Preface
That is basic world view
(weltanschauung) embodied in a developed
religious tradition strongly influence, or
even determines, its prescribed
salvational methodology, seems to be an
unexceptionable general statement. But in
the case of the a given tradition the
determining factors and determined
techniques must be clearly specified.
Such is the attempt in this volume. The
given tradition is the Theravada Buddhist:
and the prescribed technique of salvation
is meditation. The thesis maintained here
is the orthodox Theravada world view of
determines the motivations, practice and
resulting experiences of the orthodox
meditational discipline. Perhaps even
aboriginally the yogic experience of a
timeless, utterly detached, transic peace
was an important ingredient and
determinant of the Buddhist conception of
Nibbana: that is, it is an
experience-produced doctrine. But it is
also true that the Pre-Buddhist yogic
techniques had their contextualizing world
view too, one which was not totally unlike
the Buddhist world perspective developed
later: and, further, the developed
Buddhist world perspective developed
Buddhist meditational tradition with which
we deal here, portrayed in the Pali Canon,
the Vimuttimagga, and the Visudhimagga,
did operate with the basic Buddhist
weltanschauung as its all-pervasive given.
The Pali Canon world view is sharply
defined in terms of the polar opposites of
samsara and Nibbana. Samsara is thus
describes:
Monks, everything is burning the eye
the ear the nose the body the mind the
feeling which raises through impingement
on the mind, be it pleasant or painful or
neither painful nor pleasant, that to is
burning. With what is the burning? I say
it is burning with the fire passion, with
the fire of hatred, with the fire of
stupidity; it is burning because of birth,
ageing, dying, because of grief, sorrow,
suffering, lamentation and despair.
And the other pole, Nibbana, is
described thus: “He focuses his mind on
the deathless element, thinking: ‘This
the real, this is the excellent, that is
to say the tranquillising of all the
activities, dispassion, stopping, nibbana.”
And a description of the way to it follows
immediately. If he is steadfast therein,
he achieves destruction of the cankers one
who attains nibbana not liable to return.
Briefly this is the geography of that
terrain on which salvation must be
achieved in Theravada Buddhism. And the
mode of that achievement is determined by
the polarized terrain. A methodology has
been designed to put out the fires of
samsaric craving (destruction of the
cankers) and to introduce the deathless
element, Nibbana, in which only eternal
coolness and calm are to be found. It is a
technique by which the Nibbanic pole
neutralizes and finally eliminates the
samsaric in its entirety.
This quenching of samsara’s fever is
a functional description of Theravada
meditation. This meditative practice, then
is an operational model, a dynamic
embodiment of the Theravada world view. In
this model the existential experience of
both the samsaric pole (of deathless
peace, of awareness of the unconditioned
absolute) are deliberately intensified.
This is the purpose of vipassana (insight)
meditation. The meditator in his or her
awareness and lived quality of life
becomes, so to speak, an incarnation of
the Theravada world view, which touches
and transforms everything experienced.
But, because Buddhism derives from
Indian (Brahmanical –yogic) spirituality
and meditation methodology, an alien, or
non-Buddhist, element exist in the
orthodox Theravada meditational structure.
This is the Brahmanical- yogic technique
of including transic states which, in the
form of its jhanas and formless-base
meditations, are integral to the Buddhist
meditational structure. The Brahmanical-yogic
technique had become an intrinsic part of
that structure by the time many of the
Pali Canon passages were written, to say
nothing of the later time of the writing
of the Visudhimagga, ca A.D. 500.
What then is the relation of this yogic
methodological inheritance, with its
latent but intrinsic Brahmanical
presuppositions and values, to the
Buddhist world view embodied in Vipassana
meditation? This relationship of
rejection-acceptance, use-transcendence,
and of fundamental qualification of the
yogic inheritance by its Buddhist
contextual setting and employment, is
perhaps the central feature of the total
meditational structure. It seems to me
also to be a basic functional dynamic, a
creative tension within the theory and
practice of meditation that explains its
distinctive character. In this book, I am
concerned with unraveling and clarifying
this inner pattern of interactive
relationship.
Thanks are to be given to the many
person with whom I have discussed these
matters during the years, both in Burma
and in the United States; to Buddhaghosa
for his massive work, The Path of
Purification (Visudhimagga); to my
wife with whom I have endlessly discussed
the substance of these pages, and to whom
I have read them all for criticism; to
Mrs. Myrle Phelan, who has expertly typed
them all; and to the copyediting staff of
The Pennsylvania State University Press.
Thanks of a very special sort are to be
given to the Buddhist Association of the
United States, Professor Charles Prebish,
and Garma C.C. Chang, without whose
generous support and encouragement this
book would not have been published.
From the Jacket
The first book in English to relate
modern forms of Theravada meditational
practice to its Indian roots, Theravada
Meditation; The Buddhist Transformation of
Yoga rectifies the publishing
imbalance toward Mahayana and Zen. The
classic Theravada pattern in
Buddhaghosa’s Path of Purification is
shown to be relevant to the present
Buddhist world.
Beginning with a general description of
similarities and differences between the
Upanisadic-Yogic and early Buddhist
viewpoints, the author goes on to analyze
Gotama’s
rejection-acceptance-modification of the
Upanisadic-Yogic method of striving for
moksa (salvation) in his search for
Buddhahood (enlightenment), as related in
the Pali Canon.
A second major section analyzes the
meditational method of Buddhaghosa,
showing the interaction between Upanisadic-Yogic
jhanas (modes of concentration) and
Buddhist Vipassana (insight meditation).
Attention is given to the highest
attainable state, nirodha-samapatti
(cessation of thought and perception),
held by Theravada Buddhism to be an actual
experience of Nibbana (world-escape) in
this life.
The final chapter discusses the
attraction of Theravada meditation in
parts of the contemporary world, notably
Burma, drawing upon materials little known
in the West. In Burma and, to some degree,
in Ceylon and Thailand, emphasis is on a
simplified meditational method open to
layman as well as monk, yet viewed as
fully orthodox.
