Meditation information / Buddhist

Sixteen Steps of Meditation

[This is a summary and paraphrase of the sixteen steps (often taught in Buddhism but usually in different ways to advanced students) as a quick reminder of the sequence to use in developing a meditation practice that is intended to actually produce results (ie. strengthening the mind's self control...) rather than just meditation for relaxation or escapism.]


A Spiritual Practice by Achun Buddhadasa Bhikkhu – (Thailand)
Based on the Four Foundations or supports of Mindfulness
Anapanasati – Giving attention to in and out breathing as an object of meditation.
Vipassana-bhavana – The cultivation of insight or direct realization.

I. Relating to the body.
One
Learning and using Long Breaths (the Breath-body -Pranayama) (full awareness)
Two
Understanding how short breathing affects us.
Three
To understand sankhara, the condition of the body by the breath, which replaces any consideration of a “soul.” We see the conditioner, the condition, and the process of conditioning.
Four
1) Calming the body-conditioner – the breath-body. 2) Guard an image and 3) manipulate it. 4) The fourth technique is controlling the mental images as we wish. 5) Concentrating everything on this one point is the fifth of our skillful means.

"You should practice [the four initial steps] until these steps require no effort and you have become well-versed in these activities.” These should be repeated at the beginning of each practice session.

II. Feeling Tone / Emotions
Five
“Step one of the second tetrad, ‘experiencing piti’ consists of contemplating piti (contentment) every time we breathe in and breath out… Find what this feeling is like.
Fully experience it. Is it heavy? Is it light? How coarse is it? How subtle? This is called “knowing its flavor.” (Buddhadasa, 1988, pg. 59)
Six
Focus on sukha (joy) as arising out of piti (contentment) …sukha does not stimulate or excite; sukha is the agent that makes the citta tranquil… Usually piti obscures sukha, but when piti fades away, sukha remains. The coarse feeling gives way to calm. Taste the tranquil flavor of sukha with every inhalation and exhalation.”
Seven
Vedana – feelings: condition coarse thoughts and subtle thoughts. It is an art; practice the spiritual art of controlling piti and sukha so that they benefit our lives.
Eight
Calming the mind conditioner while breathing in and breathing out – either by samadhi –a higher level of concentration; or by the wisdom –panna- method. We aim at the one pinnacled mind that has santi or Nibbana as its object. Panna (wisdom) realizes the true nature (characteristics, qualities, conditions) of all things to understand how piti arises and what will cause it to cease. Learning to control emotions, and dissipate negative emotions that cause or would create suffering.

III. Consciousness - Perceptions
Nine
Examine mind (citta)-- A feeling of wanting, grasping is 1)raga.
2) Dosa does not like, does not want, it is negative, pushing away (aversion).
3) Moha is ignorant. It does not know wrong and right, good and evil, running in circles. Get to know your mind: Is it superior – sharper or common? supreme –exalted or lacking yet to develop? Are we concentrated—samadhi?– or lacking focus? Is the mind liberated or grasping and clinging in attachment? Begin to understand our own minds.
Ten
"Allow the mind to rest in joy, delighted and content, supported by Dharma. Bask in joyfulness free of defilement (kilesa).”
Eleven
To concentrate the mind -- Samadhi. Having three distinct qualities.
Samahito –firm, steady, undistracted --focused on a single object. Stability, collectedness.
Parisuddho -- purity A mind empty of defilements.
Kammaniyo -- fit and supremely prepared to perform the duties of the mind. (not sleepy or tired.)
Twelve
Liberation: not letting the mind become attached to anything 1) e.g. Sensuality, possessions, necessities, gems, jewelry, gold, or money etc. 2) Let go of opinions, beliefs, views, and theories (because of ignorance avijja). 3) Dismiss traditions, habits, obsessions, superstitions. 4) Release possessions as ‘I’ or ‘mine.’ Let go with in and out breaths. Identify hindrances and apply the breaths to these five: 1 feelings of sensuality, 2) aversion, 3) depression and drowsiness, 4) agitation and distraction, and 5) doubt and uncertainty. Further, eliminate greed, anger, delusions and other defilements.
This is huge, to be reviewed every time one practices meditation.

IV: Objects of the Mind – Ideas about Dhamma
Thirteen
Contemplating impermanence -- Realize the impermanence of each of the twelve preceding steps. There is the simultaneous realization of when impermanence is truly seen. It also has the characteristic of dukkham, namely: it is painful and unbearable (unsatisfactoriness.) We can also find the characteristic of not-self (anatta) in it. As these things are always changing, impermanent, unsatisfactory [thus sources of suffering,] and beyond our control, we realize anatta as well… We see they are void of self-hood, which is sunnata… Impermanence is just thus, just like that, thusness [a fact of all nature.]
And so, tathata is seen as well. The short phrase aniccanupassana (contemplating impermanence) includes the realization of unsatisfactoriness, not-self, voidness, thusness, and conditionality as well. (ontology)
Fourteen
Dissolving, or viraga. Vi, in this case, means ‘not’ or ‘not having.’ Raga is another name for attachment [also upadana.] Watching attachment dissolve is like watching the stains in a cloth slowly fade away.
Fifteen
Quench the fear of birth, aging, illness, and death. Quench the symptoms of dukkha, such as pain, sorrow, sadness, and despair. Quench the wants and desires of agreeable and disagreeable things. Finally, quench the view of any of the five khandha [aggregates] as ‘self.’
Sixteen
Contemplating throwing back… returning, everything to which we were once attached.
Lokiya living beneath the world –
lokuttara living above the world.



Since this is a summary, it may be obvious that a complete understanding of all of these steps requires a tutorial and practice for each step in a gradual learning process. These sixteen steps can be thought of as the gateway to enlightenment, and must be entered repeatedly in order to have a lasting effect. Much of what is to be learned is kinesthetic in nature, that is, it is like learning to tie shoes or learning a sport and is only learned in a progressive way with patience and incremental practice. The "Buddhist Sutra" thirty lessons provides one source of this kind of instruction.