The Path to Nibbana
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The Path to Nibbāna
How Mindfulness of Loving-Kindness Progresses
through the Tranquil Aware Jhānas to Awakening
David C. Johnson
Copyright © 2017 David C. Johnson
All Rights Reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1508808916
ISBN-10: 1508808910
Publication Date: 3/2017, 5/2017, 12/2017
Published by BTS Publishing
Annapolis, MO
Other Books by David Johnson
*A Guide to Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation,
(A companion to this book)
BTS Publishing, Annapolis 2015
*Co-written with Bhante Vimalaraṁsi
“THE HOLY LIFE, friend Visākha, is grounded upon Nibbāna, culminates in Nibbāna, ends in Nibbāna.”
Majjhima Nikāya 44, Cūļāvedalla Sutta
Contents
Introduction
Chapter One: What Is Buddhism?
A Supra-Mundane Science
Awakening Both Mind and Body
Dependent Origination — Leaving Control Behind
Chapter Two: Mindfulness Re-Defined
What is Mindfulness?
The Four Foundations of Mindfulness
Feeling Is Not Feelings
Chapter Three: What Is a Jhāna?
More than One Type of Jhāna
Concentration Absorption Jhāna
The Tranquil Aware Jhāna
Comparing Aware and Concentration Jhāna
Chapter Four: Types of Concentration Practice
The Many Methods of Concentration Practice
Vipassanā, or Dry Insight
Concentration Insight (vs. Dry Insight)
Caution with Absorption Concentration
Suttas Support TWIM
Secular Buddhism
Chapter Five: Progress in the Aware (TWIM) Jhānas
Beginning TWIM
The 6Rs and the Instructions
Chapter Six: 1st Jhāna— Joy
The Suttas Explain the Jhānas
Walking Meditation and the Jhānas
Chapter Seven: 2nd Jhāna— Noble Silence
Chapter Eight: 3rd Jhāna— Happiness
Mettā Takes You to the Fourth Jhāna
Chapter Nine: 4th Jhāna— The Beautiful
Advancing — Breaking Down the Barriers
Radiating to the Six Directions
Chapter Ten: The Base of Infinite Space — Compassion
Chapter Eleven: The Base of Infinite Consciousness — Joy
Chapter Twelve: The Base of Nothingness— Equanimity
Distractions that Arise — How to Adjust
Chapter Thirteen: The Base of Neither Perception-Nor Non-Perception
No More Feeling
The Nature of Consciousness
Chapter Fourteen: The Door to Nibbāna
The Neutral Zone
Disenchantment
Dispassion
The Stages of Sainthood
Chapter Fifteen: 1st Stage of Awakening — Sotāpanna
Attaining Nibbāna – Path Knowledge (Magga)
Sotāpanna Fruition (Phala)
Chapter Sixteen: 2nd Stage — Sakadāgāmī
Three Ways to Nibbāna
Chapter Seventeen: 3rd Stage — Anāgāmī
Chapter Eighteen: 4th Stage — Arahant
Biography
Resources
Addendums
A (Beginners) Guide to Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation
Guide to Forgiveness Meditation
End Notes -The Path to Nibbāna
Acknowledgements
I want to acknowledge Venerable Bhante Vimalaraṁsi Mahāthera, from whom I have learned this practice. He is the “founder” of Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation (TWIM). Without his skillful guidance, this project would not be possible. Descriptions for many of the jhānas have come from evening talks on the Anupada Sutta (MN 111) by Venerable Vimalaraṁsi. It was his struggle through years of intense meditation practice, and his discussions with many of the world’s most venerable monks, that led him in an entirely different direction. He went back to the earliest Buddhist teachings, the suttas in the Pāli Canon, to practice what the Buddha himself had taught his own disciples. From this, he discovered TWIM and has given us this gift of true Dhamma.
I wish to thank the Venerable for reviewing this work and correcting misunderstandings which may have occurred.
I also acknowledge Bhikkhu Bodhi for his work The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Majjhima Nikāya (Wisdom Publications: Somerville, MA, 1995) by Bhikkhu Bodhi and BhikkhuNāṇamoli — this book, with some exceptions, is the basis for TWIM meditation practice.
Thanks also to Brenda Ie-Mcrae, who wrote down a one-page summary, based on student interviews, of what meditators experienced as they progressed through the meditation process. Seeing the need to document the levels of practice, I expanded her summary to the book you now reading.
Also, thanks to the Teri Pohl, Paul Johnson, Mark and Antra Berger, Doug Kraft and J. Delmar who helped with editing and for their many useful suggestions. Thanks to S. Jordan who rendered the beautiful cover art from his own unique design.
Introduction
The purpose of this book is to help the earnest seeker and advanced meditator understand the experiences and signposts on the Buddha’s path, which has as its goal the destruction of craving and the elimination of ignorance. I want to document these experiences for the meditation community so they may be studied and preserved as a guide to future meditators.
This book was also written so that meditators without access to local teachers could have all the instructions to continue down this path on their own. Every instruction on how to meditate at every level is here. There are no secret techniques held back, just the words from the suttas and commentary by Venerable Bhante Vimalaraṁsi.
In this edition, the beginner's instruction guide is added to the back of this book, “A (Beginners) Guide to Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation” by Bhante Vimalaramsi. Read this first if you wish to start from the beginning and make the quickest progress.
If, when you are starting, you bog down and you just can’t feel this loving-kindness for yourself, take a look at the pamphlet, also at the end of this book, by Bhante Vimalaramsi entitled, “A Guide to Forgiveness Meditation.” Try this meditation and see if it doesn’t loosen possible blocks in your mind from past traumas, bosses or other scary memories! Forgiveness can be a perfect prerequisite to experiencing warm, flowing loving-kindness.
At some places in the book, I will put“—Meditation Instruction:” to highlight for students, using the book as an instruction guide, any updates to the meditation practice instructions based on personal progress, or an important experience that may arise.
This book expands on the previously printed A Guide to Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation[i]. That guide clearly lays out the beginning instructions for the practice of “TWIM” in fine detail. This entire pamphlet has been included at the back of this book for your use, at home, if you wish to start now.
TWIM is a fancy name for, basically, the Brahmavihāra practice, starting with mettā or loving-kindness as the object (breath may be used but tends to have slower progress). These instructions are taken directly from the meditation methods described in the suttas, the earliest Buddhist teachings. TWIM is the practice that will lead us to Nibbāna as it is outlined in the texts. We will see that when the instructions are followed, there are immediate results exactly as the Buddha laid out.
The Path to Nibbāna elaborates on both the goal and the practice of meditation as explained by the Buddha. Its purpose is to follow the progress of the practice as it is expl
ained in the suttas themselves. For that, the clearest map is the Majjhima Nikāya (MN) No. 111, the Anupada Sutta, "One by One as they Occurred." This sutta shows how progress occurs step-by-step all the way to Nibbāna. This is the “map” we will use as we go through the levels of insight in this book.
The suttas of the Pāli Canon are traceable back 2,550 years to the Buddha himself. They are considered by scholars to be the words of the Buddha as he originally spoke them.
To put a finer point on this, it is thought that the Buddha spoke Magadhi. That was his native language. Pāli is a form of that language, and later, all of the suttas were documented in Pāli, first by reciting and then writing them down by members of the Buddhist Order in Sri Lanka.
They were written on palm leaves about 80 B.C.[ii] As they were written down, monks, who had memorized the suttas, checked the written texts for any added or wrong words.
The suttas were inscribed on stone tablets in Mandalay, Burma and are today still being memorized and recited by Buddhist monks in Burmese monasteries. This has continued since the first council of five hundred Senior Monks or Arahants convened three months after the Buddha died. I visited this interesting site in Burma in 2003 and saw the white marble stones with these very inscriptions.
Groups of monks memorize the sutta texts together. One monk will recite, and the rest of the group will check and correct him as he goes. This method has been about as foolproof as any other to retain original texts for long periods. Writing the suttas down can be subject to the translator’s misinterpretation of what words to use, to describe the practice precisely.
But, even with this method, there could have been errors that crept in, even as perfect as this system was. We can’t really know because we weren’t there and it was over twenty-five centuries ago!
Thus, we use these suttas as the closest direct guide to what the Buddha really taught.
There are many Buddhist sects and many different beliefs and practices; all we can do is find what meditation practice matches the Buddha’s words. The practice of TWIM is “new” in the sense it has been rediscovered in the suttas. It is not practiced very widely (yet), which seems rather surprising. In fact, Venerable Bhante Vimalaraṁsi and his approved teachers, are the only ones who teach directly from the suttas in this way. Others reference the suttas but don’t follow them precisely. TWIM is the actual and correct application of Right Effort. This is the reason for its resulting success. I will discuss more about this later.
Changes have been made in other practices to allegedly “improve” upon the Buddha’s meditation instructions. But, hold on, he was the Buddha! Is it not just a little bit presumptuous to think that the instructions of a Buddha can be improved upon? After all, he was indeed the supremely awakened Tathāgata, perfecting his wisdom over countless lifetimes.
Let’s try to put aside all the other techniques for now and just focus on how to practice, as described in the early teachings, as close to the actual words of the Buddha as we can get. Most scholars agree that the Pāli Canon and its suttas are the actual teachings of the Buddha. So, let’s go to them, and only them, to find the way to practice.
The Anupada Sutta, MN 111, explains the progress of the meditation through the jhānas and the Four Foundations of Mindfulness at the same time. It will be shown here that these jhānas when practiced as taught in the suttas, will lead us to awakening. The jhānas described in the Anupada Sutta are not to be confused with the concentration states commonly taught elsewhere. These are the Tranquil Aware Jhānas that are being taught in the suttas, in which you maintain awareness of both mind and body. Their foundation is collectedness, not concentration which we will cover later.
It is this rediscovered “aware jhāna” that is the key to a new understanding of the Buddha’s teachings.
The TWIM technique referenced in this book uses for its primary sutta guide, The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Majjhima Nikāya,by Bhikkhu Bodhi and BhikkhuNāṇamoli. Bhante Vimalaraṁsi feels this is the closest translation available, though sometimes he prefers different wordings than are used there. For example, he uses the word “habitual tendency” instead of “becoming.” More on this later.
We will combine here the explanation of the suttas’ meaning with the actual experiences of the many meditators who have practiced and have been successful. Also, we will attempt to explain some of the reasons why certain experiences and subtle phenomena occur — though only the Buddha knows for sure. Please forgive me for errors and omissions.
Some phenomena like the subtlest links of dependent origination that are deep down in the mental processes have had their descriptions left out. They are for the student to discover on their own and it won’t change the pace of a student’s progress by not describing them here. Explaining certain phenomena before the student is ready to see them can create false expectations and wrong ideas.
Many students, later, are grateful that Bhante does not explain to them where they are in the jhānas. They just want to progress and not be thinking and analyzing as they practice. They may develop some sense of pride because of thoughts about “I am in this jhāna or that jhāna.” They might have some familiarity with meditation practice and may have some conceit arise and get stuck thinking about how far advanced they are — when they are only beginners in this practice. It is better off not knowing where you are if you are on an intensive retreat and just follow the instructions.
If you are seeking an even deeper understanding of how the practice works than what is described here in this book, more descriptions of insights and levels of understanding that arise, and the sutta references that support this meditation, you may also want to read one of the following books: Meditation Is Life; Life Is Meditation which provides information in depth and detail. Breath of Love and Moving Dhamma Volume Vol. 1 also offers skillful guidance as one goes deeper into the practice. These are all written by Venerable Bhante Vimalaraṁsi.
My purpose here is to put down on paper the steps to awakening — the progress through the levels of insight to awakening. It is my hope that this knowledge can be handed down, studied in the future, and not lost. This book is based on Venerable Bhante Vimalaraṁsi’s sutta-based methods and results, using texts from his various talks as well drawing on my own personal experiences involving this practice.
Today’s practices include Brahminic influences, New Age methods, and even a new take on Buddhism in which the Buddha himself starts to disappear from the pages. This is called Secular Buddhism or just Mindfulness, with no mention of the Buddha. The heartwood of the Buddha’s teachings has been mixed up with Western psychology, and even the word Mindfulness is no longer being used in the way the Buddha intended.
An important goal of this book is to show how Buddhism, as it is generally taught today, has veered away from the ideas presented in the suttas. It has deviated from what the historical Buddha taught.
We are going to explore, among other things:
What the Buddha taught us in his own words from the suttas
Awakening both Mind and Body
Dependent Origination
The Definition of Mindfulness
What is Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation (TWIM)
What are the 6 Rs?
Two types of Jhānas: Absorption Jhānas and Aware Jhānas
The Progress through the Jhānas to Nibbāna
The Four stages of Sainthood
Chapter One: What Is Buddhism?
Around 2,600 years ago, when the young Prince Siddhartha Gautama went outside his palace into the village, he realized suffering was experienced universally by all beings. He found that there was sickness, old age, and death and it so shocked him that he left behind his wife and newborn son, his kingdom, and all his worldly goods to go in search of a way to end this suffering. After years of searching, he finally discovered the path to the end of suffering — Nibbāna — a path which he described as not only achieving release from suffering but that it
was also “immediately effective” or not taking that long if practiced correctly. He then spent the next forty-five years teaching that path to others. During that time many people were awakened.
The Mahāvacchagotta Sutta, number 73 in the Majjhima Nikāya (MN), confirms and gives us more details about just how many thousands of people were awakened. In the sutta, when the Buddha is asked if there were any beings who had been successful, he clearly described the numbers and attainments of those he had taught.
What is suffering? The Buddha stated the cause through his Four Noble Truths:
There are suffering and dissatisfaction in the world and in our lives.
The cause and origin of that suffering is craving.
The cessation of craving is the cessation of suffering.
The eightfold path leads us to the end of that suffering.
This is Buddhism in brief: suffering, the cause of suffering, the end of suffering, and the path leading to the end of suffering. This is the heart of Buddhism. It is not about rites and rituals, prayers and incense. It is not a religion, but a scientific investigation into overcoming sorrow at all levels of mind and body.
In modern times, it seems that few people actually reach awakening. Some teachers explain that people in the Buddha’s time were more spiritually developed and some say it was because of the Buddha himself. Others attribute the lack of success to the so-called darker times in which we now live. But the Buddha made it clear that if you follow the directions, awakening can be achieved in a single lifetime, even in as little as a few days. This is as true today as it was at the time of the Buddha. This book just might be the proof.
People are different culturally, but our minds and bodies all function in the same way. This means that if we follow the true path of the Buddha, we too can experience awakening in a short period of time. The experiences of our students who have followed the instructions from the earliest suttas precisely, without adding or subtracting anything, are proof of that. They have experienced the states I will talk about, and so can you!