Talk:Kammaṭṭhāna

Merge with Kasina?

I vote against merging this article into Kammatthana, just on the basis that someone may be specfically looking up kasina, and this seems like a good concise discussion. As long as it links to Kammatthana and vice-versa, why merge? Ultraviolet777 15:16, 31 March 2006

I also vote against merging. The concepts are fairly different, kammatthana being a verb meaning work or place of effort, while kasina is an actual object of concentration. I haven't ever associated these two terms, personally. Obhaso 07:24, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I also vote against the merge. Based on my reading of the Visuddhimagga and related material, kasinas are ten of the 40 meditation subjects identified by the term kammatthana; that is, a subset of practices. Thus, in my mind, this article should no more be merged with the kammatthana article than other articles on other kammatthana practices such as the Brahma-viharas, Metta, Anapanasati, mahabhuta, etc. In addition, as indicated above, the kasina article could be referenced by other articles (such as, jhanas) without referencing the kammatthana article (especially since, I think, the term kammatthana is probably more obscure, less known to Westerners than kasina). Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 19:12, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 16:22, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

questions

who practices this? how does one practice this? where did this originate? in what scriptures do we find these teachings? are these all the same? what translators or sources is this coming from? how is this related to shamatha or vipassana or anything else? do people really do this, and if so, who are they? how do they do this? why do they do this?

also, is this equivalent to thinking and analysis, or are we experiencing various things, like metta when we meditate on compassion? makeswell 03:10, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

(1) who practices this? One could posit that, to varying degrees, most Buddhists who meditate practice one or more of these. For instance, breath meditation might be the most common form of meditation among Theravadin and Mahayana Buddhists. Some might argue that a large number of Tibetan Buddhists often use meditative practices that invoke the sixth type of practice, recollection of the wholesome attributes of devas, etc. In the early Pali discourses, the first few objects are often invoked (perhaps, according to some students of the early texts, as these might have been a predominant Brahmanic form of meditation at the time). And, of course, in Theravadin Buddhism and many Western Buddhist circles, the four Brahmaviharas (metta, karuna, mudita, uppekkha) are core practices. Further, one could see how many ethnic lay Buddhists implicitly or explicitly use recollection of the Buddha as their primary contemplative object. The four formless states are advanced jhanic achievements. Etc., etc.

(2) how does one practice this? I could think of at least four or five different ways of practicing breath meditation alone. I suspect there are several dozen ways at the current time that are popular. Different teachers, different traditions, different cultures teach a single form of meditation in many different ways. (For instance, do we follow the whole breath or just the breath at one point? If one point, then at the nose or hara or heart, etc.? To what degree do we emphasize concentration over mindfulness or vice-versa -- that is, how do we balance these two? How should one sit? How long does one sit? Are there preparatory exercises? Should one count the breath [e.g., in some Zen traditions, 1 through 10 over and over, while in some Theravadain traditions, it is 1 through 10 then 10 through 1 then 1 through 9 then 9 through 1, etc.) or label the breath ("in-breath", "out-breath")? How should one deal with thoughts and other disruptive experiences? And what part might the other aspects of the Noble Eightfold Path play, if any, in our breath meditation? Etc., etc.) As for contemplating the wholesome quality of devas, the Tibetan tradition has devised hundreds, if not thousands, of methods, including visualizations and mantras, etc. A good starting point might be the article on Buddhist meditation?

(3) where did this originate? to the best of my knowledge, the notion of 40 kammatthana is from the Visuddhimagga, attributed to Buddhaghosa, ca. 5^th c. AD. I suspect that the term kammatthana is canonical, which is to say, goes back to the Pali Canon, which is attributed to the historical Buddha and his disciples, ca. 5^th c. BC, although how much of the canon goes back to the actual Buddha and how much was added in the following three centuries or so is seemingly open to debate. Moreover, the 40 actual kammatthana practices can all also be found in the canon as well. For citations identifying canonical texts that elaborate on these practices, see the related articles, e.g., Anapanasati Sutta, anussati, Satipatthana Sutta, brahmaviharas, etc.

If you review the aforementioned articles, I think the subsequent questions will be addressed; except, perhaps for your last one: "... is this equivalent to thinking and analysis, or are we experiencing various things...?" This is a complex question and depends on a number of things, depending on your intent, e.g., the purpose of your choosing a particular object and what you hope to achieve with it, whether joyous states or complete enlightenment, etc. The short answer is, no, this is not thinking and it is not a conceptually oriented analysis. Some "thinking" is arguably present in the lower levels of meditation (for instance, see the mention of vitakka and vicara in the jhana article, including the table, "Jhana-related factors") and a type of analysis is nurtured in the seven factors of mindfulness (e.g., see the bojjhanga article's discussion of dhamma vicaya). These are but hints though pointing to the sky ... perhaps with time we will see the moon?

With metta, 24.136.253.60 (talk) 14:22, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, the question of this term's use in the Pali canon intrigued me so I searched the database at http://www.bodhgayanews.net/pali.htm (maintained by Dr. Peter Friedlander) and found five matches: MN 99, AN 8.54, AN 8.55, AN 8.2.8.6, and AN 10.46. In each of these contexts though, the term kammaṭṭhāna references an aspect of everyday work or ones livelihood, not a meditation object. (Under this article's first end note, I've summarized these various references.) Thus, it appears that, in the Pali literature, Buddhaghosa is the one who gave this term prominence as a referent for a meditation object. (FWIW, there was one citation in the paracanonical Petakopadesa which I didn't track down. The associated Pali can be found at http://bodhgayanews.net/tipitaka.php?title=&record=15329.) Perhaps in the future, if time and interest allow, one could check out the non-Pali literature (e.g., for the Sanskrit equivalent)?

Thus, this term per se can be found in the Pali canon but not with the technical meaning provided in this article. The term's meaning explored in this article is best known from (and perhaps originated with??) the Visuddhimagga. Nonetheless, to the best of my knowledge (as elaborated upon somewhat in the note just above), each of the individual meditation objects per se collected under the sobriquet kammaṭṭhāna does indeed go back to the Pali canon.

I hope this makes sense. Best, 24.136.253.60 (talk) 00:19, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

As someone who is not familiar with this topic, let me introduce the idea that this article makes absolutely no sense. There is a lot of jargon being thrown around, but not much of substance, and even less of fact. Maybe it's a cultural thing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.122.28.208 (talk) 09:44, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I removed a sentence from the lede and rephrased another

I removed the first sentence and reworded the second of the following paragraph found in the lede of this page,

The kammatthana collectively are not suitable for all persons at all times. Each kammatthana can be prescribed, especially by a teacher (kalyāṇa-mitta), to a given person at a given time, depending on the person's temperament and state of mind.

My reasons for removing the first sentence were that it largely rephrases the second sentence and also that it is potentially POV and is not cited or phrased in such a way as to indicate who has stated this opinion or why this is so. makeswell (talk) 03:37, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

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merge from Kasina

Was there ever a discussion about merging Kasina into this page? Wikiman5676 (talk) 03:32, 8 June 2021 (UTC)