Meditation and Vipassana---1

Meditation and Vipassana---1

Bhikkhu Dhammavaro
Buddharatana Monastery of Australia

Why meditate?
We have to do our training of observing the code of conduct (Sila) first, this gives rise to a clean life, and it forms the basis for meditation practice.
Meditation involves both the body and the mind. In meditation we keep our body still and train our mind so that it becomes peaceful and focused (samatha and samadhi), meditation or mind training means simply aware of our being, not judging, not thinking, just being simply aware of ourselves.

Mind training consists of two areas, the Tranquility (Samatha) meditation and the Contemplation (Vipassana) meditation. Samatha means mental tranquility, when mental purity is attained through samatha, it is very sharp and see thing as it is clearly, the developed mind then abandons lust and so the mind is free of entanglement. It also has other auxiliary abilities like clairvoyance, transforming and changing objects, remembering pass lives etc.
In meditation we achieve three things: (1) Our mind become pure and luminous; (2) This pure mind is used as a tools for penetrating to the truths of phenomena; (3) It leads to the spiritual paths and attainments.
The Blessed One said in Anguttara Nikaya: “Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is defiled by incoming defilements. The uninstructed ordinary person doesn't discern that it actually is present, which is why I tell you that -- for the uninstructed ordinary person -- there is no development of the mind." {I,vi,1}
"Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is freed from incoming defilements. The well-instructed disciple of the noble ones discerns that it actually is present, which is why I tell you that -- for the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones -- there is development of the mind." {I,vi,2}
The training of wisdom is the third training which leads a practitioner to liberation and freedom. This involves the contemplation (vipassana) of the characteristics of phenomena, they are all impermanent, subject to decay and destruction, and therefore is of the nature of imperfection and suffering, and if these phenomena are such, it naturally leads a meditator to come to investigate whether there is such a person called ‘me’ or ‘I’, for those keen meditator, you can take the advice of the Blessed One that there is no me or I.

The arising of insight or wisdom requires the purification of the morality (Silavisuddhi), and mind (Cittavisuddhi) as its roots. Purification of the morality is the adherence of the Five precepts (panca sila), the stricter Eight precepts (atthanga sila), and the novices’ Ten precepts (dasa sila), and the fourfold virtue of the ordained sangha, i.e., purity of Pātimokkha, restraint of the senses, purity of livelihood, purity in the use of the four requisites of robes, almsfood, lodging and medicine. Purification of mind is the attainment of the four rupa and the four arupa jhanas. Besides, it requires the inhibition of the five hindrances, i.e., sensual desires, ill-will, restlessness, sloth and torpor, and doubts. The insight would not arise if the virtue is not purified and the mental quiescence is not developed.

Vipassana is made up of two words, ‘vi’ is a prefix meaning separation, and ‘passana’ is to see, to observe; combining the two words means to observe and separate from our wrong view. Contemplative meditation is seeing the phenomena as they are, ie. impermanence, unsatisfactory, and selfless, and gaining insights into them so that our attachment and our ignorance to those phenomena around us could be abandoned, and gaining freedom by wisdom. (AN 2.3.10)

In meditation one deepens one’s practice through the practice of the four foundations of Satipatthana, which means the four foundations of mindfulness---mindfulness of the body, feelings, mental states, and the dhammas. With its perfection one develops the mind to a level it cuts off the tendency to fray into thinking easily, and with the purified mind ie. the attainment of meditative jhanas, one can see intuitively and clearly the selfless nature of the five aggregates, which then leads to Enlightenment and ultimately to Nibbana.