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.Equanimity (Upekkha avanaa-Bha a)To develop the sublime abiding of equanimity, you should firstdevelop the white kasina up to the fourth jhana, and then select aneutral person of the same sex, who is alive and develop lov-ingkindness, compassion, and appreciative joy each up to thethird jhana towards that person.Then, having arisen from thethird jhana, you should reflect on the disadvantages of those69Knowing and Seeingthree sublime abidings, namely their closeness to affection, likeand dislike, elation and joy.Afterwards you should reflect onthe fourth jhana based on equanimity as peaceful.Taking anormally neutral person as object you should develop equanimitytowards him by with the thought:  This being is the heir to hisown actions. ( ayam sappuriso kammasako )With the support of the third jhanas of lovingkindness, com-passion, and appreciative-joy, it should not take you long to de-velop the fourth jhana of equanimity based on that neutral per-son.Following that you should develop the fourth jhana ofequanimity towards a respected or dear person, a very dear per-son, and an enemy.You should then develop the fourth jhana ofequanimity again and again towards yourself, a respected or dearperson, a neutral person and an enemy, until you have removedthe distinctions between individuals.Then taking all beings inthe infinite universe as object, develop equanimity in the abovehundred and thirty-two ways.This completes the development of the Four Sublime Abid-ings.The Four Protective-MeditationsThe four meditation subjects of lovingkindness, recollection-of-the-Buddha, repulsiveness meditation and recollection-of-death are called the Four Protections, or the Four Protective-meditations.This is because they protect the meditator fromvarious dangers.For this reason it is worthwhile to learn anddevelop them before proceeding to develop Vipassana medita-tion.I have already described how to develop loving-kindness,therefore, I would like to go on and talk about how to developthe other three protective-meditations, beginning with the recol-lection-of-the-Buddha.Recollection-of-the-Buddha (Buddhaanussati)According to the Pali formula given in the suttas, this medita-tion subject can be developed by looking at the nine qualities of70How to Develop the Sublime Abidings and Protective-Meditationthe Buddha: Itipi so bhagava araham sammasambuddho vijjacarana-sampanno sugato lokavidu anuttaro purisadammasarathi satthadevamanussanam buddho bhagavati.This can be explained as:This Blessed One, having destroyed the mental defilements, isworthy of veneration (araham); he has attained perfect enlight-enment by himself (sammasambuddho); he is perfect in knowl-edge and the practice of morality (vijjacaranasampanno); hespeaks only what is beneficial and true (sugato); he knows theworld (lokavidu); he is the unsurpassable leader of men fit to betamed (anuttaro purisadammasarathi); he is the teacher of devasand men (sattha devamanussanam); he is an Enlightened One(buddho); he is the most fortunate possessor of the results ofprevious meritorious actions (bhagava).I shall give an example of how to use the first quality, araham,to develop concentration.According to the Visuddhimagga thePali word araham has five meanings.They are:1.Because he has totally removed, without remainder, alldefilements and habitual tendencies, and has thereforemade himself remote from them, the Buddha is a wor-thy one: Arahanta.2.Because he has cut off all defilements with the swordof the Arahant Path, the Buddha is a worthy one: Ara-hanta.3.Because he has broken and destroyed the spokes of thewheel of dependent-origination beginning with igno-rance and craving, the Buddha is a worthy one: Ara-hanta.4.Because of his unsurpassable qualities of virtue, con-centration, and wisdom he is given the highest form ofworship by brahmas, devas, and men: the Buddha is aworthy one: Arahanta.5.Because, even when in seclusion and not seen by any-71Knowing and Seeingone, he does not perform any evil by body, speech, ormind, the Buddha is a worthy one: Arahanta.To develop this meditation you should memorise these fivereasons why the Buddha is an Arahanta, and learn them profi-ciently enough to recite them.Then you should enter the fourth jhana based on either thewhite kasina or mindfulness-of-breathing.With the support ofthe light produced by that concentration, you should visualise aBuddha image that you remember and which you liked, and re-spected, and take that visualised image as object for developingconcentration.When you can see that image clearly, imagine itto be the real Buddha and continue to watch it as such.If in a past life you were fortunate enough to have met theBuddha, you may find that the image of the real Buddha willarise in your mind.Then you should start to pay attention to thequalities of the Buddha and not just the image of the Buddha.Ifthe real image of the Buddha does not arise, then simply assumethat the Buddha image you visualise is the real Buddha, and goon to recollect the qualities of the Buddha.You can choose thedefinition of araham you like the most, and take the meaning asobject, and recollect it again and again as,  araham, araham.When your concentration develops and becomes stronger, theimage of the Buddha will disappear and your mind should sim-ply stay calmly concentrated on the quality you selected.Whenthe mind stays calmly concentrated on that quality as object forabout an hour, you should see if the jhana factors are present.But in this case the jhana can be only access-jhana (upacara-jhana).You can recollect the other qualities of the Buddha in asimilar way, and also practise the five jhana masteries on thismeditation subject.Repulsiveness Meditation (Asubha)To develop the meditation based on the repulsiveness of acorpse, you should begin by re-establishing the fourth jhana con-72How to Develop the Sublime Abidings and Protective-Meditationcentration using either the white kasina or mindfulness-of-breathing.When the light produced by that concentration isbright and clear, you should with that light, take as object themost repulsive corpse of the same sex as yourself, that you re-member seeing.Try to visualise that corpse in your light.Try tosee it with the assistance of the light, so that it is exactly as yousaw it previously.When you are able to see it clearly in thisway, see it in the most repulsive way possible.Having calmlyconcentrated your mind on it, note it as,  repulsive, repulsive(patikula, patikula).When you are able to concentrate your mind steadily on theobject of the corpse for one or two hours, you will experience achange from the uggaha-nimitta (taken-up sign) to the patibhaga-nimitta (counterpart sign).The uggaha-nimitta is the image which looks just the same asthe corpse you saw once with your eyes.The uggaha-nimittaappears as a hideous, dreadful, and frightening sight, but the pa-tibhaga-nimitta appears like a man with big limbs lying downafter eating his fill.You should pay attention to that patibhaga-nimitta as, repulsive, repulsive , again and again.When your mind staysconstantly on that object for one or two hours, the jhana factorswill become clear.When they become clear it is the first jhana [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]