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Tuesday, March 24, 2009

The Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw - The Progress of Insight

Another cool article today on the Vipassana approach to meditation - not my own practice, but the original practice (or am I wrong?) from the Theravada tradition.

The Progress of Insight
(Visuddhiñana-katha)
A Modern Treatise on Buddhist Satipatthana Meditation
by The Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw

Translated from the Pali with Notes by Nyanaponika Thera
For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted, reprinted and redistributed in any medium. However, any such republication and redistribution is to be made available to the public on a free and unrestricted basis and translations and other derivative works are to be clearly marked as such.

Contents

Translator's Foreward

To present to the reading public a treatise on Buddhist meditation needs no word of apology today. In wide circles of the West, Buddhist meditation is no longer regarded as a matter of purely academic or exotic interest. Under the stress and complexity of modern life the need for mental and spiritual regeneration is now widely felt, and in the field of the mind's methodical development the value of Buddhist meditation has been recognized and tested by many.

It is, in particular, the Buddha's Way of Mindfulness (satipatthana) that has been found invaluable because it is adaptable to, and beneficial in, widely different conditions of life. The present treatise is based on this method of cultivating mindfulness and awareness, which ultimately aims at the mind's final liberation from greed, hatred, and delusion.

The author of this treatise, the Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw (U Sobhana Mahathera), is a Buddhist monk of contemporary Burma and an eminent meditation master. A brief sketch of his life is included in this volume. The path of meditation described in these pages was, and still is, taught by him in his meditation center called Thathana Yeiktha, in Rangoon, and is also set forth in his lectures and books in the Burmese language.

The framework of the treatise is provided by the classical "seven stages of purification" (satta-visuddhi), just as in Acariya Buddhaghosa's famous Visuddhimagga. On gradually reaching these stages, various phases of insight knowledge (ñana) are developed, leading on to the stages of ultimate liberation. The approach followed is that of "bare insight" (sukkha-vipassana) where, by direct observation, one's own bodily and mental processes are seen with increasing clarity as being impermanent, liable to suffering, and without a self or soul. The meditational practice begins with a few selected subjects of body-contemplation, which are retained up to the very end of the road. With the gradually increasing strength of mindfulness and concentration the range widens and the vision deepens until the insight knowledges unfold themselves in due order, as a natural outcome of the practice. This approach to the ultimate goal of Buddhist meditation is called bare insight because insight into the three characteristics of existence is made use of exclusively here, dispensing with the prior development of full concentrative absorption (jhana). Nevertheless, and it hardly needs mention, here too a high degree of mental concentration is required for perseverance in the practice, for attaining to insight knowledge, and for reaping its fruits.

As stated in the treatise itself (p.5), it is not the author's purpose to give a detailed introduction to the practice for the use of beginners. The foremost concern in this work is with a stage where, after diligent preliminary practice, the insight knowledges have begun to emerge, leading up to the highest crest of spiritual achievement, arahantship. Of the basic exercises, the treatise gives only a brief indication, at the beginning of Chapter I. Detailed instruction about these may be gathered by the student from the author's Practical Insight Meditation or the translator's book The Heart of Buddhist Meditation. Also a knowledge of the Buddha's original "Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness" (Satipatthana Sutta) will be indispensable.

This treatise was first written in the Burmese language and later, in 1950, a Pali version of it was composed by the author. As the treatise deals chiefly with the advanced stages of the practice, it was originally not intended for publication. Handwritten or typed copies of the Burmese or Pali version were given only to those who, with some measure of success, had concluded a strict course of practice at the meditation center. For the use of meditators from foreign countries, only a few cyclostyled sheets in English, briefly describing the phases of insight knowledge, were issued instead of the treatise itself. This was done to enable the meditator to identify his personal experience with one or other of the stages described, so that he might direct his further progress accordingly, without being diverted or misled by any secondary phenomena that may have appeared during his practice.

In 1954 the Venerable Author agreed to a printed edition of the Pali version in Burmese script, and after this first publication he also permitted, at the translator's request, the issue of an English version. He had the great kindness to go carefully through the draft translation and the Notes, with the linguistic help of an experienced Burmese lay meditator, U Pe Thin, who for many years had ably served as an interpreter for meditators from foreign countries. The translator's gratitude is due to both his Venerable Meditation Master, the author, and to U Pe Thin.

— Nyanaponika Thera

Forest Hermitage
Kandy, Ceylon,
On the Full-moon Day of June (Poson) 1965.

Introduction

Homage to the Blessed One, the Worthy One, the Fully Enlightened One

Homage to Him, the Great Omniscient Sage, Who spread the net of rays of His Good Law! These rays of His Good Law — His very message true — Long may they shed their radiance o'er the world!

This treatise explains the progress of insight,1 together with the corresponding stages of purification.2 It has been written in brief for the benefit of meditators who have obtained distinctive results in their practice, so that they may more easily understand their experience. It is meant for those who, in their practice of insight, have taken up as their main subject either the tactile bodily process of motion,3 evident in the rising and falling movement of the abdomen,4 or the tactile bodily process based on three of the primary elements of matter5 evident in the sensation of touch (bodily impact). It is meant for those who, by attending to these exercises, have gained progressive insight as well into the whole body-and-mind process arising at the six sense doors,6 and have finally come to see the Dhamma, to attain to the Dhamma, to understand the Dhamma, to penetrate the Dhamma, who have passed beyond doubt, freed themselves from uncertainty, obtained assurance, and achieved independence of others in the Master's dispensation.7

Read the whole article.


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