A Swift Pair of Messengers: Serenity with insight in the Buddha's Words

by Bhikkhu Sujato

Serenity and insight are the two great wings of Buddhist meditation. They each have a special role to play in the path to Awakening. While some modern approaches seek to marginalize serenity in favor of 'dry' insight, the Buddha's own discourses place serenity right at the center of the path. This book collects virtually all the significant passages on this topic that are found in the early discourses, carefully elucidated for the modern reader.

Genres: Buddhism

Kindle Edition

First published August 23, 2011

Reviews

[S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bhante Sujato shows that in the suttas cultivation of the path is always accompanied by developing of right concentration aka samatha meditation. Also the texts used as argument that liberation via dry insight or pure vipassana method are very sporadic, probably of later date, and serve as minor narrative background, instead of the direct teaching of the Buddha. To reach the final goal you need both samadhi and wisdom.

Also interesting is that Satipatthana Sutta being described as the training one should pursue in continuation of the samatha practice.

[Totochelamouche · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first version of this book was written when I was staying in the caves and cliffs of Ipoh, surrounded by high, inaccessible, and forbidding walls of rock.

From other contexts it is clear that the phrase ‘Thus have I heard’ is reserved for relating events secondhand. If one was actually present, the phrase ‘Face to face have I heard it’ is used instead.

Right samādhi, or one-pointedness of mind in the context of the path, is the four jhānas.

The controversial term vipassanā jhāna seems to stem from a historical development in the application of the terms ‘samatha’ and ‘vipassanā’.
In the suttas, no meditation technique is labeled, such as by saying ‘kasiṇas and loving-kindness are samatha, satipaṭṭhāna is vipassanā’. A growing tendency to segregate and systematize the various meditation subjects developed into the prevailing practice of identifying samatha and vipassanā with the meditation subjects themselves, rather than with the mental qualities which the techniques foster. Having thus labeled a certain technique as ‘vipassanā’, it was found that experiences of rapture, serenity, and bliss occur during ‘vipassanā’. These experiences were then called vipassanā jhāna.

Lust is a term for the emotional aspect of the defilements; ignorance is a term for the intellectual aspect.

The middleness of the middle way has nothing to do with compromise; it is not the ‘mediocre’ way. It is rather the way that avoids seeking for a solution to life’s problems in externals, in the pleasures and pains of the body, but instead turns inwards to the peace of the mind.

Of the basic moral precepts, those against killing and harsh speech counter the hindrance of ill will, those against stealing and adultery counter sensual desire, and those against lying and intoxicants counter delusion.

Right mindfulness is defined as the four satipaṭṭhānas. […] This is not to hide the crucial fact that satipaṭṭhāna derives its true significance from the fact that they are one of the factors of the path. Since they are included in the ‘section on samādhi’, rather than the ‘section on wisdom’, their primary purpose is to lead to the attainment of jhāna, as the final factor of the path: right samādhi.

However, due to the exceptional purity of the factors instrumental in their attaining, they are singularly pellucid and tranquil, yielding an intuitive flowering of wisdom.

The classic formula uses a reflexive idiom, saying one contemplates ‘a body in the body’. This is explained in the suttas as: ‘the in-and-out breaths are a certain body [among the bodies].’ This implies focusing on a specific aspect of the overall framework.

Ill will is a fire which heats the mind until it is boiling, bubbling, and steaming. It is overcome by loving-kindness. The Buddha said that by using mindfulness alone it is not possible to fully overcome ill will.

To understand the four noble truths is not to make oneself experience even more pain, but to understand how to transcend pain through letting go. The bliss of jhāna is a crucial teaching, showing us clearly and directly that suffering arises from our attachments.

The four noble truths are briefly mentioned in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (Majjhima Nikāya 10), but are described in detail in the Mahā Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (Dīgha Nikāya 22). Actually, DN 22 is nothing more than a late expansion of MN 10, with the expanded section on the four noble truths taken from the Saccavibhaga Sutta (MN 141) and inserted by the redactors. It is not an authentic teaching of the Buddha, but nevertheless it gives an idea how these things were understood by the Theravādin redactors, perhaps 200–300 years after the Buddha.

It seems that it is the presence of this refrain, which constantly reinforces the message of vipassanā, which has given rise to the unique modern Theravādin idea that satipaṭṭhāna is essentially a vipassanā practice. It is crucial to realize that this refrain is an unusual feature of one particular text, and does not represent the teachings on satipaṭṭhāna found elsewhere. In over 70 suttas dealing with satipaṭṭhāna in the Pali canon alone, only two or three others even mention impermanence. Contrast this with the dozens of cases where satipaṭṭhāna is closely associated with samādhi. The modern doctrine of ‘satipaṭṭhāna = vipassanā’ is an artifact of a selective and misrepresentative reading of the texts.

Humans had only six afflictions: cold, heat, hunger, thirst, excrement, and urine.

Suppose a skilled goldsmith or goldsmith’s apprentice were to prepare a furnace and heat the crucible, take some gold in a pair of tongs and place it in the crucible.

The gold would become refined, well refined, thoroughly refined, cleansed, rid of dross, soft, workable, and radiant […]

“[…] Alone, doing jhāna, I awakened to bliss.
Therefore I make no partners with people​—​ Partnership with anyone is not for me.”

The serenity they find in their daily life and in their meditation is the experiential proof of the drying up of the flood of defilements.

The Buddha never taught lay meditation retreats or established any lay meditation centers. The intensive retreat seems to have been for monastics only. This is quite in tune with the gradual training, which sees higher states of mind emerging, not from strenuous toil for a short time in arti- ficial conditions divorced from everyday life, but from a holistic lifestyle of simplicity, contentment, and restraint.

Rather than plunging in at the deep end of spiritual life at a meditation intensive, lay people were encouraged to spend one day a week in the monastery, keeping eight precepts, listening to Dhamma, and practicing meditation. This practice is continued in some places today.

Some say that times have changed and it is no longer possible to find the quiet and solitude necessary for deep samādhi. There is some truth to this, with the loss of most of the forests and the pervasion of technology and noise pollution. But it’s always been hard, and that shouldn’t stop us from trying. Even today there are tens of thousands of Buddhist monks, nuns, and lay people who live constantly or for extended periods in peaceful and secluded places suitable for meditation. Most of these places, right now, have empty rooms or empty huts ready for anyone who wants to practice.

Thus it is impossible that Prince Jayasena, living in the midst of sensual pleasures, enjoying sensual pleasures, being devoured by thoughts of sensual pleasures, being consumed by the fever of sensual pleasures, bent on the search for sensual pleasures, could know, see, or witness that which must be known through renunciation, seen through renunciation, attained through renunciation, witnessed through renunciation.’

The formation of a concept can be analyzed in two stages. First there is the initial conception of a verbal idea, a thought (vitakka). Secondly, a sustained series of these thoughts is linked up to form a coherent consideration (vicāra).

It was seen above how perception simplifies experience into meaningful units. This essential function is undermined when proliferative thinking re-multiplies experience, so that just one word can trigger minutes or hours of discursive inner monologue.

The function of vitakka to initiate thoughts and vicāra to sustain chains of thoughts is transformed by applying them not to perceptions of verbal constructs but to perceptions of the breath, actively directing the mind away from the diversity of sense experience onto the breath. Doing so over and over, the common features of the breaths become apparent. By combining the shared features of the breaths recognized by perception and by ignoring irrelevant data, the mind forms a stable and coherent concept or mental image of the breath.

These eight kinds of enlightened individual are referred to in many different ways in the suttas: ‘noble one’ (ariya), ‘true person’ (sappurisa), ‘trainee’ (sekha), and so on.

The noble path has eight factors. Jhānas are one of those factors. Only with the fulfillment of all eight factors can one be considered to be on the path.

This ‘painful way of practice’ is contrasted (unfavorably) with the ‘pleasant way of practice’, which consists of jhāna. We may note that the painful mode is never identified with vipassanā; the basic purpose of most of these contemplations is to eradicate sensual lust, which is an aspect of samatha. Nor has it anything to do with contemplation of painful feelings.

This technique, based on the mental recitation of the word ‘buddho’, is a favorite method for developing jhāna in contemporary Thailand.

Only a short while before, the Buddha, reflecting on the subtlety of Dhamma and the strength of defilements, doubted anyone could understand and famously hesitated whether to teach at all.

The ‘danger’ in samādhi is treated identically with the ‘danger’ in mindfulness and understanding; that is, they are not yet the final goal. Abandoning the subtle relishing of the bliss of samādhi​—​reckoned as the fetters of lust for form and the formless, and in the craving, the poison, and the inherent compulsion for existence​—​is chiefly the task of the non-returner.

As I emphasized at the beginning, meaning does not inhere in a text.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

"...higher states of mind [emerge], not from strenuous toil for a short time in artificial conditions divorced from everyday life, but from a holistic lifestyle of simplicity, contentment, and restraint."

A thoughtful and intelligent analysis of the importance of meditative absorption on the Path.

[Lindsay · Rating 2 out of 5]

I cannot reliably review this work since I do not have the knowledge or background needed to understand it.

This book is a detailed analysis of certain aspects of Buddhist theology. Only those with extensive knowledge of Buddhist doctrines can understand it. It is not meant for "lay people", even those who practice Buddhism and know the basic doctrines.

[Destiny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too academic for me. Definitely not for beginners.