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[Published as Mahinda Deegalle, Theravada Monk as a Buddhist Mystic: Mystical Attainments of a Twentieth-century Sri Lankan Monk, Mysticisms East

and West: Studies in Mystical Experience, ed. Christopher Patridge and Theodore Gabriel (New York and London: Continuum, 2003), pp. 3443].

Therav ! da Monk as a Buddhist Mystic :


Mystical Attainments of a Twentieth Century Sri Lankan Monk
Mahinda Deegalle The most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

This essay examines the life of a modern Therav!da monk, Venerable M!tal" Vanaratana (1889-1981), who had written about his mystical attainments. As a representative example of a modern Therav!da mystic, Vanaratanas account deserves attention. By analyzing his account, one can know the life style of a modern Buddhist mystic, spiritual exercises useful for attainments, obstacles to ones spiritual path and problems and difficulties encountered in practice while fulfilling tasks expected from a monk in Sri Lankan society. The analysis of the accounts of the Buddhist mystic is the central focus of this essay. As a mystic, Vanaratanas life in his community whether monastic or non-monastic cannot be separated from his mystical attainments. While placing Vanaratanas account in the 1

context of historical and literary genres, some salient features in his mystical attainments will be analyzed. Vanaratanas account will be examined making references to one of Therav!da authoritative texts, Buddhaghosas Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification). A recently published Sinhala bookKl! Suvanda (Forest Fragrance)presents the life of the meditative monk Vanaratana who lived most of his life in the forest. It is an account of mystical life of a twentieth century Buddhist monk who practiced kasi"a meditation. I want to draw attention to this modern account of Buddhist mystical experience and explore the possibility of using it in understanding textual representations and their impact in shaping the nature of mystical experience within Therav!da Buddhism. A Modern Therav ! da Mystic On February 3, 1889, Venerable M!tal" Vanaratana was born in Matale, Central Province in Sri Lanka. As he recorded, at a very young age, he was taken away to Southern Province and ordained as a Buddhist novice on June 6, 1906; Venerable Saddh!nanda, the abbot of Kum!ra Mah!vih!ra, Dodanduwa and Sunand!ramaya, Tiranagama, became his preceptor. Venerable Vanaratanas initial attraction to kasi"a meditation occurred accidentally. On a fullmoon day, when he visited Sunand!ramaya, one of his preceptors sub-temples, its resident monk Venerable Beruvala Vimalas!ra happened to be explaining the method of developing kasi"a meditation to a layman. In that conversation, the emphasis was on Buddhaghosas Visuddhimagga as a manual for kasi"a meditation practice. By listening to that conversation, the young novice got interested in meditation and began the initial practice of kasi"a meditation (pp. 45-6).1 Many years after Vanaratanas death, the Sinhala book, Kl! Suvanda (Forest Fragrance), was published in 1999. It was compiled by one of his close lay associates, Mr. Haritas Varusavitana, building on materials written by Venerable 2

Vanaratana during his lifetime. In addition to unpublished works, it also included a meditation manual that Vanaratana had written in 1950 for the benefit of those who are interested in practicing meditation. In that publication, Vanaratana recorded that he wrote about his mystical experiences in meditation after 22 years of the initial experience he had in attaining the first jh#na which occurred in 1928 (p. 119). Vanaratanas booklet, Bh#van#vak piibanda mag! atdakm (My Experiences in a Meditation) was printed twice. In 1955, the first printing came with the direction of Venerable Kotmal" Amarava#sa. Mr. D.S. Kotteg" reprinted it again in 1976. Vanaratana himself recorded that his book was different from that of others because of the fact that it was based on his own experience in meditation rather than on accounts written by others (p. 52). He emphasized experiential aspects of his book and highlighted the priority given to accounts of kasi"a meditation that he himself experienced. On the whole, Vanaratanas book contains rather unusual materials: while it describes Vanaratanas experiences in kasi"a meditation practice, it also contains many episodes of supernatural nature with descriptions of his mystical attainments.

The Kasi " a Meditation within Therav ! da Tradition The general meaning of the P!li term kasi"a (Skt. krtsn#yatana) is all, whole, entire or universal.2 Its mystical and spiritual meanings relate to one form of Therav!da Buddhist meditation practice, the practice of calm (P. samatha) meditation. As a technical term in Buddhist mysticism, it refers to a meditational exercise of total and exclusive awareness of, or concentration on, one of the four elements (earth, water, fire, wind) or one of four colors (dark-blue, yellow, red, white) or space or consciousness, leading to jh!na.3 On the whole, in the context 3

of Buddhist meditation, the kasi"a can be rendered as a device used in calm meditation practice. Buddhaghosas Visuddhimagga, a fifth century C.E. post-canonical work composed in P!li, gives a list of forty subjects of meditation (kammatth#na) in developing the practice of calm meditation (samatha bh#van#).4 The number of subjects of meditation used for calm meditation are as many as forty because of the fact that as a list it attempts to cater to individual differences in human character and personality. The ten devices (kasi"a), the first ten items of Buddhaghosas forty subjects of meditation,5 are suitable for both the preliminary and more advanced stages of meditation practice. Before Buddhaghosa, an Abhidhamma text, the Dhammasa$gani6 had given a list of only eight kasi"as omitting consciousness and space. A text which was in conversation with Buddhaghosa, Upatissas Vimuttimagga also gave a list of ten devices of meditation but in the enumeration it had followed the list given by the following two canonical texts.7 Among the canonical sources, the Mah# Sakulud#yi Sutta of the

Majjhima Nik#ya (II.14) and the Jh#na Vagga of the A$guttara Nik#ya (I.41)
enumerated the ten kasi"as but differed from the Visuddhimagga by giving

vi#na instead of #loka. The ten kasi"as, according to Buddhaghosa, are: (i) earth
(pathavi), (ii) water (#po), (iii) fire (tejo), (iv) air (v#yo), (v) blue ( nla), (vi) yellow (pta), (vii) red (lohita), (viii) white (od#ta), (ix) light (#loka), and (x) limited-space (paricchinn#k#sa).8 In the Sri Lankan Therav!da tradition as represented by Buddhaghosa, the ten kasi"as are accepted replacing vi#na with

#loka. As represented by Yog#vacaras Manual, Sri Lankan tradition considers the


four elements collectively as bh%ta-kasina (1896:48-52). The first four (i-iv) of the ten kasi"as, the four elements, are good for all personality types, the four colors (v-viii) are good for hate type personalities, and the last two (ix-x) are also good for all personality types. These ten kasi"as are presented as ways of attaining to the four jh#nas. 4

The ten devices of meditation known as kasi"a-ma"&ala (universal-circles) are objects such as a blue disc, a circle of earth, or a bowl of water. In the early stages of meditation practice, kasi"a can be such physical devices (i.e., colored discs) used as aids for meditation practice. After the initial sight of the colored disc, the meditator concentrates on a circle until one can see a mental image in ones minds eye. The image of the circle is acquired with closed eyes and develops the practice until a condition is reached where sense-reaction is suspended. In this meditation technique, the meditator focuses on a universal quality such as blueness, earth or water. Mystical dimensions of religion seem to have played an important role in the history of Buddhist tradition. While authoritative post-canonical texts like Buddhaghosas Visuddhimagga presented the preliminary guidelines for Buddhist mystics in their practice of various meditation techniques, Therav!da traditions in South and Southeast Asia seem to have had constant engagement in devising novel meditation techniques. For example, we are now in possession of an eighteenth century provocative meditation manual called The Yog#vacaras Manual of Indian

Mysticism. The Yog#vacaras Manual of Indian Mysticism (1896) and its translation, Manual of a Mystic (1916), stand as Therav!da contributions to the study of
mysticism. The original Roman script text appeared from The Pali Text Society in 1896.9 Thomas William Rhys Davids (1843-1922), who edited it considered it as The unique MS since from his point of view, there were no other work in Buddhist literature, either Pali or Sanskrit, devoted to the details of Jh!na and Sam!dhi.10 The manuscript was found in a temple library in Bambaragala Vih!ra, Teldeniya, Sri Lanka.11 Sir Don Baron Jayatilaka (1868-1944) recounted his search for this manuscript in his article to The Buddhist.12 The author of this particular meditation manual is unknown and its date of compilation is also uncertain. However, it is considered as a text of the eighteenth century origin. Don Martino 5

de Zilva Wickremasinghe (1865-1937) thought it could be that of the seventeenth, or even of the sixteenth century. He acknowledged the existence of jh#na practice in the eighteenth century. The arrival of Siamese monks in Sri Lanka in 1753 to revive Buddhism is seen as the possible social and religious contexts for the origin of the practices related to jh#na and the birth of this manual. While it is impossible to be certain on the Siamese influence on the birth of this text, a consensus is built that the text closely connected with the period during or just after the abovenamed religious revival.13 The most important relevant factor for this paper is that the Manual of a Mystic contains mystic exercises and becomes a representative of a mystic faith. Certain mystic practices such as wax-taper exercises are rather novel and unusual for Theravada traditions. The colour-visions in the Sinhala descriptions in the Manual

of a Mystic should be kept in perspective.


The Manual of a Mystic had devoted a section to discuss the ten kasi"as.14 With respect to mystical aspects in the language and seeing its ideas from a conventional understanding of Therav!da practices, Mrs. Rhys Davids asserted that one needed a catholic intelligence to decipher the meanings and symbolical significance of the text and its practices.15

Vanaratanas Method in Practicing Kasi " a Meditation Vanaratana believes that before embarking on the meditation practice, a kasi"a meditator should read the relevant chapter in the Visuddhimagga16 where Buddhaghosa presented the forty objects of meditation (kammatth#na) including the ten kasi"as. According to Vanaratana, when Buddhaghosa explained the kasi"a meditation in the Visuddhimagga, he had left some space for a meditation instructor to guide the practitioner (p. 69). From his own experience, Vanaratana asserts the importance of having a teacher before beginning the kasi"a meditation. 6

In Therav!da traditions, such a guide in meditation practice is called a good friend (kaly#"amitta)17 who guides the meditator through the practice. Vanaratana himself had found a Burmese meditation teacher named Venerable U. Dhamm!dh!ra as his kaly#"amitta (p. 48). The meditation practice is divided into three stages as (i) parikamma (preliminary work), (ii) upac#ra (access concentration)), and (iii) appan# (absorption). According to Vanaratana, the Visuddhimagga did not give an adequate explanation on appan#. Even when one achieves the first jh#na of

appan#, he or she may not know it. According to him, the Visuddhimagga had not
given any signs to know the attainment. Thus, he believes that it leaves space for a meditation teacher to guide the practitioner. For Vanaratanas own practice, he had received instruction from the meditation master and he also had read the relevant descriptions in the Visuddhimagga. Vanaratanas book gives information about the preparation for meditation, the way of receiving kasi"a sign (nimitta), the way of engaging in meditation, the way of protecting meditation, the way of developing meditation, the way meditation generates results, the pleasure of seeing the birth of wholesome states such as

saddh# (faith), the way of achieving the first jh#na, the way of justifying through
an act of truth (saccakiriy#) that what one has attained is the first jh#na (p. 71). According to the instructions received from his teacher to Vanaratana, when one has achieved the first jh#na, following the Visuddhimagga, one can attain the third and fourth jh#nas even without a teacher. According to Vanaratana, the only jh#na that one cannot attain without teachers instruction is the first jh#na (p. 71). Vanaratana explains his preparation for kasi"a meditation. As Buddhaghosa had given a detailed description of the eighteen faults of a monastery and the five factors related to the resting place,18 Vanaratana also discusses the importance of the appropriate place for meditation practice. The purity of ones clothes, appropriate observation of the five or ten precepts by the practitioner, and the 7

long practice of loving kindness meditation is equally emphasized. If one does not have training in meditation practice, prior to embarking on the practice of kasi"a meditation, one is required to practice the meditation on loving kindness for a week at least. It is essential to observe silence and cultivate mindfulness from the start of meditation and during the practice. Reading books, giving sermons and reciting paritta should be avoided; meeting with people, conversations, looking at other work, should be avoided; engaging in singing and dancing is also not appropriate (p. 73). However, daily routine such as the worship service, engaging in p%j#, chanting paritta and reflecting on the five recollections (paccavekkhan#) should be continued. The meditator should pay particular attention to conversations that distract him or her from meditation practice. Even in almsrounds, the practitioner should be careful to avoid distractions. The key factor is keeping ones mindfulness in the meditation object. Vanaratana selected tejo (fire) kasi"a for his meditation practice. Giving directions to the practice of fire kasi"a, Buddhaghosa stated that the practitioner should apprehend the sign in fire.19 However, Vanaratanas teacher instructed Vanaratana to take the nimitta (sign) from the sun. It demonstrates that it is not essential that one takes the sign from the fire alone. It seems that the sign can be taken from any bright object, for example, even from a light bulb. The most important thing in this process is, however, taking the sign from the same object whenever one is forced to take the sign several times in the cases when the nimitta does not remain firmly. Meditation instructor advised Vanaratana: You are going to practice tejokasi"a. The sun is the most powerful object of heat in the world. You have to take sign (nimitta) for mediation from the sun. You have to make a determination that with the blessings of the three refuges that your meditation will be successful and five hindrances (nvarana) will be removed. 8

Rather than looking at the sun directly, Vanaratana was asked to look at sun rays which appeared through the branches and leaves of Jack fruit trees. He was asked to look at sun rays for about three minutes without the blinking eyes; instructor asked him to repeat the word tejo (fire), tejo (fire) continuously. After three minutes, he was instructed to close the eyes and enter the meditation room repeating tejo, tejo... Vanaratana sat on a wooden bench covered with a white cloth. He was facing east and repeated tejo while focusing on the red circle having his eyes still closed. The color of the circle gradually changed into blue. Without getting distracted, Vanaratana meditated on the element of fire for two hours. When one sits for the meditation with closed eyes one should look at the sign of the kasi"a. If the sign is found, then one should meditate with the wish may it develop well. If sign is not visible at all, again sign should be acquired as mentioned previously. When the sign is set, one should meditate thinking that the sign is three feet away like a picture hanging in the front. When meditated continuously, the sign became clearer. The sign becomes clearer in the night rather than the day time. By the fourth day, the sign became larger like a tea cup. When one meditates, the kasi"a nimitta circulates. One should not allow it to circulate. When tejo is repeated fast, the sign also circulates fast. While other changes should be allowed, the circulation should be stopped. The repetition of tejo should not be loud; it should be audible to someone in the room. The focus of mind with sign gave a sense of pleasure. At the beginning though it was difficult to focus the mind on the meditation object, now mind gets focused on the meditation object. By the eighth day, the kasi"a nimitta became larger about 18 inches in diameter. Its corners also became bright. In front of the face, kasi"a nimitta appears bright. From the circular rim, a pile of fire like a ball of thread came to the center; however, there was no gathering of fire. With that the shaking of the kasi"a

nimitta also stopped. Pleasure was born. When Vanaratana reported these
developments to his meditation teacher, he praised his success. 9

Until the 11th day, Vanaratana continued his meditation concentrating on parikamma nimitta (preliminary sign). On the 11th day, in the middle of kasi"a

nimitta, a fire was born. It was about four inches in height. While the kasi"a nimitta does not fluctuate, its size had become about three feet in diameter.
Vanaratanas Mystical Visions In Kl! Suvanda, Vanaratana explained the nature of mystical experience that he had during his practice of the kasi"a meditation. Vanaratana recorded that his courage and pleasure increased with appearance of fire within kasi"a man&ala. Devotion to dhamma born from his heart increased during the practice and with sharpened and intensified faith, when Vanaratana meditated for another two days focusing on that fire, his mental powers got intensified and concentration within his mind developed. When Vanaratana continued his meditation, pleasure born from the meditative practice spread within his body like a wave of electricity. His body experienced a comfortable and pleasurable state. In his visions, he saw a large group of elephants arriving there with flowers in their trunks and making flower offerings to him. Following the vision of elephants, there appeared various types of animals who came as groups. As crowds, they came on the road and passed him as groups without putting their backs towards him. Though they came from a distance, it did not seem that they went away from his vision. Their numbers were innumerable and only a few groups that he could identify; most animals appeared in his vision and he could neither hear their sounds nor recognize them. For a long time, though he saw many animals in his visions, only a few were pleasant to be seen; some were extremely fearful; their body, manners, and performances were a fear and a threat; some were indeed extremely unpleasant to see; some had deformed physical forms; some could not be identified whether they were animals. The visions that he had were like continuous episodes in a film. When the visions of animals faded away, visions of demons, 10

dead (P. peta), and goblins (P. pis#ca) gradually emerged. While the pleasant forms appeared first, they were followed by more fearful appearances. The visions of demons were followed by scenes of the land. A human being enters the road and goes along the road. Vehicles appeared clearly, so the roads, houses, streets, rivers, ocean, ships and boats, waves in the ocean, small lakes, ponds, etc. Vanaratana felt that everything on earth appeared in his visions (p. 88). For six days, Vanaratana continued meditation focusing on the fire that appeared in the kasi"a man&ala. Around 9:30 pm, saddh# was intensified (p. 93). Around 10:30 pm, a band of elephants appeared in his vision as previously and they paid homage to him. After a while, the fire that was burning in the kasi"a gradually got weakened and completely disappeared. A thing which threatened Vanaratana happened at that time. A blue bowl with a diameter of six feet appeared in front of Vanaratanas body and pressed him like hugging. Even though it was fearful, its appearance was pleasant. With the disappearance of that, his body became almost like without blood and nerves in his body got tightened. That blue bowl reappeared again distant from his body about 3 feet away. He had achieved a pleasure that he had not had before. Vanaratana decided to inform this to his meditation teacher. The teacher was delighted to hear about those visions and admitted that they were patibh#ga nimitta and further explained that it was rare to find such a discovery (p. 94). Again when Vanaratana began meditating on

kasi"a nimitta, blue patibh#ga nimitta appeared again. Vanaratana could see fire
here and there on the man&ala. Conclusions This essay has examined in detail an account of a modern Buddhist mystic in Sri Lankan Therav!da tradition. It has demonstrated that modern Therav!da mystics like Venerable Vanaratana interpret their mystical attainments in light of textual descriptions found in authoritative texts such as the Visuddhimagga and emphasize 11

the continuity of mystical experience through the guidance of teacher. What the essay demonstrates is that within Therav!da still there is an eagerness for mystical attainments and the life story and disruptions presented in Vanaratanas biography show that modern busy village life style of Buddhist monks is an obstacle for secluded mystical attainments. As this account demonstrates, the criterion of judging the level of mystical attainments from the standpoint of the lay observers is the very simple lifestyle of the mystic.

Cited Sources Manual of a Mystic: Being a Translation from the Pali and Sinhalese Work Entitled The Yog#vacharas Manual. 1982. Translated by F.L. Woodward. London: The Pali Text Society.

A Buddhist Manual of Psychological Ethics (Dhammasa$ga"i). 1974. Translated by C.A.F. Rhys Davids. London: The Pali Text Society.
Buddhaghosa, Bhadant!cariya. 1956. The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga). Translated by Bhikkhu !$amoli. Colombo: R. Semage. Cone, Margaret. 2001. A Dictionary of P#li. Vol. I. Oxford: The Pali Text Society. Jayatilaka, D.B. 1982. A Dhy!na Book. In Manual of a Mystic: Being a Translation from the Pali and Sinhalese Work Entitled The Yog#vacharas Manual, 143-49. London: The Pali Text Society. Rhys Davids, C.A.F. (ed.). 1920. The Visuddhimagga of Buddhaghosa. Vol. 1. London: The Pali Text Society. Rhys Davids, T.W. (ed.). 1981. The Yog#vacaras Manual of Indian Mysticism as Preached by Buddhists. London: The Pali Text Society. Upatissa. 1961. The Path of Freedom (Vimuttimagga). Translated by N.R.M. Ehara, Soma Thera, Kheminda Thera. Colombo: D. Roland D. Weerasuria. Varusavitana, Haritas. 1999. Kl! Suvanda. Halavata: Merl Varusavitana. 12

References Page numbers within the body of this paper refer to Kl! Suvanda compiled by Varusavitana (1999). In understanding Vanaratanas kasi"a meditation and his mystical experiences, this source will be used throughout this essay. 2 Kasi"a has also been rendered as artifices in A Buddhist Manual of Psychological Ethics (Dhammasa$ga"i) (1974:40). 3 Cone (2001:661). 4 Buddhaghosa (Buddhaghosa 1956). and Rhys Davids (1920:110). 5 Upatissa (Upatissa 1961) gives only thirty eight subjects of meditation. 6 A Buddhist Manual of Psychological Ethics (Dhammasa$ga"i) (1974:40-53). 7 Upatissa (Upatissa 1961:63). 8 Buddhaghosa (Buddhaghosa 1956) and Rhys Davids (1920:118-175). 9 It is important to note that it was the first time that a Sinhala script text appeared in the Pali Text Society series. 10 Rhys Davids (1981:vii). 11 Jayatilaka (1982:143). 12 See Jayatilakas account entitled A Dhy!na Book (1982) for more details to place this manuscript in historical and socio-religious contexts of the eighteenth century Sri Lanka. 13 Manual of a Mystic (1982:vii). 14 Rhys Davids (1981:46-53). 15 Manual of a Mystic (1982:viii). 16 In chapters III-XI, Buddhaghosa (1956:122-184) explained various aspects of meditation. In particular, in chapters IV and V, he discussed the ten kasi"as. 17 Buddhaghosa (Buddhaghosa 1956). 18 Buddhaghosa (1956:122-126). 19 Buddhaghosa (1956:178).
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