Meditation is the crux of Buddhism. But then what exactly is this meditation is something not very clear.
In the early forms of Buddhist meditation, calming of the Mind seems to be the goal of meditation. It was called Samata – gradual calming of the Mind.
The stages of samata appear to be very similar to the stages of Patanjali Yoga. One first develops a sharp mental focus by practicing Anapana Sati and Kaya Sati. Once a focused mind is attained, one meditates on various targets of increasing subtlety.
One focuses on the dimension of ‘infinity of space’. Then one gradually moves on to a dimension of ‘infinity of consciousness’. Moving further, one reaches the dimension of ‘nothingness’. From nothingness, one progresses to domain of ‘no perception’. And finally, one attains the state of ‘neither perception nor non – perception’. This is the state where the Mind is completely calm.
The other approach suggested by many Buddhist texts and the one that got prominence later on, was the ‘Vipassana’ approach.
Vipassana is a Pali word that means seeing clearly. So, some call this method as ‘insight meditation’.
Unlike the Samata method of meditation, in Vipassana, one continuously analyzes things. So, it is a strange way of calming down the metal activities by means of a highly analyzing mind.
It is based on the assumption that Mind can observe itself without getting perturbed – as if there is an object that is being observed separate from a tool that is involved in the act of observation. And interestingly, both these are one and the same mind!
Vipassana also starts off with developing a sharp mental focus. Then it diverges from the normal calming down process. It uses the sharp mental focus to first analyze various bodily phenomena, the sensations, emotions and even various internal states of the Mind itself.
With a sharply focused Mind, the meditator comes to the conclusion that everything – body, feelings, emotions as well as the mental states – are all transient. There is nothing that is permanent. More specifically, there is no eternal entity like soul.
The Mind also figures out the root cause of all mental agitation. Having understood this root cause as desires, the mind develops equanimity to all sense pleasures and pains. The mental perturbations gradually die down as a result of this equanimity. One attains a calm Mind that does not agitate any longer. And that is the end of the meditation process.
Many scholars have debated on which of these two methods – Samata or Vipassana – was originally taught by Buddha. Some say that Vipassana was some later development, post Buddha. Others say that a combination of both was what was actually taught by Buddha.
Since Buddha preached for a long period of time – nearly 4 decades – it is quite likely that his teachings too changed over a period of time. In some discourses Buddha narrates how he was initiated into the path of meditation by his teachers who were basically from Vedic background.
These methods were more similar to what Patanjali explained in his Yoga Sutra. They were the basis of Samata form of meditation where the Mind is gradually calmed down in a step by step fashion.
The analytical approach which forms the basis of Vipassana seems to have got developed later on either by Buddha or by some of his later followers. Centuries later, well known texts such as VishuddhiMagga were composed by later Buddhists. Various variants got developed both within India as well as far off places like China, Burma and so on.
But a Mind observing itself and still marching towards quietude, appears to be paradoxical to me. More so, when the Buddhists don’t admit anything like Soul, that could have possibly been a witness to what is happening within the Mind.
But if we take Samata as the real Buddhist meditation, we can see lot of parallels between that and Yogic way of meditation, at least in terms of the successive stages reached.
So, at the cost of being seen as biased, I would prefer to see Samata as the original Buddhist meditation.
Let us move on in the next episode.
A series revolving around Mind – Science of Mind, Philosophy of Mind, Notions of reality, Mind modulation, Domains beyond Mind, and so on. © Dr. King, Swami Satyapriya 2019-2020
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