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  WISDOM WIDE and DEEP

  Wisdom Wide

  and Deep

  A Practical Handbook

  for Mastering Jhāna and Vipassanā

  SHAILA CATHERINE

  Foreword by PA-AUK SAYADAW

  WISDOM PUBLICATIONS • BOSTON

  Wisdom Publications

  199 Elm Street

  Somerville MA 02144 USA

  www.wisdompubs.org

  © 2011 Shaila Catherine.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system or technologies now known or later developed, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Catherine, Shaila.

  Wisdom wide and deep: a practical handbook for mastering jhāna and vipassanā / Shaila Catherine.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 0-86171-623-X (pbk.: alk. paper)

  1. Meditation—Buddhism. I. Title.

  BQ5612.C39 2011

  294.3’4435—dc23

  2011022681

  ISBN 9780861716234

  eBook ISBN 9780861718528

  15 14 13 12 11

  5 4 3 2 1

  Author photo by Janet Taylor. Cover design by Pema Studios. Interior design by Gopa&Ted2.

  Set in Diacritical Garamond Pro 11.5/14.75.

  Wisdom Publications’ books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

  This book was produced with environmental mindfulness. For more information, please visit our website, www.wisdompubs.org. This paper is also FSC certified. For more information, please visit www.fscus.org.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Foreword by Pa-Auk Sayadaw

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction: Approaching Deep Calm and Insight

  SECTION I. ESTABLISHING CONCENTRATION THROUGH MINDFULNESS WITH BREATHING

  1. Clearing the Path: Overcoming the Five Hindrances

  2. Leading the Way: Enhancing Five Controlling Faculties

  3. Eleven Supports for Developing Concentration

  4. Beyond Distraction: Establishing Jhāna through Mindfulness with Breathing

  SECTION II. CONCENTRATION BEYOND THE BREATH

  Introduction to Section II:

  Concentration Beyond the Breath

  5. Embodying Your World: Contemplating Thirty-Two Parts of the Body

  6. Expanded Perceptions: Ten Kasiṇa Circles

  7. Infinite Perceptions: Four Immaterial Jhānas

  8. Boundless Heart: Loving-Kindness, Compassion, Appreciative Joy, and Equanimity

  9. Reflections on Death: Contemplating the Corpse

  10. Eleven Skills for Jhāna Meditation

  SECTION III. DISCERNING ULTIMATE REALITIES

  11. Concepts and Reality: Penetrating the Illusion of Compactness

  12. Explorations of Matter: Four Elements Meditation

  13. Nature of Mind: Discerning Ultimate Mentality

  14. A Magic Show: Emptiness of the Five Aggregates

  15. Causes and Effects: Twelve Links of Dependent Arising

  16. A Thorough Examination: Recognizing the Characteristic, Function, Manifestation, and Proximate Cause

  SECTION IV. REALIZING THE DEATHLESS LIBERATION

  17. Liberating Insight:

  Contemplating Three Universal Characteristics

  18. Release from the Bonds: Ten Fetters, Four Stages of Enlightenment, and Sixteen Knowledges

  19. Of Lasting Benefit: Practice in the Midst of Daily Life

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Glossary of Pali Terms and Buddhist Concepts

  Index

  About the Author

  LIST OF MEDITATION INSTRUCTIONS

  1.1 Mindfulness with Breathing plus Counting

  2.1 Recollection of the Buddha

  2.2 Reflection on Virtue and Generosity

  2.3 Observing Long and Short Breaths

  3.1 Observing the Whole Breath

  4.1 Seeing the Nimitta

  4.2 Entering the First Jhāna

  4.3 Emerging, Reflecting, and Progressing

  4.4 Developing the Five Masteries

  4.5 Entering the Third Jhāna

  4.6 Entering the Fourth Jhāna

  5.1 Meditating on the Thirty-Two Internal Parts

  5.2 Meditating on the Thirty-Two External Parts

  5.3 Meditating on Repulsiveness

  5.4 The Skeleton

  6.1 Developing the Earth Kasiṇa

  6.2 Using Elements as Jhāna Subjects

  7.1 Disadvantages of Materiality

  8.1 A Good Start Each Day

  8.2 Cultivating Mettā as a Jhāna Practice

  8.3 Breaking Down the Boundaries

  8.4 Radiating Kindness for All Beings

  8.5 Cultivating Compassion as a Jhāna Practice

  8.6 Cultivating Joy as a Jhāna Practice

  8.7 Cultivating Equanimity as a Jhāna Practice

  9.1 Decomposition of the Corpse

  9.2 Meditating on More Corpses

  12.1 Identifying the Four Elements through Twelve Characteristics

  12.2 Discerning Eight Nonopposing Characteristics

  12.3 Analyzing Real Materialities

  12.4 Analyzing Nonreal, Nonconcrete Materialities

  12.5 Analyzing the Dynamics of Matter

  12.6 A World of Matter

  13.1 Observing Mind-Body Responses

  13.2 Discerning Mental Formations Characteristic of Jhāna

  13.3 Discerning the Jhāna Cognitive Process

  13.4 Discerning the Mind-Door Cognitive Process

  13.5 Discerning the Sense-Sphere Cognitive Process

  13.6 A Real World

  14.1 Discerning Five Aggregates

  15.1 Discerning the Causes for This Human Birth

  15.2 Causal Relationships in Sense-Sphere Cognitive Processes

  15.3 Causal Relationships in Mind-Door Cognitive Processes

  15.4 Further Back in Time

  15.5 Discerning Future Existences

  15.6 Exploring Causal Relationships between the Twelve Links

  16.1 Defining Phenomena by Characteristic, Function, Manifestation, and Proximate Cause

  17.1 Contemplating the Characteristics of Materiality

  17.2 Contemplating Phenomena One by One

  17.3 Contemplating Material and Mental Phenomena as Impermanent, Unsatisfactory, and Not-Self

  17.4 Contemplating the Five Aggregates as Impermanent, Unsatisfactory, and Not-Self

  17.5 Contemplating Jhāna Factors as Impermanent, Unsatisfactory, and Not-Self

  17.6 Contemplating the Bases and Elements as Impermanent, Unsatisfactory, and Not-Self

  17.7 Forty Ways of Viewing Phenomena with the Three Characteristics

  17.8 Contemplating the Repulsiveness of Inanimate Material Phenomena

  17.9 Contemplating the Repulsiveness of Animate Material Phenomena

  17.10 Contemplating Phenomena in Incremental Time Periods

  17.11 Focus on Mentality through Seven Exercises

  18.1 Contemplating the Arising and Perishing of Causes and Effects According to the Fifth Method

  18.2 Contemplating the Arising and Perishing of Causes and Effects According to the First Method

  18.3 Contemplating Insight Knowledge

  LIST OF TABLES

  Many of these tables, plus additional, expanded, and updated tables, may be found at www.imsb.org.

&nb
sp; 1.1 Five Ways to Investigate Hindrances

  1.2 Five Hindrances

  4.1 Five Jhāna Factors

  4.2 Four Jhānas

  4.3 Progression of Jhāna Factors

  5.1 Body Meditations

  6.1 Ten Kasiṇas as Meditation Subjects

  7.1 Immaterial Jhānas

  8.1 Four Divine Abodes as Meditation Subjects

  10.1 Jhāna Potential of Meditation Subjects

  12.1 Four Ultimate Realities

  12.2 Twenty-Eight Types of Material Phenomena

  12.3 Schema of the Material Groups

  12.4 Sixty-Three Rūpas of the Eye, Ear, Nose, and Tongue Doors

  12.5 Fifty-Three Rūpas of the Body Door

  12.6 Sixty-Three Rūpas of the Mind Door

  12.7 Parts of the Body Organized by Element

  13.1 Fifty-Two Mental Factors

  13.2 Mental Formations Associated with Jhāna

  13.3 Seventeen Consciousnesses in Sense-Sphere Cognitive Process

  13.4 Variable Consciousnesses in Mind-Door Cognitive Process

  13.5 Mental Formations Present in Jhāna

  13.6 First Jhāna Cognitive Process with Associated Mental Formations

  13.7 Formations that Comprise the Impulsion Consciousness of Unwholesome Mental States

  13.8 Mental Formations in Wholesome Five-Door Cognitive Processes

  13.9 Mental Formations in Unwholesome Five-Door Cognitive Processes

  13.10 Mental Formations in Wholesome Mind-Door Cognitive Processes

  15.1 Twelve Links of Dependent Arising

  15.2 Past and Present Causes

  16.1 Characteristic, Function, Manifestation, and Proximate Causes of Twenty-Eight Kinds of Materiality

  16.2 Characteristic, Function, Manifestation, and Proximate Causes of the Consciousness Aggregate

  16.3 Characteristic, Function, Manifestation, and Proximate Causes of the Feeling Aggregate

  16.4 Characteristic, Function, Manifestation, and Proximate Causes of Mental Formations

  16.5 Characteristic, Function, Manifestation, and Proximate Causes of Twelve Factors of Dependent Arising

  17.1 Forty Ways of Viewing Phenomena with the Three Characteristics

  18.1 Four Stages of Enlightenment

  18.2 Cognitive Process that Takes Nibbāna as Object

  18.3 Schedule of the Removal of Defilements

  PUBLISHER’S ACKNOWLEDGMENT

  THE PUBLISHER gratefully acknowledges the generous help of the Hershey Family Foundation in sponsoring the publication of this book.

  FOREWORD

  IS IT POSSIBLE for people today to attain the deep absorption states of jhāna? Can modern meditators directly know and see ultimate realities, and personally realize the liberating fruit of vipassanā? Decades of teaching both monastics and laypeople from all over the world have demonstrated to me that the answer is yes.

  Effective methods for practicing jhāna and vipassanā have been preserved and mastered by generations of dedicated monastic and lay practitioners, but until recently have been little known in the West. Many years ago my teacher asked me to plant the seeds of this approach in the West. Under my guidance, Shaila Catherine, one of my American lay students, has since 2006 thoroughly practiced the detailed methods of both jhāna and vipassanā. I encouraged her to write a book based on her own experience of this training, and I am very pleased with what she has done.

  Wisdom Wide and Deep is a beautifully written handbook that describes an effective approach to the path of jhāna and vipassanā. This book introduces meditation practices adapted from the fifth-century meditation manual The Visuddhimagga, supported by the philosophical structures of Abhidhamma analysis, and securely rooted in the Buddha’s teachings. This method is distinguished by its emphasis on the initial development of the meditative absorptions called jhāna, and the precise discernment of the ultimate realities of mind and matter. Once the mind is concentrated and psychophysical processes are seen clearly, insight practice becomes efficient, transformative, and exceedingly effective for realizing liberating knowledge. Wisdom Wide and Deep skillfully guides dedicated meditators to experience the stability of deep concentration, to recognize the subtle nature of material and mental processes, and to realize the exquisite peacefulness that arises from genuine insight knowledge.

  This is a handbook that respects both the ancient tradition and the needs of contemporary lay practitioners, without compromising either. Shaila Catherine presents the Buddha’s teaching by blending scriptural references, personal examples, and timeless stories with detailed meditation instructions. She writes with an authority that comes from genuine meditation experience, and a clarity that is informed by her own personal experiences of this training. The combination of Shaila’s pragmatic style and theoretical knowledge produces a striking invitation for the reader to apply these instructions and master the complete practice for awakening.

  I highly recommend Wisdom Wide and Deep to any serious meditator who wants to practice what the Buddha discovered and taught.

  Pa-Auk Sayadaw

  PA-AUK SAYADAW is the abbot of Pa Auk Forest Monastery in Burma. He has spent his life promoting the teachings of the Buddha through study, practice, and realization. He teaches worldwide and is the author of The Workings of Kamma and Knowing and Seeing.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A DETAILED AND COMPREHENSIVE BOOK of this nature represents the work of many individuals who have each brought their insightful and caring attention to these pages.

  I am deeply grateful to the Buddhist tradition, past and present, and the countless unknown individuals who have preserved, translated, and articulated these teachings and trainings. It is remarkable that I can sit in a suburban town thousands of years and thousands of miles removed from the culture of ancient India where the Buddha lived and taught, and find my life deeply touched by his teachings. The rich legacy left by generations of meditators includes detailed records of the Buddha’s ministry, instruction manuals, and commentaries that remain remarkably relevant to contemporary explorations of mind.

  The approach presented in Wisdom Wide and Deep shares the teachings that I was privileged to receive from Venerable Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw during a 2008 retreat held at the Insight Meditation Society, in the USA. Venerable Pa-Auk Sayadaw carefully guided me through this training. His mastery of these teachings, his patient and flexible teaching style, his extraordinary devotion to meditation, and the wisdom that he earned during more than seventy years of practice combined to create an astonishing presentation of this profound and systematic approach to direct insight. The Sayadaw’s assistant, Venerable U Jāgara, brought a practical clarity that helped to make these traditional methods relevant and accessible for Western practitioners. Anonymous practitioners at Pa-Auk Monastery have devoted countless hours to a careful editing of Sayadaw’s teachings and the preparation of detailed English language course material. The publishing team at Wisdom Publications—including Josh Bartok, Laura Cunningham, Eric Shutt, Gopa&Ted2, Joe Evans, Denise Getz, Tony Lulek, and Megan Anderson—dedicated to a vision that values both contemporary and traditional approaches to Buddhist wisdom, worked diligently to present this book to modern readers. The joy and patience that pervaded each communication, and the respect for the dhamma that I see reflected in their work, has been an inspiration for me at every stage of this project.

  I could not have completed this project without the thoughtful assistance of Theresa Farrah, Ann Smith Dillon, Faith Lindsay, and David Collins who poured over early drafts of the manuscript. Their feedback clarified numerous points, streamlined the presentation, and made rarefied practices more accessible to contemporary readers. Glenn Smith captured the essence of this work when he suggested the title Wisdom Wide and Deep. Additionally, more than a dozen friends, students, and teachers provided valuable feedback on one or more sections of this work, including Annie Belt, John Kelly, Noa Ronkin, Leslie Knight, Anne Macquarie, Sayalay Anattarā, Sayalay Muditā Vihāri, Susan Larson,
Janet Taylor, James Macdonald, Jami Milton, Christopher Titmuss, Lila Kate Wheeler, and anonymous readers at Pa-Auk Monastery.

  The tables were composed with material gathered from several sources. I drew on the Pa-Auk course material, worksheets from an Abhidhamma course taught by Andy Olendzki at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, and charts of Buddhist lists that twelve members of Insight Meditation South Bay had collaboratively drafted for our web site (www.imsb.org). Several tables were inspired by the elegant clarity of tables included in Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translation of A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma and Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw’s The Workings of Kamma. My respect and appreciation is especially extended to Maureen O’Brien, whose artful and careful attention to each chart transformed rather mechanical details into a presentation that exposes the refreshing beauty of well-organized, systematic thought.

  This project has been silently supported by a continuous influx of encouragement and generosity from my meditation community and family. Many volunteers at Insight Meditation South Bay, most notably Lois Gerchman, took on additional duties in order to free up my time for writing. My siblings, Lisa and Philip, provide a continuous source of strength in my life. My mother, Elizabeth Tromovitch, has supported every phase of this work with endless love, patience, and encouragement.

  I offer copious thanks to the many named and unnamed people who generously contributed their time and wisdom to this project. May they be happy and well.

  INTRODUCTION

  Approaching Deep Calm and Insight

  One who stops trains of thought

  As a shower settles a cloud of dust,

  With a mind that has quelled thoughts

  Attains in this life the state of peace.

  —THE ITIVUTTAKA1

  THIS BOOK, Wisdom Wide and Deep, follows my first, Focused and Fearless: A Meditator’s Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity, which contains the initial instructions for developing concentration in daily life, overcoming obstacles such as restlessness and distraction, building conditions for tranquility and calmness, and establishing the deep meditative absorptions called jhāna. Wisdom Wide and Deep extends the training of concentration and insight by drawing extensively on the wisdom preserved in two traditional sources—The Visuddhimagga, a traditional manual for Buddhist practice, and the Abhidhamma, a branch of Buddhist philosophy that emphasizes a systematic and analytical approach to understanding the mind. The structure for these practices and many illustrations are derived directly from the teachings that I received from the meditation master Venerable Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw of Burma (Myanmar). Wisdom Wide and Deep is not, however, a strict presentation of Venerable Pa-Auk Sayadaw’s work. Rather, I have infused each topic with related teachings, personal examples, and wisdom gleaned from other Buddhist sources that have also supported my path of practice as a Western lay practitioner.