Attaining Dhyana in ancient Buddhism
Buddhism puts a great deal of emphasis upon correctly preparing for meditation - indeed the various preparatory observances themselves constitute a type of meditative endeavour in their own right. There are many people who begin the practice of Buddhist meditation and doctrinal studies without realising the significance of the preparatory practices and, as a result, find their practice and studies fruitless.
Though there are many differences in both the constituents, order and orientations of meditative absorption between the various forms of Buddhism, the basic features required for the practice and continuance of meditative states is consistent.
In preparing for meditation practice, a primary goal is to first overcome what are known as the 'Five Hindrances' and to try to develop instead the 'Five Spiritual Faculties' which help make meditation fruitful. These two pentaplicities are as follows:
The preparatory practices are directed towards making the practice of meditation useful and vital. By addressing its sources, that is, our ignorance and craving, we are ultimately able to reduce the totality of our suffering.
In the traditional Buddhist scriptures, many different types of meditation are described, though sometimes only in outline form. What is easily overlooked in such descriptions is that in fact most of these meditations were preceded by preliminary exercises, in which one's mental state is pacified and then orientated towards the meditative state itself.
We can see something of these basic and preliminary exercises described in a Pali Buddhist text called the Anguttara Nikaya, which describes the sayings of the Buddha. Verse 193 describes the various steps leading to the first of four stages of contemplation.
"He, on seeing that these Five Hindrances have been abandoned becomes joyful. Being full of joy, happiness arises.
In this description of the distinctive steps and stages leading to the first level of contemplation, the various factors enumerated describe the actual experience of one involved in the practice of meditation. These five states must be transformed into their opposites, namely the five spiritual faculties of faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom.
It seems fairly obvious that when one is filled with happiness, no state of fear, worry or inner-stress is present at all, and due to this a confident and inner peacefulness develops which leads to the next stage of calmness and tranquillity of body and mind.
'Heart' here means the intellectual and emotional faculties of one's mind. 'Composed' means that all the various aspects of our mental life are working together in a balanced and harmonious way.
The scriptural text then goes on to describe the state being entered into by this method of preparative practice which termed 'the first stage of contemplation'. As mentioned earlier there are many different forms of meditation and although some are easy to distinguish because of their content or theme, there are many methods which are very similar to each other. Detachment is not a state characterised as being totally free from thought altogether, but what thoughts do arise are stable and unaffected by the hindrances mentioned earlier. Such detachment shows a freedom or liberation from all and any distractions.
Shifu Nagaboshi
Such an emphasis is founded upon common sense. If the ground is prepared properly the seeds will flourish; if it isn't, there will be no growth.
In both Mahayana and Theravada meditation texts, the preparations for the practice are often known as 'access meditations' and are regarded as essential.
Instead of insight they find confusion; instead of developing inner peace and calmness they become irritable and impatient. Learn something from their mistakes.
It is very important in the practice of meditation to put oneself in a position where one can begin in a creative, positive manner. Unless this is done, we often end up fighting against ourselves in the practices, giving rise to conflict and states which tend to counteract the meditation practice.
The Five Hindrances - sensual desire, ill-will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and anxiety, doubt and wavering.
The Five Spiritual Faculties - faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom.
The five hinderances comprise all the states which serve to deter, frighten or distract us from attaining a clearer understanding of our existence and all of them will be known to us in some form or another, whether in the practice of meditation or in any other endeavour.
The five also include in their wake many other subsidiary factors which act as deterrents.
It is obvious that overcoming such hindrances must precede any successful practice of contemplation.
In the ancient system, such preliminary states and observances would have been conducted in the normal day to day life of the monks and because they were so commonly known and understood, they are often not mentioned separately in the scriptures themselves.
With a mind imbued with happiness, his body becomes calmed.
With a tranquil body, he experiences a sense of peace, and being at peace, his heart is composed.
"Then, aloof from sense desires and unhealthy states, he attains the first stage of contemplation which is associated with initial thought and discursive thought, which is born of detachment and is imbued with happiness and ease.
He thus completely pervades the body with the happiness and ease which are born of detachment, so that it is full and overflowing and there is no part of it which is not so pervaded"
We shall now describe these a little more fully than the text itself does. As stated, they are as follows:
The Five Hindrances.
As mentioned previously, these comprise: sensual desire, ill-will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and anxiety, doubt and wavering.
The text begins with the assumption that these five have been totally overcome. As we may appreciate, this in itself is not an easy task, but meditation cannot be said to have really begun until these five are at least held in check.
Such is the relief at attaining these five states that one is filled with joy.
A simile is given of the joy of a man who has suddenly recovered from serious illness.
Gratitude is a key factor to the arousal of joy. One recognises and acknowledges one's faults and decides to change for the better, grateful that at last one can begin to do something about one's life and thankful for the time and opportunity to practice. We try to generate a sense of thankfulness towards our own being and towards the factors and people around us which allow us the opportunity.
It is important to use one's imagination in this exercise and we should try to imagine what it would be like if we were cured after a long illness.
Due to this joy, the next factor, happiness, arises.
Whereas joy may be an entirely inward state, happiness radiates outward from us. It is deeper and more stable than joy.
To achieve this, we must be relaxed and generally feel at ease with ourselves.
As we begin, we are often forced to acknowledge that we harbour stresses and antagonisms which make it difficult to achieve this state. This realisation is one of the useful side-effects of the practice, and it is important to realise that such states can be overcome with patience. We generate happiness, befriending and magnifying it, until no part of our being is left untouched.
In the traditional descriptions of such happiness, it is said that one's whole body is totally permeated in a manner similar to a cliffside cavern which is filled to capacity by a surging incoming tide.
The overflowing happiness of the previous stage has been drawn inward and is subdued, as it were, quietly pulsing within. In attaining tranquillity, there is no distraction from such things as pains in the legs, itches, gurgling stomach or coughing fits, etc. Such a state is only achieved by regular practice.
When distractions have been largely overcome, a greater deal of attention can be given to the immersion of mind into this state of uninterrupted tranquillity and calmness.
As this calmness develops, it deepens into the next factor, namely a sense of peace. In this stress-free state, all discordant or hyper-active mental preoccupations have faded away and, along with a completely calmed body, this state gradually deepens until the next level dawns and the heart is composed.
This is a very powerful stage and one filled with great energy and deep resources. It is at this point that the practitioner enters into the real object of the practice, namely the attainment of the first stage of contemplation.
In the course of creating explanations and commentaries upon the Buddhas's teachings, the monastic practitioners of meditation devised more subtle ways of describing it and one method employed was to discriminate between the various mental motivations and states which initiated the practice.
In addition to these, the various degrees of spiritual attainment (or lack of them) were also described and the resultant schemata produced an extremely complex but accurate picture of just what was said to be going on within the practitioner's mind at the time. To give very simple examples, certain practices were said to be 'with clinging but without hatred' or 'with speculative theme but without distraction' etc.
In a similar manner, the meditative content of this first stage of contemplation is characterised as being 'with initial thought'.
This shows that one has to be cognisant of the preliminary act of applying one's attention toward the state of contemplation in order to attain it.
Including such a factor in the description rules out the possibility that one may enter into a meditative state without realising it or that the meditative state may be attained either spontaneously (that is without any forethought) or in a mental state of unclarity or confusion.
Given this proviso, the next factor, discursive thought, indicates the relationship that arises within one's consciousness from the experience of this initial orientation. 'Discursive' here means that one is very clearly and brightly aware of the actual content of one's consciousness and almost 'feels' the thoughts but is not at all affected by them.
It is easy to see that this state is quite deep and all-inclusive of one's mental activities. This deepens into concentration and detachment, enumerated in the text.
The term attempts to describe the experience of being able to observe one's body and/or mind as a continuous flowing stream of activities without being 'caught' or involved in any of them.
In order to remind us that detachment is not a cold, abstract, or purely intellectual condition or theme, we are reminded by the text that upon its attainment our being is filled with a completely unselfish happiness, a relaxed and stress-free state of ease. This may prove difficult to attain if one is tired or worried.
Kongoryuj-Ji