No TL;DR found
This paper will explore relevance and roles of Abhidhamma, Theravāda philosophy, in meditation practices with reference to some modern Burmese meditation traditions. In particular, I shall focus on the highly mathematical Paṭṭhāna, Pahtan in Burmese, the seventh text of the Abhidhamma Piṭaka, which deals with the functioning of causality and is regarded by Burmese as the most important of the Abhidhamma traditions. I shall explore how and to what extent the teachings in the Paṭṭhāna are applied in insight (vipassanā) meditation practices, assessing the roles of theoretical knowledge of ultimate realities (paramattha-dhammā) in meditation. In so doing, I shall attempt to bridge the gap between theoretical and practical aspects of Buddhist meditation. While scholars writing on Theravāda meditation Cousins, King and Griffiths for example have focused on distinction between insight meditation (vipassanā) and calm meditation (samatha), this paper will be the first to classify approaches within vipassanā meditation. Vipassanā meditation practices in contemporary Myanmar can be classified into two broad categories, namely, the theoretical based practice and the nontheoretical based practice. Some Burmese meditation masters, Mohnyin Sayadaw Ven. U Sumana (1873-1964) and Saddhammaransī Sayadaw Ven. Ashin Kuṇḍalābhivaṃsa (1921) and Pa-Auk Sayadaw Ven. Āciṇṇa (1934) for example, teach meditators to have theoretical knowledge of ultimate realities. While these meditation masters emphasize theoretical knowledge of the ultimate realities, other meditation masters such as the Sunlun Sayadaw Ven. U Kavi (1878-1952) and the Theinngu Sayadaw Ven. U Okkatha (1912-1973) insist on actual meditation practice, i.e. meditation sittings, without any prior theoretical training. My investigation in the present paper will focus on the theoretical-based meditation practice. In the eyes of Burmese Buddhists, the philosophical teachings in the Abhidhamma play a crucial role in meditation practices. Kornfield, writing on Buddhist meditation masters in Myanmar and Thailand, rightly observes that “there is probably more emphasis and made use of the Abhidhamma teachings in [Myanmar] than in any other Buddhist country”. Moreover, Braun, working on the Ledi Sayadaw’s biography and works in relation to the modern insight meditation movement, highlights that “Abhidhamma, in