The Water Kasiṇa

1. [170] Now, the water kasiṇa comes next after the earth kasiṇa (III.105). Here is the detailed explanation.

One who wants to develop the water kasiṇa should, as in the case of the earth kasiṇa, seat himself comfortably and apprehend the sign in water that “is either made up or not made up,” etc.; and so all the rest should be repeated in detail (IV.22). And as in this case, so with all those that follow [in this chapter]. We shall in fact not repeat even this much and shall only point out what is different.

2. Here too, when someone has had practice in previous [lives], the sign arises for him in water that is not made up, such as a pool, a lake, a lagoon, or the ocean as in the case of the Elder Cūḷa-Sīva. The venerable one, it seems, thought to abandon gain and honour and live a secluded life. He boarded a ship at Mahātittha (Mannar) and sailed to Jambudīpa (India). As he gazed at the ocean meanwhile, the kasiṇa sign, the counterpart of that ocean, arose in him.

3. Someone with no such previous practice should guard against the four faults of a kasiṇa (IV.24) and not apprehend the water as one of the colours, blue, yellow, red or white. He should fill a bowl or a four-footed water pot^[1] to the brim with water uncontaminated by soil, taken in the open through a clean cloth [strainer], or with any other clear unturbid water. He should put it in a screened place on the outskirts of the monastery as already described and seat himself comfortably. He should neither review its colour nor bring its characteristic to mind. Apprehending the colour as belonging to its physical support, he should set his mind on the [name] concept as the most outstanding mental datum, and using any among the [various] names for water (āpo) such as “rain” (ambu), “liquid” (udaka), “dew” (vāri), “fluid” (salila),^[2] he should develop [the kasiṇa] by using [preferably] the obvious “water, water.”

4. As he develops it in this way, the two signs eventually arise in him in the way already described. Here, however, the learning sign has the appearance of moving. [171] If the water has bubbles of froth mixed with it, the learning sign has the same appearance, and it is evident as a fault in the kasiṇa. But the counterpart sign appears inactive, like a crystal fan set in space, like the disk of a lookingglass made of crystal. With the appearance of that sign he reaches access jhāna and the jhāna tetrad and pentad in the way already described.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Kuṇḍika—“a four-footed water pot”: not in PED.

[2]:

English cannot really furnish five words for water.