Abhidhamma View : Meditation Subjects, development and Signs [Presented by Dr.Tep Sastri @ SariputtaDhamma/JTN/Mult]
CMA IX, p.329-331 (excerpt):
The compendium of meditation subjects for developing calm (samatha) is sevenfold: 1. ten kasi.nas, 2. ten kinds of foulness, 3. ten recollections, 4. four illimitables, 5. one perception, 6. one analysis, and 7. four immaterial states. These seven categories amount to forty separate meditation subjects.
The three stages of mental development are: preliminary development, access development, and absorption development. Preliminary development occurs from the time one begins the practice of meditation up to the time the five hindrances are suppressed and the counterpart sign emerges. Access development occurs when the five hindrances become suppressed and the counterpart sign emerges. It endures from the moment the counterpart sign arises up to the change-of-lineage citta (gotrabhuu) in the cognitive process culminates in jhaana. The citta that immediately follows change-of-lineage is called absorption. This marks the beginning of absorption development, which occurs at the level of the fine-material sphere jhaanas or the immaterial-sphere jhaanas.
The three signs should be understood as: the preliminary sign, the learning sign, and the counterpart sign.
The preliminary sign is the original object of concentration used during the preliminary stage of practice. The learning sign is a mental replica of the object preceived in the mind exactly as it appears to the physical eyes. The mentally visualized image freed of all defects is the counterpart sign. The counterpart sign, it is said, "appears as if breaking out from the learning sigh, and a hundred times or a thousand times more purified, ... like the moon's disk coming out from behind the cloud" (Vism. IV, 31).
CMA IX, p. 340:
Of the three signs, the preliminary sign and the learning sign are generally found in relation to every object, in the appropriate way. But the counterpart sign is found only in the kasi.nas, foulness, the (32) parts of the body, and the mindfulness of breathing. It is by means of the counterpart sign that access concentration and absorption concentration occur.
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