29. More than Just Calm

The Buddha once addressed a group of monks, telling them that they should practice breath meditation. One of the monks, Ven. Ariṭṭha, who didn’t have a particularly good reputation in the Community, responded that he already practiced breath meditation. The Buddha asked him what kind of breath meditation he practiced, and Ariṭṭha replied,

The Buddha commented that there did exist that sort of breath meditation, he didn’t deny it, but that it wasn’t the sort that would give complete results. He then described his own sixteen-step formula for the practice of breath meditation that would bear great fruit.

Before we look at the Buddha’s formula, we can stop and ask what was wrong with Ariṭṭha’s. The main problem appears to be that his formula promotes calm but without much discernment. It does try to do away with unskillful desires, and to that extent involves some discernment, but it replaces them simply with equanimity. It doesn’t dig down into what ignorant desires might lie buried in the present moment under the equanimity.

As we’ve already noted, there are two sorts of causes of suffering: those for which you can develop dispassion simply by looking at them with equanimity, and those for which you can develop dispassion only when you exert fabrications against them. Ariṭṭha’s method would work with the first sort, but not with the second, in that it makes no mention of any skillful fabrications—trained desires—that need to be employed to help skillful determinations prevail over unskillful desires. As we’ll see, the Buddha’s formula for breath meditation does precisely that, which means that it can deal with both sorts of causes of suffering.

This relates to another problem with Ariṭṭha’s formula: In promoting a blanket attitude of equanimity to the present moment, it doesn’t promote insight into the fabricated nature of that moment. For this reason, it doesn’t provide any insight into how fabrications have to be used to develop states of right concentration. This creates two problems:

1) It doesn’t provide any guidance on how to fabricate any of the jhānas, and so doesn’t help you attain them.

2) It doesn’t help you gain the deeper insight into the fabricated nature of the jhānas so that you can eventually step back from them and deconstruct them so as to bring the mind to total freedom.

As we’ll see, the Buddha’s formula for breath meditation highlights the role of fabrication in relating to the breath, and so addresses both of these failings in Ariṭṭha’s formula. In this way, it uses discernment into the processes of fabrication to relinquish disturbance, to promote calm, and then to promote further discernment. It takes the step of fabrication in dependent co-arising—which, when functioning in ignorance, creates the conditions of suffering—and brings knowledge to it, so that it can be turned around and used to bring suffering to an end. In doing so, breath meditation employs these three types of determination—discernment, relinquishment, and calm—to overcome unskillful desires and passions in an all-around way.

The Buddha’s instructions on breath meditation are repeated many times throughout the discourses. They’re even included in the Vinaya. In fact, they’re the only meditation instructions contained there, which shows that they were considered especially important: a necessary part of the training for monks who, specializing in memorizing that part of the Canon, might not have had time to memorize any of the discourses.

These instructions come in sixteen steps divided into four sets of four, called tetrads. The tetrads, in order, correspond to the four frames of reference in the establishing of mindfulness: The first tetrad focuses on the body, the second on feelings, the third on the mind, and the fourth on mental qualities.

Note, however, that whereas the steps within the tetrads are followed sequentially, the tetrads themselves are not. In other words, the first three tetrads are followed simultaneously, in parallel, to create a state of concentration in which the sensation of the whole body, a feeling of pleasure filling the whole body, and an awareness filling the whole body are brought to a state of singleness. Sometimes, in the process of creating this state of singleness, the breath is the main issue standing in the way, sometimes feelings, sometimes the state of the mind, so you switch your attention to the appropriate tetrad in relation to the breath to solve that particular problem. Then you try to consolidate all three into one.

As for the fourth tetrad, it’s used—in the beginning stages of meditation—to get rid of distracting thoughts related to the world that would interfere with the concentration being developed through the first three tetrads. You focus on the inconstancy of those thoughts so as to see their drawbacks (this would also involve seeing them as stressful or not-self). This insight into their drawbacks would lead to dispassion for them, followed by their cessation, and then the contemplation of their drawbacks would itself be relinquished.

In the translation below, I’ve highlighted the steps that explicitly mention fabrication. Hold in mind, though, that every step that counts as a training implicitly involves fabrication as well.

The first tetrad, dealing with the body:

The second tetrad, dealing with feelings:

The third tetrad, dealing with the mind:

The fourth tetrad, dealing with mental qualities:

Notice how the Buddha’s instructions start where Ariṭṭha’s end—breathing in and out mindfully—and then progress from there. Notice, too, how proactive this practice is. Instead of just watching your breath, you discern differences in the breath in the first two steps, and then you train yourself to breathe in and out fostering skillful feelings, mind states, and mental qualities in the remaining steps. As we’ve noted before, training involves using the desires aligned with the determination for awakening to overcome any desires that would thwart that determination.

Finally, notice how the Buddha calls attention to two types of fabrication in his instructions—bodily and mental—and how the instructions themselves describe how to talk to yourself—how to engage in verbal fabrication—as you do all the steps. By making you sensitive to these three types of fabrication and teaching you how to generate them and calm them at will, the sixteen steps develop insight and calm at the same time: insight in focusing attention on the desires implicit in fabrication, calm in using those desires to pacify body and mind. In calling attention to fabrication in the present moment, the sixteen steps also give you practice in dealing with the causes of suffering against which you have to exert fabrication: how to breathe, how to talk to yourself, and how to fashion perceptions and feelings that will uproot any unskillful desires that may arise.

This emphasis on the processes of fabrication shows how breath meditation won’t abandon you at the time of death. Even though the breath will have to fall away, the skills you’ve gained in mastering verbal and mental fabrications through this meditation won’t. They’ll help guide you to skillfully handle the cravings and clingings—desires and passions in their roles of hungering and feeding—that can become so strong in the mind when the body can no longer survive.

And as we noted above, in calling attention to how you need to fabricate states of concentration, the Buddha is also providing you with advance warning that these fabricated states, and the desires underlying their fabrication, will eventually have to be abandoned.