Ornate, golden Buddha statue in Nanjing, China (Heybrian/flickr.com) |
These are rooted in greed, hatred, delusion on the one case and nongreed, nonhatred, and nondelusion on the other. (One produces pain and misery, the other pleasure and joy). But all of these roots produce rebirth, aging, sickness, and death. Even profitable karma, which produces ordinary happiness, has the downside of giving rise to rebirth, which leads to additional unwanted, unwelcome, unpleasant results.
The Sayadaw (center) with nuns, monks, and yogis, first American retreat in California |
(1) Right View, (2) Right Thought (Intention), (3) Right Speech, (4) Right Action, (5) Right Livelihood, (6) Right Effort, (7) Right Mindfulness, (8) Right Concentration.
What is "meditation" (galacticdiplomacy.com) |
Right speech, right action, and right livelihood are together called the Training of Virtue (sila).
Right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration are together called the Training of Concentration (samadhi).
What is right view? It consists of four kinds: Insight-knowledge of the Four Noble Truths
- Knowledge of "suffering" is knowledge of the Five Aggregates
- Knowledge of the origin of suffering is knowledge of the causes of the Five Aggregates, which is knowledge of Dependent Origination.
- Realization and knowledge of the cessation of suffering, which is the end of the Five Aggregates, is nirvana.
- Knowledge of the Noble Truth of the path leading to the end of suffering is the way of practice to realize nirvana, namely, the Noble Eightfold Path.
Right thought (intention or motive) is also fourfold:
- Application to the meditation object of the Five Aggregates.
- Application to the object of the origin of suffering or the causes of the Five Aggregates.
- Application to the object of the cessation of suffering, which is nirvana [an actual, knowable experience that uproots the causes of suffering].
- Application to the object of the path leading to the cessation of suffering, which is the Noble Eightfold Path.
Therefore, right thought applies the mind to the object of the noble truth of suffering, the Five Aggregates. And right view understands it as it really is. These two factors work together to apply the mind to each of the Four Noble Truths and to understand them. Since they work together, they are called Training in Wisdom.
Burmese-style Buddha with radiant aura, chief male disciples Sariputra (left) and Maha Moggalana (right), devas above, and nuns and monks to the side (mangalavihara.org). |
Right action (karma) is to abstain from killing, theft, sexual misconduct, and intoxicants.
Right livelihood is to abstain from obtaining a living by wrong speech or wrong action, such as killing, stealing, or lying. For people it includes abstaining from five types of wrong-dealing: that is, trade in weapons, poisons, human slaves, animals for slaughter, liquor and other intoxicants.
These three Path factors are called the Training in Virtue.
Right effort is also of four kinds:
- Effort to prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states.
- Effort to abandon arisen unwholesome states.
- Effort to develop unarisen wholesome states.
- Effort to increase arisen wholesome states.
In order to cultivate these four types of right effort, the three Trainings of Virtue, Concentration, and Wisdom must be practiced and well developed.
Right mindfulness is of four kinds known as the Four Foundations of Mindfulness:
- Body-contemplation (anupassana)
- Sensation-contemplation
- Consciousness-contemplation
- Phenomena (dhammas)-contemplation
Here dhammas refers to the 51 associated mental factors -- excluding sensation, or the Five Aggregates, or the 12 internal and external sense bases, or the 18 elements, or the Seven Factors of Enlightenment, or the Four Noble Truths, and so on. But these four types of mindfulness can in fact be reduced to just two -- mindfulness of "materiality" (rupa) and mindfulness of "mentality" (nama).
The eighth and final factor of the Noble Eightfold Path is right concentration, defined as the first four stages of intense concentration and bliss:
- First absorption (jhana)
- Second absorption
- Third absorption
- Fourth absorption
In the Path of Purification, right concentration is further explained as these first four material absorptions, the four immaterial absorptions [there are eight jhanas in all], and access concentration.
After purifying their virtue (or conduct of body and speech), they must train themselves in concentration (mental purification by the removal of distraction). After purifying their mind (through concentration), they must train in wisdom. So the next question should be, How does one develop right concentration [whether pre-jhanic "access concentration" (upacara), first jhana, or samadhi]? One way is to begin by developing mindfulness-of-breathing -- an initial means of contemplating the body -- which the Buddha taught in the Mahasatipatthana Sutra.
- Amazing Buddhism in Sri Lanka (vladiq)
- Amazing Buddhism in Sri Lanka (pool)
No comments:
Post a Comment