Wisdom Wide and Deep: Jhana and Insight

Shaila Catherine (imsb.org), Wisdom Quarterly

Wisdom Wide and Deep: A Practical Handbook for Mastering Jhana and Vipassana
Wisdom Wide and Deep is an extended introduction to an in-depth training. It emphasizes the application of concentrated attention to profound and liberating insight.

With calm, tranquility, and composure -- established through a practical experience of deep concentration (jhana) -- meditators are able to halt the seemingly endless battle against meditation hindrances, eliminate distraction, and facilitate a penetrative insight into the subtle nature of matter and mind.

It was for this reason that the Buddha frequently exhorted his students, "Develop concentration, for one who is concentrated understands things as they really are."

Wisdom Wide and Deep follows and amplifies the teachings in Shaila Catherine’s first book, Focused and Fearless: A Meditator’s Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity.

Readers learn to develop this profound stability, sustain an in-depth examination of the nuances of mind and matter, and ultimately unravel deeply conditioned patterns that perpetuate suffering.

This is a practical guide, a fully detailed manual for dealing with the mind. It is sure to become a trusted companion for inner-explorers.

• Wisdom Quarterly can say without reservation that Shaila Catherine is an extraordinary teacher of the highest order, a consummate practitioner of the Buddha's instructions, and a rare treasure in the world. Her two books set right teachings that had long been upset. She has benefited tremendously by practicing under one of the world's greatest living Buddhist scholar-practitioners, the most venerable Pa Auk Sayadaw. We are not alone in our praise:
  

Praise from Buddhist authors and teachers

This is a handbook that respects both the ancient tradition and the needs of contemporary lay practitioners, without compromising either. Shaila Catherine presents the Buddha's teaching by blending scriptural references, personal examples, and timeless stories with detailed meditation instructions. More

—Pa Auk Sayadaw, author of The Workings of Kamma

In Wisdom Wide and Deep, Shaila Catherine has laid out a path of practice from the simplest beginnings to profound and subtle insights. Her writing is beautifully lucid, making accessible the inner depths of the Buddha's teachings. This book is a powerful inspiration both for those who would like a glimpse of..." More

—Joseph Goldstein, author of A Heart Full of Peace and One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism

Shaila’s new book converts theory to practice, ideas to application, knowledge about meditation to direct experience. She has written a manual in clear, practical language. It is an excellent follow up to her previous book, Focused and Fearless. The strength of Shaila’s new book is... More

—Christopher Titmuss, author of Light on Enlightenment and An Awakened Life

Shaila's book, Wisdom Wide and Deep is far more than just a handbook -- it is an in-depth, piece-by-piece examination of many of the specific teachings of jhana and insight. It is book that you will study, as opposed to sit down and read through. It is reference book that you will... More

—Phillip Moffitt, author of Dancing With Life: Buddhist Insights for Finding Meaning and Joy in the Face of Suffering.

Shaila Catherine has managed a difficult feat -- to be simultaneously encyclopedic and charming. Her extraordinary clarity and step-by-step approach will embolden some readers to attain jhanic absorption, while others may simply gain... More

—Kate Lila Wheeler, Dharma teacher and author of When Mountains Walked, editor of In This Very Life and The State of Mind Called Beautiful.

The whole spiritual path concerns attitudes and perspectives that we have on things. From there, actions spring up and life unfolds. Shaila Catherine leads us to a completely different way of seeing things by skillfully guiding us through an array of traditional Suttanta and Abhidhamma methods. The precision with which she... More

—Ven. U Jagara

Wisdom Wide and Deep is a clear and comprehensive account of a path of meditation leading to profound levels of concentration and insight. Based primarily on the teachings of the Burmese master Ven. Pa Auk Sayadaw, it also includes a helpful collection of references from classical Theravadan sources. Shaila Catherine has clearly... More

—Guy Armstrong, insight meditation teacher

All of us in our lives need to find the ways to cultivate a mind which is a friend -- calm, clear, insightful and pervaded with kindness. In this book Shaila Catherine has outlined an ancient way to train the mind in stillness and wise attention. More

—Christina Feldman, author of Compassion: Listening to the Cries of the World

Buddhist translations and terms (video)

(Jhananda)

The self-described stream-enterer Jhananda (Jeffrey S. Brooks) speaks of the language of gnosis in English, Pali, and Sanskrit. In dialogue with Adam Murray, he links mystic Christian terms with Pali and Sanskrit Buddhist terms as distinct from Hindu terminology old and new.

The Dalai Lama (Vajrayana) recognizes different meanings.

They are speaking at the GWV Wilderness Retreat on the Verde River at Perkinsville, Arizona. The central terms covered are:

• ekaggatha, one-pointedness
• samadhi, concentration
• jhana, ecstasy
  

Why is Wisdom Publications choosing to publish the translators and translations they choose? The emergence of Mahayana Buddhism and the translation of the Pali Canon into Sanskrit produced translation errors, and subtle errors in Buddhist philosophy stem from these mistakes.

The Buddha's Sister: Sundari Nanda

Wisdom Quarterly

The mysterious pull of beauty is revealed and undone when we see it clearly according to its true nature as composite with an illusory stability.

Sundari Nanda, Suddhodana and Maha Pajapati's daughter, the Buddha's half-sister

Soon after his birth, Prince Siddhartha's mother (Maha Maya Devi) passed away. He was adopted by her younger sister, King Suddhodana's other wife, Maha Prajapati. She was later to become history's first Buddhist nun.

When she was born, Princess Nanda was lovingly welcomed by her parents: Her father was King Suddhodana, the father of the Buddha; her mother was Mahaprajapati. Nanda's name means "joy, contentment, and pleasure." She was so named because her parents were especially joyous about the newborn's arrival.

Nanda was known in her childhood for being extremely beautiful, well-bred, and graceful. To distinguish her from other Sakyans -- the Buddha's extended family -- with the same name, like her brother, she came to be known as Rupa Nanda ("one of delightful form") and Sundari Nanda ("beautiful Nanda").

Over time, many members of her family, the Sakyans of Kapilavastu [likely located in the vicinity of Bamiyan, Afghanistan -- sakya literally meaning "grey earth" according to Wonderlane -- formerly the mountainous desert northwest of India, or less likely but as is traditionally held, southern Nepal] left the worldly life. They renounced it for the ascetic life, inspired by the enlightenment of Prince Siddhartha, who came to be called the "Sage of the Sakyas" (Shakyamuni).

Among them was her and the Buddha's brother, Nanda, and their cousins Ananda and Anurudha, who were two of the Buddha’s leading disciples. When their mother became the first nun, many other royal Shakyan ladies, including Siddhartha's former wife, Princess Yasodharā, became Buddhist monastics.


So Sundari Nanda also renounced the burdensome household life. But unlike many of the others, who sought the best guidance, she did not do it out of

• confidence in the Buddha's enlightenment
• confidence in the efficacy of the Dharma to bring one to enlightenment
• confidence in the success of that Noble Sangha who followed the Path (the Buddha-Dharma) laid out for quickly reaching enlightenment.

She did it out of love for and attachment to her relatives and a feeling that she belonged with them.

Renunciation

It soon became obvious that Sundari Nanda was not focused on her life as an ascetic nun. Her thoughts were mainly centered on her beauty and popularity with the people, characteristics she enjoyed due to the ripening of meritorious actions performed in past lives. This welcome karmic inheritance became an impediment to Sundari Nanda. She neglected to reinforce it with new merit (profitable karma or weighty good actions).

She felt guilty that she was not living up to the lofty expectations of others. She was far from the goal so many members of the Shakyan royal family had left the home life for. And she felt certain the Buddha would censure her. So for a long time, she avoided him.

Enlightenment

One day the Buddha requested all the nuns come to him individually to hear the teaching. Sundari Nanda disregarded the request. The Buddha asked for her to be called explicitly. She presented herself but her demeanor was abashed and anxious. The Buddha wisely appealed to her positive qualities, so she became willing to listen and delighted in his words.

When the Buddha knew the conversation had raised her spirits and made her joyful and ready to accept the Dharma, he began to teach her. Since Sundari Nanda was preoccupied with her physical beauty, he used his psychic powers to produce a vision of a stunningly beautiful woman, one more gorgeous than Sundari Nanda.

The woman then began to age rapidly and forcefully right in front of her. As a result, Sundari Nanda could see in explicit detail what humans otherwise only notice after decades or an entire lifespan: Youth recedes, health and beauty fade, decay and signs aging appear -- wrinkles, hair greying and loss, decline in faculties.

The vision deeply affected Sundari Nanda; she was shaken to the core. Having seen the image, the Buddha could explain the universal mark of radical impermanence [which is not about eventual aging, but moment-to-moment rising and falling of the Five Aggregates] to her in such a manner that she penetrated the truth entirely and thereby attained the first stage of enlightenment, certainty of future liberation, stream-entry.

As a meditation subject, the Buddha advised her to contemplate the impermanent and unpleasant aspects of the body -- to see it as it truly is and thereby be liberated by that truth. This is a systematic contemplation -- the first of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness -- not simply an epiphany (satori) based on a vision of the future loss of beauty. Sundari Nanda persevered for extended periods of practice "diligent and courageous day and night." She described it as recorded in the "Verses of Enlightened Nuns" (Therigatha 82-86):

Ill, impure, and offensive as well,
Nanda, see this jumbled mass [the body].
Toward the unlovely, develop mind
Well-composed to singleness.

As is this, so was that
As that, so will this likewise be.
Exhaling foulness, evil odors,
A thing delighted in by fools.

Diligently inspecting it, just as it is,
By day and night thus seeing it,
With my own wisdom having seen,
I turned away, dispassionate.

With diligence, carefully
I examined the body
And saw this as it really is --
Both within and without.

No longer lusting but quenched
Within this body then was I:
By diligence from fetters freed,
Peaceful was I and quite cool.

As Sundari Nanda had once been infatuated with her physical appearance, it was necessary for her to apply the meditation on bodily unattractiveness to counterbalance that powerful tendency and bias and find equanimity (impartiality).

Later the Buddha recognized his half-sister as being the foremost amongst female monastics who practiced meditative absorption (jhana) -- like the chief female disciple Uppalavanna and chief male disciple Mahamoggallana. This meant that she not only followed the analytical way of insight, but was expert in the foundational stages of serenity.

Enjoying this pure supersensual well-being, she no longer needed any sensual distractions. She enjoyed inner peace at will, in spite of having become a member of the Sangha out of attachment to her loved ones.

I admit it, I'm a doting parent. I want an enlightened child. I show this to her, but she only laughs. She's not getting any younger you know.

Nepal's Buddha Boy (Discovery Channel video)

(BuddhaBoyVideos) Five-part documentary on Nepal's "Buddha Boy"about Ram Bahadur Bomjon who has been meditating for years without food or water. He is thought by many to be a bodhisattva, being reborn to become a supremely enlightened buddha with the capacity to teach and establish a dispensation. Therefore, there are throngs of followers seeking to encourage him, bask in his boundless compassion and goodness, and the rarity of such a feat. Meditation in the vicinity of his forest must be more fruitful and inspired (were it not for the hullabaloo created by the sort of devotional pandemonium that runs contrary to what he is trying to accomplish).