Meditation to Reach Nirvana

Summary of talk by expert Pa Auk Sayadaw edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Ornate, golden Buddha statue in Nanjing, China (Heybrian/flickr.com)

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We are very happy to have come to Taiwan at the invitation of Taiwanese monks and nuns who stayed at Pa Auk Forest monastery in Burma. While here we would like to teach the meditation system taught at Pa Auk.

It is based on instructions found in the Pali Buddhist texts and the Path of Purification. We believe this is the same meditation practiced by the Buddha and the very same system taught by him.

WHY MEDITATE?

First we ask ourselves, "Why did the Buddha teach meditation?" or "What is the purpose of meditation?" The purpose of Buddhist meditation is to attain nirvana. Nirvana is the cessation of mentality and materiality (nama-rupa). To reach nirvana we must completely uproot both unwholesome and wholesome volitional formations.

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

If we uproot them once and for all then we will have realized nirvana. This can be done only by wisdom -- namely, by path knowledge (ariya-magga). Nirvana is the end of all dukkha (woe). It is, in other words, release and freedom from the suffering of the round of rebirths (samsara). It is the cessation of rebirth, aging, sickness, and death. This is what the Buddha rediscovered and the path he made known by teaching the Dharma.

We are all subject to dukkha, that is to say, to suffering in its many and varied forms. To free ourselves completely, since no one else can, we need to "meditate": to develop, cultivate, and bring to perfection this path knowledge that finally uproots all the causes and conditions of suffering. If we wish to end suffering, we must learn to meditate to attain nirvana.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Three important terms are translated into English as "meditation." The first is bhavana, which means "bringing into being" or "cultivating." The second is jhayanti, "those who meditate," which meant to practice "absorption" (Pali jhana, Sanskrit dhyana, Chinese Ch'an, Tibetan bsam-gtam, Japanese Zen). The third and perhaps most important term is kammaṭṭhāna, "field of work, action, or effort," which is the meditation-subject given by a teacher.

WHAT IS MEDITATION?

Buddhist meditation consists of two mutually-supporting practices, serenity and insight. Both are based on virtuous conduct (compassion and consideration towards oneself and others) of body and speech. In other words, "meditation" is as broad as the development and perfection of the Noble Eightfold Path:

(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)

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Right view is of two types, insight (vipassana) right view and path (magga) right view. Right view and right thought (or intention) are together called the Training of Wisdom (paññā or prajna).

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

1. Knowledge of "suffering" is knowledge of the Five Aggregates
2. Knowledge of the origin of suffering is knowledge of the causes of the Five Aggregates, which is knowledge of Dependent Origination.
3. Realization and knowledge of the cessation of suffering, which is the end of the Five Aggregates, is nirvana.
4. 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:

1. Application to the meditation object of the Five Aggregates.
2. Application to the object of the origin of suffering or the causes of the Five Aggregates.
3. Application to the object of the cessation of suffering, which is nirvana [an actual, knowable experience that uproots the causes of suffering].
4. 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).

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Right speech is to abstain from lying, slander, harsh speech, and useless talk.

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:

1. Effort to prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states.
2. Effort to abandon arisen unwholesome states.
3. Effort to develop unarisen wholesome states.
4. 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:

1. Body-contemplation (anupassana)
2. Sensation-contemplation
3. Consciousness-contemplation
4. 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:

1. First absorption (jhana)
2. Second absorption
3. Third absorption
4. 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.

MEDITATION

This development of concentration is possible based on the virtue developed through the other Path factors. Mindfulness, another important part of Buddhist meditation, joins with intense concentration and virtue to give rise to liberating wisdom -- and the experience of nirvana here and now.

Some people have a great accumulation of supramundane merit (parami) and can attain nirvana by simply listening to a brief or detailed talk on the Dharma. Most people, however, do not have such merit [wholesome karma that had been undertaken in past lives with the intention of attaining nirvana]. Therefore, most people practice the Noble Eightfold Path in its gradual order. They are called "persons to be trained" step by step in the order of virtue, concentration, and wisdom.

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.

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