Cultivating the All-Purpose Meditations (the Four Protective Meditations)

So that we have meditations to nourish and protect our lives: meditations that guard the practitioner’s stream of life, keeping it safe from all obstacles and dangers.

The Two Kinds of Meditation Subject

1. Sabbatthaka-kammaṭṭhāna (caturārakkha-kammaṭṭhāna) is meditation (kammaṭṭhāna) that is useful for all wholesome states. It is a meditation that a person of good family should wish for and want in every place, because it is a dhamma of great help, guarding the practitioner’s stream of life and keeping it safe from all obstacles and dangers. One should apply effort to it constantly.
2. Pārihāriya-kammaṭṭhāna is the meditation one should look after and maintain. Among the 38 meditation objects, whichever suits the temperament (carita) of a particular person of good family is called that person’s pārihāriya-kammaṭṭhāna, because it is the meditation that person should maintain at all times.

(The 38 objects of calm meditation (samatha-kammaṭṭhāna) are the 8 kasiṇas (leaving out the space kasiṇa and the light kasiṇa), the 10 unattractive objects (asubha), the 10 recollections (anussati), the 4 brahmavihāras, the 1 analysis of the elements (catudhātuvavatthāna), the 4 formless absorptions (arūpa-jhāna) and the 1 perception of the repulsiveness of food (āhāre paṭikūla-saññā).)

Sabbatthaka-kammaṭṭhāna (Caturārakkha-kammaṭṭhāna)

These meditations protect the practitioner, calming and stilling the defilements. They should be developed constantly and used in time to meet each situation.

1. Buddhānussati: recollecting the qualities of the Buddha, those within himself and those by which he helped others.
2. Asubha: contemplating one’s own body and the bodies of others as unattractive.
3. Maraṇānussati: recollecting death, which will come to oneself as a matter of course.
4. Mettā (loving-kindness): spreading friendliness, wishing all beings to be happy, every one of them.

Recollection of the Buddha (Buddhānussati)

This is mindfulness that recollects the qualities, and wisdom that clearly knows the qualities, of the Perfectly Self-Awakened One (Sammāsambuddha). Strive to sustain mindfulness and wisdom so that concentration becomes firmly set on the qualities of the Perfectly Self-Awakened One.

Its essential factors are faith, intention and wisdom (saddhā, cetanā, paññā).

The qualities of his conduct (cariyā-guṇa): recollect the qualities of the Perfectly Self-Awakened One: how he fulfilled the perfection of giving, the perfection of virtue, and the perfections of renunciation, wisdom, effort, patience, truthfulness, determination, loving-kindness and equanimity, the ten perfections, the ten higher perfections and the ten ultimate perfections.

To recollect them clearly, you must remember the stories of how he fulfilled the perfections.

The qualities of his body (sarīra-guṇa): recollect the 32 marks of a Great Man (mahāpurisa-lakkhaṇa), directing attention to the qualities behind them: which wholesome courses of action he practiced and which perfections he fulfilled to be adorned with such a body. For example, his eyes are clear and beautiful like a calf’s eyes because he looked at others with loving eyes, never glaring, never looking at anyone out of the corner of his eye. Recollecting like this is buddhānussati, and it lets the mind become firmly set.

The qualities of his wisdom and virtue: knowing mettā, karuṇā (compassion), muditā (sympathetic joy) and upekkhā (equanimity); knowing what the foundations of mindfulness (satipaṭṭhāna) are; knowing the teachings and the principles for living. We know these through the Buddha’s omniscience (sabbaññuta-ñāṇa): he brought the truth, the principles and the practice and told them to us, telling the content of the Dhamma, the realities that truly exist, so that all of us could reach them, and so that we could leave behind the state of beings who are blind in the dark.

We know sīla, samādhi and paññā (virtue, concentration and wisdom), we know the unwholesome and the wholesome, because of the Buddha’s omniscience.

In times of life when we feel dejected and discouraged, with no refuge, hopeless, weary, not knowing whom to rely on, develop “buddhānussati”.

We have protection: mindfulness, wisdom and effort, or faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom (saddhā, viriya, sati, samādhi, paññā), directed to the qualities of the Buddha.

The qualities of the Buddha truly exist:
his qualities of conduct, of body, of wisdom and virtue
truly exist;
his wisdom, his purity, his great compassion
truly exist…

When mindfulness recollects qualities that truly exist, when wisdom truly sees the qualities of the Buddha, when creative effort sustains mindfulness and wisdom, and concentration is truly absorbed in the qualities of the Buddha, there is immense power.

The Dhamma that is the Buddha’s qualities protects the stream of your life, freeing it from inner dangers, inner foes and inner enemies, freeing it from outer dangers, outer foes and outer enemies, and bringing it safely through saṃsāra (the round of rebirth).

Recollecting the qualities of the Buddha like this is called “buddhānussati”.

Meditation on Unattractiveness (Asubha-kammaṭṭhāna), or Mindfulness of the Body (Kāyagatāsati)

It can be contemplating a corpse, or contemplating the unattractiveness of this body. People who tend to be caught up in lust and delight, attached to beautiful things, to going out and having fun, who like beautiful sights, pleasant sounds, fragrant smells and delicious food, who delight in dressing up and in jewelry: in people like this, rāga (lust) is very strong.

The way to calm lust is to look at a corpse, or to contemplate the truth of life. The body is head hair, body hair, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, bone marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, membranes, spleen, lungs, large intestine, small intestine, new food eaten, old food passed out, the brain and the membranes of the brain. Investigate until you see the truth that the body is not at all as beautiful as you thought.

The all-purpose meditation must include meditation on unattractiveness to destroy lust. If lust is not destroyed, the mind will be shaken all the time. So it is a meditation needed in all tasks, because wherever beings go, they are attached to sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches and mental objects. When one contemplates the body with mindfulness, or meditates on unattractiveness, the mind becomes free of lust. The mind becomes clear, calm and still; the mind becomes clean and can be firmly set.

Recollection of Death (Maraṇānussati)

Death is the ending of physical life and mental life in each existence. There are 3 kinds of death:

1. Momentary death (khaṇika-maraṇa): dying at every mind-moment that arises and ceases is called momentary death; it does not yet change one’s existence. Physical death, for example, is old cells dying and new cells taking their place, while mental death is the breaking up of thought processes. Momentary death cannot be used to develop recollection of death, because it cannot be seen: it arises and ceases too fast.
2. Conventional death (sammuti-maraṇa): for example, “the car is dead”, “the clock is dead”. This kind of death cannot be used to develop recollection of death, because it does not bring a sobering sense of urgency (saṃvega-ñāṇa).
3. Death by cutting off (samuccheda-maraṇa): the death of an arahant, who reaches anupādā-parinibbāna (final release without clinging). Arahants welcome it and wait for it eagerly, to be free of wandering on through birth and death, with great courage and boldness. This kind of death cannot be used to develop recollection of death, because it brings no dismay but rather joy, since their highest aspiration is anupādā-parinibbāna.
4. Death as the cutting off of the life faculty (jīvitindriyupaccheda-maraṇa): the death that can be used to develop recollection of death is called jīvitindriyupaccheda-maraṇa, the ending of physical life and mental life in each existence.

Death as the cutting off of the life faculty is frightening and shocking, because we do not know where we will go after death.

After death one may be reborn as a hell being, or as an animal, a peta (hungry ghost) or an asura; after death one may be a human who is insane, mute, blind or deaf, or disabled; or a deva or a brahmā. One can go anywhere at all in saṃsāra…

This is because defilements are pushing us on. This kind of death is not safe; it is deeply disturbing.

Death is present in every particle of life. We may die sitting, lying down, standing or walking.

Every in-breath and out-breath is a danger of death; we can die at any time. …This is “maraṇānussati”.

Mettā Meditation (Mettā-kammaṭṭhāna)

Mettā, as a reality (sabhāva-dhamma), is adosa, non-aversion. So we must train the mind in the state of non-anger. Mettā takes as its object the pleasing state and the strong points of beings.

Mettā is adosa, a state opposed to dosa (aversion). So when mettā arises, it destroys aversion, and destroys stress, gloom and mental suffering.

Stress, gloom and all mental suffering go together with a mind rooted in aversion (dosa-mūla-citta), in which the feeling is painful mental feeling (domanassa-vedanā), the feeling of mental suffering. Whenever we are angry, irritated or stressed, at that time there is always mental suffering.

Mettā is a meditation that protects this stream of life and keeps it happy. It is a meditation that should be developed, a meditation needed in all tasks.

Before making a mind of mettā arise, you must examine each of your precepts to see whether any is flawed. If one is flawed, take it up again firmly in your heart and make your sīla whole.

Once you have checked that you are someone whose body is clean, speech is clean and mind is clean, then breathing in, breathing out, bring yourself to mind… “happy in body, happy in mind, safe”. Do not forget; keep mindfulness in charge, with mettā, love and goodwill.

Wish for the mind to be truly soft and gentle. If you cannot do it yet, do not worry; keep making the mind soft and gentle.

“Happy in body, happy in mind, safe”

Whenever you feel dejected, discouraged, weary or disheartened, “buddhānussati” is the answer that will train your mind to be strong and firm, and give you strength of heart.

Whenever heedlessness arises, intoxication with life, with health, with youth, with wealth, “maraṇānussati” is the answer you must train in continuously.

Whenever lust, infatuation and delight arise, mindfulness of the body, or “asubha-kammaṭṭhāna”, is what you must attend to continuously; only then can you clear away the feelings of lust and delight.

Whenever stress, anger, irritation or an anxious state of mind arises, you must cultivate “mettā-kammaṭṭhāna”.

These four meditations
must be trained until skilled and used in time to meet each situation.