PART II
Access Concentration followed by Absorption Concentration are traditionally the two primary steps that make up the meditative process that leads to Insight --- at least in the Buddha's case it was. The same would be true for most anybody. In its simplest formulation, Access Concentration is usually considered the first step of the process. After the full accomplishement of that first major step the meditator moves on to Absorption Concentration. During that first step, IF The Five Hindrances have been overcome, which is a primary goal, it is called Upacara Samadhi, also known as neighborhood concentration or neighborhood samadhi, where you are right NEXT to Jhanas but not fully in them. When you move into the first of the Eight Jhana States --- of which one-through-four are known as Jhanas With Form --- it still falls under the umbrella of Access Concentration, but called Samprajnata Samadhi.
When you cross out of the fourth Jhana state into the fifth of eight --- known as Jhanas Without Form --- you move out of Access Concentration into what is called Absorption Concentration, also known as Asamprajnata Samadhi.
The difference between Access Concentration and Absorption Concentration is not in the absence of the hindrances, which, after practice the absence is common to both, but in the relative strength of the Jhana factors. In Access Concentration the factors are weak so the concentration is fragile. In Absorption Concentration the Jhana factors are strong and well developed so that the mind can remain continuously in concentration.
Access Concentration can be induced in a number of different ways. There are forty different methods of meditation mentioned in the sutras and thirty of these are suitable for gaining entry to the First Jhana. The First Jhana has five factors, the first two being Vittaka and Vichara. These two words often get translated as something like "thinking and pondering." They do have these meanings in some contexts, but not in the context of the Jhanas. Here they are best translated as "initial and sustained attention to the meditation subject." You put your attention on the meditation subject and you leave it there until access concentration is established. For example, if you have chosen Anapanasati (mindfulness of breathing) as the meditation method, you put your attention on the breath and you keep your attention on the breath until access concentration is established. How do you know if Access Concentration has been established? It varies for each method. For mindfulness of breathing, the breath becomes very fine, almost undetectable when you have established Access Concentration.(source)
Working up through the Jhanas in an attempt to reach or attain Enlightenment is the typical Indian and Buddhist approach. The Zen approach, as well as practiced by some others in the Buddhist and Enlightenment fields, bypass all that and attempt to jump straight to Enlightenment.
An example of the latter among many is Achaan Buddhadasa, the southern Thailand master. His approach is to skip the Jhanas and practise Insight after attaining a sufficient degree of concentration to overcome The Five Hindrances.
So said, however, the Jhanas are accepted states of concentration. The Buddha practiced them, and it is clear from the Sutras that they comprise Right Concentration.
The problem is, the total overall cumulative effect of simply mastering all eight Jhanas in an attempt to reach Insight doesn't work, at least in the Buddha's case they didn't. Siddhattha Gotma studied under two teachers before he became the Buddha. His first teacher, Alara Kalama, taught him the First Seven Jhanas; the other teacher, Uddaka Ramaputta, taught him the Eighth Jhana. Both teachers told him they had taught him all there was to learn. But he still didn't know why there was suffering, so he left each of these teachers and wound up doing six years of austerity practices on his own. These too did not provide the answer to his question and he abandoned them as well. The Sutras indicate that on the night of his Enlightenment, he sat down under the Bohdi Tree and began his meditation by practicing the Jhanas. When his mind was "concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady and attained to imperturbability" he direct it to the "true knowledges" that gave rise to his incredible breakthrough in consciousness known in the sutras as Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi, beyond the beyond of the Eighth Jhana. His "Breakthough" did not transpire until he had surpassed the Eighth and final Jhana. So how did he do it? Through what has come down to us as Insight. The step that allows Insight is called Mindfulness.
- MINDFULNESS:
Mindfulness is the practice of open, noninterfering alertness or pure, fully present attention. The meditator gives alert attention to experience without conceptualizing, judging, or controlling experience, allowing sensations, feelings, and thoughts to arise and disappear without being followed or resisted in any way. Such noninterfering attention allows the meditator to be fully present in the experience of the moment.
According to the Satipatthana Sutra, there are four major types of things of which we should be mindful: the body, feelings, the mind, and mental objects. These are not objects on which to concentrate but rather regions of experience of which to be mindful.
- INSIGHT:
Mindfulness ripens into insight, which is the clear seeing that the mind, and experience generally, is "unsatisfactory," momentary, and devoid of self or substance. Vipassana Meditation gradually dissolves the sense of being a permanent self and reveals, with ever finer discrimination, that consciousness is an open dynamic field of spontaneously arising experiences. Insight meditation progresses through several stages leading ultimately to the experience of pure dynamic emptiness or Nirvana.
In the end, Concentration Leading to Absorption is said to lead to the arrestment or suppression of Samsaric Conditionality sure enough, but it is Mindfulness (sati, smriti) that GROWS into Insight (vipassana), and Transcends Conditionality leading ultimately to wisdom (prajna) and Enlightenment (bodhi).
MEDITATION APPS
The past several years has seen a proliferation of smartphone meditation apps come on the market, all designed in such a way to ease, assist, familiarize, and put into use meditation techniques for almost anybody interested in learning and implementing the various ins-and-outs of meditation, at least as the manufacturers of the apps view meditation.
Beyond the manufacturers advertisement and promotions, for every page that shows up on the internet or elsewhere in support of using the apps, there is an equal number of pages knocking their use. What the knocking their use people are selling varies, but the in support folk seem to be in line with the app builders and promoters because if nothing else, the apps sell --- and sell big time, especially so the two top brands, Headspace and Calm.
People use all kinds of things to enhance or increase their ability to accomplish things. They wear glasses to improve the clarity of their physical vision. Some use dental implants and dentures to chew, eat, or look better. The same for the use of prosthetics, crutches, canes, or wheelchairs. They help people get things done and walk or move about who otherwise might not be able to. But, if glasses to read or see aren't needed, or implants or dentures, or canes, crutches, or wheelchairs, why use them? Initially, with meditation, other than a coming to know what meditation is and what it can do if you do it, nothing much than the desire to do so and then doing it is required Painting legs on a snake doesn't make it walk any better. Electronically painting photon-pushing meditation legs to swath your synapses with trompe l'oeil may be for some, better than nothing. However, and this is one of the biggest however's ever, it is that better than nothing that makes it not, not nothing, the goal of meditation.
Fundamentally, our experience as experienced is not different from the Zen master's. Where
we differ is that we place a fog, a particular kind of conceptual overlay onto that experience
and then make an emotional investment in that overlay, taking it to be "real" in and of itself.
|
|
Regarding Nirvana Nagarjuna writes: Whatever can be conceptualized is therefore relative, and whatever is relative is Sunya, empty.
Since absolute inconceivable truth is also Sunya, Sunyata or the void is shared by both Samsara and Nirvana. Ultimately,
Nirvana truly realized is Samsara properly understood. The fully realized Bodhisattva, the Enlightened Buddha who
renounces the Dharmakaya vesture to remain at the service of suffering beings, recognizes this radical transcendental
equivalence. The Arhat and the PratyekaBuddha, who look to their own redemption and realization, are elevated beyond
any conventional description, but nonetheless do not fully realize or freely embody this highest truth. The definition for either Kensho or Satori, in some people's minds, may not, within the perimeter of their definitions (or in actuality) encompass Nirvana at it's ultimate or visa versa --- but, both should most certainly be allied peripherally in some fashion. However, one's personal being, encompassed by any of the three states (Kensho, Satori, Nirvana), does not say anything at all about the ability of
the experiencer to teach others or in any way be of assistance to the
spiritual needs of others. A clear distinction must be made
between a person who has an Enlightenment-experience and an Enlightened
Person. The latter category should be confined to those individuals who
have the wisdom and moral character to rightfully influence others plus
the charismatic abilities to do so in an entirely non-exploitive manner.
This would define an Enlightened Sage or holy person. Such a person may
have had a Enlightenment-experience, sudden or gradual, OR may have a
natural spiritual maturity which excludes the need for a Satoric-experience; although if we depend on historical records, a natural sage without an Awakening experience operating at or near the level of an Enlightened Sage is
far, far rarer than one having a similar or like natural spiritual maturity AND Enlightenment experience. (source)
It should be noted that Adam Osborne, who, as a young boy grew up at the Ramana ashram and the son of one of the foremost Ramana biographers Arthur Osborne, played a prominent role in the Last American Darshan as linked above.
NIRVANA
AND NOW THIS:
It is often said that when you truly need a teacher, one will appear. This may due to some inexplicable serendipity. It may be due to the fact that the seeker has searched deeply within himself or herself and determined what sort of instruction seems to be required. It could be a spiritual desperation on the part of the seeker, or a successful sales pitch by a teacher (sincere or not). It may be a combination of the previous factors, or some intuitive awareness beyond expression. For whatever the reason, the saying often applies and the results can be found most eloquently in the following:
RECOUNTING A YOUNG BOY'S NEARLY INSTANT TRANSFORMATION INTO THE ABSOLUTE DURING HIS ONLY DARSHAN WITH THE MAHARSHI
