The Blue Kasiṇa

12. Next it is said [in the Commentaries]: “One who is learning the blue kasiṇa apprehends the sign in blue, whether in a flower or in a cloth or in a colour element.”^[1] Firstly, when someone has merit, having had previous practice, the sign arises in him when he sees a bush with blue flowers, or such flowers spread out on a place of offering, or any blue cloth or gem.

13. [173] But anyone else should take flowers such as blue lotuses, girikaṇṇikā (morning glory) flowers, etc., and spread them out to fill a tray or a flat basket completely so that no stamen or stalk shows or with only their petals. Or he can fill it with blue cloth bunched up together; or he can fasten the cloth over the rim of the tray or basket like the covering of a drum. Or he can make a kasiṇa disk, either portable as described under the earth kasiṇa or on a wall, with one of the colour elements such as bronze-green, leaf-green, añjana-ointment black, surrounding it with a different colour. After that, he should bring it to mind as “blue, blue” in the way already described under the earth kasiṇa.

14. And here too any fault in the kasiṇa is evident in the learning sign; the stamens and stalks and the gaps between the petals, etc., are apparent. The counterpart sign appears like a crystal fan in space, free from the kasiṇa disk. The rest should be understood as already described.