The forty subjects for meditation

In the 5th century CE, an Indian Buddhist monk left India to Sri Lanka, where he settled in Anuradhapura. Not much more is known of this monk, Buddhaghosa, except through his monumental commentary on the Suttas, the Visuddhimagga - Path of Purification.

Perhaps the main reason for the Visuddhimagga's appeal stretching to our time is its detailed instructions on meditation, clarifying some obscure points in the original Suttas.

Some learned Ajaans (namely Buddhadasa), in modern times, envisioned a return to the sources, considering that only the Suttas and the Vinaya are the Buddha's words: not the Visuddhimagga, not even the Abhidhamma (the third Pitaka - Basket of Scriptures - of the Pali canon).

Here are the forty subjects for meditation you can find in the Visuddhimagga, together with references (links) to the original Suttas.

Ten devices (kasina) [The Greater Discourse to Sakuludāyin, MN 77]

1. Earth device
2. Water device
3. Fire device
4. Air or wind device
5. Blue device
6. Yellow device
7. Red device
8. White device
9. Limited space device
10. Consciousness (MN77) or Light (VSM) device

Ten kinds of foulness of a corpse [Kayagata-sati Sutta, MN 119]

1. A corpse that is bloated
2. A corpse that is livid (has patchy discoloration)
3. A corpse that is festering (trickling with pus in broken places)
4. A corpse that is cut up
5. A corpse that is gnawed
6. A corpse that is scattered
7. A corpse that is hacked and scattered
8. A corpse that is bleeding
9. A corpse that is worm-infested
10. A corpse that is a skeleton

Ten recollections [Ekadhammapali Sutta, AN 1.296-297]

1. Recollection of the Buddha
2. Recollection of the Dhamma
3. Recollection of the Sangha
4. Recollection of Virtue
5. Recollection of Generosity
6. Recollection of the Devas
7. Mindfulness of Death
8. Mindfulness of the Physical Body
9. Mindfulness of Breathing
10. Recollection of Peace

Four divine abodes [Kalama Sutta, AN 3.65]

1. Loving-kindness
2. Compassion
3. Sympathy
4. Equanimity

Four immaterial states [Ariyapariyesana Sutta, MN 26]

1. Sphere of Infinite Space
2. Sphere of Infinite Consciousness
3. Sphere of No-thingness
4. Sphere of Neither Perception nor Non-Perception

One perception [Sañña Sutta, AN 7.46]

1. Perception of the loathsomeness of food

One defining [Dhatu-vibhanga Sutta, MN 140]

1. Analysis of the four physical elements

There are several contemporary expositions on the forty subjects for meditation, but I would like to leave you a very concise one, by the Mahasi Sayadaw, in Buddhist Meditation and its Forty Subjects. It is, as far as I know, the only text where the Sayadaw gives instruction, in parallel, on samatha and vipassana meditation.

As I said before, mindfulness of breathing (the 9th recollection, above) is still the most used meditation subject. It is said to be appropriate for all meditators' temperaments, conducive to the deepest meditative states (not all forty subjects are), and safe (not all forty subjects are). If you want to try other meditation subjects please try and find a suitable meditation master - it will not be easy.

Pranayama - the Science of Breath

http://greenyogaindia.com/prana-and-pranayama/

Remember Rishi Patanjali's eight-limbed Yoga?

1. Yama
2. Niyama
3. Asana
4. Pranayama
5. Pratyahara
6. Dharana
7. Dhyana
8. Samadhi

We've seen a little on asana - the physical posture - and on the last four limbs that deal with the mental posture.

Meditation, particularly Buddhist meditation, is often centered on watching the breath, just watching it go in and out without forcing it in any way.

Pranayama is completely different: we control breath.

Patanjali doesn't offer a very detailed explanation. The verses that refer to pranayama are only five: II-49 to II-53

49. Asana having been perfected, regulation of the flow of inhalation and exhalation is Pranayama.
50. Pranayama has external operation, internal operation and suppression. These, again, when observed according to space, time and number become long and subtle.
51. The fourth Pranayama transcends external and internal operations.
52. By that the veil over manifestation of knowledge is thinned.
53. Moreover, the mind acquires fitness for Dharana.

[Adapted from https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=qUHabpdmSCkC)]

Apart from continual oral transmission, we had to wait almost 1000 years to have a detailed written instruction on pranayama, in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika.

Let's make a little experiment.

Lie down on your back and relax. Remember savasana?
Now pay attention to your thorax and abdomen and try to discern how they move with breath. Take your time...
If you're stressed (aren't we all?) you'll find that you are breathing from the top of your lungs. That's bad.
Now inhale deeply: begin by dilating your abdomen and then propagate the dilation to the chest, like a wave that begins just above the pubis and ends by the throat. Don't hold your breath; just let physics work and empty your lungs. When they're naturally emptied, there are still a few gases remaining: contract your chest and then the abdomen to expel the last possible ounce of residual gas. You've never taken such a deep, full breath in your life!

Traditionally the phases of breath are called

1. Puraka - Inhalation
2. Kumbhaka - Retention
3. Rechaka - Exhalation

There is also kumbhaka after exhalation. If you are very mindful you can detect both kumbakhas even in your normal breathing. In fact, that's one of the advanced themes for Buddhist calm (samatha) meditation.

You may have noticed that the amount of air that flows through the left and right nostrils is not the same. This is natural. We have a dominant nostril, and it changes along the day - it is said that the dominant nostril changes every 108 minutes. If your dominant nostril is always the same, especially if you never breath through one of them, see a doctor: you probably have some physical obstruction.

When you do long breathing meditation (not pranayama) sessions you sometimes catch the dominant nostril slowly switching. It's a lot of fun...

Did this experiment make you want to further explore pranayama? Then sit. The ideal position for practicing pranayama is one of the meditative asanas that we've seen in a previous post on meditation.

I'm going to show you four pranayamas based on Swami Sivananda's The Science of Pranayama. The idea is to take a few minutes every day, preferably early in the morning, and practise one exercise during one week. Try not to skip steps. If at any time you feel dizzy, stop immediately. Your body is warning you that you are over-straining. As I said before, this is Yoga - not gymnastics!

First week: exercise #1

Close your eyes. Inhale deeply, as before, through both nostrils, very slowly and gently until your lungs are full. Remember that inhalation begins in the abdomen. Do not retain the breath. Then slowly exhale. Do twelve times. This will constitute one round. You can do two or three rounds according to your capacity, strength, and time at your disposal.

Second week: exercise #2

Close your eyes. Close the right nostril with your right thumb. Inhale very slowly through the left nostril as long as you can do it with comfort. Then exhale very slowly through the same nostril. Do twelve times. Do not make any sound during inhalation and exhalation. Then inhale through the right nostril by closing the left nostril with your right ring and little fingers and exhale very slowly through the same nostril. Do twelve times.

Vishnu Mudra - used for opening and closing nostrils.
http://sacred-earth.typepad.com/yoga/2008/07/mudras-for-pranayama.html

Third week: exercise #3

Close your eyes. Then inhale slowly through your left nostril. Close the left nostril with your right ring and little fingers and open the right nostril by removing the right thumb. Exhale very slowly through the right nostril. Then draw the air through the right nostril as long as you can do it with comfort and exhale through the left nostril by removing the right ring and little fingers. There is no kumbhaka in this pranayama. Do twelve times.

Fourth week: exercise #4

Close your eyes. Close the right nostril with your right thumb. Inhale slowly through the left nostril while mentally counting one-two-three. Using the ring and little finger, close the left nostril too and retain the air for the time it takes you to count to twelve; exhale through the right nostril for the time it takes you to count to six; keeping the right nostril open, inhale through it counting to three; close both nostrils while counting to twelve; open the left nostril and exhale through it while counting to six. Do twelve times.

As you have guessed, the aim is to have a 1-4-2 proportion for puraka-kumbhaka-rechaka.

From the end of the fourth week onwards you can try to slowly increase the time, by both slowing and deepening the steps. You began with 3-12-6; next week try 4-16-8. After a few months you may be able to get to 16-64-32 without undue strain. 

Watch Baba Ramdev demonstrating pranayama.

http://ramdevyoga4all.blogspot.com/2010/07/complete-eight-pranayamas.html

Gymnosophists - the naked philosophers

When Alexander the Great's army invaded India, sometime around 320 BC, his Greek followers were puzzled to find what they called 'naked philosophers' - the gymnosophists.

The Greek found nothing out of the ordinary in 'street philosophy'; after all, Alexander had been tutored by the great Aristotle. They also found nothing out of the ordinary in male nakedness since there was no concept of shame associated with the body. The word 'gymnos' - naked - can be found in gymnasium - a place to exercise naked.

As happens many times, it was the conjunction of two common things that felt, maybe, odd: naked philosophers...

We can easily imagine those gymnosophists to be the ancestors of modern naga babas.

https://www.pinterest.pt/pin/155514993357883219/

One Greek philosopher, a member of Alexander's court, seemed to be especially struck by Indian philosophy: Pyrrho of Elis, known today as the founder of skepticism.

https://alchetron.com/Pyrrho-807275-W#-

Not much is known today about Pyrrho. In fact, what remains of his philosophy is a fourth-hand report: a summary of Pyrrhonism which was preserved by Eusebius, quoting Aristocles, quoting Pyrrho's student Timon, in what is known as the "Aristocles passage:"

"Whoever wants to live well must consider these three questions: First, how are pragmata (ethical matters, affairs, topics) by nature? Secondly, what attitude should we adopt towards them? Thirdly, what will be the outcome for those who have this attitude?" Pyrrho's answer is that "As for pragmata they are all adiaphora (undifferentiated by a logical differentia), astathmeta (unstable, unbalanced, not measurable), and anepikrita (unjudged, unfixed, undecidable). Therefore, neither our sense-perceptions nor our doxai (views, theories, beliefs) tell us the truth or lie; so we certainly should not rely on them. Rather, we should be adoxastous (without views), aklineis (uninclined toward this side or that), and akradantous (unwavering in our refusal to choose), saying about every single one that it no more is than it is not or it both is and is not or it neither is nor is not."

This exposition has led Christopher Beckwith to find some parallel with the Buddhist three marks of existence: anicca (impermanence), dukkha (suffering), anatta (absence of an inherent, independent self), and to infer an influence of early Buddhism on Pyrrhonism.

While there is a clear formal similarity - three characteristics that are negatively defined - and we can equate adiaphora with anatta and astathmeta with anicca, anepikrita and the following consequences, which seem to be the core of Pyrrho's thought, remain unpaired, as does the Buddhist view of suffering.

We can find, however, a perfect parallel between anepikrita and one of the tenets of a less known religion that was contemporary with Buddhism: Jainism. These are

Ahimsa - non-violence,

Aparigraha - non-possessiveness,

Tapas - asceticism, and

Anekantavada - many-sidedness, pluralism, pluralism of viewpoints.

Not only anekantavada is strikingly analogous to Pyrrho's anepikrita but the primitive Jains (and some today) were naked ascetics - gymnosophists.

http://jainteerth.com/photo-gallery-mahaveerji-rajasthan/

https://theatuljain.wordpress.com/2016/08/29/myths-of-jainism-demystifying-jainism-for-a-layman/

I will return to Jainism some time in the future. This beautiful religion deserves to be better known in the West. For the time being, you can freely browse the online Jain Library.