Buddhist meditation is the practice of meditation in Buddhism. The closest words for meditation in the classical languages of Buddhism are bhāvanā ("mental development") and jhāna/dhyāna (a state of meditative absorption resulting in a calm and luminous mind).
Buddhists pursue meditation as part of the path toward liberation from defilements (kleshas) and clinging and craving (upādāna), also called awakening, which results in the attainment of nirvana. The Indian Buddhist schools relied on numerous meditation techniques to attain meditative absorption, some of which remain influential in certain modern schools of Buddhism. Classic Buddhist meditations include anapanasati (mindfulness of breathing), asubha bhavana ("reflections on repulsiveness");Deleanu, Florin (1992); Mindfulness of Breathing in the Dhyāna Sūtras. Transactions of the International Conference of Orientalists in Japan (TICOJ) 37, 42-57. reflection on pratityasamutpada (dependent origination); anussati (recollections, including anapanasati), the four foundations of mindfulness,Anālayo, Early Buddhist Meditation Studies, Barre Center for Buddhist Studies Barre, Massachusetts USA 2017, p 109 and the divine abodes (including loving-kindness and compassion). These techniques aim to develop various qualities including equanimity, sati (mindfulness), samadhi (unification of mind) c.q. samatha (tranquility) and vipassanā (insight); and are also said to lead to abhijñā (supramundane powers). These meditation techniques are preceded by and combined with practices which aid this development, such as moral restraint and right effort to develop wholesome states of mind.
While some of the classic techniques are used throughout the modern Buddhist schools, the later Buddhist traditions also developed numerous other forms of meditation. One basic classification of meditation techniques divides them into samatha (calming the mind) and vipassana (cultivating insight). In the Theravada traditions emphasizing vipassana, these are often seen as separate techniques, while Mahayana Buddhism generally stresses the union of samatha and vipassana.Sujato, A history of mindfulness. Both Mahayana and Theravada traditions share some practices, like breath meditation and walking meditation. East Asian Buddhism developed a wide range of meditation techniques, including the Zen methods of zazen and huatou, the Pure Land practices of nianfo and guanfo, and the Tiantai method of "calming and insight" (zhǐguān). Tibetan Buddhism and other forms of Vajrayana mainly rely on the tantric practice of deity yoga as a central meditation technique. These are taught alongside other methods like Mahamudra and Dzogchen.
Etymology The closest words for meditation in the classical languages of Buddhism are bhāvanā (mental development) and jhāna/dhyāna.
Pre-sectarian Buddhism
Early Buddhism, as it existed before the development of various schools, is called pre-sectarian Buddhism. Its meditation-techniques are described in the Pali Canon and the Chinese Agamas.
Preparatory practices Meditation and contemplation are preceded by preparatory practices. As described in the Noble Eightfold Path, right view leads to leaving the household life and becoming a wandering monk. Sila, morality, comprises the rules for right conduct. Sense restraint and right effort, c.q. the four right efforts, are important preparatory practices. Sense restraint means controlling the response to sensual perceptions, not giving in to lust and aversion but simply noticing the objects of perception as they appear.Analayo, Early Buddhist Meditation Studies, p.69-70, 80 Right effort aims to prevent the arising of unwholesome states, and to generate wholesome states. By following these preparatory steps and practices, the mind becomes set, almost naturally, for the onset of dhyana.
Sati/smrti (mindfulness)
An important quality to be cultivated by a Buddhist meditator is mindfulness (sati). Mindfulness is a polyvalent term which refers to remembering, recollecting and "bearing in mind". It also relates to remembering the teachings of the Buddha and knowing how these teachings relate to one's experiences. The Buddhist texts mention different kinds of mindfulness practice.
The Pali Satipatthana Sutta and its parallels as well as numerous other early Buddhist texts enumerates four subjects (satipaṭṭhānas) on which mindfulness is established: the body (including the four elements, the parts of the body, and death); feelings (vedana); mind (citta); and phenomena or principles (dhammas), such as the five hindrances and the seven factors of enlightenment. Different early texts give different enumerations of these four mindfulness practices. Meditation on these subjects is said to develop insight.For instance, see Solé-Leris (1986), p. 75; and, Goldstein (2003), p. 92.
According to Bronkhorst, there were originally two kinds of mindfulness, "observations of the positions of the body" and the four satipaṭṭhānas, the "establishment of mindfulness," which constituted formal meditation. Bhikkhu Sujato and Bronkhorst both argue that the mindfulness of the positions of the body (which is actually "clear comprehension") wasn't originally part of the four satipatthana formula, but was later added to it in some texts.
Bronkhorst (1985) also argues that, in the earliest recognizable description of the four satipaṭṭhānas, two sections had a more limited scope: mindfulness of the body contained only the observation of the impure bodily parts, while mindfulness of dhammas was limited to the observation of the seven awakening factors. Sujato's reconstruction similarly only retains the contemplation of the impure under mindfulness of the body, while including only the five hindrances and the seven awakening factors under mindfulness of dhammas.
According to Anālayo, mindfulness of breathing was probably absent from the original scheme and appears to have been incorporated later from the sixteen-step scheme of ānāpānasati. He notes that one can easily contemplate the body's decay by taking an external object, that is, someone else's body, but not be externally mindful of the breath, that is, someone else's breath.
According to Grzegorz Polak, the four upassanā have been misunderstood by the developing Buddhist tradition, including Theravada, to refer to four different foundations. According to Polak, the four upassanā do not refer to four different foundations of which one should be aware, but are an alternate description of the jhanas, describing how the samskharas are tranquilized: the six sense-bases which one needs to be aware of (kāyānupassanā); contemplation on vedanās, which arise with the contact between the senses and their objects (vedanānupassanā); the altered states of mind to which this practice leads (cittānupassanā); the development from the five hindrances to the seven factors of enlightenment (dhammānupassanā).
Anussati (recollections)
Anussati (Pāli; Sanskrit: Anusmriti) means "recollection," "contemplation," "remembrance," "meditation" and "mindfulness." It refers to specific meditative or devotional practices, such as recollecting the sublime qualities of the Buddha or anapanasati (mindfulness of breathing), which lead to mental tranquillity and abiding joy. In various contexts, the Pali literature and Sanskrit Mahayana sutras emphasize and identify different enumerations of recollections.
Asubha bhavana (reflection on unattractiveness)
Asubha bhavana is reflection on "the foul"/unattractiveness (Pāli: asubha). It includes two practices, namely cemetery contemplations, and Paikkūlamanasikāra, "reflections on repulsiveness". Patikulamanasikara is a Buddhist meditation whereby thirty-one parts of the body are contemplated in a variety of ways. In addition to developing sati (mindfulness) and samādhi (concentration, dhyana), this form of meditation is considered to be conducive to overcoming desire and lust.Nanamoli (1998), p. 110, n. 16, which references the Anapanasati Sutta and the Visuddhimagga, Ch. VI, VIII.
Anapanasati (mindfulness of breathing)
Anapanasati, mindfulness of breathing, is a core meditation practice in Theravada, Tiantai and Chan traditions of Buddhism as well as a part of many mindfulness programs. In both ancient and modern times, anapanasati by itself is likely the most widely used Buddhist method for contemplating bodily phenomena.
The Ānāpānasati Sutta specifically concerns mindfulness of inhalation and exhalation, as a part of paying attention to one's body in quietude, and recommends the practice of anapanasati meditation as a means of cultivating the Seven Factors of Enlightenment: sati (mindfulness), dhamma vicaya (analysis), viriya (persistence), which leads to pīti (rapture), then to passaddhi (serenity), which in turn leads to samadhi (concentration) and then to upekkhā (equanimity). Finally, the Buddha taught that, with these factors developed in this progression, the practice of anapanasati would lead to release (Pali: vimutti; Sanskrit mokṣa) from dukkha (suffering), in which one realizes nibbana.
Dhyāna/jhāna
Many scholars of early Buddhism, such as Vetter, Bronkhorst and Anālayo, see the practice of jhāna (Sanskrit: dhyāna) as central to the meditation of Early Buddhism. According to Bronkhorst, the oldest Buddhist meditation practice are the four dhyanas, which lead to the destruction of the asavas as well as the practice of mindfulness (sati). According to Vetter, the practice of dhyana may have constituted the core liberating practice of early Buddhism, since in this state all "pleasure and pain" had waned. According to Vetter,
Alexander Wynne agrees that the Buddha taught a kind of meditation exemplified by the four dhyanas, but argues that the Buddha adopted these from the Brahmin teachers Āḷāra Kālāma and Uddaka Rāmaputta, though he did not interpret them in the same Vedic cosmological way and rejected their Vedic goal (union with Brahman). The Buddha, according to Wynne, radically transformed the practice of dhyana which he learned from these Brahmins which "consisted of the adaptation of the old yogic techniques to the practice of mindfulness and attainment of insight".Wynne, Alexander, The origin of Buddhist meditation, pp. 94-95 For Wynne, this idea that liberation required not just meditation but an act of insight, was radically different from the Brahminic meditation, "where it was thought that the yogin must be without any mental activity at all, ‘like a log of wood’."Wynne, Alexander, The origin of Buddhist meditation, pp. 95
Four rupa-jhanas
Qualities
Interpretation According to Richard Gombrich, the sequence of the four rupa-jhanas describes two different cognitive states.Original publication: Alexander Wynne further explains that the dhyana-scheme is poorly understood. According to Wynne, words expressing the inculcation of awareness, such as sati, sampajāno, and upekkhā, are mistranslated or understood as particular factors of meditative states, whereas they refer to a particular way of perceiving the sense objects. Polak notes that the qualities of the jhanas resemble the bojjhaṅgā, the seven factors of awakening, arguing that both sets describe the same essential practice. Polak further notes, elaborating on Vetter, that the onset of the first dhyana is described as a quite natural process, due to the preceding efforts to restrain the senses and the nurturing of wholesome states.