The Conventional Productive Approach of Five Indriya in Bodhipakkhiyadhamma for Vipassana Meditation

Abstract

This dissertation contains 3 objectives: (1) to study the five Indriya or faculties in Bodhipakkhiyadhamma, (2) to study the Vipassana meditation practice in Theravadin scriptures; (3) to propose the process of developing the five faculty in Bodhipakkhiyadhamma for Vipassana meditation training. This was qualitative research focusing on document survey and personal interviews.

The results showed that Bodhipakkhiyadhamma is a type of gradual virtues of insight practice leading to enlightenment which are; 4 foundations of mindfulness, 4 efforts, 4 path of accomplishment, 4 faculties, 5 powers, 7 enlightenment foctors, and the eightfold path. Idriya or faculty means the controlling faculty in its functions consisting of 5 types; 1) Saddhindriya or confidence faculty associated with ration, 2) Viriyindriya or energy faculty functioning as a mind purification, 3) Satindriya or mindfulness faculty referring to full awareness and remembering, 4) Samādhindriya or concentration faculty which contemplates on any particular object, 5) Paññidriya or wisdom faculty referring to referring to realizing the truth. The way to equalize faculties in pairs is to align confidence with wisdom, and adjusting wisdom to match confidence, energy with concentration and the concentration with energy, while mindfulness the more practitioners have, the more advance.

The Vipassana practice refers to a continuous training of wisdom which is key virtue to uproot all defilements generating the effective knowledge. There are six bases of Vipassana exercise called Vipassanābhūmi: 5 Aggregates, 12 Senses, 18 Elements, 22 faculties, 4 Noble Truths, and Dependent Origination. Vipassana practice based on four foundations of mindfulness are; 1) Kāyānupassanāsatipaṭṭhāna or observing the body’s conditions, 2) Vedanānupassanāsatipaṭṭhāna or an observing the feelings, 3) Cittanupassanasatipaṭṭhāna or an observing the mind’s conditions, and 4) Dhammānupassanāsatipaṭṭhāna or awareness of the wondering thoughts. This kind of insight practice aims of liberation from passions, realizing things as they really are, not overwhelmed by defilements. The ultimate goal is to attain Nibbana. When the fresh body of Noble One had extinguished, there will be no more the cycle of death and rebirth again.

The procedures of five faculty development in Bodhipakkhiyadhamma for Vipassana cultivation are divided into; 1) the process of confidence faculty cultivating for Vipassana practice in body, feeling, mind and mental formations contains 3 processes: (1) Ātāpī or continually uninterrupted effort, (2) Sampajāno or having clear insightful wisdom, and (3) Satimā or mindfulness. Those who exercise insight practice should contemplate on the gross things in the body, feeling in sensation, thought in mind and thought in mental formation as they really were, 2) effort faculty process found in Bodhipakkhiyadhamma, the practitioner should be diligent in observing the body movements, feeling, mind and thought as they really were, 3) process of mindfulness faculty cultivation found in Bodhipakkhiyadhamma, the practitioner should be mindful of body, feeling, mind, and thought, 4) process of concentration faculty cultivation found in Bodhipakkhiyadhamma, the practitioner should contemplate on the body movement, feelings, mind and thought with right concentration as they really were, 5) process of wisdom faculty cultivation found in Bodhipakkhiyadhamma, the practitioner should concentrate on the awareness of body movements, feeling, mind and thoughts as they really were and ever-changing, unstable and non-self. The powers of the five faculty as mentioned appear as the foundation and the perfection accumulation for the advance insight practice.