Visuddhimagga (the pah of purification)
by Ñāṇamoli Bhikkhu | 1956 | 388,207 words | ISBN-10: 9552400236 | ISBN-13: 9789552400236
This page describes The Counterpart Sign of the section The Earth Kasiṇa (Pathavī-kasiṇa-niddesa) of Part 2 Concentration (Samādhi) of the English translation of the Visuddhimagga (‘the path of purification’) which represents a detailled Buddhist meditation manual, covering all the essential teachings of Buddha as taught in the Pali Tipitaka. It was compiled Buddhaghosa around the 5th Century.
The Counterpart Sign
31. As he does so, the hindrances eventually become suppressed, the defilements subside, the mind becomes concentrated with access concentration, and the counterpart sign arises.
The difference between the earlier learning sign and the counterpart sign is this. In the learning sign any fault in the kasiṇa is apparent. But the counterpart sign [126] appears as if breaking out from the learning sign, and a hundred times, a thousand times more purified, like a looking-glass disk drawn from its case, like a mother-of-pearl dish well washed, like the moon’s disk coming out from behind a cloud, like cranes against a thunder cloud. But it has neither colour nor shape; for if it had, it would be cognizable by the eye, gross, susceptible of comprehension [by insight—(see XX.2f.)] and stamped with the three characteristics.[1] But it is not like that. For it is born only of perception in one who has obtained concentration, being a mere mode of appearance.[2] But as soon as it arises the hindrances are quite suppressed, the defilements subside, and the mind becomes concentrated in access concentration.
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
“Stamped with the three characteristics of the formed beginning with rise (see A I 152), or marked with the three characteristics beginning with impermanence” (Vismmhṭ 122).
[2]:
“If ‘it is not like that’—is not possessed of colour, etc.—then how is it the object of jhāna? It is in order to answer that question that the sentence beginning, ‘For it is …’ is given. ‘Born of the perception’: produced by the perception during development, simply born from the perception during development. Since there is no arising from anywhere of what has no individual essence, he therefore said, ‘Being the mere mode of appearance’” (Vism-mhṭ 122). See Ch. VIII, n. 11.