotion, perseverance, and of course adherence to morality. In addition, irrational anxiety, religious impiety, wrong thought, wrong speech, wrong lifestyle (e.g., staying up late, talking and laughing excessively, sleeping too much, eating overly), and over-sensitivity (or phobia) to noise or certain directions, any of these could easily interfere with the kasina appearance and prevent it from becoming stable and solid. This 'difficult to achieve and easy to lose' situation happens quite often. (See section 3 for more detailed descriptions and higher levels of jhana.)

1.2.6. PLANES OF EXISTENCE

The cosmology in many Buddhist texts refers to the universe as consisting of three thousand large chiliocosms. These chiliocosms are divided into three large regions (trailokya) with similar characteristi*** ***. They are:
▪ Sensuous Sphere (Kāmaloka). The four states of misery (Apāya), human realm (Manussa), and the six celestial realms (Devaloka) constitute the Sensuous Sphere. [2] In these realms, there exist gender (male and female), food, drink, and sexual activity, which means sense desires are still abundant. The longevity of those living in the human realm and the unhappy states varies whereas it is the same for beings living in the same celestial realm. For example, as shown in the Manual of Abhidhamma, devas in the Cātummahārājika realm live for a maximum of 500 celestial years while those in the Paranimmitavasavattī realm could live up to 16,000 celestial years.
▪ Form Sphere (Rūpaloka). This celestial world of form is for those who have attained jhanas from the first to fourth levels. Here there are no gender, no physical food, and no sexual activity. Beings in this world use images they have cultivated during meditation as food. They live a lot longer than those in the Sensuous Sphere and enjoy the same longevity in each of the sixteen realms in this world.
▪ Formless Sphere (Arūpaloka). This celestial world includes four realms according to the four Arūpa Jhanas: the Realm of Infinite Space (Ākāsānañcāyatana), the Realm of Infinite Consciousness (Viññānañcāyatana), the Realm of Nothingness (Ākiñcaññayatana), and the Realm of Neither Perception Nor Non-Perception (N'eva Saññā Nāsaññayatana). These realms are entirely devoid of matter or body. Only mind exists. Beings in these realms live much longer than those in the Form Sphere and have the same life span if they belong to the same realm.

In the Sensuous Sphere, thoughts dominate. All phenomena are arranged in chronological order. The vision is limited in a sense that one can only observe the current phenomenon but unable to see the one following it. In the Spheres of Form and Formless, samādhi states of mind dominate. Since all phenomena are presented in spatial sequence one phenomenon stands next to another, which can then be observed, especially clearly in the Formless Sphere.

Thanks to the spatial arrangement of phenomena in full concentration, a cultivator can know exactly what is happening around a subject matter if he/she concentrates on it. Some examples in the worldly life are below:
+ When rightfully contemplating on the throat chakra (vissudha), the cultivator will not feel hungry or thirsty.
+ When meditating on someone's bodily attitude and gestures, the cultivator will be able to know that person's psychology.
+ When concentrating on someone's bodily attitude and signs, the cultivator can understand that person's language.

However, it is not advisable to use this samādhi-originated knowledge for worldly matters. Rather, it should be utilized for the cultivation of liberation.


Endnotes:
[1] See more in 'The Buddha and His Teachings' by Narada Mahathera.
[2] See 'A Manual of Abhidhamma' by Narada Mahathera, page 314 for more information.