01 Meditation Panel Preface.indd - United Nations Day of Vesak 2013

developments in meditative teaching and practice. ‘amatha and its Relation to the Mundane
and Supra-mundane Paths According to Geluk Traditions of Tibetan Buddhism’, by James
Blumenthal,explores various aspects of Northern amatha practice in its doctrinal and salvic setting,
placing the argument within the parameters of Geluk practice as it is described in particular in
the “amatha” (Zhi gnas) chapter of Tsongkhapa’s fourteenth-century work, The Great Treatise
on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment (Byang chub lam rim chen mo, hereafter, The Great
Treatise). The author explores three potential paths of the amatha practitioner: the mundane, and
instantaneous and gradual supramundane.Emphasizing the centrality and importance of amatha in
each, the paper demonstrates that the stages of amatha described by these commentators are aspects
of a graduated path, with carefully differentiated stages. The rst, the mundane, is always gradual,
though partial as no attempt is made to eradicate all delements, but rather to see the afiction of
each level through comparison with the qualities of the one above. The second is gradual, eliminating
delements one by one in a hierarchical manner until the most subtle meditative delements have
been eradicated, going from the sense sphere, to the four form realms and four formless. The third
eliminates the afictions in groups of nine, one from each realm, so that they are simultaneously
eradicated in turn in a comprehensive purication encompassing all nine levels of practice. Within
these accounts, the various stages of meditation are inextricably linked to the concept of emptiness
(nyat, stong pa nyid), and the consequent process of the development of insight. The author argues
that practice within such traditions, particularly those who pursue higher meditations and tantric
practices, certainly draw upon doctrinal foundations that may be traced to earlier textual sources,
but has also widened the scope of both amatha and vipassan practice as described in the stras.
Therefore, Tsongkhapa’s Tantra retains older notions of emptiness, but also integrates and validates
new practices within traditional doctrinal understanding.
This paper discusses varied ways that three schools of meditation address the teaching
of the four foundations of mindfulness. In ‘Three Practices of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness:
An Investigation in Comparative Soteriology’, Thomas A.C.Weiser investigates three sets of
meditation practices, both at a theory and a practice level: Southern Buddhist vipassan, analytic
meditation based textually on the ninth chapter of Pawo Tsugla Trengwa Rinpoche’s commentary
on ntideva’s Bodhicaryvatra, and amatha/vipayan meditation as taught in the chapter
‘The Four Foundations of Mindfulness’ in Heart of the Buddha by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
Each follows the teaching known as ‘the four foundations of mindfulness’, with a distinctive
approach, orientation towards a soteriological goal and doctrinal framework. Each seemed
worthwhile, inviting further pursuit and investigation in distinctive ways: the rst, that addressed
the examination of characteristics, seemed to the author to work on the axis of greed; the second that
explored content, on the axis of hatred; while the process orientation of the third seemed to address
the axis of ignorance. The author argues, however, that their teachings are in many ways consonant,
and offer complementary rather than contradictory paths.
‘The Theravda Philosophical Exposition of the Supramundane (Lokuttara) State’,
by Dr. H. M. Mahinda Herath, explores various attributes of the moment of path, investigating
the subject through the wisdom instrumental in attaining liberation: insight knowledge (vipassanñna)
and the knowledge pertaining to the supramundane paths (maggaña). The rst, the author notes,
is the direct penetration of the three characteristics of conditioned phenomena - impermanence,
suffering and non-self. It takes as its objective sphere the ve aggregates (pancakkhandh) – material
form, feeling, perception, volitional formations and consciousness. Because insight knowledge
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