Hi Retro,
retrofuturist wrote:If you're doing vipassana (insight) meditation then return to the primary object (in this case, the breath) once you have dispassionately observed what encroached upon your field of awareness.
Your summary sounded fine to me.
In the first case the aim is absorption into an object (which may be a concept, such as metta), so anything that arises is dealt with only to the extent necessary to be able to get on with watching the object.
In the second case the aim is to be aware of the reality of what is happening - the arising of sensations, thought, etc, so when those things arise you watch them. The primary object both induces calm and provides a focus when there is nothing else arising.
Here is another way of looking at it:
http://aimwell.org/Books/Other/Questions/questions.html “Why did Mahāsi Sayādaw ignore ānāpānasati, which was directly taught by the Buddha, but introduced the rising-falling method?”
“Is ānāpānasati the same in essence as vipassanā and meditating on rising and falling, and able to lead to magga-phala and nibbāna?”
In answering these questions, Panditārāma Sayādaw explained the teachings of the Mahāsi Sayādaw as follows.
Ānāpānasati can take two directions. If the meditator strives to be mindful of the form or manner of the in-breath and the out-breath, then it is samatha meditation and leads to one pointed of mind. On the other hand, if the meditator notes the sensation of the in-breath and out-breath as it moves and touches, then it is vipassanā meditation. The element of wind or motion (vayo-dhātu) is rūpa or matter, while the awareness or consciousness of the sensation is nāma or mind. Therefore, ānāpānasati can be considered as vipassanā, and can lead to high levels of insight wisdom. However, in the Visuddhimagga, in the section on kāyānupassana, or mindfulness of body, fourteen objects of meditation are discussed, and further subdivided into objects for samatha and vipassanā meditation. In the Visuddhimagga, ānāpānasati is presented as an object of samatha meditation. Consequently, if we are to instruct meditators to develop ānāpānasati as part of vipassanā meditation, we will be inviting much unwanted and unwarranted criticism and controversy. And neither Mahāsi Sayādaw or myself would want to argue here that the Visuddhimagga, the rightly venerated classic, is at fault here.
It has been said that by noting the rising and falling of the abdomen, meditators are distancing themselves from the teachings of the Buddha. The answer to this is a firm and definite “no.” Quite apart from the success that meditators have achieved by noting rising-falling, there is much solid evidence in the Buddhist scriptures, such as Salāyatana Vagga Samyutta, to show that the method is very much a part of the Buddha’s teachings regarding mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of the elements (dhātu), and mindfulness of the five aggregates (khandhas).
Mike
