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

Buddhist Philosophy and
Meditation Practice
a well-taught noble disciple has abandoned evil and unwholesome bodily [actions] and develops
wholesome bodily actions, has abandoned evil and unwholesome verbal and mental [actions] and
develops wholesome verbal and mental actions.
By [developing] in sequence one after the other 33 that which is called a ‘mind imbued with
compassion, [a mind imbued with] sympathetic joy and [a mind imbued with] equanimity’, monks,
one who having done so is endowed with the concentration of the mind of equanimity, will directly
know the state of non-retrogression or the highest Dharma”.
Appamāas and karma:
In addition to comparative philological evidence, the soteriological principles and dynamics
underpinning the individual components of the sequence of the discourse(s) as fully documented by
the Chinese and Tibetan versions and the restored single Pali discourse are so closely interrelated
that it would make much practical sense if these components had been originally taught as part of
a unitary instruction, i.e., delivered in the course of a single occasion, and accordingly recorded in
one discourse.
The opening reection on actions, purication of intentionality and the possibility of spiritual
emancipation, followed by an exposition on the ten unwholesome deeds, which, once have been
abandoned, properly prepare the mind for appamas practice, 34 and eventually the certainty of
the attainment of either non-return or nal liberation by dint of the practice, reect an integrated
practical perspective:
The process of purifying and reshaping karma by means of increasingly pure moral conduct
(mirroring, in turn, purication of intentions) would progressively erode unwholesome mental
tendencies and reactions that lead to compulsive (re-)generation of karma and to sasric programs
and patterns of reactivity. Karma includes chiey mental intentions and any ensuing action.
The ripening of the results of intentions and actions is subject to contextual conditions that fall
outside the full control of the individual. Therefore any liberating openings can only be situated in
the new intentional response to sense experience and to the present effects of one’s own and others’
actions. Such a response includes the possibilities of changing the direction of one’s intention upon
becoming aware of any unwholesomeness that may have arisen present or else of continuing to act
according to already present wholesomeness. 35
ldog par gnas, and especially phyir mi ldog pa’i chos can) are part of standard qualications of an angmin featuring
across the different early Buddhist textual traditions.
33
Snga ma bzhin du renders Sanskrit anuprvea or an equivalent expression.
34
In addition to the ten unwholesome actions, AN 10.206 and AN 10.207 have an exposition on the ten wholesome
actions, cf. table 1.
35
The Abhidharma traditions developed different and in many respect diverging interpretations regarding the denition,
functioning, propagation of and moral weight of intention and mental karma, with the Sarvstivdins developing
a distinction between ‘informative’ (vijñapti) and uninformative (avijñapti) karma, etc. Given the purposes and
source materials of my presentation, I do not take into account these later scholastic developments. As far as the early
discourses are concerned, a source representative of the attitude to intentionality is the Upli-sutta of the Majjhima-nikya,
which makes it clear that greater moral weight is placed on acts of the mind in the sense of their capacity to determine
intention and actions, rather than on verbal or physical karma per se, and that an act done without prior intention (asañcetanika)
such as killing small creatures while walking cannot be as blameworthy as if one were to intend to do so
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