The classification of meditation objects

This leads us to objects for meditation and how they are chosen. One of the most revealing areas in any project is considering the difficulties which are encountered at the initial stages, for this can bring to the surface important and even defining features of the nature of the subject involved. For an anthology of Buddhist meditation, this intriguing problem arises when one tries to find some sort of classification of the material. This is not because the Buddha failed to leave behind lists of subjects and practices: on the contrary, there are many, usually arranged in a standard way, sometimes as groups or described in detail by pericopes, extended descriptions transported from one sutta to another in precisely the same form. Groups such as the kasijas (1–10),

the recollections (21–30) and divine abidings (31–4) are distributed from text to text in an often unchanged form. There is no set order in which the groups themselves appear, though the order of items within each list remains for the most part the same. We have a wide selection of these groups, collected together in many apparently endless patterns or permutations, so that one would be hard put to find a complete compilation of all the relevant lists which is reasonably comprehensive – and manageable as the basis for an anthology. It is rather like standard motifs rearranged in different ways in a mosaic or an embroidery, to create larger patterns and more intricate lists: any one sutta may have some, but not others, while some include so much else that they are not practicable to use as a means of classification. Sometimes designs and patterns not exclusively related to meditation are also being incorporated and woven in too. For

instance the largest and most exhaustive compilation of lists, the Jhanavagga in the Akguttaranikaya, through its description of 101 subjects, communicates a sense of the manifold nature of meditative practice (A I 34–40). It is perhaps the best example of the way that clusters of subjects, that usually remain themselves intact, are placed with others. In such lists, features of one group sometimes appear in another, like an overlap between designs: the formless realms, for instance, appear in the standard list of the deliverances (vimokkha) and on their own; the subject of death appears both as a recollection and

twice as a perception. This list is worth exploring for its inclusiveness of meditation states, approaches and subjects: the four right efforts are there, which can be applied to any meditation. The very range of this text, however, renders it tricky to use as a guide to sorting texts. Other compilations of lists within the canon include elements that happen to be excluded from others, or omit some found elsewhere. Each compilation tends to have its own quirk or idiosyncrasy – perhaps one group not found or some list incorporated which one might not expect. The Mahasakuludayi-Sutta lists seventy-five features but inexplicably omits the divine abidings (31–5) (M II 524). The Dhammasakgaji, an early work of Abhidhamma, itemizes under the methods for inducing jhana the deliverances and the spheres of transcendence (abhibhayatanani). It happens to exclude, however, the ten recollections, some of the most important meditations described by the Buddha: here they were perhaps taken for granted as preliminaries or felt to be included under other headings.11

One can only speculate about reasons for this fluid approach: many lists are possibly that way as the result of a choice made once by someone chanting a particular sutta, that just happened to stick. It rather appears though that the Buddha himself taught meditation as an activity that could, sometimes, be outlined in great detail but did not think in terms of rigid classification and, if anything, tended to avoid it: the many lists can seem open-ended and even organic, with new elements tacked on to suit the occasion. Any one is likely to include or leave out groups found in other lists. The modern mind likes clear classification though – and we do need some arrangement for an anthology. So the one used here is the list of meditation subjects used to this day in all Theravada Buddhist countries, Buddhaghosa’s forty kammatthanas. The word kammatthana, which means basis for work, is a post-canonical term, and while it is a useful designation we should always bear in mind that there is no classification that is quite the same in the texts.12 The list of these takes each object as the basis for the practice of calm meditation, which is then used for insight, though, as we shall see, even this can be a far less clear-cut distinction than it seems.

These are:

1–10: ten devices (kasija)

11–20: ten meditations on the foul (asubha)

21–30: ten recollections (anussati)

31–34: four divine abidings (brahma-vihara), immeasurables (appamaja)

35–38: four formless spheres (a(r)rupa)

39: perception of loathsomeness in food (ahare patikk≠lasañña)

40: defining of the four elements (catudhatuvavatthanam).

Upatissa’s list is in effect the same: although the Vimuttimagga lists thirty-eight subjects, it describes in the text, oddly enough, exactly the same ones that Buddhaghosa does. Both of these substitute light (aloka) and limited space (paricchedakasa) for the space and consciousness found in the canon where ten kasijas are described.13 The spheres of infinite space and infinite consciousness, excluded from the summary, are described by Upatissa after the earth kasija (PF 113–17).14 An indication of the antiquity of this list of thirty-eight, and perhaps also of an earlier date for Upatissa’s work, is that it features in the introduction to a Jataka story: the Buddha is asked by a group of monks for a kammatthana, ‘for release from saysara’. He ‘pondered over the thirty-eight kammatthanas and

expounded one that was suitable to them’ (Ja I 316).15

The treatment of meditation in the canon hints at a landscape that we cannot fully see now: and many questions are raised as to the nature of meditation objects at the time of the Buddha that we simply cannot answer. How were the deliverances and spheres of transcendence used in practice? Do their presence suggest some use of natural objects as the basis for practice? Or was the kasija practice always undertaken in the way it is described in the commentaries, using a device in a manner apparently described by the Culasuññata-Sutta (M III 104–9)? The presence of visualization practices in the canon suggests that sometimes no external object was needed for some meditations. In addition some subjects for meditation are described only once in the canon, there may well

have been invented on the spot for a particular person, and do not happen to be discussed by the commentaries. A recollection on good friends (kalyajamitta), given instead of the recollection of the sakgha after the usual recollection of the Buddha and dhamma to the layman Nandiya, is a striking example (see A V 336). The space element within the body is described in a sutta where the elements within the body are described as five rather than the usual four: this could indicate other contemporary ways of undertaking practice on the elements.16 Meditation on the radiance of the sun and the moon, presumably some sort of variation on the perception of light, is mentioned in a canonical Jataka verse.17 These are just a few examples of meditations not listed in either manual that indicate a great diversity of approach. The Buddha seems to have seen the need for applicability and originality in a given situation when addressing a particular audience or person. As Vajirañaja says, ‘these subjects which are to be found in the wide range of the Buddhist system of meditation are almost limitless; for they were adopted in accordance with the variety of the mental dispositions of the aspirants’ (BMTP 75).