Meditation retreats - Atthanga - Uposatha Sila

With greetings from Kuala Lumpur

by Bhikkhu Professor Dhammavihari

To our Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Dhamma (Upasaka Upasika)

During periods of Buddhist Meditation Retreats (specially in Buddhist Sri Lanka today) we wish to build within our devotees a dignified sense of religious discipline which we expect them to carry over thereafter to their daily lives, in the home, the work place and the community at large.

Primarily, this shall be the very basis of what we can call meditation in Buddhism. We cannot think of a Buddhist Meditation Retreat without a serious sense of personal discipline, i.e. a restraint or control we bring upon ourselves, centering on meditation.

Through meditation, Buddhist teachings attempt to bring about changes in the behaviour of people for their own elevation and emancipation.

In Buddhism, we use the Pali world bhavana to refer to this process of bringing about such changes in the lifestyle or culture of a people. Good people are said to possess cultured bodies and cultured minds: bhavita-kayo bhavita-citto.

This is refinement of body and mind brought about through endeavoured application or sikkha (which is yet another word for bhavana). This is said to lead to a further advancement in cultured wisdom or bhavita-panno.

Wisdom of a type

This is wisdom of a type which the world very badly needs today and is different from the freely available knowledge in stock which is known to be in the hands of every power block, utilisable for purposes of mass destruction.

This man-acquired knowledge has descended to such low levels of vulgarity as a marketable product. It is deadly in its use as was shown in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is blasphemous that it has continued its research throughout, secretly (or not so secretly) in the so-called developed world of civilised man, until it was suspected or detected as undeclared baggage on world platforms in recent years.

In the world of the Buddhists, man is instructed to culture his own wisdom, personally for his own edification and enlightenment. He does not get it at the feet of another, through prayer or supplication. A man of wisdom, in his enlightenment, is indeed the solace of mankind. That is what Siddhartha Gautama of India turned out to be.

In his perfection of wisdom, so benevolent to mankind, he became globally renowned as Samma Sambuddha or Buddha Shakyamuni. He did not descend to earth as Buddha from above. In his acquisition of wisdom, he rose above mankind.

This marked his ascent above the world. This we call his transcendence. A being of the world. A being of the world, a human, rose above the world. He became Lokuttara. Within five hundred years, in the world of the Mahayana, he came to be transformed to an eternally existing Buddha, existing through time and space.

This is the genesis of Buddha Amida. More precisely, he is both Amitabha (Amita+abha) or Buddha of Infinite Light spreading through space and Amitayu (Amita+ayu) or Buddha of Infinite Life stretching through time.

To develop

Now to turn to meditation or bhavana on Buddhism. The word literally means to develop, 'make grow' or 'culture' as when we use the term tissue-culture etc. in the laboratory. To begin with, bhavana is primarily the culture and growth of the human, in terms of his moral goodness, i.e. the improvement in the basic inter-personal relationships among people. That is where we begin and where we have to begin.

Its initial area of development is called sila-bhavana. Buddhism insists that its religious culture (or spiritual culture, if you prefer a more sophisticated phrase) which finally leads to Nibbana, has to begin with this initial moral culture of sila. This process of religious culture or training in Buddhism is also adequately contained under the term sikkha.

Sile patitthaya naro sapanno
cittam pannan ca bhavayam
atapi nipao bhikkhu
so imam vijataye jatam
- Samyutta Nikaya

It spins around a discipline with regard to the way we humans think, speak and act. i.e. our thought, word and deed. Very summarily, it is a behaviour pattern, something about which we, in the midst of humans, got to be both responsible and careful.

And about this, we also need to remember, that the law of the land (except during periods of anarchy) can question us and prosecute us if we do not conform to accepted patterns of propriety. Of course, at the same time, many lamentable breaches of that much esteemed propriety can and does take place, unknown to and unseen by the law-enforcing authorities of the land. This is seen and known to be very common today, everywhere.

Code of good living

Nevertheless, such bad behaviour would still come to be condemned by the judgement of the wiser people. We expect this would happen all the time, specially in the hands of parents, educators in the land and the religious clergy. Buddhist thinking takes very serious note of this area of moral goodness and calls upon everyone to abstain from even the smallest of the offences regarding which the wisdom of the land would frown upon and give a verdict of accusation and chastisement.

An excellent Highway Code of Good Living exists among the Buddhists under the name of Metta Sutta which requires people to pay high esteem to Trust-worthy Public Opinion. Na cakkuddam samacare kinci yena vinnu pare upavadeyym=Indulge not in any such mean act of behaviour whereby the wise would censure.

Now a little bit more of serious Buddhist thinking about this. In our daily life, we are led into activity by our thoughts: cetayitva kammam karoti. Our thoughts are the products of our own mind or mano. The mind is where our thoughts have their origin and are cultivated and grown - Mano-pubbangma dhamma mano-settha manomaya.

It is important for us Buddhists to know that we human beings do not start our life process for the first time in our mother's womb here. We go back in time much further than that. The universe we live in is seen to stretch much further than that in time and space.

The stars we see in the sky are indicative of the infinitely vast solar systems in outer space. Do not be too sure about ourselves as being made-to-order products down here in the market place. We have been in circulation from time unknown. We bring into our lives many things from the past.

Trans samsarie culture

We got to accept that a good percentage of the happiness and unhappiness that we now go through here is not unrelated to the behaviour pattern we have indulged in our previous and former lives. Verses 1 and 2 of the Dhammapada very specifically express this idea: manasa ce padutthena ...dukkham anveti manasa ce pasannena... sukham anveti.

Our success here also depends to some extent on our past: pubbe ca kata-punnata... etam mangala muttaman. Even our good health and our ability to live a longer span of life depend on our trans-samsaric culture. That depends on how much respect we pay, as we live, to the lives of others: pana-ghatino hi appayuka those who destroy life are bound to be short-lived.

The Buddha has referred to our life process as being infinitely vast (anamatagga' yam bhikkhave samsaaro) and said that its first beginnings are not easily discernible (pubba koti na pannayati). Each one of us is wrapped up in a veil of ignorance (avijja-nivaranana sattanam) and we continue rolling on, bounded up by craving (tanha samyojananam sandhavatam samsaratam).

Parental contribution

Every time we commence a life process in a mother's womb, even as a test-tube-baby within a surrogate mother, we are said to bring on to the scene within the mother a samsaric-continuance to be coupled with the parental contribution called the zygote, carrying with it one's own trans-samsaric qualities (pluses and minuses) of efficiency or inefficiency, genius or degeneracy.

This is, well and truly, the unquestionable qualitative continuance of humans in the life process called samsara. This is what makes possible the presence of Buddhas and Arahants as well as the less elegant people like Devadattas and angulimalas. More and more people are now beginning to believe the same about the appearance of Mozarts and Einstines, in spite of the escalating ventures in the areas of cloning.

We should now commence our Meditation Retreat (Buddhist Meditation of course!), promising to go through it while being established on the higher plane of Atthanga Uposatha or the Higher Grade of Eightfold Morality.

This alone gives the pursuant of Meditation a firm and solid foundation for a course of religious culture which would be worthy of its name. The average lay person, man or woman, is believed to have already disciplined himself or herself on the basis of the panca-sila or the five basic precepts. Such a human has no fear or dread within himself on any account.

For a good birth after death

Whatever high or low position he occupies in society, he has offended none through disrespect for life. He has dispossessed none of their legitimately acquired possessions.

He is also above board as far as propriety of sex relations are concerned. He is impeccably honest in all his dealings, in public and in private. His sanity of judgement is adequately guarded by keeping away from intoxicants and drugs.

He is not evilly inclined towards any. Nor does any body has any need to dread him, or be suspicious of his behaviour. The observance of panca-sila immunizes him from the five-fold enmity and dread, i.e. vera and bhavya. He is unquestionably qualified for complete stability and security for life in the world. He is also on that account guaranteed a good birth after death (dhammo papeti suggatim).

Tested on a launch pad

It is such a human, man or woman, who alone is fit to be tested on a launch-pad, for a count-down for his spiritual ascent. In his choice of the Atthanga Uposatha or the Higher Grade Eightfold Morality, he has to be aware that he is facing a twenty-four hour count-down, i.e. a test through a period of day and night (imanca divasam imanca rattim as the Buddhist texts clearly specify).

First and foremost, it is the engineers who handle this operation of administering Atthanga Uposatha or the Higher Grade Eightfold Morality who have to know this and be honest about it. The world had always the right to hold tribunals to question miscreant offenders as to what they do at their assigned jobs.

In the observance of the uposatha, this elevation to the higher grade eight-fold morality is to be viewed as a cultural development of one's life style. As an endeavour for the acquisition of a higher grade of essential discipline, it requires a seasonal abandonment during a minimum period of twenty-four hours, of certain areas of sensory gratification.

It begins with the complete change from moral chastity of kamesu micchacara veramani to one of complete celibacy or sexual abstinence of abrahmacariya veramani during this period of up-graded training.

Attitude to food

It next picks up one's attitude to food. It calls for an immediate reduction of the frequency of eating. Buddhism considers this a vital item of discipline. Placing a ban on the eating at night (rattuparato), it also strictly regulates against eating at irregular hours between meals (virato vikalabhojana). Buddhist teachings are very specific about their teachings on religious living and eating habits.

The Buddha very clearly states that the ability to have restraint with regard to one's eating habits implies an ability to restrain oneself with regard to all sensory stimuli (kabalinkara ahare pari nnate panca kamagunikarago pahino hoti).

Elsewhere, in the Bhaddali Sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya, he tells his disciples of his own abstinence with regard to food, or more specifically about his one-meal-a-day or ekasana-bhojana habit. He enumerates to them the physical advantages he derives from this, the ease and comfort and freedom from disease (appabadhatan ca appatankatan ca balan ca phauviharan ca). The psycho-physical advantages of regulated eating habits in Buddhism is not to be underestimated.

Self-entertainment

The atthanga-uposatha-sila thereafter moves over to the peripheral territory of self-entertainment through the eye and the ear. As reduction and curtailment of personal entertainment, acts of listening to musical performances (gita-vadita) and seeing dancing and theatrical displays (nacca and visuka-dassana) are carefully itemized.

These sikkhapadas or items of training 7 and 8 carefully aim at reduction of personal rejoicing. So is the thrust at personal grooming and beautification under mala-gandha-vilepana-dharana-mandana-vibhusana.

Tightening the belt around personal self-pampering pertaining to physical comfort, witnesses also regulations regarding extravagant seats, couches and bedding (uccasayana-mahasayana veramani). It is not the height and size of the beds one sleeps on that matters.

Seeking permission to enjoy a shower bath, cold or warm, with or without soaps and shampoos, during minimal twenty-four hour period of atthanga-uposatha, appears quite a bit frivolous, whether in the city or in the village. The primary aim of these restrictions is the reduction of the quality and grade of comfort sought, during this self-sought period of discipline seeking.

**** In the observance of the uposatha, it is what, in sober moments of sanity, can be viewed as dispensable extravagance with regard to personal needs relating to food, comforts and entertainment that one can easily cut off, that one needs to dispense with even seasonally as a first step in the direction of personal discipline. ***

Self-imposed abstinence

In our Buddhistness, if we wish, with a sense of sincerity, to acquire these qualitative differences in our own lives, at least making a start somewhere, let us think twice about our wish to observe these self-imposed abstinences under the atthanga-uposatha-sila, during their specified period of observance, of minimal twenty-four hours, in consonance with the refined and cultured religious traditions of Thailand and Myanmar.

Then and only then would we have laid the necessary solid and stable foundation for the glittering towers of samatha and vipassana which we ambitiously keep eyeing all the time.