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Meditation and Vipassana
By Prapant Svetanant
Some fifteen years ago, I got a spiritual attack from an invisible object. After that attack, I had suffered from off-and-on depression for several months without reason. After a lot of meditation practices in several places under several dhamma teachers, I could successfully escape from that imaginative depression. By that time, I got struck with a happy meditation already. I loved to do the meditation every night for some two hours each day. Until I found Luang Por Sua, he had taught me how to do the Vipassana, which is much different from meditation. From that Vipassana practice, my life has improved to form a better emotional stability."
Meditation in Thai is called "samadhi. Samadhi was not the original teaching in Buddhism. Samadhi was widely practiced in India even before our Lord Buddha's enlightenment. In fact, while he was searching for the way to liberation, he used to be trained in samadhi by two teachers who were ascetics in the jungle. The outcome of meditation is simply a state of deep mental absorption. Such a deep concentration is very helpful that it calms the mind by diverting attention from the situation in which one would otherwise react with uncontrollable emotion. Counting slowly from one to ten is one simple way to prevent an outburst of our anger. When the attention is diverted to a different object, the mind becomes calm and peaceful. Samadhi achieved in this way is not a real liberation. Craving and aversion are not eliminated. At the surface level of the mind, the practitioner may feel he has peace and harmony. However, deep inside his mind, there is a sleeping volcano which can erupt violently at any time and in any place.
"If the roots remain untouched and firm in the ground, a felled tree still puts forth new shoots.
If the underlying habit of craving and aversion is not uprooted, suffering arises anew over and over again."
(Dhammapada, XXIV.5 (33
In order that craving and aversion will be uprooted, we must train ourselves to get wisdom (Panya in Thai). The meaning of "wisdom" here does not mean the general wisdom as understood by general people. It is the special kind of wisdom that can lead us to enlightenment. Vipassana is that special practice to gain the special wisdom. By this method, one may recognise and eliminate the causes of suffering. This was the discovery of our Lord Buddha.
Morality (sila) and concentration (samadhi) are good, but their real purpose is to lead to wisdom. The highest goal of Buddhism is to get wisdom (Panya), which is the true middle path between the extreme of self-indulgence and self-repression. By practicing morality, we avoid actions that cause trouble to other living creatures. By concentrating the mind, we can calm it and get away from the troubled situation. But it is only by developing wisdom that we can penetrate into the reality within and free ourselves of all ignorance and attachments. The holy TIPITAKA (the Holy Books of Buddha's teachings)is composed of three main baskets
1) Vinaya-pitaka or the Basket of Discipline, (2) Sutta-pitaka or the Basket of Discourse, and (3) Abhidhamma-pitaka or the Basket of Higher or Extra Doctrine. The teachings of wisdom are all in the last basket, whose contents cover exactly 50% of the whole Tipitaka. So we can see how important the practice of wisdom is in Buddism. The extreme destination for the practice of Buddhist wisdom (Vipassana) is called, Nirvana*. Nirvana is the state of perfect bliss attained when the soul is freed from all sufferings.
Mere suffering exists, no sufferer is found;
The deeds are, but no doer of the deeds is there;
Nirvana is, but not the man that enters it;
The path is, but no traveller on it is seen.
(Lord Buddha)
Remark: *Nirvana (เนีย'วานะ) in Sanskrit means "a blowing out, extinction." Nibbana: Pali //nibbana//, Sanskrit //nirvana//. The meaning is "extinction," that is, of the "fires" of lust, hate, and delusion, or, more briefly, of craving and ignorance, and so nibbana is a name for the third Truth as liberation.
(This essay was prepared on July 10, 199
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