..續本文上一頁 That image [sign] is free. Because that image [sign] is free, desire arises. Desire being free, that yogin attends respiration with equipoise. Equipoise, desire and joy being free, he attends to respiration, and his mind is not disturbed. If his mind is not disturbed, he will destroy the hindrances, and arouse the meditation (jhana) factors. Thus this yogin will reach the calm and sublime fourth meditation, jhana. This is as was fully taught above.

　　These warnings not to be distracted may be directly derived from the Mindfulness of Breathing discourse (M 118.26): “I do not say there is development of breathing for one who is forgetful, who is not fully aware.”

　　The phrase “pleasant feeling similar to that which is produced in the action of spinning cotton or silk cotton” should be understood as the pleasant tactile sensation experienced at a certain point on the hand of the weaver who supports or guides, while at the same time spinning, a line of cotton. The simile interpreted in this way is appropriate in the sense that the initial contact with the line is felt in a coarse way and eventually changes in quality (numbness, pressure, heat, etc.) to a different quality of perception by effect of the sustained friction. This is a more refined simile than found in the Vissudhimagga, which settles for the static image of “the touch of cotton.”

　　The sentence “this does not depend on colour or form” makes it quite clear that the meditator should not expect the sign of respiration mindfulness as a visual image, since it is not possible to conceive of a visual perception lacking both colour and form. What may be inferred from the sentence is that the sign is a tactile percept. Incidentally, in the Patisambhidamagga, the earliest and most extensive source treatise on breathing, there is no mention in the whole section on breathing meditation of a visual or “light” nimitta.

　　A great mystery is solved when one realizes that most of the images ascribed to the counter-sign in the Visuddhimagga and to the “distractions” in the Vimuttimagga are found in the earlier Patisambhidamagga as part of a metaphorical description of the bhikkhu liberated from the defilements on account of his distinction in the practice of mindfulness of breathing. The descriptions follow:

　　Whose mindfulness of breathing in and out is perfect, well developed, and gradually brought to growth according as the Buddha taught, “tis he illuminates the world just like the full moon free from cloud (Pat.III, 171, p.172). And,

　　Just like the full moon free from cloud: Defilements are like clouds, the noble ones” knowledge is like the moon, the bhikkhu is like the deity”s son who possesses the full moon. As the moon when freed from cloud, freed from mist, freed from smoke and dust, delivered from the clutches of the Eclipse-Demon Rahu, gleams and glows and shines, so too the bhikkhu who is delivered from all defilements gleams and glows and shines. Hence “just like the full moon free from cloud” was said (Pat.III, 182, p.175). [Underline mine]

　　Here, what is given canonically as a simile for the mind, in the Vimuttimagga is taken literally as visual percepts, although appropriately, given as images to which one should not pay attention. The Visuddhimagga, however, both mistakenly takes the similes “smoke”, “mist”, “dust”, “gleam”, “glows”, “shines”, and “moon”, as literal visual images, and also misapprehends them as the counter-sign, the mark of success!, in direct opposition to the Vimuttimagga.

　　One can only wonder how these metaphorical images, found at the end of the section describing breathing meditation in the Patisambhidamagga, eventually became literal visual events related to meditation practice in later commentarial works. From the evi…

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