Visuddhimagga (the pah of purification)
by Ñāṇamoli Bhikkhu | 1956 | 388,207 words | ISBN-10: 9552400236 | ISBN-13: 9789552400236
This page describes The Air Kasina of the section The Remaining Kasiṇas (Sesa-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 Air Kasiṇa
9. Anyone who wants to develop the air kasiṇa should apprehend the sign in air. And that is done either by sight or by touch. For this is said in the Commentaries: “One who is learning the air kasiṇa apprehends the sign in air. He notices the tops of [growing] sugarcane moving to and fro; or he notices the tops of bamboos, or the tops of trees, or the ends of the hair, moving to and fro; or he notices the touch of it on the body.”
10. So when he sees sugarcanes with dense foliage standing with tops level or bamboos or trees, or else hair four fingers long on a man’s head, being struck by the wind, he should establish mindfulness in this way: “This wind is striking on this place.” Or he can establish mindfulness where the wind strikes a part of his body after entering by a window opening or by a crack in a wall, and using any among the names for wind (vāta) beginning with “wind” (vāta), “breeze” (māluta), “blowing” (anila), he should develop [the kasiṇa] by using [preferably] the obvious “air, air.”
11. Here the learning sign appears to move like the swirl of hot [steam] on rice gruel just withdrawn from an oven. The counterpart sign is quiet and motionless. The rest should be understood in the way already described.