Part 10 - Two Kinds of Meditation

Contemplation of the Buddha, Contemplation of the Dhamma and Contemplation of the Sangha are all various forms of meditation. Meditation is of two kinds: meditation for refreshing the mind and meditation for Insight.

Explanation:

(1) A yogi, who contemplates loathsomeness of the body through reflecting on the ten stages of the dead body, may feel repulsed by the unpleasant object and his mind may stray like an untamed bull. In such a case, he should shift his object of meditation from the original object of the dead body and contemplate on the Buddha or the Dhamma or the Sangha. Then the mind will become refreshed and invigorated. The hindrances then fall away. Then he can go back to his original contemplation on loathsomeness of the body.

It is like the case of a strong man trying to cut down a big tree to build a pinnacle for a shrine. His sword or hatchet might get blunt after cutting off just the branches of the big tree and he might find it unusable for felling the tree. Then he would go to the blacksmith and get his blunt blade sharpened. After which, equipped with the sharpened blade, he could successfully chop down the whole tree.

The yogi, after refreshing his mind by contemplating on the Buddha or the Dhamma or the Sangha resumes his contemplation on the loathsomeness of the body. When he gains concentration and achieves the first jhāna of the Fine Material Sphere, he meditates on the five factors of the jhāna as being impermanent, woeful and insubstantial. And when the mind gains the ten stages of insight into conditioned phenomena, it matures into Magga-Knowledge and its Fruition. (This is the first kind of meditation)

(2) A yogi contemplating on the Buddha or the Dhamma or the Sangha first strives to achieve the threshold concentration or upacāra-jhāna. Then he meditates on the very nature of his mental exercise. If he has been contemplating the Buddha, he applies his mind to the question: “Who is it that is meditating? Is it a man or a woman? Is he a man, or deva, or a māra, or a Brahmā?” He views the question objectively to get at the ultimate fact. Then he will come to perceive the fact that, in the ultimate sense, there is no such thing as a man or a woman, or deva, or māra, or a Brahmā; and that, in truth and reality, it is just the mind that is mindful of the object under meditation that is recollecting the attribute of the Buddha such as "Arahaṃ". Then he comes to understand that the mind that is being mindful of the mind-object is the aggregate of consciousness (viññāṇakkhandhā);that the sensation that is associated with the consciousness is the aggregate of sensation (vedanākkhandhā); that the perceiving (of the sensation) associated with the consciousness is the aggregate of perception (saññākkhandhā);that the contact (phassa) with the sensation that arise together with the consciousness is the aggregate of volitional activities (saṅkhārakkhandhā). Thus he understands the nature of mind and the four mental aggregates which are mental phenomena. Further, he examines through the insight gained so far: On what do the mental aggregates depend? He perceives first, the physical base of mental phenomena (hadaya vatthu). Next he perceives that the physical base is dependent on the Four Primary Elements (mahā bhūta rūpa). Then he goes on meditating on other corporeality that are dependent on the Four Primary Elements. He exercises his mind diligently and in due course comprehends the nature of corporeality that such is the aggregate of corporeality, which is just physical phenomena devoid of any real person or being, and that, in truth and reality, there is no “I” or “he/she”, “man”, “woman”, etc. apart from the physical phenomena. He now gains insight into the two different kinds of phenomena, that is, mental and physical, in the last analysis, and understands that these two different phenomena are composed of five aggregates on a detailed analysis. Then he understands that these five aggregates are, in truth and reality, unsatisfactory and woeful and thus understands the truth of dukkha. Then he also knows that craving (greed) is the cause of dukkha; and that cessation of both dukkha and the cause of dukkha is the truth of cessation; and that the Ariya Path of Eight constituents is the practice that is the condition for cessation. Thus having penetrating knowledge of the Four Truths, the yogi develops the insight, stage by stage, until it culminates in the Fruition of the Path Knowledge and becomes an ariya. The meditation thus culminating in Ariyahood is the kind of contemplation directed towards insight.

(These remarks are extracted from the Commentary on the Aṅguttara Nikāya, the Ones, ekāka)